On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family Read online

  When she returned to Chinatown after the failure on Wilshire, she was no longer the wife of Chinatown’s most prominent businessman. She became just the pathetic old fan gway woman renting space on the corner. But where else could she have gone? When she’d married Fong See, she’d given up many options. Chinatown was nothing if not a place for people with few options.

  As a girl—churning butter, milking cows, baby-sitting all of those kids whose names she could no longer remember—she never could have imagined that her last vice in life would be the lottery. Many of the old men, who shuffled through the streets selling tickets on their circuit from Soochow to the butcher shop to her store, had been in Chinatown as long as she. She had helped some of them with their leases, their correspondence, and the immigration. They had all grown old together, and they had not forgotten her as so many of her neighbors had.

  They waited patiently while she stared intently at the off-white paper with the green characters—eight across and ten down—for tree, cat, rat, cow. She would consider, then say, “I saw a cat today. Which is the character for cat? That’s the one I’ll mark.” Or, “The moon was very beautiful last night, don’t you think, Ah-soong? Show me the character for moon.” Later in the day, the old men would come back to tell her if she had won.

  As these thoughts drifted through her mind, Ticie watched Sissee pause at the far end of the field and turn her face to the sun. Since she was far away, Ticie visualized how her daughter looked. Sissee’s cheeks would be tinged pink and shiny with a thin sheen of sweat from her excursions and the warmth of the day. As Sissee turned, waved, and began her slow walk back toward the car, Ticie thought, not for the first time, that her daughter was simply too beautiful to end up an old maid.

  Ticie saw that her daughter was naive. Sissee didn’t understand about Gilbert’s family. She didn’t realize how important it was to Gilbert that his mother served as the president of the China this and the China that. Sissee, whom Ticie had raised to look at people for who they were, didn’t understand that Gilbert’s family saw only her “white” face. She didn’t comprehend the pressure Mrs. Leong put on all of her children, especially Gilbert, her bright light. Ticie saw and understood all this, but over the last seven years she hadn’t been able to think of a way to explain it to Sissee.

  Like most couples, Sissee and Gilbert had their fights. Ticie loved to bake pies, and Sissee liked to invite Gilbert over for a piece. “Why don’t you come over for pie tonight?” Sissee had asked Gilbert one day several months ago when she’d walked over to Soochow to borrow some bamboo shoots when Dragon’s Den had run out. He’d said he’d be over about seven.

  That night, Sissee had waited. Gilbert hadn’t called. Stella had said reassuringly, “Well, it’s Saturday night, maybe Soochow’s busy.” They’d all waited some more.

  Finally, Gilbert had arrived. Ticie had brought out the pie and asked, “How big a piece would you like?”

  “I don’t want any,” Gilbert had replied. “I already had some of Mrs. Coe’s pie.”

  They’d sat there in shock. Later, Sissee had cried. And Gilbert had been locked out of the house for weeks. But eventually Gilbert and Sissee were once again an item.

  Ticie remembered how puzzled the family had been when Gilbert told Sissee, “You’re the one.” Was this the proposal? Was this it? Then Gilbert had changed his mind again. “I’d like to marry you, but I have to do as my family says. You’re not Chinese.”

  This time the relationship was off for good. Sissee was devastated. As in most families when one of their own is hurt, the anger had turned outward. “Who the hell do they think they are?” Stella had railed. “Who does he think he is? He’s just the son of a restaurant owner. Big deal.” But it had been a big deal to Sissee, and that was the real reason that Ticie had allowed her daughter to talk her into this trip.

  Once Sissee got back to the car, they drove down the road a mile or so to the Central Point cemetery. Over the years, Ticie had grown accustomed to the Chinese tradition of caring for the graves of ancestors, so it shocked her to see the cemetery overgrown with weeds and poison oak. Ticie and Sissee wandered aimlessly, then became more systematic in their search as they picked their way among the headstones, looking for the graves of Luscinda and John Pruett. They’d gone on this way for nearly a half hour when Ticie paused and looked over and across a few rows to a pair of white marble headstones facing away from her. Ticie crossed straight to the two stones, walked around them, and saw her parents’ graves. Moss grew at the base of each marker. Rain and snow had weathered the marble, sending dark stains over the words “He was a kind father and a friend to all,” and “Jesus loves the pure and holy.”

  After they’d pulled the weeds, Sissee said, “Mom, let’s see if any of your brothers still live around here.”

  Ticie walked back to the car, remaining silent through the drive to the filling station, where Sissee looked in a telephone directory. “There’s a Pruett listed,” Sissee called out.

  “I don’t care,” Ticie said.

  “We’ve come all this way. Don’t you want to go over and meet this person?”

  “No, I don’t want to do anything like that. I just want to go home.”

  To see so much change in your lifetime wasn’t such a wonderful thing, See-bok thought. What was it the lo fan said? No cloud without a silver lining? He thought there was no silver lining without a cloud. Here he was, a man in his eighties, an astute businessman, respected, feared. He had a beautiful young wife who had given him many children. He was sure she would bear him more, too. But he couldn’t help feeling bitter.

