Remembering an Adventurer Who Lost Her Life in Kobe : Voni Wong of Van Nuys had a zest for living that continually delighted her friends. That quality was evident even during her short stay in Japan.

By DONNA THOMPSON

Jan. 22, 1995 12 AM PT

<i> Donna Thompson is a staff writer at The Tidings, the newspaper of the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese</i>

For hours after the newscasters stopped saying, “One Southland woman has been reported among the dead in the earthquake in Japan,” and started saying, “Voni Wong, 24, a 1993 UCLA graduate, has been confirmed to be among the dead,” my friends and I called back and forth refusing to believe it.

It is still difficult to think she is dead, because I witnessed her zest for life. Whether it was participating in an African dance demonstration in Pasadena, going to see an Irish band play in Century City or checking out an avant-garde club in Santa Monica, Voni was up for it--zooming around Los Angeles in her red Honda CRX.

I met her more than three years ago when she was an English major going to school full time and working part time as an editorial assistant at the National Catholic Register, a Los Angeles-based Catholic newspaper. I was on staff at its sister paper, Catholic Twin Circle.

Being two of the three people under 30 in our office, Voni and I became friends. We shared our work frustrations over lunch and shared many laughs over the “Life in Hell” cartoons she would copy from the L.A. Weekly and distribute to her office mates.

I spent an hour crying on my bathroom floor before deciding to write this, to keep Voni from quietly vanishing. I didn’t want her to be just some faceless Chinese American girl from Van Nuys who died in Japan.

She forced people to try new things. One time it was to just taste a flourless sprouted bagel from Mrs. Gooch’s. Another, it was to “come and listen” to a KROQ-ish band about to become popular.

Voni had long, black, straight hair and a big, unself-conscious laugh that took you by surprise. Her look was casual elegance, smartly combining ‘40s thrift-store finds with worn-out Levis. She was also partial to fancy silky scarfs and simple cotton dresses. She was wearing clogs years before everyone else.

Voni was intelligent and open-minded--a necessity for the lone Baptist at a Catholic publishing company. She could hardly wait to graduate from UCLA to see the world. With her thirst for travel, she was the only one of my friends who actually wanted to see the photo album of my backpacking trip to Europe in 1987.

After graduation in May, 1993, Voni resigned from the Catholic Register, went on vacation with college friends, then stopped by work to have lunch with us before going to Japan. She didn’t know how long she would stay. She would at least fulfill a one-year commitment to an English-language-education company.

My friend Suzanne let me read the letters Voni sent her.

“Suzanne, ‘Konban wa.’ Good evening!” she wrote on Sept. 13.

“I’ve moved (once again)--is four times in 8 months too much? But this is the absolute, positively unshakable LAST TIME unless: a) I go insane b) this house collapses or c) I change my mind. All are possible.

“So, I’m living in the ‘lap of luxury,’ that is, the lap of an 80-year-old. I’ve abandoned my nomadic lifestyle for an old traditional Japanese house near the seaside, or ‘cement piling-side.’ This house is a paragon of Japanese tradition and architecture--weathered, tarnished--it’s quite an anomaly amongst the modern high rises. This old house is a reflection of its owner--Terashima-san. She’s an ‘obaasan’ (grandmother)--proprietor of this Japanese Smithsonian. It’ll be a sad day when they tear this place down--it’s cluttered, old and lacks all modern conveniences but GOD! it’s magnificent. And so is Obaasan: petite, 70+ years old and half deaf--but she’s one hell of a woman.”

Voni found the adventure she was looking for. In July, her company went bankrupt, an occurrence she described as being “an 8.0 on the Richter scale of language schools.” She was then eligible for Japanese unemployment payments for three months, a fact that tickled her very much.

Rising to the occasion, Voni joined the English teachers union and became a union boss, traveling to Tokyo to represent her co-workers. She also acquired several private students and taught classes for companies. “My life is relatively easy, and the yen is good,” she wrote.

Voni moved two more times in the last four months. She became a governess for a wealthy family who wanted their son to learn English, but that didn’t work out and she moved in with a friend. A new year’s card said she was leaving shortly on a two-week trip through southern China.

On Tuesday night, in Van Nuys, Voni’s brother Jon said he believed she was in heaven, saying, “Hey, guys, don’t worry about me!” I can’t help hoping that the embassy was wrong, that she’ll read this and explode with one of those laughs.