Fat Chan

1932 - 2020
Fat Chan, of Brooklyn, NY, died on Saturday (04/25/2020) of COVID-19 complications. He was 88.

Fat lived an extraordinary life. As an adolescent, he survived the Japanese occupation of China and was able to make his way to Hong Kong in search of better opportunities. After spending years working in clothing factories and barber shops, he took the first step towards reaching the U.S. and leaped at the chance to work at a Chinese restaurant in Colombia, South America in the 1960s. By 1971, he reached the U.S. in a strange place called Huntington, WV to pursue the American dream. He worked for years as a line cook at the New China restaurant until the business eventually folded. From there, he found work at restaurants in Cleveland, OH and saved enough money to finally open his own business in 1978 near where he first landed in the U.S. in a small town called Ceredo, WV. During those 27 years at the restaurant, he married, brought up two children, and served his community with the best Chinese food in the tri-state area.

Though Fat never had a formal education, he stressed the importance of it as a way to get ahead – to build a better life than he ever had as he spent decades toiling in a hot kitchen and manning fiery woks for ten hours a day, seven days a week. He taught his children to hit the books with the same grit and determination that he did in the kitchen and to rise up, as immigrants, to get the job done.

He is survived by his wife, Lai Ling Chan, children, Herman Chan (Patricia) and Tracie Chan, and granddaughters Presleigh Astorga-Chan and Hadleigh Astorga-Chan.