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

by Lisa See

  “We’re not in China. And your father isn’t rich.”

  “All right, then. I’ll be a gardener in a convent.”

  “No, you won’t. You need to make a living and support your wife and children.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t get married after all,” he said. “You’re too conventional.”

  It was a thirty-day leave, and by the middle of the second week, Carolyn’s period was seven days late. It was ten weeks too early for a rabbit test, which was the only sure way to determine whether she was really pregnant. She was too scared, too poor, and it was too early to go and get an abortion. All Carolyn could do was try various folk remedies; all Richard could do was try to figure out what to do when he had just two weeks left of his leave. Now instead of romantic tête-a-têtes on a ragged hillside, Carolyn—her ears ringing from high doses of quinine and sick to her stomach from taking castor oil—sat in a steaming bath, trying to boil away the theoretical baby, while Richard sat on the edge of the tub, trying to wish it away.

  “If you’re pregnant,” he said, “I want you to go ahead and have the baby.”

  “If I’m pregnant and you just go back to the army … well, you can just forget that.”

  Richard fell back on the same lines he’d used in high school. “Do I really love you? I’m not sure. I’m so sensitive.”

  “I’m seeing how sensitive you are.”

  “I’m only twenty-four,” he insisted. “And you’re my first girl.”

  Carolyn considered, thinking, That’s true, but I don’t exactly see anyone else falling all over themselves to be with you.

  He said, “I haven’t seen the wider world. I’m too young to get married.”

  “Well, I’m only twenty, and if I’m pregnant …”

  “But I didn’t come back with the intention of marrying you.”

  “What about your letters? What about all your proposals?”

  The only true answer to these questions would have been “Hey, I was only trying to get laid.” Richard was just wise enough not to let those words fall from his lips.

  Always the discussion drifted back to the problem at hand. “If you’re really pregnant, I’ll be happy to marry you when I get back. But I don’t want to marry you now.”

  “That’s fine,” Carolyn answered stiffly. “If I’m not pregnant, that’s fine. Just fine! But I’m telling you, Richard, if I am, you can just forget it.”

  In this atmosphere of mutual trust and love, they decided to get married, because Carolyn’s period was now almost two weeks late, and Richard had to go back to Newfoundland. It was the fifties, and they felt they had no other choice. Yet none of what followed was done in a sad atmosphere. They liked each other a lot. “There was something jaunty about the whole thing,” Carolyn remembered.

  On February 18, Carolyn and Richard drove to the store on Ord Street. Richard had told his parents about his engagement the night before, and they were waiting to see this Carolyn Laws. Stella gave Carolyn a hug and said, “So this is the little girl Richard is marrying.” Then they walked back along the main aisle of the store—past the bronze room, the art room, the ceramic room—and into the back office, where Eddy waited for them.

  He was beside himself. “This is a terrible idea!” Eddy yelled, whacking his hand through the air like a karate master trying to split a pile of bricks. Half of Carolyn’s mind absorbed what he said; the other half seemed mesmerized by Eddy’s gyrations.

  Richard, bound by silence concerning their real reasons, said, “We think it’s a good idea.”

  “It’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard! It’s indiscreet!” Eddy shouted.

  Carolyn, who’d survived her mother’s fits, stared at him and thought, Oh, have a tantrum. Just go ahead. It won’t change a thing.

  But when Eddy went on about how special the family was and asking who she was to be marrying into it, Carolyn began to burn.

  “You’re not just marrying Richard,” Eddy said. “You’d be marrying into our whole family …” The way he let that hang, she knew he was saying she wasn’t classy enough or good enough for their son.

  Stella sat nearby, wringing her hands and saying, “I don’t get it. I just don’t understand.”

  On the face of it, Eddy’s reaction seemed strange. After all, though the particulars were different, Carolyn was as much an “orphan” as Ticie and Stella. But Eddy didn’t see it that way. Perhaps he recognized that Carolyn was—despite her naiveté about birth control, which he didn’t even know about—a modern woman. She had ambition. She wanted a career. Ticie and Stella had worked, but it was always in the family business. Carolyn, on the other hand, looked outward. Perhaps Eddy recognized that she was never going to put the See family first.

  “Well, you certainly can’t get married without asking Pa,” Eddy spat out. Carolyn took that to mean that Fong See would say no and the whole thing would be called off. Richard and Carolyn drove over to New Chinatown. Rather than invite the couple in, Fong See stood with them in the courtyard outside his store. To Carolyn, he seemed older than God. He wore long Chinese robes, and she watched, bewildered, as he gibbered and twitched and—to her mind—gave an imitation of a crazy old Chinaman. He pinched her behind. He pinched her arm. He said, “Good stock.” Then he turned to Richard and asked, “You got five dollars?”

  “I’m thinking of getting married, and I wanted to ask you if it’s okay,” Richard said.

  Fong See didn’t say no.

  The next day, Carolyn went to see her mother. At no time did the words “I might be pregnant” enter into the discussion. Again, the announcement of her upcoming marriage was done in the same jaunty fashion as going to a jazz club or out for a pizza. Carolyn remained upbeat, cheerful, a little ditsy.

