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

  With the combined success of the furniture lines and the war contracts, Ray knew he was at a key juncture in his life. He could step forward and reap the rewards due him, or hold back and stay with the See family. When Morris Markoff, the president of the West Coast Lamp and Shade Manufacturers’ Association and owner of the Marbro Lamp Company, approached Ray with the offer of a partnership, a large capital investment, marketing expertise, and national expansion, Ray made his move. If he broke up the family partnership, then he and Bennie would be free to make their own fortunes. With Ticie gone, Ray felt he could do this with a clear conscience.

  Over several weeks in early 1946, the See siblings met on the mezzanine of the store on Los Angeles Street. The various life choices each of them had made seemed obvious. Ray had decided to live in the white world, where he’d pursued the life of a playboy, with his affairs and high living. He was solidly built, and his face had the fleshy quality of someone accustomed to the good life. His height, at just over six feet, helped to create a presence that the other brothers couldn’t muster. Ironically, of all the sons, Ray was the most faithful to his father’s vision of life in America. He was an entrepreneur through and through.

  Ray’s partner and sidekick, Bennie, was a family man. He dressed simply, in baggy clothes more appropriate for the mess of the factory than for a businessman’s lunch. He didn’t put on airs. Although he had affiliated with Ray, the two families rarely got together. Ming had remained the essence of the eldest Chinese son. He kept one foot firmly planted in the family business, not for any love of Chinese art, but because it was his role. All of his friends were Americans. Eddy’s life, on the other hand, was anchored in Chinatown. Everything about him seemed Chinese, except his wife and son. And Sissee, by marrying Gilbert, had made the most complete decision to live as a Chinese.

  At stake were two businesses: the F. Suie One Company and See Manufacturing. Ming ran the store, but it had been in Sissee’s name since the family had bailed out of the lease on the Wilshire store during the Depression. Eddy, Ray, and Bennie had started the factory, but Eddy hadn’t liked the work. He’d opened Dragon’s Den, but it was closed now, leaving him in the position of being the only one in the family who didn’t have clear ownership of a business. Unfortunately, Eddy didn’t have anything to bargain with.

  Sides were drawn and redrawn. Affiliations were tested; some held, others collapsed. During the loud arguing—which Ray’s daughter, Pollyanne, and Eddy’s son, Richard, remember not for its content but for its vituperativeness—years of angst, resentments, and petty peeves poured out. Old rivalries showed themselves. Instead of bickering over who had the fastest car, the most expensive car, the biggest car, they argued over whether or not the family partnership should be dissolved, and, if so, who should get which business.

  Ray was a formidable force. Eddy, Ray claimed, no longer pulled his weight.

  “But I supported the family through the Depression,” Eddy retorted. “I carried you and your families for five or six years.”

  “That was the Depression,” Ray said. “Those days are gone and we owe you nothing. Bennie and I have an opportunity now, and what happened in the past doesn’t matter.” He sat perched on a stool, one hand tucked into a trouser pocket, a silk handkerchief peeking out of the breast pocket of his well-tailored herringbone jacket.

  “I helped start the factory,” Eddy said. “Doesn’t anyone remember that?”

  “Bennie and I are the ones who worked it, who built it up,” Ray said. He took a drag on his cigarette, then continued, “It’s always been ours.”

  “But I had ulcers. I had to take it easy for a while! Now, as soon as I’m sick and not productive, you drop me?”

  “I’m not dropping you. You’re the one who closed Dragon’s Den,” Ray reminded him. “And remember, there’s the store. Why can’t you be partners with Ming?”

  Ming, who had remained silent through most of the discussion, turned to Ray. “Well, I’ve been doing the work in the store for years, while Eddy was showing off with the restaurant. After Dragon’s Den closed, he went back to the factory.”

  “But as an employee!” Eddy snapped. “Why should I have been an employee?”

  But Ming went on, “And Eddy quit. So then he came to work at the store, doing jewelry.” Addressing Eddy directly, Ming said, “I have to say that I don’t see why you think you have the expertise to run the store. You haven’t gone on any buying trips. You haven’t worked with the decorators. You’ve never spent much time with the Hollywood people except to give them dinner. I don’t see why you should be my partner.”

  “You know I could do those things as well as you,” Eddy said, but Ming only shrugged. The store was his by virtue of the fact that he was the eldest son.

  But this exchange gave Eddy something to work with. He did feel that he knew enough to run the store, and in fact he had often chafed at Ming’s arrogance. As the meetings wore on, Eddy went to his sister and said, “I’m the one who should have the store. Ming thinks he’s the big boss, but I could run it better.” When Sissee didn’t respond, he tried a different approach: “I could do what Ray’s doing. I can design. I can get contracts.” She listened to these entreaties, but revealed nothing of her thoughts.

  In another meeting, Eddy, desperately trying to keep his dignity and not get cheated by his brothers, attempted the one argument that he thought they would listen to: “Ma never would have wanted you all to do this. She wanted us to have the family pot so that we would stick together.”

  “Ma’s gone,” Ray said. “And I don’t see any reason why I should be supporting your family.”

