What Does "Wa Sung" Mean?

By Deborah Pan

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Semantically speaking, "華" means "bright, beautiful and brilliant." "華" "Wa" is the Cantonese pronunciation of this word. Our people adopted the word thousands of years ago to mean "the Chinese people and their descendants." The word "生", pronounced "Sung," means (1) born of, originating from; (2) to increase, to create; (3) alive, with vitality; (4) to ignite, combust, or to be spontaneous; and (5) to learn, as in the word "student."

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According to our senior members, when Joseph Lee and the team members of the "Wa Sung Athletic Club" founded the "Wa Sung Service Club," it originally meant simply "born of Chinese descent." But when we look at the semantic meaning of these two words, it seems that over the years we, the members of Wa Sung, have truly lived up to the meaning of the two words.

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We, the descendants, associates and friends of Chinese-American citizens, have increased in membership in the Wa Sung Community Service Club, created many community activities to bring the neighborhoods together, funded and/or founded different organizations that benefited all people of different classes and race, and in the face of adversity and hardships, have spontaneously put in our 120% of vitality and fortitude that accentuates what being a Wa Sung member really entails. We can truly say what we do in our spare time teaches all members about what being a contributing member of society really means. And in our quest for perfection, this creates life, fosters hope, and makes dreams come true. We have, in reality, become "華 生" , Wa Sung.