  “Richard’s a nice man,” she explained. “He wants to grow a beard, but it’s not a pose, because his father has one. He has black hair and green eyes, and he skis …”

  Eddy (with his December 7th beard), Stella, Sissee, and Gilbert at the Earl Carroll Theatre Restaurant in Hollywood, late 1940s.

  Ray See as a successful businessman, late 1940s.

  Chuen, Yun, an unidentified friend, and Richard, with their fishing gear, early 1950s.

  Ray with friends at New Chinatown.

  Stella and Eddy in late 1940s or early 1950s.

  See-Mar showroom

  Fong See outside the Los Angeles Street store just before it was torn down, c. 1949.

  Exterior of F. Suie One Company on Ord Street.

  Interior of F. Suie One Company, showing old China City kiosks.

  Richard as a cute high school student.

  The wedding of Richard See and Carolyn Laws, 1954.

  Fong See as a very old man.

  Gilbert Leong, successful architect, with Miss Chinatown.

  Lisa in the F. Suie One Company, 1963.

  Ming and Bennie (seated) in the “shop” at the F. Suie One Company on Ord Street in 1960s.

  Eddy and Peanut at work.

  Stella and Sissee, November 5 , 1988. On this night the F. Suie One Company received Centennial Honors from the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California for “a century of excellence in pioneering achievements as a member of the Chinese American community in Southern California.”

  Ngon Hung celebrates her eightieth birthday in 1987, with Sumoy and Frank Quon.

  Sissee’s seventy-fifth birthday, 1984. Top row: Si (Gilbert’s brother-in-law), Margie (Gilbert’s sister), Gilbert, Nick Nichols, Bernice (Gilbert’s sister-in-law), and Yun Fong. Bottom row: Stella, Ngon Hung, Leslee, Sian (Leslee’s daughter) Elizabeth (Leslee’s cousin), and Sissee.

  Leslee Leong with her daughters, Sian and Mara (seated), 1989. (Adam Avila)

  Alexander See Kendall and Christopher Copeland Kendall, 1994. (Patricia Williams)

  Lisa and relatives have lunch in Foshan (formerly Fatsan), China, 1991.

  Lui Ngan Fa, Fong Yun’s concubine, in Foshan, 1991.

  Fong See’s house in Dimtao, China, 19
91.

  The F. Suie One Company in Pasadena, 1995.

  “Is he in school?”

  “He’s in the army, but he wants to be an anthropologist.”

  “And his family?”

  “They’re very close,” Carolyn went on. “That’s the way they do things, at least that’s what Richard says. Family is everything to them, and even though they’ve lost a lot of traditions in this country, there’s still a big effort to keep it all going.” Carolyn hated it that she was taking the very words that had so upset her when they had come out of Eddy’s mouth and using them to sell her mother on Richard. But this way of keeping the conversation going also kept her mother from saying anything mean. “Richard says it’s their identity crisis, so that they can subdue the stresses that impinge upon any marginal subculture in this society …”

  “What is Richard?”

  “What do you mean, ‘What is Richard?’”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Didn’t I tell you? He’s a quarter Chinese, didn’t I mention that?” Then, not caring after all, she added the phrase that Richard had learned from Anna May Wong: “Oh, Mother, fifty million Chinamen can’t be Wong.” No laughs, but no objection either.

  Visiting George and Wynn turned out to be far more of a trial. George sat Richard down for three hours of homespun Southern wisdom on marriage, family, and the responsibilities of a man and wife.

  “Happiness is the absence of aggravation,” George proclaimed. “A clean conscience is a comfortable companion. What’s good for you is bad for you.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be happy,” Richard ventured.

  “I don’t give a damn what you say, kid. In your youth and loyalty you may feel required to say you love Pee Wee so much you’d trust her drunk, undressed, and in bed with Errol Flynn.”

  “Daddy …”

  “Pee Wee, forget yourself for the next few months and think instead of Richard, or Richard-and-Carolyn, as a married unit. Put some personal sacrifice in the bank for the long months ahead. I want you to invest in a little insurance for the years to come—insurance of a life free from the flippant crack and the lifted eyebrow.”

  As Wynn came in with iced tea for everyone, George went on, “I happen to like Richard and think he’s a good dish for any girl, you included. Now you must think I’m for sure a cornball.”

  “Oh, George,” Wynn said.

  “All I’m saying is, don’t ever get daunted.”

  As they got in the car, Richard sighed, “My God, that man needs to drink.”

  Looking at this round of visits, Carolyn saw only that her family was extremely relieved. Everyone was supposed to get married, settle down, have kids. The fact that the Sees were Chinese and that the state’s miscegenation laws had been overturned not quite six years before? No one cared. Kate was lost in anger about her own life, Wynn thought the marriage was cool, and George was relieved of his guilt.

  Still, Eddy fought the idea of his son marrying Carolyn. Eddy took George out for tea cakes, and tried the same arguments that he’d used on Carolyn and Richard: they were both too young; they weren’t up to the responsibility of a family. Finally, desperately, he said, “Carolyn doesn’t know how to make bao. Richard should really marry a Chinese girl.”