  “And I’m asking you again, is this what Ma would have wanted? She always said family’s family and that we had to stay together.”

  Soon after this, Eddy was admitted to the hospital with a severe flare-up of his ulcers. With Eddy out of the way, his siblings decided to make their decision. They gathered once again on the mezzanine of the store. The brothers and Sissee agreed that if Eddy were there, he would choose to keep the family together. Bennie and Ray agreed to separate. Ming, having listened to Eddy’s argument about what their mother would have wanted, voted to keep the partnership together. That made the vote two for breaking up the partnership against two for staying together. Suddenly the pressure was on Sissee. Here was the surprise that none of them expected. Although Eddy was her favorite brother, Sissee sided with Ray and Bennie. Her vote was less for breaking up the partnership than against what Eddy had told her in their private conversation. In asking for her support in trying to take the store away from Ming, Eddy had alienated Sissee.

  While Eddy recovered in the hospital, the partnership was officially dissolved. Ray and Bennie got the factory; Ming and Sissee kept the store. Eddy got nothing, except a promise that he would always have a place working in the F. Suie One Company. He could keep his table at the front of the store, make jewelry, and repair lamps.

  If it comes as a surprise that Sissee voted against Eddy, what is really astounding is that none of this was ever spoken about. The children only heard rumors, for none of their parents wanted to fully explain their individual roles in the breakup. Nevertheless, Eddy and Stella made certain assumptions. It was obvious that Ray and Bennie were together. Eddy never truly forgave them, but the truth was that he didn’t have to see them every day. It never even crossed Eddy’s and Stella’s minds that Sissee had voted to separate.

  So it was that Ming received the most blame. What possessed Ming to accept it? Affection for Eddy? Love for Sissee? Respect for the relationship between Eddy and Sissee, which, except for this one disagreement, remained extraordinarily close throughout their lives? Or was it the sense that, as the eldest brother, Ming had to try to maintain some semblance of family harmony? For the next fifteen years Ming and Eddy would work side by side. Eddy harbored his resentment and Ming took it, while Sissee continued in her role as the cherished younger sister.

  In some families this scenario would be unbeli
evable, but not for the Sees. Eddy, even at his most disheartened, would often say, “Family’s family. We still have to stick together.” Or, if he’d had a disagreement with Ming, he might say, “He’s my brother. And you really only have your family.” Though he certainly never absolved Ming, Ray, or Bennie—and though none of them ever socialized again the way they had when Ticie was alive—it was inconceivable that Eddy would start a long-term feud with his older brothers, just as it had been inconceivable for Ticie to leave him behind in China. The others may have divided Ticie’s physical estate, but Eddy had received her one true legacy—her love for the family and her belief that her children were stronger together than apart. Family—and this included his full brothers and sister as well as his half-brothers and half-sisters—meant everything to Eddy. Family always came first, no matter what the personal cost.

  CHAPTER 18

  FIRE

  1947–50

  IN 1947, Fong See turned ninety and went into the hospital to have his gallbladder removed. Before the surgery, the doctor said, “I don’t think you’re going to make it. As a precaution, you should take care of your personal affairs.” See-bok didn’t like this advice one bit! He decided he would show that doctor by living through the operation. Then, after the surgery, while Fong See was still recuperating in the hospital, the doctor came in and said, “You’re not going to live much longer.” Now, for the first time in his life, See-bok tried to think about what would happen if he died, but he found it nearly impossible. Instead, he considered how very much alive he was.

  Despite his brush with death, he looked much younger than his age. He had always been a slim man. With each passing year, whatever excess fat had been on his frame melted away until he appeared to be just bones with skin stretched tightly over them, giving him the appearance of someone fifteen or twenty years younger. He walked with a shuffle, keeping his feet firmly planted on the ground, but his carriage was still proud and upright.

  He was far from being disengaged from the world about him. He was vigilant about business. He had sources who reported to him on the goings-on about Chinatown, Los Angeles, and the world. He was the master of his home, keeping a tight hold on the activities of his children and Ngon Hung. He also kept tabs on the children of his first family—all of them in middle age, all of them married, all of whom he saw in relation to himself. Ming was learning how to be a patriarch; he fulfilled his familial obligations even when they made him unpopular with his brothers and sister. (See-bok remembered how he, too, had learned to accept responsibility and make sometimes unpopular choices for the family.) His second son, Ray, was doing what See-bok had hoped to do himself: make a reputation in the white world. (It troubled See-bok that he had no relationship with this son, but what could he do? The boy would not visit or call, as was his responsibility.) Fong See didn’t know much about Bennie, except that he was a good boy who obeyed his older brother.

  Eddy. Now here was someone Fong See liked. Eddy came to visit almost every day. He had relationships with his younger half-brothers. He taught them how to repair things, how to put furniture together, how to fix their cars. He talked with those boys, kidded them, teased them. And Sissee was a good daughter. He could see this in the way she was raising his granddaughter Leslee to be a good Chinese daughter with proper manners. His second family? Those seven children were still too immature to have opinions that mattered. They were too young to be doing anything interesting. His youngest son, Gary, was only two; his eldest daughter, Jong Oy, had married and moved away.

