The Wongs in Stockton: the early years.

Chen, June Wong

My ancestors, the Wongs, from the village of Gan Tang in the township of Taishan, Guandong Province, had a long history of sending many of their male offspring abroad to make their living. Some went to Singapore, some went to Malaysia and the Philippines, and the daring ones went to America to work on railroads. Since Taishan was principally a farming community, it was not possible to sustain all the young men if they all opted to stay. By tradition, the oldest son inherited the family plot of land and the younger ones left to look for work, either in the capital city of Guangzhou or abroad.

Much has been written about the lives of the immigrants who came to Gold Mountain and their hardships and contributions in general, but very little of my own family's history was ever recorded, as far as I know. One can only surmise that in the olden days, people felt that sufferings and deprivations were best forgotten.

When I was very young, Grandmother told me stories from time to time about her life in the village, raising her family of three while Grandfather was away in America. She spoke only the Taishan dialect, and since I had never been to our home village, this dialect made little sense to me. Some of what I learned about my roots came from the records of my father's immigration interrogations while he was detained on Angel Island from June 1 to August 4 of 1915, upon his arrival in America. Later, after he landed in San Francisco, he also recorded all the statements that Grand Uncle Sai Jick had made to the Immigration Service during his question-and-answer sessions.

Through the years, I learned from my father that his and Grand Uncle's recorded statements contained falsehoods, in keeping with the papers that Great-Grandfather Wong Hui Ting had "bought" for his two sons, Grandfather Sai Ping and Grand Uncle Sai Jick, to enable them to join him in America. Great-Grandfather had been the first to arrive in America. He had worked as a clerk in a grocery store in Southern California. After a few years, he had saved enough money to buy two fake papers belonging to two distinct and totally unrelated families. In the end, father and sons all worked in Los Angeles, all denying knowledge of one another.

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It was never made clear to me why Grandfather did not sponsor Father. I do know that Grand Uncle Sai Jick's paper was for a married man with a family. As a result, Grand Uncle Sai Jick petitioned for Father, as his supposed second son, to come to America at age nineteen and afterward, his own son, Nea Yue, as well.

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Father studied and worked in the Los Angeles area for a while, doing housework for an American lady in exchange for his board and room. Later on he moved north to Stockton, finding work among his countrymen. He operated a watch repair/pawn shop business on Washington Street in Stockton's small Chinatown, where he met and married my mother, Sue Mark, in 1927. Two years later, I was born.

MY EARLY CHILDHOOD

The year 1929, the year of my birth, marked the beginning of the American--and eventually, global--depression. By 1931, the American economy was still mired in high unemployment and my father's watch repair business suffered the same fate as many others. There were many letters from China urging my parents to go home to visit Father's parents. Times being as hard as they were in Stockton's small Chinatown, my father consented to his mother's pleadings, for by that time he had been in America for sixteen years. Within six months after we arrived in Guangzhou, Mother was stricken with typhoid fever and succumbed. I was only two years old.

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Grandfather married his first wife, my own grandmother, when he was a young man in the village. She was from a family of humble circumstances in a nearby village. Her mother had bound her feet just days before her wedding, and they hurt so much that she took off the cloth binding after she was married. Her explanation was that she had to remove them to plant rice while standing ankle-deep in muddy water. Because of her affinity for the water buffalo used in tilling the land, she abstained from eating beef for life.

Two sons and a daughter were born to the couple before Grandfather left the Old Country to earn his living in California. Singlehandedly, Grandmother raised their three children in her husband's absence. She cultivated the fields, tended the livestock, and wove her own cloth on winter nights after the harvest was in. She used the 20 taels of silver that Grandfather sent from America to buy salt, buy oil for the lamp, and pay tuition to the village schoolmaster. Grandmother was to make do all her life with the barest of life's essentials. She had little education, as was usual for that time, but she was well equipped to survive a hard life on the farm. She had simple tastes and infinite compassion.

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Grandfather took a second wife on one of his many trips back to China. Two more sons and one daughter were born. Second Grandmother came from the Swatow boat people of northeast Guangdong Province. She was a woman of very refined features and a certain "city air." The taking of this second wife signaled the attainment of success on Gold Mountain. Since Grandfather passed away when 1 was only three years of age, I have only a vague memory of him.

In the 1920s, Grandfather returned to Guangzhou in his old age with modest savings. He bought a large piece of land on the south bank of the Pearl River, and on it he built a house large enough to accommodate both wives and their requisite domestics. Adjoining the main house was a building best described as an early-model two-story quadruplex, which contained living quarters for each of his four sons and their families.

The earliest memories of my childhood were of fun and frolic with my extended family of cousins and young servants in Grandfather's house after the death of my mother and while I was under Grandmother's supervision. Grandfather's family compound was enclosed by a brick wall. Next to the wrought iron front gate was a bronze plaque inscribed with the Chinese characters "Ping Lou," the Residence of Wong Sai Ping. There were two wells; both were badly polluted, good enough only for washing and cleaning, but I remember lowering watermelons in wicker baskets into those wells to cool in the summer. Buckets of water for cooking and drinking had to be brought in daily by the water boy.

All day long, peddlers selling chickens, ducks, and produce came to the door. The cobbler, the cane worker, and other service men also made their rounds. I have special fond memories of the young country girl coming by to sell silkworms and mulberry leaves to us children. A flower girl came on her regular rounds to supply the house with freshly picked flowers for the altar table that honored our ancestors and guardian spirits. Each morning at the appointed time, an elderly woman came to brush and comb Second Grandmother's hair, which was fashioned into an elaborate bun at the nape of her neck. The house hummed with activities and the running and chasing of grandchildren. Thus I spent three blissful years under the doting care of my grandmother in a house that was full of love and fun.

MY STEPMOTHER

Father remarried when I was five--three years after the death of my mother. I have only vague recollections of the events of that day. It was a very large and elaborate affair. Several gentlemen wearing red ribbons on their lapels stood on an elevated platform at the front of a very large hall and officiated at the ceremony. My stepmother, wearing a white dress with a long, long train, walked down the aisle ever so slowly to the tune of Mendelssohn's Wedding March. I was told to hold my head down and not look up all through the exchange of vows, in compliance with the Chinese superstition that to do so would jeopardize the union. I thought it took forever. I remember vividly how my neck ached!

This momentous event brought to an abrupt end my carefree life under the doting supervision of my grandmother. I was made to understand that henceforth I was to obey my new mother, whom I was to call Mama, to the letter. There were to be daily lessons of learning Chinese characters written on papers with two-inch squares, and there were tasks I was expected to perform. What a rude awakening!

