On Gold Mountain Page 43

  Eddy began several home-improvement projects that he never completed. He tore out the ceiling, exposing the rafters. He chiseled plaster off walls. He built a foundation for an addition, but lost interest. He took out windows to make a lanai, lost interest again, and replaced the glass with “temporary” sheets of plastic.

  The garden, on the other hand, flourished under such neglect. Stella and Eddy—with help from Benji—planted bodhi trees, giant bamboo, tamarind, pittosporum, walnuts, apricots, and avocados. Abandoned projects proliferated into a thick jungle highlighted here and there with things scavenged from a Los Angeles that was being systematically “improved.” Eddy tipped over a Chinese street vendor’s cart and spread out leftover rice to attract birds. Against a wall he propped bamboo rakes, and leaf gatherers made from sheared-off five-gallon soy-sauce cans. The overall effect was wild, untamed, yet aesthetically pleasing.

  A year after moving into the house on Lantana, Eddy became galvanized with the idea of preserving and honoring the history of the Chinese and other pioneers in Los Angeles. Part of what motivated him was that yet another fire had destroyed another portion of China City. Fong Yun’s store hadn’t been damaged, but many others had. Several shopkeepers simply gave up, and as they left, business dwindled. By 1950, China City was nearly a ghost town. At this same time, the city fathers decided to tear down the last block of Old Chinatown—the 500 block of Los Angeles Street that Fong See and Ticie had used as their home base since 1906.

  Eddy proposed that the residents of Los Angeles Street create an “International Settlement,” a $500,000 development that would include shops and restaurants. The International Settlement would represent all the different cultures that had come to Los Angeles and, simultaneously, save the last block of Old Chinatown from destruction. “You attract people through their stomachs,” Eddy said. “Then they’ll stay to buy souvenirs. All we have to do is get our neighbors to invest and im prove upon what we already have.” The Lugo House—built by a Spanish land-grant family of the same name, and then the first home of Loyola University, and for years after that a boardinghouse for Chinese bachelors—would be converted to a museum. Tyrus drew up renderings of the Lugo House fixed up as the International Settlement. The Los Angeles Mirror sent out a reporter and a photographer.

  At first the City Council seemed receptive to the idea, then Mrs. Sterling, who’d been instrumental in the founding of Olvera Street and China City, decided she didn’t want anything to conflict with her enterprises. She had the ear of the Los Angeles Times, which, in turn, owned the souls of several councilmen, or at least that’s how Eddy saw it.

  On September 28,1950, all factions appeared before the City Council. Proposals ranged from turning Los Angeles Street into a parking lot to a German beer garden. Several argued that the International Settlement posed the threat of tong wars with café owners from China City. But all debates came to a halt when Mrs. Sterling arrived with a delegation from Olvera Street. Wearing flowers in her hair, pearls, and a dress with flowers appliquéd on the shoulders, Mrs. Sterling urged that the entire Plaza be renovated. “The Plaza should be cleaned up and commercialism eliminated or else everything should be torn down and the property used for a parking lot.” She emphasized that the International Settlement was a purely “commercial” enterprise. (Amazingly, no one pointed out that both Olvera Street and China City had operated as commercial enterprises for years.)

  She asked the council members to consider the important role that the Mexican and Spanish civilizations had played in the city’s cultural heritage. Then, with great enthusiasm, she told the assembled crowd that she had brought with her a little surprise. The doors to the council chamber were flung open and in poured a group of Mexican folk dancers dressed in fancy costumes of ribbon and lace, who performed to the accompaniment of a mariachi band.

  The councilmen were enchanted by this sudden, but colorful, display. Then Sissee stood to speak. “We didn’t come in our costumes,” she told the council. “We didn’t bring music. We don’t have to show off. We may be proposing an International Settlement, but we’re Americans first.” Eddy added that, in addition to the Mexicans and Spanish, the city owed much to the Chinese, the French, the Italians, and even—a daring suggestion so soon after the war—the Japanese.

