Camellia was born on Wednesday 23rd July, 1969 in Qujing a coal mining city, just East of Kunming in Yunnan provence, China. She is an elder sister of Tong, who now lives in Shenzen with his wife and their  5 year old son. Her Mum and Dad passed on a few years ago. The Yangs originated from the Weishan area, over to the west and quite close to Burma.

Camellia's mother was a little strict but caring and always managed to provide enough food for the family during difficult times. Camellia had a pet chicken that she feed everyday and it followed her around. One day, she returned from school and could not find her chicken. Mother had put it in the pot for dinner!
Camellia adored her father, who was a Bridge Engineer.  Unfortunately, he was sent to prison for nine years during the 1950's under Moa's cultural revolution. Her father has said that he should have left for Taiwan as many others did, who did not agree with the revolution.

I was very lucky to have visited Weishan a couple of years back with Camellia and Mei Li. Most cities in China now have modern skyscrapers everywhere and to me, they all look alike. Weishan is different in that its history and streets have been preserved, so that you can see some of old china and it is not a tourist area. Half of the town seem to be the Yangs. Her family are in many varied accupations. Hotel owner, Police, tailer, Bank and Farmer are just some... I had a smart linen suite made by Uncle Tailor. One evening we were all invited to a chicken Bar BBQ at the Cousin's farm, a short drive out of town. As is normal in China, all the family turned up. We were given a tour of the farm and everyone followed.  I was particularly interested to see how rice grows close up and how neat and tidy it all is.

After pre and second schools in Weishan, Camellia attended Kunming University where she passed her major in science, specialising in pulp and paper.... she never went into the paper business, much preferring sales and marketing. Her first business venture was selling cosmetics and perfumes, by renting a small section of a large department store in Weishan (she would return to cosmetics later in the UK) 
 School friends,  Ramong (Grace) and Michelle are with us today

In the early 1990's China started opening enterprise zones all over the country, the main aim was to open up smaller cities and some country areas to manufacturing and commerce. Such an area was Hainan Island, South of Hong Kong in the South China sea. On a map, Hainan Island looks like a small speck, it is actually about the same size as England. Camellia moved to Haikou City, Hainan in 1991. She was sad to leave her family behind in Qujing, but knew that Hainan offered her better business opportunities. Even not speaking Hainanese, she quickly found work and made friends. Early friends were Mei Mei (Beauty) and Jo Jo (Co Co), later they all worked together in a Marketing/promotion business, where products like pens, calendars, beer mats etc had company logos designed and printed. The business was successful, but the funny thing is that they only had one client in nearly ten years of business, Tiger Beer! Fortunately this large Beer company was very loyal to Camellia.
 Hainan Island is a beautiful place, with extinct volcanoes in the middle and white sandy beaches with coconut palms going down to the sea... it is known as the "Asian Hawaii"

Jo Jo (co co), Mei Mei (beauty) followed Camellia to England, where they also found English husbands, Richard and Thomas. Sadly, Mei Mei died in October last year, of the same condition as Camellia and equally tragic, as she was three years younger than Camellia.

I started writing to Camellia in Early 2001, after a good friend had suggested a new web site called match.com. I must admit to writing to two others at the time, but it soon became clear to me that Camellia's emails was the one I always looked forward to receiving the most. We exchanged many emails during that year and several phone calls. Sadly, I am unable to read these emails now, an old computer crashed taking all the memory.
We arranged to meet in BangKok, November, 2001. I arrived in Bangkok a few days earlier and emailed Camellia to let her know I had arrived. She said that she was not allowed to travel on her own to Bangkok and that she would have join a Chinese tour group with a government minder. It all seems a little silly now, but that was how things were twenty years ago.  At this time, Camellia was in Kunming. I said I would come to her, the next day, I caught a flight with Thai airways from Bangkok to Kunming. We met for the first time in arrivals, Kunming. This beautiful charming warm girl was just like her emails and phone calls, but even better. We lost time somewhere just talking and I cannot really remember where we stayed or what restaurant.... I think I stayed in Kunming with Camellia  a couple of days and then went back to my hotel next to the River in Bangkok. A few days later Camellia arrived in Bangkok with the tour group and minder. We managed to dodge the minder and spent some time in the beautiful resorts of Hau Hin and Cha Am to the south.