Grandmother had been very lenient because I had no mother. I had had the run of her part of the house and the domestics. I got up when I chose and ate whatever and whenever I pleased. To this day, I remember the tantrums I threw to get my way. In retrospect, I must have been quite a spoiled brat.

Wisely my father moved his family, his new bride, and his five-year-old daughter to Hong Kong to start a new life, away from the internal and domestic politics of coping with two mothers, two brothers with wives and children, and an unmarried sister and brother who still lived at the family compound. Without any sympathetic allies to turn to, slowly, bit by bit, I went through the painful process of becoming a child of decorum and discipline.

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It would be less than honest to say that life with my stepmother was without friction or conflict. Indeed, there were many times I wished things were different and circumstances could be changed.

I can still recall one particular incident that clearly illustrated my frustration and jealousy. It happened very shortly after my sister Helen was born. Mama was nursing, and every night she would pull the baby's crib next to the bed where she and my father slept. One evening I simply pulled my bed next to my parents', leaving Helen's by the wall. Mine was allowed to stay. Mama had gotten the message!

With the passing of years, I learned to accept Mama's authority and the steady increase of the size of the family. Many horror stories have been told in children's storybooks about the cruelty of stepmothers. I had the good fortune to have one who accepted me as one of her own, without reservation. Suffice it to say, I owe Mama an immense debt of gratitude for all that she did for me.

THE WAR YEARS: 1937-1945

My formative years, spent in Hong Kong and Shanghai, were fraught with hardships, deprivations, and longings, though never with utter despair. The Sino-Japanese conflict broke out on July 7, 1937, and in rapid succession all of the coastal provinces fell to the Japanese.

We stayed in Hong Kong until 1939, besieged by all of Father's siblings and their offspring who had crowded into our small flat in Wanchai. On Mama's side, we had her aunt, whom we called Po-Po, and Cousin Ah-Lian, who was a year older than me. I was too young to fully understand Mama's frustration at having to feed more than twenty people three times a day, with no one willing to pitch in to help with the work. Half of the twenty ranged in age from infancy to teens, meaning that there was always someone crying, fighting, or chasing around the house. To make matters worse, there was always a game of mah-jongg in progress, with the inevitable clatter of the tiles all day long and incessant chatter. Friends would come, hoping to find enough people to start a second table, and perhaps hoping to be asked to stay for dinner! Father was seldom around. I believe he escaped to his village brothers' store down in Hong Kong's Central District to read the paper and discuss war news away from the noise and confusion at home. To this day, I have never found out how Father supported all of us during those two years in Hong Kong.

My parents quarreled bitterly. Life was simply too hard for Mama. In fact, she moved out to the beautiful Repulse Bay Hotel for a week by herself! Father and I visited her there. After a lovely dinner on the veranda, Mama finally gave in and agreed to move back. I thought the hotel was wonderful, and secretly wished she would stay longer so I could go there again. Mama was very frugal. This little episode represented a tremendous protest at the shabby way she had been treated by the Wongs.

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Shortly after this trial separation, Father booked passage for us on a boat to Shanghai, leaving the Hong Kong flat for those who wanted to stay and were willing to pay the rent. My own grandmother did not want to go to Shanghai but returned to Taishan, her own village and ancestral home. Her refusal gave my father an opportunity to insist that no one except his wife and children could go with him to Shanghai.

Upon our arrival in Shanghai, Father rented part of a house on Seymour Road in the International Settlement, where tens of thousands of Chinese with financial means had already sought refuge. The house was located in a clean upper-middle-class neighborhood, not far from a Cantonese school. The Japanese had occupied the Chinese city of Shanghai and all the surrounding areas across the Huangpu River, except for the French Concession (controlled by the French) and the International Settlement (controlled by the British). These areas were little oases where trade with other countries could be conducted as usual under their protection, and where life was almost normal for all the foreign French, British, White Russian, and Jewish expatriates. There were horse races at the racetracks, foreign movies at all the theaters, tea dances at the country clubs, and evening dances at luxurious nightclubs. The lifestyle of the rich and privileged remained untouched for the expats and rich Chinese merchants there.

Father got a job with an export firm owned and managed by an old friend from his years in America. Once more, with the reduction in size of our family and, consequently, our expenditures, we regained certain stability and harmony. Mama was in a much better mood because she was in control. Alas, her happiness was short-lived. Only a year after we arrived in Shanghai, Po-Po and Ah-Lian made their own way to Shanghai and landed on our doorstep. It was ironic that Mama's revolt had succeeded in ridding her of dependents from Father's side of the family, but not her own. Po-Po lived with us until she died of tuberculosis in 1946, and Ah-Lian until she married in the fifties.

The Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, dealt a devastating blow to our family's well-being. Overnight Father lost his job when the export company ceased to exist, and there was no foodstuff available to feed a growing family. We were not alone, of course. Everyone was in the same fix. All foreigners were rounded up by the Security Bureau for registration and were required to wear armbands identifying them as citizens of hostile nations. Shortly thereafter they were incarcerated in camps until the end of the war. All Chinese families were also required to register and provide the name, age, and sex of each person in the household. That was all the Japanese could do. There were simply too many Chinese to be rounded up. All stores closed. Nothing in the way of fresh produce, staples, or daily necessities could be bought anywhere. Japanese soldiers marched up and down the streets in formation to place a stranglehold on the concessions. The Shanghai Jewish School across the street from our house was immediately expropriated and turned into a Japanese military headquarter. This upset Mama terribly, for it meant she felt unsafe letting me go out of the house alone.

The worst was yet to come. After several days of sporadic gunfire and gripping fear, the city finally calmed down to face reality. The Japanese reopened the bridge across the Huangpu River to allow farmers to bring fresh produce to the neighborhood markets, but alas, at much higher prices. On the surface, the International Settlement gradually took on a limited normalcy. Small shops, one after another, opened again, but with limited supplies. Rice was much more tightly controlled due to severe shortage. One could no longer telephone the grain store to have a one-hundred-kilogram bag of rice delivered. In fact, all rice stores were closed for business. I imagine that whatever supply existed had been stashed away by the owners for themselves!

As an interim solution to the rice crisis, the Japanese set up several rice distribution centers scattered throughout the International Settlement and the French Concession. Lines of people would form on the street at these outlets as early as three o'clock in the morning, waiting for the center to open at eight o'clock, for a "dou" (a Chinese measure of grain, equivalent to a metric dekaliter) of rice at the official price.

