A few dozen bouquet flowers lay Feb. 22, 2024, in front of the Red Tea Garden in Milton-Freewater to mourn the tragic loss of Shu Yi Wu. She was severely knocked to the ground the night of Feb. 18 while attempting to stop a robbery at the restaurant. After four hours of brain surgery, she died the morning of Feb. 19.

MILTON-FREEWATER — People are struggling to fully grasp the tragedy that occurred recently in Milton-Freewater.

On the evening of Feb. 18, Shu Yi Wu was thrown to the floor inside her restaurant, Red Tea Garden, when she fought to stop a robbery from the restaurant’s cash register.

When her assailant shoved her, Wu’s head slammed onto the hard surface, causing critical brain damage. Emergency surgery lasting four hours was unsuccessful and Wu died the following morning, her family has said.

Milton-Freewater Police Chief Joe Shurtz on Monday morning, Feb. 26, announced the suspect, Emerald Julia Pena, 39, turned herself into the Umatilla County Jail, Pendleton, on charges first-degree robbery and second-degree manslaughter. Both are Measure 11 crimes, meaning they carry mandatory minimum sentences.

Wu leaves behind her husband and business partner, Liang Yuan Zhu, their three children and her parents.

And an infinite number of devoted friends and customers.

While a collaboration of area law enforcement agencies work to find answers to the killing, Wu’s family and friends are trying to figure out how to navigate without the woman they treasured.

The words they use to describe her ways and her life, however, come together in a chorus of appreciation and awe.

The 56-year-old Wu was known for her tireless efforts to make Red Tea Garden a success and her staunch allegiance to those she loved.

Her son, Kenny Wu, 23, said his parents came alone to Milton-Freewater from Portland in 2018 for the opportunity to lease and operate the establishment that had been known as Hong’s for decades.

“I think it was really a dream of theirs to own a business but also another way to rise up on the ladder. Options here are very limited, in general, to be a business owner,” Kenny said.

Hard choices

It wasn’t an easy decision for the couple to leave behind their children, all teenagers at the time. He and his sisters, Sally Zhu, 21, and Kelly Zhu, 18, stayed in Portland to continue at their schools. With his mom’s parents living right next door and already helping to raise an older cousin, it made sense to move in with them, he said.

In Chinese culture, being a grandparent is an important familial and social role. And in Chinese immigrant families in the United States grandparents are often invested in their grandchildren’s lives through cohesive and active relationships, according to a 2018 article published in the National Library of Medicine.

As well, many parents from the Guangdong province of southern China use the mother’s surname for sons and the father’s surname for daughters.

Shu Yi Wu — most people called his mom “Shu,” Kenny said — grew up in the city of Taishan in Guangdong, while his dad was raised in a nearby village. The two, having not yet met, immigrated to America in the early 1990s.

An estimated half a million Chinese Americans are of Taishanese descent, noted a 2007 article in the LA Times.

Eventually his parents met when both were working in a Southeast Portland Chinese restaurant; Liang as chef, Shu as a waitress.

Married life started off just as it would continue. The two worked hard to provide for their growing family, often up to 15 hours a day.

Strength, sacrifices

In 2007, however, Liang was deported after he was stopped for a minor traffic offense. While he had a work visa, he had not gained citizenship, his children recalled.

Until his return 11 years later Shu was essentially a single mother, earning a living as a seamstress.

Sally Zhu, in her narrative for the crowd-funding organized to help with the unexpected expenses, said this:

“My mom was the most generous and selfless person I knew. She always helped everyone before herself … My siblings and I will never forget the sacrifices she has made for us as an Asian-immigrant mother, and my family will forever remember the chirpy person she was despite bearing so many hardships on her own. She loved sewing … she absolutely adored our family pets, including her precious koi fish in the restaurant pond, and she loved bringing family and friends together with her cooking every time she visited Portland.

“She has always been frugal her whole life living for her children and only recently was she able to enjoy shopping and self-care, as a woman does.”

Upon hearing of their daughter’s death, his grandparents broke down as he’d never seen, Kenny said.

