Kuo-ho Chang, a former simultaneous interpreter at the United Nations, beloved husband, father, grandfather, brother, and friend, died surrounded by family on February 23, 2013. He was 91. Mr. Chang and his wife Irene, long time residents of Hastings, had moved recently to Natick, Massachusetts to live with their daughter, Rita Chang, a teacher at Wellesley High School. Mr. Chang joined the United Nations in 1949 as an interpreter, and retired in 1982. He spoke fluent Mandarin, English, and French. In addition to his work as a simultaneous interpreter, Mr. Chang was Chief of Languages and Training, Editor of the Secretariat News, and Chief of Staff Services. Kuo-ho Chang was born in China in 1922. His grandfather, a Presbyterian Minister in Hangzhou, used to joke he’d broken the western monopoly on saving Chinese souls. In the 1930s, his family moved to the International Settlement in Shanghai. Mr. Chang took to American culture, watching Hollywood movies, listening to American music, and singing Hawaiian love songs on the ukulele. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Mr. Chang abandoned his law studies and fled Shanghai. He found work in free China as an interpreter for the British Military Mission and as a radio monitor for the U.S. Office of War Information. Later, he served as a Colonel in Chiang Kai-shek’s army. After the War, Mr. Chang made his way to the University of Chicago. There, as a law student, he met Irene Conley, an American beauty studying Classical Chinese who knew more about Mencius and Confucius than he did. He lost no time. He invited her to China, did a handstand on the beach, and asked her to marry him. Mr. Chang traveled with his family around the world, visiting the People’s Republic of China through the 1950s, early 1960s, and 1970s, when few Americans were able to visit, and taking photographs with his Rolleiflex camera. After he retired, he and his wife taught English for a year at the Shanghai Teachers College. They continued traveling into their early eighties. Mr. Chang loved to cook and eat Chinese food, play music, tennis and Go, compose poems, write calligraphy, paint, read, and visit with family and friends. He embraced life, and inspired all who knew him. He never lost his humor, positive outlook, and generosity of spirit. In his last week of life he read a novel in French, played Go, and recomposed from memory a poem he’d written to his close friend from China (to send to his friend’s son). On his last day, he reread a journal he’d written at nineteen (in English) on the eve of his escape from Shanghai), translated into English the calligraphy on art he’d just given his daughter, enjoyed conversation over a pot of Chinese tea, and then treated the family to a Chinese meal. Kuo-ho is survived by his wife of sixty-five years, Irene, three children, Nadya Chang of Cincinnati, Ohio, Rita Chang of Natick, MA, and Victor Chang of Shrub Oak, New York, six grandchildren, two brothers, one sister, and many nieces and nephews. A private memorial celebration of his life will be held on March 30 in Hastings-on-Hudson. Funeral arrangements are by the John Everett and Sons Funerl Home 4 Park Street Natick.To send online condolences for the Chang family please visit www.everettfuneral.com
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