Mama had too many young ones at home to wait in these lines. The job of providing the family with rice fell to Po-Po, Ah-Lian, and me. As early as four in the morning, the three of us would march off into the dark, clutching some day-old bread to be eaten later. The pillowcases we tied around our necks to ward off the bitter winter cold would be used to receive the rice. Sometimes it was nearly impossible to find the end of the line because it literally extended for blocks in the dark. Young toughs constantly pushed and shoved, trying to break up the line and cut in during the mass confusion. Periodically there would be loud screams and curses echoing through the thin morning air, the likes of which I had not heard before and have not heard since. I was too young (twelve years old) to be allowed in line, so every time the patrolman came around to check, Po-Po would lift me off the ground to make me look taller and thus escape his attention. The line was tightly packed. It took only a little effort to get me off the ground and I would be wedged up higher!

With luck, the three of us would each get to buy one "dou" of rice around noon, but only after our fingers (one assigned for each day of the week) were dipped in indelible purple dye. Theoretically, the dye would disqualify someone from lining up for a second time in the same day. We overcame this deterrent by dipping the marked finger in liquid bleach and rubbing it against an oiled stone so that we could line up again, as long as supplies lasted.

As the war dragged on, lining up for daily necessities became a way of life. After school, on our way home, we would always see if there were lines anywhere near the marketplace. The policy was always to get in line first, then find out what everyone was lining up for! I always had some money pinned to the pocket of my underwear. We could always use more soap, matches, sugar, flour, candles, or toilet paper. Even after rationing came into effect and each household was given coupons for these supplies, there was never any guarantee that goods would be available for purchase.

As the rice supply was exhausted, people resorted to substitutes such as black-eyed peas, crushed whole wheat kernels, potatoes, yams, com meal, millet, dried fava beans, and soybeans--in short, whatever was available in the market. Every household tried to invent ways to cook these supplements to make them palatable. Many ridiculous and hilarious stories made the rounds and would have been funny if we had not been quite so hungry. Keeping everyone's tummy filled became an all-consuming affair. Finding a substitute for rice that would be non-flatulent was impossible. Looking back on those times, I must say that some of these offerings were hard to accept. Mama ruled her brood with an iron fist lest our behavior reflect a lack of proper upbringing. If the rice substitute tasted abominable, we could only suffer in silence and hunger. Declining of seconds was tolerated, but never a sly remark--and we could think of many. To this day, I would much rather go hungry than face a bowl of boiled black-eyed peas, a main part of our diet for almost two years during the occupation.

Indeed, we witnessed much starvation and begging on the streets going to and from school, and on many cold winter mornings there were frozen corpses in doorways, under old newspapers, and on straw mats, awaiting the arrival of the daily collection wagon.

In spite of the food shortage in Shanghai, our family somehow managed. During these years, Father regularly sent home money to Grandmother in Taishan. Father's older brother, my number one uncle, had moved back to the village as well with his wife and children. Since Grandmother was illiterate and the raging war had made written communication well nigh impossible, all we could do was pray that she had received the money that Father sent. We did not learn of Grandmother's passing from malnutrition and starvation until after the Japanese surrender in 1945. We were spared the agony of knowing that Grandmother had denied herself food so that her grandchildren could have more. Many years were to elapse before I learned that Number One Uncle's wife had removed Grandmother's gold teeth when the body was not even cold. Would Grandmother have objected? What cruelty and suffering war inflicts upon us, one and all!

A cutback on electricity usage was strictly enforced. Not only were heavy fines imposed for any excess, but the ultimate threat of cut-off was always imminent. The amount allotted to us was only half the minimum needed for studying at night. We had to use little homemade oil lamps for the second half of the month after our quota was exhausted. Naturally, fuel supply was always a constant source of concern. The briquettes we used to buy were no longer available. Only coal dust mixed with a high percentage of clay was available through rations, and this had to be mixed with water and squeezed into little balls to air-dry for use in the stove. On some winter mornings the water in the washbasin froze. There was no indoor heating of any kind except from our own bodies. Flow we suffered from frostbite on our hands and feet every winter!

Father was without a job all those years. Fie was against the puppet government of Wang Jing wei and considered him to be a treacherous traitor. Some of Father's friends eventually found civil service jobs with the local government, but he wanted no part of it. Mama supported him fully in his conviction. One's honor must never be compromised. She economized and made do with what we had.

Both Mama and my mother had many gold necklaces and pearl, jade, and diamond jewelry, along with lots of gold coins. Bit by bit, Father would take them to the gold shop to sell for the value of the gold in them. Mama insisted that hers be the first to go. She felt very bad when finally we were forced to liquidate my mother's jewelry after all of hers was gone. By the time the war ended, we had virtually no precious metal left that could be readily converted into cash. All the diamonds had been sold long before; only a few pieces of loose jade and pearls remained, minus their settings.

Mama was a good seamstress and she taught me how to sew and embroider. I proved to be a quick learner and soon Mama was taking in sewing to help pay the bills. She would cut the first garment, be it a dress or a shirt, and I would do all the repeats. All the seams not subject to scrutiny would be done by me. She would set the collars and cuffs. Every summer we re-knit and recombined old sweaters into new ones. Old silk stockings with holes in the heels would be unraveled and the silk rerolled by hand into stronger, coarser thread used to stitch the soles of our cloth shoes. As we sat side by side and sewed late into the night, Mama shared with me her worries about our survival. Through working so closely, we formed a bond that was to last long after Mamas death. I made up my mind then that I must study hard to qualify for a high-paying job so that I could help Mama raise the family.

The bombing of Shanghai by the Allied Forces in the spring of 1945 signaled the beginning of an end to the conflict. Air raid sirens would go off with increasing frequency. Under cover of darkness we would sneak up to the rooftop to see where the bombing was taking place. What trust we placed in the American bomber pilots to destroy only military targets and not houses we lived in! Martial law and curfew were strictly enforced. There was to be a blackout at night once the air raid siren was sounded. Studying under the feeble, flickering light from homemade oil lamps was very difficult and risky. We were instructed by our neighborhood safety committee to paste newspaper strips one-and-ahalf inches wide on all our windows in a latticework pattern to prevent injury from flying glass. How innocent we were and how fortunate that we did not have to put these strips to the test.

The unconditional surrender of Japan after the bombing of Hiroshima came as the most welcome news. We learned of it through Fathers former boss and friends who had access to a shortwave radio. The streets were full of celebrants screaming, laughing, and dancing. We were free and victorious at last. The sentry guarding the military headquarters across the street at the school retreated inside. Since we Chinese possessed no weapons of any kind, storming the school was out of the question. Mama brought out the "emergency" rice we stored in gunnysacks under the bed and we had a feast of just plain rice with soy sauce until we almost burst. Victory was heady stuff. China would henceforth be ranked among the powerful and triumphant nations. How could we imagine that the wartime truce between Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists was about to be broken and that China would once more be plunged into another painful revolution?

