A memoir-like account of growing up in Grass Valley’s Chinatown within a large Chinese immigrant family, rich in community life and old-country customs, followed by the 1938 exodus that faded the enclave. Through vignette-driven memories of school, family business, and daily life, it argues that health, family, and happiness trump wealth and grades, critiques the pursuit of prestige, and laments language loss and cultural erosion while stressing the primacy of relationships and well-being.

Full Transcript of the Video:

Usually at me.

Yeah, back when I was growing up, Chinatown was by the post office, Grass Valley post office in this one street, and we were family of six kids.

They were four boys, two girls, and we all grew up in Chinatown.

What was Chinatown like?
Chinatown is all old houses, all real old houses, and as the kids grew up, after Sis got married, we moved down the street, and then there was a Chinese grocery store where we bought Chinese coconut candy and melon candy and stuff like that.

And then most of the single Chinese were vegetable peddlers.

What was your favorite place to go? Where was your favorite place to go in Chinatown?
Well, there's that.

When we were as kids, there was a wolf creek running through alongside a Chinatown, and after school and summer we used to swim in the creek.

We used to build a dam, build rocks across the creek to build a dam, and pretty much most of us had to work.

We never got allowances.

What was your job?
We always worked for our spending money, and then later, well as we grew older, we moved up here to Alpha Street, and Chinatown at one time took in China Street.

And then it went as far as Lincoln, Copac's Avenue, Bank Street, and part of Auburn Street was Chinese.

And Sis got married.

What did you do for your job? You said that you had to work.

You didn't get allowance.

What kind of jobs did you do?
Well, when I was in school, we used to help my brother-in-law in the vegetable route, and he had that until 1938, and then we moved to 323 out there.

What was it like, the vegetable route? Describe the job?
Vegetables are.

We'd just go from house to house, selling vegetables, and my brother-in-law would go in and get the order, and then I'd fill the order, and then take it in and collect the money, and get that for quite a few years.

What kind of families were they?
Pardon?
What kind of families were they mostly? Caucasian?
Yeah, yeah, Caucasians.

Most of the Chinese families lived right there in Chinatown.

There was one or two families away from there, but most of them were right here.

Were people pretty nice?
Yeah.

Well, yeah, the kids, the family in those days were a lot closer than they are today.

They would visit all the time.

And generally on Sundays, there were all the peddlers at home, so I used to go visit them, and they would let them sell like bananas and apples, and the old peddlers would give me the apples and bananas.

And then there was a Chinese peddler with horse and buggy, and at those days, the first one was horse and buggy.

Later on, they bought a truck, a Chevrolet or pickup truck.

Well, there was a lot of fun at those days.

The kids were closer than they are today.

How do you mean?
Yeah.

Like how? Describe.

Yeah, well, they visit more.

What kind of games did you play?
Well, there was a football, there was an acre ground up at the foot of Chinatown, and we used to play football and touch tackles and stuff like that.

It was a lot of time, a long time ago.

Who did you play with?
Mostly Chinese?
Yeah, mostly Chinese and a few Caucasian neighbors around there used to come over and play.

Was there a lot of prejudice during that time?
Well, that time there was a little bit.

Well, we never had any problems ourselves.

I used to sell strawberries in the summertime, and the neighbors were pretty good.

And I picked rhubarb.

My aunt had a rhubarb field in the summertime.

We always kept pretty busy.

We always had fun time, too.

Yeah, tell you about that.

We had little picnics and get-togethers, and those days we'd kind of visit the different families and neighbors.

Not so much today.

Well, the kids got older and started drifting off.

Were you close to your brothers and sisters?
Yeah.

Were you close to your brothers and sisters?
Who'd you get along with best? Who was your best friend?
Well, the best brother.

I can't say now.

He passed on.

Yeah, he was good natured.

There's a lot of kidding around.

The two that I have now are a lot more serious.

We used to, you know, force around like teenagers, too.

Like what?
Well, run around, ride a bicycle, force around.

Oh, come on.

You got in trouble, didn't you?
Yeah, all right.

Well, then he got up back at 40, 41, I guess he went to the service, had some health problems, passed away.

And then, well, we started growing up.

The youngest one went to dental school and ranked with the service.

It stayed in the service for a while.

And then I went to school in Sacramento for a while and came back with the brother-in-law and sister in the store.

In Chinatown, people that owned it sold out in 38, so we all had to start finding another place to live.

So we, the family lived up here.

And it was a duplex, I'd say.

So his sister lived on that half of the house and the rest of the family lived on this site.

And then later, the other sister got married.

She moved to San Francisco.

So, well, childhood time was, you know, it was fun.

And people were more, well, they're more race-sensitive today than they were back then.

If there was, you'd never really notice it.

As far as we were concerned, we got along pretty well.

Why do you think that is? Why do you think there's more race?
Well, I'm more sensitive today about it than back in the days when we were growing up.

There's a little bit of discrimination, but you feel it more today because all the different races are looking for recognition.

So, good.

What do you remember about your parents?
Well, my parents came from China.

And my mother had bound feet, little tiny feet.

Back in China, you know, they were pretty close to where, so they bind their feet so they stay home.

And the insurance was about 16, 17.

She married my dad, and my dad brought her over to this country.

And she always worked, she always had to wash dishes, kneeling on a stool because she couldn't stand.

But she had a lot of old country ways, which was, you know, maybe old fashioned to some, but kept the family together and cooked a lot of good food.

So, and then my aunt lived across the street from us there in Chinatown.

