Andrew Suian On Sun

Andrew S.O. Sun, M.D. was born in Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong, China and moved with his family to Hong Kong a couple of years later. Amidst World War II, in 1941, the Sun family moved to Chongqing, where he started elementary school. Over the next few years, the family again moved to Guilin and then to Lianxian. After the Japanese surrendered in 1945, the family was able to move back to Guangzhou where he finished elementary school and began middle school. In 1949, the family moved to Macau to escape the communist revolution.

He graduated from Lingnam High School and went to Taiwan to matriculate at Defense Medical School, but had to stop after two years and went to attend Chinese University Hong Kong. A year later, the family moved to America. He paused his education for two years to work in a local Chinese grocery shop to support his family. He enrolled in Pacific Union College and then transferred to UC Berkeley in 1959, and graduated from the College of Chemistry with honors two years later. Then he attended and graduated from Harvard Medical School, later completing a residency in general practice.

He met Alice in Taiwan, when he was working on a doctoral research project associated with Johns Hopkins University. After the wedding, he served in the US Air Force, completing service with the rank of Major as a flight surgeon, living in Maryland, Florida, and Texas; finally settling in California, where he purchased his forever home in La Mirada. He had three sons: Albert, Argus, and Aristotle.

His career touched many lives, with patients in the Monterey Park and Norwalk areas where his main offices were. At some point before studying western medicine, he had also spent time learning with a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner. He learned Qi Gong exercise routines during his Chinese medicine days, and that was a discipline that he practiced lifelong.

He loved to read more than anything and was a fan of Jin Yong’s martial arts epics. There were many weekend evenings where he practiced one of his other hobbies: Mahjong with family, often leading to discussions about the winner paying for dinner out. A follower of Buddha, he had a lifelong devotion to meditation, and later in life became vegetarian. He will be missed.