THE CHENS

Several months after we arrived at Shanghai by boat, I was enrolled in the fifth grade at the Canton School for the 1940 fall semester. The school was established to teach Cantonese children in their native tongue. The Shanghai dialect is very different from Cantonese, and I would have had a dreadful time of it if I had been placed in a local school when I arrived. Since no midterm admission was allowed and I had not completed the entire fifth grade year in Hong Kong, I had to repeat fifth grade in Shanghai, as was the practice at the time. I was assigned a seat next to Barbara, who was to become my best friend and later my sister-in-law, when Clem and I were married in 1955.

In sixth grade Barbara and I decided to sit together again, but that arrangement did not last. The boys were naughty and talked during class. To solve this problem, we were separated and assigned boys as seatmates. Barbara got a boy who had chronic sniffles and a runny nose. He also had a habit of removing his tennis shoes on hot days after playing on the athletic field at recess! I got Barbara's older brother Clem as my seatmate. I was the lucky one.

Clem had been stricken with scarlet fever the previous school year and spent most of that time in the hospital. As a result, he was made to repeat the sixth grade and ended up in our class. The teacher was right! This arrangement did cure Clem's problem of talking to his friends in class, but I was sorry not to have Barbara as my seatmate.

I was twelve then, just coming into puberty. Deciding on how to behave with a male seatmate was a matter about which I had mixed feelings! He was a handsome boy with a radiant smile, tall and slender for his age, with his hair perfectly combed. He was the only one in our class who came to school wearing a white dress shirt, a necktie, a tailor-made dark green blazer with our school insignia embroidered on the breast pocket, and well-pressed slacks. He also sported a white handkerchief and polished English leather shoes. What a contrast he was to the other boys in their dirty tennis shoes and rumpled clothes. At twelve, he was already well-read and well-spoken and ever ready for a good debate on any subject with confidence and persuasion. In spite of his naughty ways, he was also the teacher's pet.

Barbara's aunt, Madame Ng-Chen, had been the vice-principal and chief administrator for the school since its inception. She was a kind and capable woman in her sixties. I was fortunate to have the vice-principal's niece as my best friend. For example, on hot summer days when all the students had to line up during recess at the drinking water barrel, Barbara would go into her aunt's office, pour herself a cup of water from the thermos, and come out to share it with me!

After the Pearl Harbor attack, when my family's financial resources were at an all-time low, I confided my worries to Barbara about the possibility of quitting school altogether, as Father could no longer afford to pay tuition for Helen and me. I was hoping to apply to the citywide scholarship program. If successful, I would be able to continue. At the end of sixth grade, in June 1942, I came in first in my class and was awarded a full scholarship for the following year. I applied for the citywide program anyway and was again given a full scholarship. With Madame Ng-Chen's blessing, both Helen and I were back in school the following year with the two scholarships credited to our tuition. This arrangement continued until I graduated from Canton Junior High, giving Helen a chance to attend school for three years for free.

Barbara's family lived in the French Concession. Her father had been a marine executive with the British Shell Oil Company for twenty-two years and was in charge of all the tankers and barges that sailed the China coast and the Yangtze River. In my mind, they were very rich! How envious I was of her good fortune to be so pretty, to be able to take piano lessons, and to have her very own roller skates and bicycle. Every Saturday her father took all the children to the movies. On school days, their amah brought the children's hot lunch to school in a set of containers wrapped in a cotton-padded cozy. Once a year her mother hired a live-in seamstress so the family's clothes could be custom-made. Whenever I visited Barbara during vacation, her mother would invite me to stay for dinner. I always declined. How could I explain to her that I was expected home in time to cook the family dinner? Barbara had no domestic duties to perform. In fact, the kitchen was off-limits. She was expected to do her homework or practice the piano after her afternoon snack of English tea biscuits and milk. What a different lifestyle from mine! In spite of the differences, we were the best of friends.

One day Barbara told me her family was planning a picnic at Zhoufeng Park and invited me to come along. She said it would be a lot of fun. Little did she know that her invitation would cause me so much anxiety. First of all, I would have to watch for an auspicious moment to bring up the subject at the dinner table and pray for an affirmative answer. I knew Mama was a proud woman and would not accept any favor she could not reciprocate. Then, I dreaded the prospect that I would have to take Helen, or worse yet, that the answer would be an irrevocable "no." Mama had been overwhelmed with all the chores of raising a large family under very trying circumstances. As a result, I could go to visit Barbara or some other schoolmate only if I took Helen along and returned in time to start supper.

I finally gathered enough courage to broach the subject. Much to my surprise, Mama counter-proposed. She said that she would take all of our family on a picnic on the same day to the same park. How could I not agree? Right away, my heart sank to the bottom of my feet. I could visualize all the paraphernalia we would have to take along: baby bottles, diapers, blankets, toys, not to mention the food and drinks for all of us kids. I would have to watch over the little ones and take them to the bathroom just when I would like to join Barbara's family in some game. If I had not learned to swallow my disappointments through the many years of living with Mama, I surely would have cried bitter tears and perhaps even thrown a tantrum.

My delay in answering Barbara's invitation must have given Clem a lot of concern. He was warm and caring. I can just imagine how he must have worried about me. Soon after, I found a note in my desk saying he hoped I could go to the picnic, signed, "With love, Clem." With the note he enclosed a $20 bill. Looking back, it must have represented his entire month's allowance. I was so touched that I almost burst into tears, but I could not accept. I was too ashamed of my desperate straits. I think he understood, but wished there was something he could do. After that episode, he tried again to give me money on several occasions but I had to refuse. My pride simply would not allow it. In retrospect, I suppose that was how Clem came to fall in love with this poor helpless little girl, and I with this wonderful boy who cared for me in his tender way.

The day of the picnic finally came. Mama kept her word. We took the electric trolley to the park, bringing with us homemade bread and jam, drinks, candies, baby bottles, diapers, and toy buckets and shovels. All the little ones had a fun afternoon. I only had time to go over to Barbara's family picnic table to say hello, with Helen and my brother Paul along as my inseparable shadows.

Clem came to our house several times to call on me after that picnic. I was always away, lining up for rice or other rationed necessities, but he would stay and chat with Mama, hoping I would be home soon. Mama was impressed with his poise and manners. She said to me afterward, though a bit grudgingly, that he was a go-getter and would go far someday.