  Finally, there was Ngon Hung. As Fong See lay in his hospital bed, he thought about his Number Three wife. He realized that he had come to care about her in his own way. It was not the western idea of love, by any means, because in truth Chinese women were nothing to care about. Throughout his entire lifetime, girl babies in China had been abandoned at birth, sold as servants, prostitutes, and concubines, or matched into marriage with men they had never seen before. Women—Chinese women—lived to care for their husbands and have sons. Ngon Hung had fulfilled both of these duties. She was passive, submissive, and obedient; she had given him four boys and three girls. He concluded she had been a good wife all these years.

  He thought, What will happen to Ngon Hung when I am gone? Who will look after her? My boys are still young, and she is inexperienced. Fong See reached for the phone and called Mr. Ogden, the attorney who had handled the separation from Ticie. The next day Mr. Ogden came to the hospital to consult. “You should marry Mrs. Fong in this country to make sure there is no confusion about your estate when the time comes,” Mr. Ogden said.

  A justice of the peace was found and brought to the hospital. Fong See was propped up in bed. Ngon Hung—forty-two and old beyond her years—stood at her husband’s side. Within minutes, Fong See and Ngon Hung were married according to the laws of the State of California.

  For now, Fong See kept the rest of the details of his will a secret. Besides, he had no plans to die yet. He still had to get through his honeymoon.

  On October 10, 1947, Anna May Wong, the aging screen goddess, slipped her arm through Ray’s, tilted her head to his ear, and whispered. She wanted to leave. She was tired of talking to people, tired of shaking hands, tired of standing in high heels for the last two days. She wanted to go up to her room, and she wanted him to come with her. Ray shook her off. “I didn’t bring you two thousand miles to give you free drinks,” he said. “Go get some coffee. Come back in a half hour and do your job.” Anna May stared at him for a minute, turned, and wobbled away.

  Why had he brought her to Chicago? The dancing girls would have been enough. Edith and the rest of them looked cute and demure—if a bit clumsy—as they glided across the platform around his furniture pieces. They didn’t have big tits like the girls in the other booths, but the buyers thought they were cute, and ordered like never before. He’d brought Anna May along as a novelty, but after the last couple of days he wished he’d left her back in Los Angeles for her brother to look after. Last night, she had even proposed to Ray. “Divorce Leona. Marry me. It will better both of our fortunes,” she’d said. Ray had to admit that Anna May had a head on her shoulders as far as money was concerned, but that didn’t mean he wanted to divorce his wife and marry an actress!

  He put these thoughts aside and focused on the business at hand. After the family partnership had split up, Ray and Bennie had formed See-Mar of California with Morris Markoff, the lamp manufacturer. Now Ray and Markoff were at the Drake Hotel in Chicago to introduce their line to the Furniture Mart. The booth was crowded, as it had been since the doors to the hall opened two days ago. The samples for next January were selling well. Better yet, the local media had made several appointments for interviews.

  How could Ray have guessed that he would be making this kind of money? Hand over fist, was how he liked to think of it. He tried never to brood about Ming, Sissee, and Eddy. Why should he? They were so stuck in the past. Ming hung around the store, turning into an old man. Sissee and her husband did good deeds all over Chinatown. And Eddy? What had happened to Eddy was too bad, but business was business. If Ray’s father had been right about anything, it was that you couldn’t let family stand in the way of your achieving the American Dream.

  Business, Ray loved it. He got a kick out of posing for photographers, doing interviews, meeting people. He delighted in watching the look on the face of some skirt from the Times when he told her about designing furniture for Bob Hope and Walter Brennan. He loved it when he could take the wood left over from his war contracts and turn it into table/lamp combinations. He enthused in his descriptions of See-Mar of California, which manufactured lamps and occasional pieces.

  It seemed as if the entire See family had been in the lamp business in one way or another, practically from the beginning. Years ago, Ray’s mother had gotten his father out of the underwear business by making lampshades out of China silk. Decades later, Ming still sold lamps by drilling through the bottoms of Chinese vases and wiring them
. Even Eddy did his bit as the one man in Chinatown who could fix anyone’s broken lamp. Now Ray was designing lamps in truly unique designs: Mongolian horsemen, T’ang horses, chess pieces, and heads of Greek gods; a column lamp with hand-carved acacia leaf; a modernized “candlestick” in green, black, or red; a Chinese woman in flowing robes and sashes carved from a “tablet” of alder. His lamps had interesting shades in China silk, rayon, or tropical cotton prints of the kind he had designed for D. N. & E. Walter in the past.

  The idea of function in domestic furniture intrigued Ray. As a result, many of his tables held recesses for cigarettes, hors d’oeuvres, record albums, and magazines. Others had built-in spaces for glasses, ashtrays, even radios. He’d designed a blond wood coffee table in the shape of a Chinese ideogram. Each corner sported a rectangular box for growing plants—“always an attractive note in a room,” noted one reviewer. The base of one of the most popular lamps held a pot for a live philodendron or a more durable plastic one.