ALPINE RECREATION CENTER, 2016
We met the Jungs at the Alpine Recreation Center, where Mrs. Jung, eighty-six, teaches Luk Tung Kuen at eight o’clock every morning. She’s been practicing for forty years and teaching for the last twenty-plus years.
They both wore bright yellow sweatsuits, custom-made in Hong Kong, printed with “Luk Tung Kuen,” an exercise program consisiting of thirty-six movements that promote blood circulation and muscle strength.
The Jungs have owned their sweatsuits for decades, but it looks like they just got them yesterday. The bright blue lettering and a small mock turtleneck collar gave them some flair (as if they didn’t have enough!).
“When it’s a happy day or party, I’ll wear it,” said Mrs. Jung.
Mrs. Jung told me that her husband suffered a stroke a few years ago, so while she teaches, he’ll sit and read or walk around the park—“very slowly,” she added. Looking at Mr. Jung makes you go “aw”: the “STAFF” baseball cap, the cane and rainbow umbrella walking sticks, the ’50s-style glasses that sit slightly cocked to one side.
Mr. Jung said he met his wife through his cousin. We asked how long they dated before they got married. “There was no dating back then,” he said. “You just get married.” He left Hong Kong to come to the United States first, and she joined him two years later in New York.
We asked him about his sixty-nine years of marriage to Mrs. Jung. “How often do you guys celebrate?” we asked. He laughed: “Every ten years.”