  But it seemed that the council members had already decided in favor of Mrs. Sterling. Still, there was one consideration: the Lugo House—which stood in the center of the 500 block of Los Angeles Street. “To me the idea of this historic building being destroyed is absolutely appalling,” Councilman Ed J. Davenport opined. “This Council has been stymied at many points and not told the complete truth. We were told that it [the block] was needed for freeway purposes and then found out only a small portion was needed.” He proposed saving the Lugo House, the Kong Chow Temple, and a few other buildings in the area.

  Orville Caldwell, the deputy mayor and chairman of the Civic Center Authority, suggested that the Lugo House be moved the short distance to Olvera Street. But in the end, the State Parks Commission decided to turn the Plaza west of Los Angeles Street into a state park. Included in this plan were the Pico House, the Masonic Temple, the Gamier Building, and an old fire station. The Lugo House, the F. Suie One Company, the F. See On Company, Soochow Restaurant, and the other buildings that made up the last block of Old Chinatown would be torn down to make way for freeway ramps. Whatever was left over would be planted with grass. Eddy and Sissee left the meeting knowing that condemnation notices would be arriving soon.

  On a day in October 1950, three years after the fire that had leveled his factory, Ray See strode across his new showroom to give a revision of a design detail to Bennie. As Ray crossed the floor, he overheard one of his salesgirls describing a table/lamp combination to a buyer from one of the big department stores. “While the piece is solid and substantially modern,” she said, her hand arcing around its silhouette, “you will find a feeling of lightness and delicacy reminiscent of eighteenth-century styling. For this reason, Calinese fits perfectly into American Colonial and the more formal eighteenth-century English styles, as well as into most modern room settings.”

  Ray dropped off the drawing, came back through the showroom, eavesdropped again on the salesgirl, and reflected that a man does not become a millionaire by sitting on his haunches like some fool. He was on a roll, and clever enough to take advantage of it. With hard work and determination he had rebuilt his company. Within nine days of the fire, he’d rented space in another factory, while Bennie set about cleaning up the salvageable equipment. Samples for January had been made, production started, and orders shipped out within sixty days.

  On July 26, 1948, just nine months after the fire, Ray, Bennie, and Markoff had sent out invitations for the opening of the new factory. The plant took up 26,000 square feet and had been built with a sawtooth roof that brought in natural light, allowing the factory to function as a “total daylight” operation. The showrooms—each paneled in gum wood with a natural stain—were triple the size of the old ones. An immense picture window divided the plant from the showrooms and offices, so that visitors could observe the manufacture of their wares. Through it all, Markoff had gotten on Ray’s nerves—always hogging the attention, always giving interviews, always questioning production schedules. Finally, Ray had asked that the partnership be dissolved. Markoff readily agreed. Ray and Bennie had kept the See-Mar name, and business had started to take off.

  In 1948, Los Angeles had produced $200 million worth of furniture at wholesale prices. Each year, that amount continued to grow. Some said it was because styles by West Coast designers were “fresh and daring.” Others thought the trend reflected the growth of the television industry. In Los Angeles County alone, 456 sets were sold each day. With those sets came a new interest in seating arrangements, TV trays, and TV consoles.

  Ray used these theories to create a new furniture line—Calinese. Actually, his wife, Leona, had come up with the name. “It will be a little bit of California
and a little bit of China,” she said. “Use something cheap, like myrtle wood. People will think it’s exotic and innovative.” Taking her advice, he’d incorporated myrtle and lauan, a mahogany from Luzon in the Pacific. He designed small cigarette tables in light and dark finishes, which could be placed around a room separately or together to make one large coffee table. He combined a chest and a bookcase to make a modern version of an old-fashioned hutch or china cabinet. And he still designed lamps—especially the table/lamp combinations. All of his ideas were turned into reality by Bennie and the other men and women who worked on the assembly lines.

  Ray loved the pace: getting out new designs each season; setting up showrooms in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Grand Rapids; wining and dining the buyers. He hadn’t met a furniture man or a carpet man yet who didn’t like to drink. Martinis and steaks and parties and women willing to spread their legs. People behaving outrageously at night and coming in the next morning to buy. Simply paradise, as far as Ray could see.