Camellia came to England on the last day of May, 2002. She told me years later that she saw Heathrow all lit up and reminded her of China and then as we headed back to Norfolk, it got darker and she wondered why Worstead did not have any street lights. 

We were married on 27th September, 2002 at North Walsham registry office.

Mei Li was born on Sunday 13th April, 2003. I was at the birth. Baby was taken away by a nurse, cleaned up and laid on Camellias front and in typical Camellia understatement, she just said "oh"

With any baby, its a busy time, but Camellia did not want to be just a mum, she wanted to be busy in other ways too, ... She took on a job delivering free newspapers around Worstead and Sloley
Other part time jobs were boat cleaning in Wroxham and later working at the check out in Morrisons, Norwich. She really loved this job, as she was able to chat with people in her own amicable way. This is where she first met Li-An with baby Yu-li. Li-An has said; "I was greeted with the warmest smile and the most caring eyes and Camellia said, I have a daughter the same age".  This was the start of a long friendship.

Around 2005 online shopping had started to take off, with eBay and then Amazon. We decided to venture into this field, with the newly formed Camelliashop Ltd selling cosmetics and perfumes. We soon became busy with orders. I had to build a large shed at the bottom of the garden, to hold the increasing stock. The packing was done on the kitchen table and parcels taken to Wroxham Post Office. Later, we bought and rebuilt an industrial unit in North Walsham and our post was now collected by Royal Mail. Camellia was very much the driving force of the business, she had a huge product knowledge, although sometimes, I thought she may have bought too much stock. One day we were on our way home from the  NEC, Birmingham, when I asked her how much she had spent on stock and she just said, "I’ve no idea"

In April, 2014 Camellia said she was feeling more tired and was short of breath, we both thought it was because she was working too hard. I arranged for her to visit the GP and she was told that she had hay fever and was given some medication for this.
 In July, 2014 we took a short break in Bath and Bristol. We had just walked across the famous bridge across the Avon, when Camellia coughed large chunks of blood.... I knew this was very serious, so we headed straight back to A & E in Norwich. They operated that evening, removing a burst tumor from the right lung. Treatment was going fine, only to be told a year later that the cancer had spread to the brain. Several more operations followed, with chemo and much medication. Throughout this Camellia maintained as normal life as was possible, still working full time.  Camellia loved holidays, we had a beautiful honeymoon in Corfu and we traveled to Egypt, France, Spain, Malta, Cyprus, Germany, Paris, Amsterdam, Bruges, Edinburgh... she loved Budapest and the blue Danube. She kept very fit by jogging and the fitness club in North Walsham
 

On a bookshelf at home is one of those books on birthdays, the one where they give the character of the person born on a particular birthday. What a load of nonsense! or, so I thought.... The other day, just out of curiosity,   I opened the book on Camellias birthday, 23rd July and there on the page under the section "strengths" it read; Compassionate, Sharing and Human. I could not believe, this is Camellia in only three words.... But, I can add more to this,  kind, funny, cute, humble, selfless, hard working. 
Apart from being a beautiful person, Camellia had many talents; She was an excellent dancer, as in ballroom dancing, just like "strictly" her favourite was "blue Danube" by Strauss. She had a vast knowledge of astronomy and the universe.... Camellia was born on 23 July, 1969... this was the exact time of the first moon landing "one small step......" She had a head for higher maths, we hope that some of this has been passed to Mei Li for her A level next year..

My darling sweetheart "mummy", not a day will pass, without me thinking of you You were the kindest most generous loving person. You touched my heart and everyone who knew you. I will miss your instructions, to keep the kitchen tidy and when I'm watching TV late after you have gone to bed, you would say, "keep the voice down" Dearest Camellia, now you can sleep in peace and one day we will meet again.