This was followed by a series of speeches from family, friends, and community members. The vigil began with attendees holding lit candles while chanting 阿彌陀佛 (Āmítuófó), a Buddhist prayer that roughly translates to “may the Buddha preserve us” before singing The Moon Represents My Heart by Teresa Teng, one of Fang’s favorite songs. Attendees included friends, family, and members of the Chinese American community of the Southwest with some people driving from as far as Las Cruces, Roswell, Arizona, and Colorado. She worked twelve-hour days almost every day of the week and still managed to find time to hit the gym and practice reading English every night.” Fang Sihui Courtesy: Rod HonsteinĪbout 100 people gathered outside Wonderful Massage in Albuquerque for a candlelight vigil for her recently. “This lady started from scratch”, said Honstein. She moved to New Mexico in 2013, working between Rio Rancho and Albuquerque for several years, before opening her own massage studio – Wonderful Massage – which quickly became a success with glowing reviews lauding her for curing various spinal and muscular ailments. She worked in the San Gabriel Valley for two years during which time she learned English to near-perfect fluency while earning a massage therapy license. She arrived in California with only one suitcase, a small amount of money, and did not know a single word of English. She decided to move to the US in 2011 because she heard that there was more opportunity and success there. At the age of 16, Fang moved to Shanghai, where she picked up Shanghainese, to work at a restaurant and later as a saleswoman at a furniture store. Her childhood home had dirt floors with neither running water nor electricity and the family cooked meals over fires. Elbert.”įang was born to a family of subsistence rice farmers in a small, impoverished village about 70 kilometers outside Huangzhou in Hubei province, China. “During the pandemic, we hiked multiple times a week, backpacked the Grand Canyon twice, and summited several mountains in the Southwest including Wheeler Peak, Deception Peak, Cabizon, and Mt. He met Fang in 2017 when he was looking for a Mandarin conversation teacher for a planned trip to China and the two soon became life partners and best friends. “She was a great cook with a knack for fusing Chinese and New Mexican cuisine, a talented untrained singer of Chinese oldies, a health and fitness enthusiast, and an avid hiker with a keen eye for nature photography”, said Rod Honstein to AsAmNews. Three weeks after the murder of Fang Sihui, a worker at a massage studio in Albuquerque, her death is still being felt.Īuthorities say Sihui died in a shootout during an attempted robbery at Wonderful Massage on January 24.