In 1966, my father, Ping-gam Go, brought his wife and three daughters from Amsterdam, The Netherlands to San Francisco’s Bay Area. In spite of his Chinese heritage, he was born in Indonesia and Chinese was not one of the five languages he spoke. For the first time in his life, my father was unable to engage in conversation with the local people when he visited San Francisco’s Chinatown. As a world traveler who lived and traveled three continents, my father’s quest to learn Chinese was the genesis of Simplex Publications.

Trying to learn Chinese at the age of 44 proved to be extremely difficult for my father. He found the character strokes counterintuitive and nearly impossible to memorize. As he studied, he learned that the language was borne out of a more ancient form that was much more pictorial. Using the ancient strokes, he began to unravel the complexity of the Chinese characters. He was so proud when he mastered the first twenty characters that he made a chart depicting the ancient form next to the modern brush form, framed it, and hung it up on our living room wall. Not long after, he replaced this chart with one containing about 50 characters. This chart soon became the most frequent conversation piece in our house and many of our guests encouraged my father to write a book.

By 1976, he had written his first book, twelve pages of 100 simple Chinese characters consisting of 1 to 5 strokes. The next year, he founded Simplex Publications. During the next seven years, he self-published three very simple, but charming, staple-bound books which he gave away to friends and business clients: How to Understand Chinese Characters by Means of their Ancient Symbols, Part 1: 1-5 Strokes, Part 2: 5-10 Strokes, and Part 3: over 10 Strokes. In 1984, these books grew into his first commercial book, How to Understand Chinese Characters by Means of their Ancestral Forms, which is now in its third edition. In 1991, he published a tourist version of the book, named Read Chinese Today, which was both more compact and affordable.

By this time my father was beginning to make very good progress in his quest to learn Chinese. He was frustrated, however, with the way most Chinese dictionaries are organized because you had to know how many strokes a Chinese character has before you can look it up. As a result, he created a dictionary that was sorted by the name of the radical, or the root pictogram, of the character. In 1995, he published What Character Is That? An Easy-Access Dictionary of 5,000 Chinese Characters, now in its second edition. The dictionary was an immediate success, drawing many positive reviews.

Throughout the years, many members of the Japanese community urged my father to write similar books for Kanji characters. In 2000, Gam Go wrote Understanding Kanji Characters by their Ancestral Forms, Learning Kanji through Pictures. Suddenly, at the age of 78, he passed away, only weeks after submitting the book to the printer.

As my sister and I worked to close up our father’s home, the printer notified us that the Kanji book was printed and ready to be picked up for distribution. At the same time, the fax machine spewed multiple orders from wholesale distributors. Not wanting to disappoint our father and his legacy, we worked hard to fill the orders in time for the Christmas rush. My sisters and I were in the publishing business!

Now I love showing my two young children the first simple give-away books their “Opa” created. This beginning demonstrates that, to be successful, you can start very small and very simply, as long as you follow your passion. My sisters and I plan to carry on this legacy of simplicity and passion through Simplex Publications.

Diana Go
(Go Tjing-Hian)

The ancestors of Ping-gam Go descended from the Fukien province in China. Born in Java, Indonesia, Go traveled abroad for his education, earning his Bachelor of Science in physics and mathematics from the University of Amsterdam. He also did postgraduate work at the Imperial College of Science & Technology in London. He continued his studies at Leyden University in Holland, where he received a Masters degree in geology.

After working for the Indonesian Geological Survey in Java, he returned to Amsterdam, where he worked as a science editor for Elsevier Publishing Company. At the time, Elsevier compiled and produced English translations of all Nobel Prize lectures, which were held in the winner’s native language. The Nobel Foundation in Sweden officially recognized Ping-gam Go for his work as Editor and for his contributions to these translations.