With the end of the war and our graduation from Canton Junior High in the summer of 1945, the three of us went our separate ways. Clem was admitted to St. John's Middle School and Barbara to Zhong-Xi Middle School for Girls, both being elite institutions for the sons and daughters of the privileged families of Shanghai. For Clem it meant graduation with honors from St. John's three years later and a scholarship to attend the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee. For Barbara it was an education at the very best finishing school, a busy schedule of dance lessons and parties, fitting sessions at the dressmaker's, being crowned the Queen of St. John's University, being chauffeured to school in her beau's private limo, and an early marriage at twenty-one. I was admitted to Jiaotung Middle School, an accredited school of mediocre standing, where I received a full scholarship awarded on achievements and need. Once again, Madame Ng-Chen had lent me a helping hand. I could only go to a school that cost nothing. I was determined that somehow I, too, must get an education, and some day, make something of myself. My life was still full of uncertainties. Father was still unemployed despite the cessation of war. Including Po-Po and Ah Lian, there were ten in our household to be fed and clothed, seven of whom still had to be raised and educated.

CROSSING THE PACIFIC

January 3, 1947, is a day etched in my mind as the turning point of my life. I left behind my family, a stepmother and five children aged three to eleven, to start a new life of my own in the country of my birth. I was very glad that Father was granted a six-month visitor's visa so that he could make the journey with me.

The S.S. General Gordon of the American President Lines had been converted from a passenger ship to a troop transport during World War II. It was spartan and battleship grey throughout. It made no stop at either Japan or Hawaii to pick up freight or passengers, thus making the shortest and fastest trip possible (twenty days). The tariff was U.S. $150 per person.

There were eighteen of us girls, all from Shanghai, assigned to a compartment that was designed to hold thirty-two soldiers. We had steerage accommodations, the most economical class. As there were bunks to spare, we were able to make ourselves quite comfortable. Most of the girls were going to America to attend college or to do postgraduate studies. I was the youngest at seventeen and not yet out of high school.

The sea was rough throughout most of the voyage, especially when we encountered dreadful storms as the ship passed near Japan. Only a few of us were spared seasickness. During the entire twenty days at sea, all of our luggage had to be lashed to the bedposts to keep from sliding on the floor.

Steerage passengers were segregated by sex: women and children at the bow and men at the stern. In the next compartment were war brides, older women, and children who had boarded at Hong Kong, many of them from villages near Canton. They were coming to America under a law passed by Congress after the War, which allowed wives and children of Chinese Americans to enter as "non-quota immigrants." Until 1946, the quota for Chinese entrants was set for only 105 per year, with no eligibility for citizenship. What a lively lot! All day long they chattered incessantly with great enthusiasm and animation. For days on end, the women plucked their eyebrows and stripped their facial fuzz with twisted thread so as to look their best when they met their loved ones. The children were always running around in a game of chase, which added to the general hubbub and confusion.

As steerage class passengers, we had the run of the bottom level of the ship. We were the ones nearest the engine, with its heat and constant noise and vibration. Fortunately it was winter. While the air was always very stuffy and smelled of paint, it was not unbearable. Only a small open deck above us was designated for our use. A modest canteen opened daily for several hours for cigarettes, chocolate bars, crackers, and chips. The rest of the ship--the staterooms, the deck furnished with deck chairs, the dining room--was strictly off-limits.

Three meals a day were served cafeteria-style on steel army trays in the mess hall. Food was always plentiful. We took food back for our cabinmates who were too sick to come out. Those of us who cared enough to bring back food were always much appreciated. Generally, though, those suffering seasickness preferred to go hungry. There was a great feeling of esprit de corps among us girls.

During the day we were allowed to visit the men's section at the stern. Those men were also a noisy bunch. Some played mah-jongg and cards. Some read quietly. Some just dozed, too sick to be up and about.

Those were memorable days. Every experience was new and exciting. Every other day or so, we were advised through the ship's loudspeaker to adjust our watches, as the meals would be served according to the new time. The advantage of that, of course, was the absence of "jet lag" of modern-day air travel. I wrote volumes in my diary, letters to my best friends back home to be mailed as soon as I landed, and letters to Mama assuring her of my intention to remember her parting words of advice: to work hard to make something of myself, and to be an honorable person worthy of her upbringing.

I was very glad that Father could make the journey with me. Perhaps the U.S. government would even give him an extension since I was a citizen and a minor with no means of support. Time would tell. During the voyage at least, he was less than a ship's length away and we always took our meals together. I had not felt this close to him since he remarried, nor thought it was possible. For now, there would be just the two of us, though the time of my making it alone was but days away.

THE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE

And so the ship sailed on, each day bringing us closer to the Land of Opportunity. My heart ached with anxiety and anticipation as my new life ahead drew nearer. The night before the ship was scheduled to dock in San Francisco, a small patrol boat pulled alongside the S.S. General Gordon. A party of U.S. Immigration Service officials boarded to start the processing of entry formalities. Father had hoped that my future host and godfather, a Mr. Chauncey Chew, interpreter for the Immigration Service, would be in the boarding party, but we were sadly disappointed. Another interpreter informed father that Mr. Chew was no longer with the Service.

Father's visitor's visa was in proper order and was processed without difficulty. He was to be allowed to disembark as soon as the ship docked the next day. All those holding immigrant visas were not so lucky. While the legal rights of those seeking this form of entry had been established, proving one's identity, kinship, and marriage contract authenticity remained to be scrutinized at the port of entry. It was routine in this period after the War for these passengers to go to detention to be interviewed and interrogated at length at a later date. At the same time, their sponsors would have to appear for separate questioning as well. The examiner held total discretionary power to grant or reject right of admission, pending his determination of potential fraud. Alas, as a returning native-born citizen of Chinese descent, even though holding a U.S. passport, I also fell into this classification. There was no way I could prove to the examiner that I, now a young woman of seventeen, was the very same June Wong, less than two years old, who left the Port of San Francisco on April 14, 1931, with her mother, since deceased.

Not even the glorious sight of the Golden Gate Bridge or the sparkling San Francisco skyline could lift my spirit of gloom and doom. Father had told us children in years past about his detention on Angel Island in 1915--the numerous interrogation sessions and the diary in which he kept a record of all the questions he was asked and his answers, to be sure his replies were always consistent. The thought of that scenario struck fear in my heart. Would I have to live a long time on Angel Island, too? How could I ever prove I was not an impostor using someone else's birth record and departure document to seek my fortune on Gold Mountain? A Chinese family would hock the family jewels to send a son to America, but not a daughter. I had hoped that that fact alone would lend credence to my case. I prayed my stay on Angel Island would be brief.

