Mrs T. Y. Lin Makes Artificial Flowers

Press, Volume C, Issue 29588, 10 August 1961, Page 2

Mrs T. Y. Lin Makes Artificial Flowers

A way of making artificial flowers which may be new to New Zealand women is among the many and varied interests of the wife of Professor T. Y. Lin, who arrived in New Zealand last evening on a lecture tour of the country. Mrs Lin, who is Chinese, has learnt leatherwork, copper jewellery making, millinery, home decoration, and rug braiding, in addition to running a home and bringing up two children. She also finds time for lectures in Russian, to complete her master' of arts degree. Making artificial flowers from wood fibre is among her pet hobbies and she described it in Christchurch last evening. ‘‘The wood fibre comes from Formosa and is available in a variety of colours,” she said. It was cut to shape from a picture guide, and twisted to form the petals. Artificial leaves could be bought at floral studios and lacquered before they were bound to the flowers with a special green tape. Mrs Lin used the flowers for winter decoration, when real flowers were scarce. Mrs Linn belongs to a club for the wives of engineers in San Francisco called the "Femineers.” As well as monthly luncheons, the club holds two functions each year for husbands. They either give them a luncheon party or “shout" them to a baseball game. The women give three scholarships each year to engineering students, and raise most of their funds for this from an annual function called the "Golden Fleece Party.” Mrs Lin was born in Peking, and studied at China’s South-west Univerversity, majoring in foreign languages. She left just before her final year to be married. Professor Lin and Mrs Lin have two children, Paul, who is 19, and Verna, 12. Paul is an electrical engineering student at the same univer-

sity at which his father teaches (the University of California). While his parents are away he is spending his summer vacation working at the university, making electrical instruments, such as computers, for the laboratory. Professor Lin and Mrs Lin will be in New Zealand for 10 days before going to Australia, where Professor Lin will lecture. They will spend several days on holiday in Hong Kong and Japan. In Hong Kong they will be the guests of Mrs Lin’s brother, Who is a doctor there. She has another brother In Shanghai, where he teaches high school, and one brother and two-sisters living in the United States. Professor Lin is a world authority on pre-stressed concrete.