  He’d developed a different feeling about white people since marrying Ngon Hung. He’d had ideas. He’d had dreams. If just one fan gway had helped him … He didn’t mean the friendship of Richard White or the simple business deal with Sugarman, but a real, true financial investment, then he could have been someone. He could have been someone out there. If he had been white, he would be famous and rich. He would live in Pasadena or Hancock Park. He would have a mansion filled with the most exquisite things the world had to offer. Now, as he looked back over his more than sixty years in this country, he could see the foolhardiness of his dreams.

  So he’d become more Chinese. He’d abandoned his neatly tailored three-piece suits for mandarin robes. He’d relinquished his natty lizard-skin shoes for the comfortable cloth slippers he sold in his shop. He’d forgotten his English—or pretended to have done so. With a household of children babbling in Cantonese, he remembered the old sounds, phrases, and axioms of his youth. All those ideas of child-rearing that Ticie had laughed off, he now embraced unabashedly, knowing that Ngon Hung would never have the courage to speak up to him.

  He had always been considered a far-ahead thinker. It became more difficult for him now. He thought about Ngon Hung. She was beautiful, but he was an old man. What if there were other men, younger men, who wanted her? He locked her up. He wouldn’t let her out. Sometimes he wondered if she was unhappy, but his own jealousy made him dismiss those concerns. He never discussed business with Ngon Hung. She was neither his confidante nor a part of his business. The fact that she stayed home and had time to polish her fingernails gave him status in the community. She was young and attractive, even if she didn’t have the latest hairdo or the newest clothes. He liked it that way.

  He insisted that his second family act properly toward his first family. He made the children from his second family show respect for Ticie by visiting her regularly. (They reported that she was elegant but didn’t speak much.) Each Saturday, See-bok arranged for Ngon Hung to send lunch over to Ticie and whoever was working in her store. Sometimes it would be a Chinese lunch, but mostly it came from See Yuen, on Alameda, which served American meals. The deliveryman walked up the small incline of Marchessault Street with a big tray heavy with silver-domed dishes of roast pork. These tribute meals paid off. The children of his first marriage—all grown now—called his wife Ahpo—giving her the respect of a “gra
ndmother” though she was just a little older than Sissee—or Ahji-ah—”sister.”

  Try as he might, he never stopped thinking about Ticie. Sometimes he wondered, Do the others see I have a soft spot for her? He knew that Ticie still carried her love for him. Lately he wondered if she was ill or ailing in some way. Yet how could he go to her and not start gossip? Only when he went on his walks with his little Sumoy, his youngest daughter, did he stop at Ticie’s store so he could talk to her.

  Wives. It made him strong to have so many. It increased his esteem in the community. It was also good to have a warm young wife in his bed at night, but sometimes he thought it would also be nice to have some quiet time, too.

  Children. When his children had come back from China in 1937, they were like low-class immigrants fresh off the boat; their English was terrible. Uncle’s family, the same thing. See-bok didn’t care. “One day we will all go back to China,” he told his children. “We won’t spend our money here. We’ll save it for China.” As for Chinese school, Fong See had come a long way from how he felt with the children from his first family. “Don’t worry about your American education,” he said these days. “You won’t be living here forever. That’s why you go to Chinese school. Pay attention and learn.”

  He ruled them with an iron fist. No bicycles. No roller-skating. No ice-skating. No movies. No radio. No sports. No football. No baseball. No dancing. No girlfriends. No boyfriends. No kissing. All of this went double—triple—for his daughters. When his children said that other fathers let their sons do or have these things, he answered, “Ah, but these things represent decay. These things are a bad influence.” The difference between his second family and his first was that this time everyone obeyed him.

  Grandchildren. At family banquets—weddings, births, deaths—all of his sons from the first marriage came with their families. He couldn’t keep them straight. Ngon Hung did that for him. Oh, he knew Richard. That boy. But the rest? Some freckle-faced girl or long-boned, skinny girl would be presented to him. His wife would say, “This is Pollyanne, the daughter of Ray,” or, “This is Marcia, the daughter of Bennie.” He’d look them over, his attention already wandering, nod his head, say, “Yes, yes, yes, yes,” then wave them away. Maybe a pat on the head depending on how he felt. These lo fan children were strangers to him.

  Business. Mr. White was still a regular at both the F. Suie One and F. See On companies. He had dinner once a week with Ticie over on Maplewood, and dinner once a week with Fong See in his store, where the evening meal had always been provided for the employees. Mr. White came in, sat in a straight-backed chair or on a porcelain garden stool right next to the register, and calmly waited. But most of his old customers had died off, to be replaced by young decorators who knew nothing! See-bok had to teach them how to recognize a good piece of art. He worked even harder to cajole them into buying, to make them feel smart and clever.

