Albert's Eulogy & Memorial Video
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Eulogy for my Uncle Albert Dai Lin Cheung
by Dannel Wah, Nephew
Hello. My name is Dannel Wah and Albert is my Uncle.
Uncle Albert was a very kind and generous person. In fact, he was so thoughtful of others he would always make sure that everybody he knew would eat well. All you had to do was to call him, tell him what kind of food you wanted, and he would make sure to tell you the best place to go eat it. He often then would join you for that great meal. Even when he was very sick in the hospital, he was telling us where to get the best Abalone or where the best Dim Sum was around Vancouver General. He also loved to cook for other people, whether it would be cooking a Chinese brunch for everybody on vacation together or getting a group of people for one of his favorite meals…hot pot! He would go all out for hot pot. You would have every cut of meat, choy, tofu, dumplings, and seafood. I always liked how he made sure we had razor clams for hot pot. One thing is for sure…you were never hungry when you were with Uncle Albert!
His love for cooking and food led to a lifetime of working in some of the best high-end Chinese restaurants in Vancouver. Those included Imperial Seafood Restaurant, Dynasty Seafood Restaurant, Regal Meridian Seafood Restaurant and Harbour Place seafood restaurant. He was dedicated to making sure his restaurants were the top Chinese restaurants in Vancouver and judging by the number of celebrities he had pictures with, he did a great job. I remember as a kid thinking how cool it was that Uncle Albert got to meet Harrison Ford, Jackie Chan and the Rolling Stones at Imperial.
Uncle Albert was born in Tai Po, New territories, Hong Kong on Sept 29th, 1946 to a happy family. He is the third of four siblings. He has two older brothers named Peter and Otto, and a younger sister, my Mom, Teresa. He was very close to all his siblings and would visit them often. I am happy to let everybody know they were able to all get together in Calgary back in 2018 and you will see a picture of them together from that visit in the slide show shown today.
In 1969, Uncle Albert immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada and made Calgary his first Canadian home. In Calgary, he attended the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology where he took computers. He ended up dropping out but he did end up meeting lifelong friends and excelled at sports like soccer and badminton.
In 1975, Uncle Albert moved to Vancouver where he has lived most of his life. In 1977, he married Lily Chan and then on May 10th, 1984 their daughter Jessica was born. Uncle Albert was a great father and cared for Jessica dearly. He loved attending the father-daughter dinner dances with Jessica at her elementary school. He loved Jessica so much that he made sure to have pictures of her everywhere and would also use her name in his various account passwords so he could remember them. Uncle Albert would also make sure that everybody he knew would know what movie or TV show Jessica was coming out with next and made sure that they support her. He also finally got a Netflix account this year…so he could watch the latest movie Jessica worked on…” Christmas Chronicles 2.” Make sure you all watch it!
Uncle Albert loved to travel, and he was always going on a trip somewhere throughout his life. He especially enjoyed going on cruises around the world to see new places. He loved travelling to see friends and relatives and had an amazing group of friends he would travel with. Uncle Albert loved taking pictures of his trips and enjoyed showing the pictures to his friends and family. He would often ask me for help with his computer, camera, or phone so that he could make sure his pictures were saved somewhere safe.
Uncle Albert was a huge sports fan and loved following and watching sports. We often would talk and watch sports together. His love of sports and his generous nature led to him bringing Jessica and his nieces and nephews, to many live sporting events like Canucks and Grizzlies games. We often would take him to a Canucks game every Christmas when we were in town. I remember how excited he was the one year when we took him to his first Seahawks NFL game. He was so excited that he stood the entire football game! He also had a great ritual at home for watching sports. He would grab some nuts, a drink, turn on the TV and then sit down in his favorite lazy boy chair to watch the game, most likely a soccer game. You often could tell how well his teams were doing by how much he was swearing, and yelling…” lap sap tong” was a favorite way for him to describe his teams.
Uncle Albert also loved playing sports and was very competitive. He loved playing soccer and badminton. He also loved playing Mah Jong and Big 2 with friends and family. When we were cleaning up his apartment, we found many pieces of paper keeping scores of MJ or Big 2 games. He loved it when he made you take multiple points in Big 2 and he would always make sure you knew how many points he was writing down for you.
Uncle Albert you are a beloved Father, Brother, Uncle and Friend. You were a free sprit who enjoyed life and spread happiness and joy to all you knew. Thank you for teaching me how to do the same and to be a foodie. We miss you Uncle Albert. We love you Uncle Albert.
Thank you.