  He especially loved the way it paid off. Baker, Knapp & Tubbs had been the first to take the Calinese line, filling their front windows with it. By 1950, Calinese could be found across the country. Frederick & Nelson in Seattle stocked it, calling Calinese “modern but not severe.” James A. Cullimore & Company in Oklahoma noted the “richness of detail and softly rounded corners of the Orient.” Stower’s Furniture in Houston celebrated its golden anniversary by highlighting Calinese as perfect for “those just-married budgets.” W. & J. Sloane in San Francisco promoted Calinese as “high modern at low prices.” Even The New York Times had carried the news of Calinese.

  Ray was at the height of his career and everyone knew it. The year before, in 1949, not satisfied with just Calinese, Ray had started designing fabrics again for D. N. & E. Walter, which had been in business in San Francisco since the building of the railroad. Ray had recently been feted by the company as the country’s “eminent textile and furniture designer.” His affiliation with Walter had also resulted in a documentary called “The Art of Handscreen Painting,” in which Ray had the opportunity to show off his designs. His outsized, brightly dyed prints had names evoking the natural beauty of the state and the Orient: Giant Cactus (“as beautiful as a western sunset”), Flower Window (“from a latticework window in San Francisco’s Chinatown”), Oahu (“a popular pattern for people who enjoy a Polynesian atmosphere”), Chungking (“distinctive as China herself and as modern as the moment”). All of them, as the narrator explained, utilized a “subtle new color combination and a trace of Chinese influence to create new designs lovely as a Ming vase and refreshing as the outdoors.”

  The people at D. N. & E. Walter talked about these new prints as a method of boasting about California to the entire country. “We’re proud of our state and the way we live out here,” the narrator said. “We try to get that across. With Walter handprints, everybody can have California sunshine right in their home.” Ray’s job, as the narrator explained, was to “combine Oriental mysticism, philosophy and charm with the vigorous beauty of the outdoors.”

  The new decade had begun auspiciously for Ray. Fifteen thousand Angelenos had passed through the doors of a “Calinese Touch-Plate” home in Santa Monica. The two-bedroom house had been furnished by Barker Brothers. Cocoa wall-to-wall carpeting flowed from room to room. Cocoa, turquoise, and tangerine had been used in the draperies and upholstery, with lemon yellow and lime green accents. The “Touch-Plate,” an innovative remote-control lighting system, ran throughout the house and was served by four panels. Billed as the “House of Tomorrow,” the home boasted the latest in modern inventions: exterior Venetian blinds; ceiling-mounted glass panels that emitted infrared rays (a new method to heat a bedroom and “do away with cold sheets”); an automatic garage-door opener; an indoor incinerator (“smog-proof and odorless”); and retractable hose reels and clotheslines.

  Lamps, fabrics, furniture—Ray was doing them all. Sitting behind his desk, Ray glanced across the showroom floor to where the salesgirl was giving her pitch, echoing the words of a recent press release. “Mr. See has developed these occasional pieces in forms that have roots in the ancient past, yet every one of them reads ‘today’ in its effect. To achieve an Oriental feeling, Mr. See has used finishes in ginger, amber, and teak. Genuine coral and jade are used as color accents. The cloud design is taken from an ancient mandarin coat in Mr. See’s collection.”

  Ray grinned. So much had been made of his “collection” of Oriental antiques. If only they knew how much he hated that stuff—the smell, the look, all the bad associations. After a lifetime of trying to get away from all that, here he was being reminded of it at every turn. It amazed him that the fantastic coverage on the Calinese line had come in large part from the “Chinese pioneer family” crap.

  It was ironic, really. Most of his friends didn’t even know he was Chinese. He never talked about it. His daughter, Pollyanne, knew enough not to ask. He was fairly proud of being Chinese, but he just couldn’t forgive his father for leaving his mother and the rest of the family. He remembered a picture that Pollyanne had painted of a Chinese man. Ray had taken one look at it and wordlessly walked away. The drawing had looked so much like his father that it had made him physically ill.