  He sized up these new customers just as he had the old government officials. Sometimes he put on a no-speakee-English routine. Sometimes he feigned to forget past negotiations, so that a young upstart would think he had bested See-bok and therefore came back to the store again and again. But just as in the old days, if a tourist walked in, See-bok yelled, “Get out! Get out! Don’t bother me. If you can’t afford to buy, then don’t come in here. Go to another shop.” He treated his few Chinese customers even worse: “I don’t need your business. I don’t want to bargain with you. Go away!” On the other hand, he still had his private den for those who had proved themselves worthy.

  More business. He gave big parties in China, and he gave big parties here. He invited business associates home for tea cakes. He entertained them. When the delivery boy came, See-bok tipped him in front of all those business associates so they could see what an important man he was. Tipping wasn’t a Chinese custom, but he had picked it up. Twenty-five cents, fifty cents, what was that to him? Was it for show? Of course, but it was always a big thing for the tea-cake man or the delivery boy from See Yuen. See? He was still a far-ahead thinker.

  Business and family. He’d never wanted outsiders. “I’ll bring someone from the family to help us,” he’d always told his brother when they needed help. Why was this? His family had always helped when Caucasians wouldn’t. Certain things were still important to him: money, property, and being a businessman, instead of a laundryman or grocery-man. He had never deviated from that course. Now people came to him for advice and guidance just as they did in the village. He had his favorites, and called in his markers when he had to. He didn’t care what other people thought, as long as they agreed with him. He always had the last word.

  “I need extra cash to bring someone over,” someone might request.

  “Who is this person?” See-bok would ask, then decide his or her fate depending on the answer.

  “I need a job,” a young man might say. “Can you help me?”

  “What are your skills?” See-bok would inquire. “What do you know? What do you want to be?” When he had learned all he could, he would find a job for this or that young immigrant.

  “Should I go into business with Lee Horn?”

  “He has never been able to hold down a job,” Fong See would opine. “You should look for someone else.”

  Someone might ask, “Arthur Chung has asked me for a ten-thousand-dollar loan. Should I lend it to him?”

  Again, See-bok would consider. “No, two thousand is enough.”

  Even men with established businesses sought his advice.

  “That boy from my home village, Jimmy, isn’t working hard. Could you talk to him?”

  And when Jimmy, a boy with the invincible attitude of youth, walked in, See-bok would question him: “Why aren’t you doing your work in your uncle’s laundry? Why are you not obeying him?”

  If Jimmy was foolhardy enough to say, “I don’t like to work hard,” sure enough by the end of the day he would be without a job and learning what happened if you didn’t follow orders.

  The Japanese crisis. Some people in Chinatown still grumbled that See-bok kept Japanese goods in his store. That gossip had been started by no-accounts and people who talked too much. Why shouldn’t he sell Japanese goods? It was his merchandise. He’d bought it before the war started. Who were they to tell him what to do? Why should he care what a bunch of no-accounts were yelling about? He remembered how his neighbors had come into his store to complain, then, later, had thrown paint on his windows. Did they think he would forget that?

  When Mrs. Leong had come to call with her little tins for China Relief, he’d turned her away empty-handed. He knew how word of that had spread through Chinatown, but he didn’t care. When his niece, who sometimes worked in the store, asked him about it, he explained, “I do my own charity. I give money to my village. I bring relatives over. You should give from the heart, and I do. Besides,” he went on, “you don’t know what they’re going to do with the money. They’re so greedy.” To the son of the owner of Man Gen Low, he said, “I won’t get involved with this anti-Japanese thing. Those people are corrupt. You give them money and they put half in their pockets. Why should I give my money to people like that? I don’t need them. I don’t rely on them. If I want to be patriotic, I’ll do it the way I want.”

  Partners. He didn’t have partners since he’d sold his business to Sugarman. Instead of simplifying his life, it seemed to make the most basic day-to-day affairs hard. Just a few years back, Fong Lum had been the family chef. He was a relative and a “partner.” Each night he cooked a full Chinese feast in the back of the store. Everyone pulled up a chair to a round table like those in a restaurant. Fong See, who always liked fresh food, insisted on the freshest possible ingredients. He also liked chicken that weighed between three and four pounds. “They’re the most tender,” he told his sons.

  One day Fong See had gotten the idea to buy a live chicken and slaughter it, thereby guaranteeing the freshest meal possible. Lum took the chicken out to the back alley, slit its throat, and thr
ew it in a trashcan to thrash out its last moments. It jumped out, then scooted and dragged itself all around until there was blood everywhere and they’d all lost their appetites. Those days were gone, because Lum had deserted to work for Sugarman. That was that. Now Ngon Hung, who had never cooked before, had taken over.

  Life story. When newspapermen interviewed him about Chinatown, he lied and told them he had been in Los Angeles since 1871. When customers called him Mr. See, Mr. On, or Mr. Suie, he never told them that his last name was actually Fong. When people asked how many wives he had, he answered one, two, three, or four, depending on his mood. When they asked him how he’d come to this country, he tried his best to make it into a good story, one that had never been heard before. Personally, he was sick of the whole thing. Why tell it again and again the same way? By now he had told so many stories to so many different people that he could no longer remember which was true or not.