Hawaii was a very different place when Victoria Kam Yuk Chun was born in 1930. Most Chinese families believed in educating their sons and raising their daughters to be stay-at-home-mothers, but her parents, Chun Kim Chow and Emma Kwock Chun, saw things differently. Victoria’s brothers went into the family businesses, Kim Chow Shoes and Chun Kim Chow Ltd., and helped expand the family’s holdings. After Victoria graduated from Roosevelt High School, the public school system’s elite “English Standard” high school, her parents sent her to the University of Michigan, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education. She went on to the University of Hawaii at Manoa for a master’s degree in special education.

Victoria met Arthur S.K. Fong when they both were attending the University of Michigan. They were married in 1953. The couple had seven children, all of whom went on to careers as physicians, judges, attorneys and educators. She is currently the matriarch of a tight-knit family that includes 15 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

The United Chinese Society of Hawaii will officially honor Fong, 89, as its 2019 Model Chinese Mother of the Year June 8 at the Jade Dynasty Seafood Restaurant.

Your husband was the UCS Model Chinese Father of the Year in 2005. Were you surprised when you were nominated this year?

Yes. I didn’t expect it.

Do you have any suggestions for maintaining a successful marriage?

Be happy.

Having seven children in 11 years and then raising a successful family seems like a tremendous amount of work.

I think it was nice that the children alternated by sex. Our first was a girl, the second was a boy, and so there was no pressure in that respect. The older ones set a good example for the younger ones.

Your children are all active professionals in their 50s or 60s. Most of them have high-achiever children and some have grandchildren. How do you keep the family together?

They all went to school on the mainland for college and graduate school, but they all came back, and now we live within a mile of each other. We try to get together at least one a week. We go to church together and all the major holidays we spend together. It’s a real family thing.

Can you share any suggestions for raising successful children?

We went to church, and the children all went to church as well. I think that made a difference. And as they got older they all had to work in the family business.

By profession you were a public school teacher and a full-time mother. What did you — or, what do you — enjoy doing for relaxation or entertainment?

Going to the opera to see the familiar operas like “La Traviata” and “La Boheme,” and going to plays. I enjoyed going to basketball and football games — especially if we had a good winning team.

A lot of us have lost touch with our ancestral languages for one reason or another. What about you?

(My husband and I) both speak Cantonese. That was our parents’ first language. They could understand English but it was easier if you spoke Cantonese with them. I went to Mun Lun Chinese School in Chinatown. (My husband) went to Chung Shan School.

Is there something about you or your husband that might surprise people?

My husband enjoys cooking for the family once a week, so every Sunday we invite the whole family to eat dinner.

Is there something you’d like to do that you haven’t done yet — some “bucket list” thing?

(Smiles) No, I can’t think of anything.