  As Ray See marveled at how far he had come and how he had built a life for himself, his father, now in his nineties, stood on frail legs outside his store at 510 Los Angeles Street. After all these years, See-bok was moving once again. This time he was going just a few blocks, to New Chinatown, where his son-in-law Gilbert Leong had designed a new showroom for the F. See On Company, as well as a warehouse, and living quarters above the store for See-bok’s family. See-bok supposed he should look at this move as a new start, but he had had so many new starts in his life.

  He watched as his eldest sons from the second family, Chuen and Yun, backed and sidled their way out through the doorway, carrying one end of an altar table. At the other end was Peter, the son of Fong Lai. See-bok barked out a few words—“Don’t bump it! Be careful!”—and thought back to how his own true-life brother had been replaced by a new Fong Lai. When the second Fong Lai had wanted to bring over his son, Fong See had made the arrangements. Peter had originally come over from China to teach Fong See’s children Chinese, but now he worked in the store.

  See-bok looked around. Across the street, the old Spanish Plaza. To his far right, Olvera Street. To his far left, the Pico House and the other buildings that would be saved. But everything in his block was in disarray. Some of the buildings were already deserted: the Sam Sing Butcher Shop had moved over to Spring Street; the Leongs had consolidated Soochow with the branch in New Chinatown. But a few old-timers like him were sadly packing up a lifetime’s worth of possessions and merchandise. Everyone was out or getting out before the bulldozers came.

  See-bok watched his sons and Peter load the table into the moving truck. Inside the store, others—his younger sons and nephews—were up on ladders, prying loose carvings, rolling up scrolls, and carefully bringing down wall hangings. His daughters were packing ceramics and small bronzes.

  He was too old to make this move!

  Over the last few months, Fong See had watched while others tried to fight City Hall, but he knew that the only way to win was through money. It pleased him to know that rumors circulated around Chinatown that he had offered the city $250,000 if they would let him stay in his Los Angeles Street location. He liked it that people said, “He puts his money where his mouth is.” See-bok wouldn’t say what he’d offered, but when the city hadn’t taken the bait, he’d gone to the Union Bank with his Caucasian accountant to see about a loan to move to New Chinatown. When he’d heard he’d have to pay points or cash under the table—he couldn’t remember which—he’d simply refused and ponied up the cash for his new building. These stories kept his reputation alive.

  Chuen and the others came out with more merchandise and loaded it on the truck. “Come on, Pa,” Chuen said. “We’re taking this over to the new
place. You’d better come along with us.”

  Fong See’s new store was on Chungking Court in a recently built block of New Chinatown, west of Hill Street. After his son had parked the truck, See-bok shuffled into the dark storefront.

  “Pa, why don’t you rest for a bit?” Chuen said. “We’ll take care of things.”

  See-bok nodded, and wandered back past the packing crates and larger pieces of furniture left helter-skelter on the floor, to a back room where a cot had been set up. He sat down slowly, sighed, then lay down. He stared at the ceiling. He didn’t worry about business. My customers will follow me, he thought. He would let his sons wait on clients from Beverly Hills and Pasadena, as well as the movie stars from Hollywood—Yvonne De Carlo, Anne Baxter, and Walter Pidgeon. It would be good practice for the boys, but Fong See himself would still wait on important customers like Charles Eames and Frank Lloyd Wright. (That old man! That Frank Lloyd Wright! He drove Fong See crazy! The way he came into the shop and tap-tapped at the merchandise with his cane! Fong See had shown him! “Get out! Get out!” he’d shouted until Wright fled. For years that story alone had made people wonder and come in to see if it was true. They would come to his new store to hear that tale again.)

  Fong See was old, but he’d never lost his vision of life in America. He always thought ahead. He knew people wondered why he didn’t take this opportunity to leave Chinatown altogether, but when the new City Hall had been built, he had seen the future. That building was so tall and sound that he became convinced that Los Angeles would always be a place where Caucasians would come first. So he stayed in Chinatown. Now, after sixty-three years in Los Angeles, he had finally bought a store. (It was still in someone else’s name as a precaution.) It was as though Fong See was announcing, “I’m putting my roots down here. I came to America. I did well. Remember me.”