Once Father disembarked, having promised to have Mr. Chew look up his former colleague to expedite my case, I broke down and cried. All my cabinmates who had come to study on student visas were packed and ready to leave. I promised I would write, but I did not know what was to become of me. There was no definite plan as yet. There was no address I could give. I only knew that I was to remain in detention.

Dusk finally arrived. The war brides, the immigrant families, and the rest of us detainees were taken off the ship and herded into paddy wagons, along with our possessions. As it turned out, we were taken to the uppermost floor of the Immigration Building on Sansome Street, right in the heart of downtown San Francisco. The notorious Angel Island Detention Center had long since been closed and abandoned.

Here again, we were segregated by sex. Women kept the young children with them. We were led to a series of rooms with cots, much like a hospital ward except for the iron bars on the windows. My fellow detainees, having been housed together aboard the ship, calmly accepted their fate at hand as a group. They milled about noisily trying to determine who was to settle where. In self-defense, I grabbed a bed next to a wall where I could be alone. I had no desire to join the mass confusion. The evening meal was served cafeteria-style. I have no recollection of what was offered. It was probably much like the food on shipboard--overcooked and tasteless according to my Chinese palate. Since I was the only stranger, the women wanted to know why I was detained. I was somehow different and too young to be a war bride. When I told them my case would come up as early as the next day because my father knew someone at the Immigration Office, they snickered. One of them advised me not to get my hopes up but to settle in for a long stay. In retrospect, I probably delivered my message in a manner lacking in modesty. Wisely, I dropped the subject and retired early. It was useless. Besides, they might be right.

A motherly matron arrived early the next morning to rouse everyone out of bed. We were given dormitory cleanup regulations, a time schedule for meals, and instructions to be ready for examination calls after breakfast. No one knew how the calls would be scheduled. If we were called by alphabetical order, then indeed it would be days before my turn.

The matron started calling people shortly after breakfast. To my surprise, my turn came very shortly. I was taken to a small cubicle. The examiner, the same man who had questioned me on the ship, asked me to be seated. In front of him was my case file. After checking my passport and picture and asking my name, he turned to review the notation on the form he had prepared the previous day. As he opened the folder I saw an old immigration form, yellow with age, which had my baby picture affixed in the upper corner. I could see it was my departure record that had been filed with the San Francisco Immigration Office. He studied the picture carefully, stared at my face, then motioned me to tuck my hair behind my ears. Again he examined both sides of my face. He asked no questions. Then I saw a slight smile and a nod. He signed off on my passport and told me I could go.

What a relief that was! In my halting English I asked him how he knew. He showed me my baby picture and pointed to the different shapes of my two ears. Then he touched my ears and smiled. "You are the same girl," he said.

Mr. Chew had come through. He and my father were waiting for me down at the lobby. I was now free and a bona fide U.S. citizen, having just passed the ultimate identity test.

MY GODPARENTS

Chauncey and Rose Chew were a childless couple. Back in the twenties and thirties, they ran a small coffee shop next door to my fathers pawn and watch repair shop in Stockton's Chinatown. They became very good friends with my parents and, as a result, I was considered their godchild when I was born. My godfather, Chauncey, spoke English and many dialects of the Guangdong province of China. He was called upon from time to time to interpret for both the San Joaquin County courts and the Immigration Service in San Francisco. This special language facility provided the Chews with a substantial supplementary income and in many ways rendered an invaluable service to the Chinese community. Immigration laws were very restrictive and anti-Asian at the time. Many Chinese had entered the United States under assumed names. Even more tried to bring their own offspring into the country under false claims. A friendly and experienced interpreter could make the difference between success or failure.

My father entered the United States as the true son of his Uncle Sai Jick after spending more than two months on Angel Island, where he was subjected to interrogation sessions. Fortunately he had intimate knowledge of Uncle Sai Jick's house, wife, and relatives. Hard as they tried, Immigration officials failed to shake his testimony. My father never really mastered the English language, though he could function passably in the environment of his time. Chauncey's ability to work as an interpreter perhaps influenced my father's decision to have me live with the Chews.

We lost contact with the Chews during the World War II years, but through mutual friends in Stockton my father was able to correspond with Chauncey again after the War, when he was looking for ways to send me back to the States to go to school. Chauncey was absolutely delighted at the prospect and wrote to my father, offering to take me in as his daughter and to educate me. This seemed like a godsend to Father. To begin with, it was out of the question for him to send me to school. There were five children at home, ranging in age from two to ten, when the Japanese surrendered in 1945. Whatever resources were at his disposal at the time had to be reserved for the growing brood at home. The fact that the Chews were Chinese and old friends meant that the change for me would be less traumatic. It was that much better that they were childless.

I was indeed given a very warm and special welcome. The Chews lived in an old wood-frame house only two blocks or so from Stockton's Chinatown, where everything in the way of daily necessities could be obtained. This was fortunate because Rose, my godmother, spoke little English and did not drive. An older Chinese man whom I was told to call Uncle Liu lived with them as Chauncey's driver and assistant. After depositing me at the Chews my father left for Fresno, where he was promised a clerking job at a Chinese grocery store owned by one of his village brothers. The going rate at that time was $200 per month plus a room above the store and three meals a day on the premises.

It was a good arrangement. Father had never learned to cook during his years in China. Though his salary was not going to be enough to support a wife and five kids in Shanghai, however clever my stepmother might be at stretching the dollar, it was an auspicious beginning for our lives in America.

The change from living with young kids at home to living with three quiet adults was a shock. In Shanghai we had to get up early in the morning, school or no school, and be fully dressed for the day. It was a regimented life with order and discipline. No matter how gloomy our future might seem, living from hand to mouth every day, there was always one day when the Japanese would be defeated and gone and we would be in control again. There was always that ray of hope and dignity that Mama held out for us.

In contrast, my existence at the Chews was a nocturnal one. Chauncey ran an illegal Chinese gambling house named "Da Fa Tsai," or "Great Fortune," on the edge of Stockton's Chinatown.

Stockton was a major farming town. All the harvesting of asparagus, celery, strawberries, cherries, peaches, and pears was done exclusively by Filipino men. Few had families with them in this country. Between harvests of the various crops there would be periods of rest and gaming in the Chinatown houses.

Chauncey's work day would begin after early supper. With a hand gun stuffed into the holster strapped under his arm (just like in the TV series "The Untouchables"), he would be driven to work by Uncle Liu, the distance of three city blocks. Despite my years spent under Japanese occupation in Shanghai, I never had occasion to come into contact with a real gun, and it surprised me that Chauncey's weighed so much. From their conversation around the dinner table, I could gather that Uncle Liu was the official drawer or selector of the winning numbers or characters of the games of pai gow, fan-tan, or pigeon bill. The mood of the house for the day depended greatly on the house take of the previous night, or whether threat of a police raid was imminent.

