Prelude to Reunion: Koffeemocha × Peter
A conversation between two structural engineers — one rooted in California, one en route to Shanghai — about faith, family, and the precision that endures long after blueprints fade.
Dear Readers,
I’m writing this from SFO, moments before boarding the flight to Shanghai for my 40-year Tongji reunion. Ahead lies a return not just to a city, but to a foundation — where we first learned that structure is more than steel; it’s a mindset.
Before setting off, I spent three quiet days in Pleasanton and Danville — my pre-departure calibration. The highlight was a long dialogue with Peter, an old colleague from my old days in SOM.
Two engineers tracing not stress diagrams, but the quiet architecture of open space.
Koffeemocha × Peter — The Danville Dialogue
The light over Danville that morning felt architectural—precise yet soft.
Peter opened his door with that same balanced calm I remembered from our drafting room days. He joined SOM a week after his master’s from UC Berkeley; I followed a week later. For almost six years we sat back-to-back — trading sketches, calculations, and the kind of silence only engineers understand.
Today, Peter leads his own firm. A registered Civil & Structural Engineer, he’s known for seismic mastery and elegant restraint. Yet beyond talent, what sets him apart is reflection. He treats engineering as devotion — conversation between precision and faith.
Kefei: “We used to calculate lateral loads. Now life itself feels like one long wind test.”
Peter (smiling): “Yes — except the damping system is faith, and family.”
He spoke of his life, steady through years of growth while chasing endless deadlines; of his two sons, now finding their own load paths; and of the quiet rhythm that faith brings to motion.
Peter: “A good family is like a well designed moment frame, under the stress of life, it experiences drift and even yielding at times but refuse to buckle.”
Kefei: “Love distributes the load. That’s why it endures.”
Over lunch in Blackhawk we remembered SOM — trusses, terminals, the smell of graphite — and marveled at how the chase for perfection had evolved into the search for proportion.
Peter: “When I was young, I designed for control. Now I design for harmony.”
Kefei: “That’s the shift from calculation to understanding.”
By three o’clock, sunlight sketched quiet lines across the driveway.
Peter: “You’re flying to Shanghai tomorrow?”
Kefei: “Yes. Forty years.”
Peter: “Then you’ll see how well the foundations have aged — especially the invisible ones.”
As I drove away, I realized that Peter’s structures stand tall not only because of their structural strength, but also because of his conviction. His faith lends warmth to his precision, and his family lends purpose to his perfection.
In him, calculation meets compassion — an equilibrium most of us spend a lifetime designing.
Bridge to Shanghai
Now, in the terminal hum of SFO, his words return: “Foundations matter.”
Later in this week, I’ll step again onto Tongji’s campus — the site where those first mental footings were poured.
I’ll walk not as the young engineer chasing precision, but as someone seeking proportion between being and doing, faith and form, past and present.
This letter, written before take-off and published upon arrival, is my small act of grounding:
A toast to friendship, family, and the enduring structure of reflection.
Until the next cup,
Kefei
From SFO ✈ to Shanghai