  “You didn’t,” George pointed out.

  “Yes, but Stella had our whole family to help her. Your daughter won’t have a Chinese mother-in-law.” Then Eddy laughed as though it was an intolerably funny joke. Except that it wasn’t a joke at all. This was the crux of it. Although his father had married a white girl and he himself had married a white girl, it was heartbreaking to think that his son would marry one. Just like his friends and neighbors, Eddy, the most “Chinese” of all the brothers, had hoped for a Chinese daughter-in-law—American-born would have been fine.

  For the next week, Richard and Carolyn were caught up in a round of activities. They went to La Golondrina on Olvera Street for dinner. They saw One Summer of Happiness again. Carolyn threw up at work—another sign that she might be pregnant—then went to the movies with a friend. The day after that, Carolyn and Richard got their blood tests and went to another movie. The following day they got their license, and Eddy made Carolyn a ring out of twenty-four-carat gold. That night they had dinner with Kate. The next day Carolyn bought a wedding dress—a pale blue linen dress with a little matching hat—and an outfit to wear to the wedding banquet—a tangerine silk blouse and a navy blue skirt. These purchases left her stone broke. That evening, the night before the wedding, they had dinner with Stella and Eddy in Chinatown.

  The following day, February 27, 1954, Carolyn and Richard were married. For reasons of time, the wedding party was small—just thirteen people. Notably absent were Carolyn’s stepfather, Jim Daly, and Fong See. (The former wasn’t invited. The latter, at ninety seven, was simply too old to attend.) Both families met for the first time in the upstairs office at the Unitarian Church. Carolyn’s stepmother, Wynn, wore a cream brocade suit with a very deep plunging neckline that left the men agog. Kate, mother of the bride and deserted ex-wife, took one look at Wynn—another first encounter—and began to weep. Stella wore a dark blue silk suit edged in velvet ribbon. Chuen stood up as best man, while Joan Wilheim, one of Carolyn’s friends from junior high, served as maid of honor. (Jackie Joseph was working in Las Vegas as a showgirl. When she heard about the marriage, she commented, “Getting married? To Richard See? It’s like marrying some chum you hang out with. It’s not like he’s rank or ugly or stupid. He’s just on a different level than what you would think of as your romance.”) The flower girl—Kate’s daughter, Carolyn’s half-sister—stood sullenly with her arms crossed over her chest. Sissee, Gilbert, and Richard’s friend Allen Mock made up the rest of the witnesses. The minister read from The Prophet, and asked Carolyn and Richard please not to cross any picket lines during their married life.

  Afterwards, Sissee took everyone to lunch at an Italian restaurant across from the Ambassador Hotel. Carolyn’s father, usually blasé about not drinking, made a show of his abstinence by turning over his glass, motioning to his daughter, and pointing wildly at his glass to show how well he was behaving himself. Between George’s conduct, Wynn’s low-cut dress, and Kate’s ratty fur coat and ridiculous sobs, Carolyn felt waves of embarrassment and shame wash over her. The plain fact was that the Sees did seem to know something about family, and they did seem to stay married.

  After lunch, Richard and Carolyn drove down to Laguna Beach for a two-night honeymoon. When they returned to Los Angeles, Stella and Eddy hosted a no-expense-spared banquet at Soochow, where two hundred Fong and See relatives, as well as old friends and customers, turned out. A few days later, Richard went back to Newfoundland.

  Following Chinese tradition, Stella and Eddy expected Carolyn to give up her apartment and come and live with them. She flatly refused. She said she’d keep her own place and continue on at City College. Still, the family tried to make her a part of the family. But Carolyn—unlike Ticie and Stella—was stubborn and independent. When, after countless excursions to orchid shows and countless teas at Sissee’s house, where all the women wore hats and gloves, Carolyn’s in-laws asked her for dinner, she begged off, saying she was sick. This incident wouldn’t have mattered, except that Stella and Sissee took Carolyn a pot of soup and discovered that she wasn’t at her apartment at all. She had lied to them, and they had found out. It appeared to Stella and Sissee that Carolyn didn’t want to be a part of the See family after all.

  Over the next few weeks, Richard sent a flurry of telegrams and letters:

  3/9/54

  The army will not let me bring you up here. Stay in school. If possible will write more later. Sorry. Love, Richard.

  3/23/54

  BUT FOR CHRIST SAKE. ARE YOU PREGNANT??????? If you don’t know by now, you are awful dumb.

  3/25/54

  I suppose you will not like this, but I am glad there will be no baby immediately….

  3/26/54


  You asked what I want in a wife. Right now I want me in a wife. Ha Ha chuckle slurp drool quiver blurp giggle…. Mostly I like manic insanity and a sense of humor in a broad. But why should you worry about what I like in a wife, I am an extremely intelligent type of person and have the ability to choose what I like, and I did get married you know. To you, as a matter of fact, if memory serves me correctly, that is.