In all fairness to my father, I do not believe he knew anything about Chauncey's new unsavory business. I was never allowed to visit the gambling house.

With Mama's parting advice still ringing in my ears, I tried my best to be useful. I told Rose I was good at washing, ironing, and all kinds of housework since I had helped my stepmother raise five children through the War without domestic servants. I tried hard to be helpful and cheerful in ways that I thought would make me a welcome addition to the family circle, but I failed miserably. Rose did not possess a sunny disposition. In retrospect, perhaps my intrusion into her life was the cause of her irritation. In any event, there were days when she would literally not utter a word. She was a gambler and a superstitious one. Any unusual happening, be it a hiccup or an eye tic, was considered an omen for putting in a bet. Unfortunately all the little signs brought on by my presence did not bring her good fortune.

When I first arrived at the Chews', the little suitcase I had brought from China contained only the very barest daily necessities: two sets of underwear, a re-knitted sweater made from old yarn unraveled from two no-longer-serviceable sweaters, one cotton-padded long gown with two washable over-dresses to keep the gown from soil, and two brand new silk cheong-sams that Mama made for me. In fact, I did not know that one needed to change into pajamas before going to bed! After surveying the contents of my suitcase, Chauncey had promptly made a list of articles of clothing he wanted Rose to buy for me: skirts and blouses, an overcoat, and of course, two sets of pajamas. His solicitude for my welfare, however, did not work in my favor relative to my standing with Rose. Up until then she had been Chauncey's one and only. As a result, in Rose's eyes, I was a bad omen from A to Z, not to be tolerated at any cost.

Rose must have been quite pretty when she was young. In her early forties she still had a lovely figure of which she was most proud. Much later I learned that Chauncey had "rescued" her from a house of pleasure in San Francisco. By tradition the Chinese community is a close-knit one. Because of her background Rose was a social outcast, to be kept at arm's length. This partly explained the fact that the Chews seemed to have no friends in the three months that I lived there. There were no books or magazines around the house. Our standard dinner consisted of rice and vegetables, which we cooked, and some pre-cooked meat dishes from the Chinatown deli. Ice cream was the standard dessert.

I was deeply troubled. Much to my disappointment, I discovered that both Chauncey and Uncle Liu were opium addicts. Chauncey had to avoid outside contact during the day for fear of detection. His private office was always closed, blinds tightly drawn. He and Uncle Liu would spend hours smoking in that room while the entire house was kept quiet. Nothing ever happened. Thus days would go by and I felt utterly trapped. America was not what I had envisioned. I was making no progress in learning English. In fact, after three months of living with the Chews I had yet to venture beyond Chinatown.

THE ALTERNATIVE

On my very next visit with my father, I told him that I could not continue to live with the Chews. Mr. E. C. Steward, the president and owner of Union Safe Deposit Bank, had previously offered to take me in to live with him and his wife. Mr. Stewart had also been my mother's employer years before. I told my father if they were still interested in having me live with them, I wanted to make the change--the sooner, the better. I had to muster up enough courage to take charge of my own destiny.

I had been deeply impressed by Mr. Stewart's warm sincerity in our first brief meeting a week after my arrival in Stockton. He was elderly, in his late seventies. He reminisced about his relationship with my mother, Sue, looking back to when, as an eighteen-year-old high school graduate, she had visited his bank and begged for a chance to work there. He reminded my father that Sue had been instrumental in bringing to the bank the bulk of the Chinese farmers' accounts and that he would like to repay Sue by helping her daughter. I felt that his offer was one I might need should our arrangement with the Chews prove unworkable.

So it came to pass that three months later, my father and I paid our second visit to the bank. Mr. Stewart was elated at the prospect. He telephoned his wife to inform her that he was bringing home a little Chinese girl who would be coming to live with them. Without further delay, he drove us to his house to call on his wife.

Years later Mrs. Stewart told me that after her husband's phone call, she wanted to tell him that because of recent poor health, she could not under any circumstances consent to undertake the responsibility of raising a teenage girl with all her potential problems. She resented the fact that she was never consulted in private and now his kindness and generosity would become a millstone around her neck.

Mrs. Stewart was childless. The years she had spent raising the three children from Mr. Stewart's first marriage had been difficult and filled with friction. It was through sheer determination and perseverance on her part that their marriage had survived. By 1947, of course, the children were middle-aged and with families of their own. With the passing of years, her relationship with her stepchildren had improved to one of cordial accommodation. Her marriage, however, was one of form rather than substance. Many years before, Mr. Stewart had gone through a costly divorce from his first wife. Now that he had become a successful banker and a respectable citizen of the community, he was determined, in spite of the storms that buffeted their tenuous ties, to endure his second marriage by mutual consent to a life of separate pursuits. It would be far cheaper and he was a true Scot.

Mrs. Stewart met us at the door. She was a buxom lady of impressive stature, fashionably dressed, with hair combed in an upsweep, held in waves by two silver combs. She was heavily made up for a woman of her age (according to my upbringing, anyway) and smelled of sweet perfume. Shaking her hand, I felt the disfigurement from rheumatoid arthritis.

After we settled down in the living room, my father explained that our arrangement with the Chinese couple had not worked out because I was not learning or speaking English in that home environment. While these friends were well-meaning, I was anxious to get on with my studies. Mr. Stewart had been very kind in offering to have me, and my father assured Mrs. Stewart that I would do anything and everything around the home in exchange for my board and room if she would have me.

Until then, I had uttered not a word except a timid "How do you do?" at the front door. I had been frozen speechless by her icy gaze and her polite but cold exchange with my father. I was fearful that my one and only chance in the world to break out of the confines of ignorance and poverty would evaporate with her rejection.

The financial circumstances of our family precluded any possibility of a college education. It would take a stroke of good luck for my father to find a job that paid enough just to support the family at home. To use our money to send me to school would be entirely out of the question. I was relieved that my father had taken charge to speak on my behalf. My spoken English was hesitant at best and my comprehension spotty. I looked nervous and anxious, I am sure, searching Mrs. Stewart's face for any indication of her reaction to this sudden imposition of enormous consequence.