“It was the first time I’ve seen my grandpa cry. And my grandmother, she is bawling her eyes out.”

His father, who speaks little English, is filled with grief and expressing regrets, Kenny said.

“He didn’t realize all … How much of a big deal it was, all the things my mom was doing for the restaurant.”

His parents, he explained, would get to Red Tea Garden at 10:30 a.m. and not leave again until late into the night, after they’d prepped food for the next day and wrapped up the day’s finances.

When he worked at the restaurant the summer after high school, he could see for himself the depth of their commitment to their vision of success.

Friendships mattered

Shu-Hua agrees. The Milton-Freewater woman came to this country to attend Walla Walla University. She went to work in behavioral health right after graduation and made this area home.

In 2019 she was training for the Portland marathon when she met the woman who would become a cherished friend.

Shu-Hua was tired and hungry when she spotted Red Tea Garden after running down Milton hill. She stopped in for a bowl of noodles with vegetables.

Shu Yi Wu asked her new customer where she was from and if she spoke Chinese.

“I am from Taiwan and she asked me what year and month I was born for the lunar year.”

It turned out the two were just a month apart in age and soon Shu Yi Wu had read her like a book, with amazing insight, Shu-Hua said.

“She said, ‘Oh, I know you. You are sometimes so gentle …But you are stubborn like a goat. I am one of those goats.’”

Shu-Hua confided she was struggling over her mother’s death, that she was depressed and had lost interest in cooking for herself.

“I was so alone here. She said, ‘Our parents’ deaths are inevitable, but now you have a sister.’”

Their relationship quickly grew and the women helped each other in a thousand ways, Shu-Hua said.

In a community with few Asians, she noted, the time spent together was a respite from racist comments and a feeling of being unwelcome here at times.

“And I have a constant fear of personal safety,” Shu-Hua added. “I look around and nobody looks like me, nobody talks like me.”

Shu Yi Wu, a powerful spirit packaged in a tiny body, would want her friend to look for a silver lining in all this, Shu-Hua said.

“What little she had, she still shared and gave. It’s kind of Buddist. You see the blessing, you generate a blessing, you contribute and you share.”

Shu Yi Wu faithfully spread her love to others, Walla Walla resident Bill Albee said.

Since 1972, Albee has been associated with each of the owners of restaurants where Red Tea Garden currently operates. He helped Shu and Liang get established in Milton-Freewater and now acts as property agent for the building’s owners.

As such, he’s a familiar face at the place, he said.

“When I go in there, I get dragged into the kitchen to look at things.”

He also gets fed, and Shu did so gloriously, he said on Monday, Feb. 19.

“Yesterday, a friend asked me to take her to dinner and she asked for Chinese food. I said ‘I know where we are going.’”

The meal presented by Shu and Liang covered his table, Albee said.

“And then to come home and have someone call me and say ‘I heard this on the scanner’ …”

The final news, of course, was tragic, he added.

Shu and Liang worked “extremely” hard to have satisfied customers, provide jobs, pay taxes and make the drive to Portland on a regular basis to see their family, Albee noted. “It was just an incredible thing.”

Red Tea Garden is closed for the time being while his father determines the next steps, Kenny said.

In the meantime, the young man is studying for the entrance test to medical schools. He graduated last spring in pre-med from Washington University in St. Louis, a feat that made his mother, whom he called “mamee” in the Cantonese language, very proud. Shu was able to attend his graduation there and they road-tripped back to Portland together, Kenny said.

She confided in him her hope; she wanted to open a small Chinese noodle shop in Portland when she could return to the city.

With her death, Kenny has learned even more about his mom, he said.

“One thing I didn’t know, she had a lot of friends in Milton-Freewater and it seems like she had a great time with them.”

More information

A crowd-funding effort to pay expenses related to the death of Milton-Freewater resident Shu Yi Wu has been established by her family. For more information go to the Go Fund Me page at shorturl.at/tCIN1.

Plans for a service for Wu have not been finalized as of but will be added to the GoFundMe page as those become available.

Donation in check form can be written to Kenny Wu, Red Tea Garden, 14 N. Columbia St., Milton-Freewater, OR, 97862.