An 81-year-old lady and her WWII memorial hall in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO - Saturday evening, on the sidewalk of a downtown street in San Francisco, when Mrs Florence Fang was a few steps away from her car, she heard a man's voice from behind: "Congratulations!"

The 81-year-old lady turned around and, for a moment, was puzzled.

"About your memorial hall," a young man in his 20s reached out to Fang and shook hands, explaining: "I was there three weeks ago and took pictures, and there again today. I posted them (on social media)."

Around the corner of the street stands the World War II Pacific War Memorial Hall, a two-story building, where Fang had spent long hours for a series of events marking the 70th anniversary of the victory over Japan.

The memorial hall, located on a street in Chinatown of San Francisco, was just inaugurated earlier in the day.

For Fang, a Chinese-American community leader for decades, co-founding the memorial hall is a personal endeavor to extend her childhood memories. When she was 4 years old, living in a major city in western China, her three brothers volunteered to join the Chinese military and fought against foreign intruders.

She remembers the day when her mother begged the brothers, who were high school or university students, to stay home and away from harm's way.

It took place around 1938, the second year into China's all-out war with Japan. Throughout Japan's aggression, from 1931 through 1945, an estimated 35 million Chinese people were killed or wounded.

On July 7, 2014, the 77th anniversary of the outbreak of the all-out war with Japan, Fang donated her family's commercial property to support the building of the memorial hall, as she wanted to pay tribute to all lives lost during that war, including the American lives lost at Pearl Harbor.

In the following year, she traveled extensively to visit museums of the kind, and engaged with other Asian community leaders to seek understanding and support.

From the very beginning, it has been a non-governmental project funded with private donations, some of which came from seniors in their 90s who survived the war and sensed the urgency of sharing their memories.

In several public appearances related to the project, Fang stated that the memorial hall would highlight the human spirit resisting injustice and fighting for freedom, and the collective efforts by countries, such as the United State and China, more than 70 years ago, to work together and roll back the evil forces against humanity.

She has supervised all the details to make sure that exhibits do tell the truth of the war and deliver the right messages to younger generations.

The inauguration ceremony on Saturday afternoon was co-hosted by the Flying Tiger Historical Organization, a US veteran group that promotes the history of the Flying Tigers, volunteer American aviators who fought alongside with Chinese in the 1940s.

James Whitehead, a retired US Air Force major general who chairs the organization, spoke at the ceremony. A special chamber at the memorial hall is dedicated to the Flying Tigers.