Just at that moment, Mr. Stewart suggested that I go upstairs to see my living quarters. On our way upstairs, Mrs. Stewart put her arm around my waist to ask me my age, only to discover that I was shaking with fright and close to tears. In only a whisper, I informed her that I would be eighteen in two months. She heaved a sigh of relief, for she had guessed I was only thirteen or fourteen because of my diminutive size. Her sympathy went out to this petite, undernourished, homeless young woman, asking to be taken in on any terms she wished. Aside from annoyance at the manner in which this arrangement had been thrust upon her, she felt that somehow I would be different from her three stepchildren.

The Stewarts lived in a large, white, two-story wood-frame house on a busy north-south crosstown thoroughfare. The main floor consisted of a spacious foyer running the length of the house, to the right of which was the library and to the left, the living room. A formal dining room, storage ironing room, kitchen, and large screened-in back porch made up the rest of the ground floor. There were two sets of stairs, one for the master and the mistress from the foyer, and one from the kitchen for the maid. The house had been designed in such a way that in the master's absence, the front portion of the house could be locked up, leaving the maid with the kitchen, her room at the top of the kitchen stairs, and toilet facility at the screened porch. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart occupied separate bedrooms upstairs with a third bedroom reserved for guests.

I was shown the room above the kitchen, which I was to call my very own for the next eight years during my tenure there. It was about 6 feet by 8 feet in size with a small window. It contained a rusty washbasin, a small closet, and a lumpy twin bed. From the looks of it, this room had not been in use for some time.

Thoughts raced through my mind. I had gathered that these two kindly Americans were very frugal people, even though Mr. Stewart was president and owner of a bank. It was obvious that they did not employ live-in domestics, as they would have if they lived in Shanghai. The whole house smelled musty from old carpets and furniture. Given the looks of the furniture in my living quarters and the threadbare carpet on the back stairs, I knew I would be their maid or "school girl," a term my father used and one in current use in the forties.

Back in China, Father had often told us children tales of his years as a farm boy to an American lady while he was a teenager attending school. His duties included watering the vegetables, sweeping, and helping to feed the farm animals, in return for board and room. Time for attending classes was allowed. Studies had to wait until after kitchen chores were done for the day. There was no time off and no days off, per se, since class time had to be taken into consideration. The one task my father dreaded was the slaughter of the chickens and ducks. It was a job he never mastered and always needed help with. Neither was he able to perfect the skill of milking a cow. Knowing my father and his manual dexterity, I could only surmise that his landlady was a loving and forgiving person.

Several considerations made the prospect of becoming a school girl appealing to me. Housework was nothing new.

I had cooked, scrubbed, ironed, and sewed for our large family. During my three months' stay with the Chews I had learned names of fruits, vegetables, and items of clothing from Chauncey, who had tried to carry on conversations with me and taught me names of things at hand. The prospect of becoming a financially independent person through my own efforts and not being a burden to someone else had great appeal. I felt that my relationship with the Stewarts would be far less complex. If I could only please Mrs. Stewart through my hard work, and I could sense that to be almost self-evident, my future would be secure. If I could graduate from high school with good grades, there would definitely be a chance to go to college. The painful task of telling the Chews of my decision must be carried out as soon as possible.

And so it was settled that I would move in with the Stewarts at the end of the week, giving Mrs. Stewart time to prepare my room. My father took me back to the Chews that afternoon, conveying the Stewarts' kindest regards to them for taking such good care of me, and leaving it to me to break the news of my upcoming departure.

ONWARD TO A NEW LIFE

My three-month stay had brought the Chews nothing but misfortune. The gambling den had been raided a couple of times, though these were mere exercises with advance tip-offs and minimal loss. Also, there had been some large winning payouts from the pai gow games, much to Chauncey's distress. Gamblers are superstitious by nature. One large payout occurred on the night I tried to bring three bowls of rice to the table at once, dropping and breaking the bowl carried between my two hands.

I knew leave-taking from the Chews would be very painful indeed. I wished there were some tactful way to make Chauncey understand the true reason for my departure, but none came to mind.

I spent the next three days in sheer agony. Anticipated scenes of acrimonious accusations made my head spin. I debated whether I should make known my impending departure early so that their fury at my ingratitude would be spent by the weekend, thus allowing me a friendly parting. In the end, I came to the conclusion that Rose could never be persuaded to change her opinion of me, regardless of what I did. I was guilty of a crime of enormous dimensions. It saddened me that I had to bid farewell to Chauncey, who had been my kindest benefactor. I knew that I would probably never see him again. I prayed that he would forgive me and my actions, for I did not want to hurt him or Rose after all they had done for me. I despaired at the thought of what I was about to do.

Friday evening finally arrived. We had our dinner as usual, mostly in silence. Our mood had taken its cue from Rose's sullenness. As a general rule, we dared to conduct dinner conversation only when her mood seemed up to it, which was not the case that night. I am afraid that I broached the subject of my decision in the worst possible way. For three days I had rehearsed how I would bring up this painful subject, but in the end it was all in vain. Chauncey was stunned. He mumbled something I did not quite hear. I felt awkward and close to tears. My heart thumped and my head throbbed. Rose sulked in silent anger. As I got up to clear the dinner table, Rose ordered me to go pack on the spot. Chauncey wisely made no remark in response to her command.

I went to my room and shut the door gently behind me. I sat on the edge of my bed, staring into space for what seemed like hours. Tears fell on my lap. I was all alone in the world. I really had nothing much to pack. I had already picked up my room so as to leave no trace of me behind. The loud slamming of a door jolted me out of my trance. Chauncey knocked, then came in to ask if I had arranged for transportation. I told him that Mrs. Stewart had my address and would be by at 11:00 o'clock in the morning. He nodded and softly bade me good night.

I slept fitfully that night and got up at daybreak. Quiet as a mouse, I cleaned up and left our shared bathroom in shipshape condition. I changed my bed, folded the used linen neatly, and closed my Chinese suitcase that now bulged with clothes the Chews had given me.

Chauncey arose early instead of his usual noontime rousing. No one could clean himself with more vigor and gusto. I heard the shower water run, then the loud gargle and the noisy clearing of his nasal passageways. By the time he finished, he had cleaned away all traces of that tell-tale odor from his opium smoking, smelling only of minty mouthwash and fragrant aftershave, and smartly attired in a clean white shirt and well-pressed grey flannel slacks.

Mrs. Stewart arrived on schedule and was met at the door by Chauncey himself, ever so graciously. He expressed regret that he could not keep me. Mrs. Stewart assured him I would be visiting them often. He helped me to the car with my bag, gave me a gentle hug, planted a small kiss on my forehead and bade me, "Be good!" I held back my tears, waving back at him as we drove off. It was the last time I saw that kind gentleman.

June Wong Chen (written in 1990)