June Lijun Wang

December 19, 1944 - March 9, 2018

While on holiday to photograph the wonders of Egypt, June Lijun Wang died unexpectedly of a heart attack on March 9, 2018. She was with her husband of 46 years, James Zheng Yan. Her dramatic life was one of the sources of inspiration for the novel The Joy Luck Club, written by her sister Amy Tan.

June was born on December 19, 1944 and named Wang Lijun. She lived in Shanghai with her mother, the late Daisy C. Tan, and older sisters Jindo and Yuhang. In 1949, just days before the Communist Party came into power, Daisy left for the United States. June, age four, would not see her mother for thirty years.

Daisy’s brother, Gu Da Chun, and his wife, Xia Fei, adopted June into their family, where she grew up with her cousins: Xia Rong, Xia Xiao Quan, Gu Hong, Gu Xiao Gang, and Xia Zheng Zheng, who became brothers and sisters to her. Because her mother was living in the U.S., June would not have been allowed to go to college were it not for the help of her uncle, who later rose to become Vice-Secretary of All China Trade Unions. June obtained a degree in Electrical Engineering, but during the Cultural Revolution, she was sent to the countryside to work as a peasant for two years. In 1973, she married James Zheng Yan, an architect, and they had a daughter, Ming-xi.

In 1979, when China opened its doors to the U.S., June’s mother, Daisy, returned for a tearful reunion. June later accepted her mother’s offer to emigrate to the U.S. and in 1993, June, James and Ming Ming arrived in San Francisco. June achieved four American dreams: to work in her profession of engineering, to buy a house with a garden, to become a U.S. citizen, and to travel the world. She was grateful that Ming Ming and her sonin-law Johnson Lo raised her grandchildren Ardin and Preston with her values to work hard and respect Chinese traditions.

June gathered family and friends for holiday dinners and cooked an overload of Chinese food aided by James, and sister Tina Jindo Eng and brother-in-law Tin Chu Eng when they visited from Wisconsin. Little brother, John Tan Jr., was always grateful when she made his favorite, potstickers. June’s ever-growing extended family included Amy’s husband Lou DeMattei, John Tan’s fiancée Janet McCann, nieces Melissa and Patty Tan, cousins Frank and Barbara Young and their family, Uncle Joseph Tu and Aunt Sieu-Mei and their family, as well as friends Tuck and Jayne Chin, John and Sandy Bremner, Duncan Clark, and Robin Wang.

Despite having had breast cancer and later a life-threatening immune disorder, June fulfilled her dream to travel and do photography. Her photos and James’ watercolor paintings were inspired by the same landscapes. Their journeys included France, Italy, Germany, Scotland, Israel, Mexico, U.S. National Parks, world heritage sites in China, and often Beijing to visit her family. Cousins Der-ying Hsia and Wee-yong Woo, who helped them adjust to the U.S., were their travel mates.

We will always wish there were more of her famous family dinners, more photos of new travels, and more visits to her orchid garden.

June loved being in nature. If you wish to pay tribute, we suggest the gift of planting trees through www.NationalForests.org.