In 38, when we were so Chinatown, most of us moved, cousins moved to San Francisco.

And my dad, he always made his work in half the school.

In the wintertime, all of his boys had to get the kindling for firewood, get some kindling and bring the firewood in for a fireplace.

And we had two old stoves, cooked stoves, never cooked on gas like we do now, wood stove, but made good toast on the top of the wood stove.

And in wintertime, we were all huddled around the one little stove to keep warm.

We heated it with a wood stove, and mom cooked the big old fashioned wood stove in the kitchen.

Did a lot of bacon, and the pies and cake turned out better than they do with the gas stove today.

I think so anyway, a lot tastier.

Crossed a lot browner.

So, we just started to get older and older.

When we left Chinatown, everybody just kind of scattered.

A few families moved to San Francisco, and then a couple of families moved out of Chinatown and another street in Grass Valley.

So you talk about your mother's old ways, the traditional ways.

Describe some of those.

She had a lot of old custom from Chinatown, and she always prayed and burned the Chinese candles and that and all the holidays.

Somebody in the family gets sick, she prays, and that's all brought from the old country.

What else?
Like, Chinese New Year, she always followed it, and the Chinese Christmas, we had two Christmases, had two New Years.

How'd you celebrate New Years and Christmas, Chinese?
Well, we cooked a big meal.

Generally how the cousins and them across the street come over and join us for dinner.

What kind of dishes?
What kind of foods?
All Chinese foods.

Like what?
Roast duck, pigeon, steamed chicken, a lot of fish, and bean cake.

We always had bean cake.

In New Years, she makes the Chinese doughnut, the sweet doughnut, the salty doughnut.

Regular gold, they make with the Chinese cane sugar, and that's yearly custom.

I've never had that, what is it like?
I've never had that dish, what is it like?
Yeah, they call it gold.

It's made from cane sugar, Chinese cane sugar, and they do that every year, Chinese New Year.

So it's like candy?
No, it's not jello, it's like a cake form.

And you have to keep that eight days before you slice it, you know, before to eat it.

What other kinds, were there any sayings or any traditions she would tell you about what did New Years mean in Chinese?
What?
Was there anything that she said about New Years, like New Years means time to start over?
Yeah, well, generally what they have on New Years is they celebrate and they push to pass and they start the New Year.

And then they have a big dinner, good luck and all that, all that, you know, treatures, whatever.

Was there something about brushing, you had to clean the house, get rid of all the bad things, you know, clean up?
Yeah, yeah.

Well, those days you can burn firecrackers, and Mother used to burn firecrackers just before her prayers.

And then that night before we had dinner, it was the same thing.

Now you can't burn firecrackers.

You tell me about, you sold firecrackers, huh?
Well, later on they, you know, snuck around, sold a few against the law.

Where'd you get them?
Huh?
Where'd you get them?
In San Francisco.

Yeah.

Now they, it's against the law to have them now.

So anyway, if we can turn things back, but be nice, you know, we live like we used to.

There's a lot of closeness in those days, people.

Now everybody's striving for success.

They'll have time, take time like the old folks used to do.

They don't visit like you used to do.

Everybody's too busy.

That's the part of growing up.

And, um, well.

How about your dad?
Huh?
How about your father?
My father?
Do you remember him?
Well, yeah.

Yeah.

That's all.

He's kind of quiet, like his older brother, you know.

But, uh, he's always kept busy, you know.

Um, when he stayed off, he always cooked for big pies and cakes for the family.

And, uh, always, like I said, he kept us, always found something for us kids to do.

Which I always sold, I sold strawberries, uh, around the neighborhood.

And then, uh, Christmas cards, Christmas season.

And, uh, Easter cards, Easter season to get my spending money.

And, uh, so it pretty much learned to work.

At what age?
Huh?
How old were you when you started?
Oh, 13, 14.

Yeah.

That's why I get so old now.

Where'd you get the Christmas cards and the Easter cards?
Huh?
Where'd you buy the Easter cards or where'd you get them?
Easter cards?
You make them?
No, no.

They used to have, uh, uh, you get the, the, uh, deal in the, in the paper, in the magazine
and you send for it, uh, a couple of dozen and then you get a percentage of selling the
cards.

Sometimes it's just a couple of dozen to make a dollar, maybe, you know, a harder dollar.

And, uh, Christmas time was pretty good.

You go back to the same customers every year, you know.

Most of the ladies around the neighborhood know what I was doing.

And they always, uh, buy from me.

Same thing with my strawberries every year.

When knocking on the door, they know just, uh, they buy, buy from me right through the,
uh, right through the season when I'm still, you know, going to school and get out or when
I get out of school and I had, uh, summer jobs.

And, uh, you know, in the fall there in November is to pick walnuts out at the ranch all through
that season, which, uh, about eight weeks.

And, uh, so I kept busy.

Would you spend your money on?
Huh?
Would you spend your money on?
Never spent it.

Never spent it.

Those days banked it.

And every year at the end of the, end of December you go to the bank and see how much interest
that was.

That was part of the pleasure of saving the money.

And, uh, folks taught you that, that time you didn't go spending all your money.

Like now you, you know, you earn it, you spend it.

So, well, you know.

What was your favorite, oh, sir, what was your favorite thing to do for fun?
Favorite thing?
Oh, I used to play football, you know, with neighbor kids and, uh, do little fishing in
the creek.

And, uh, those days there were, you know, catfish in that creek, very huge trout.

And, uh, we had the swimming hole that we made, you know.

We dammed up the creek, part of the creek there, so we could go waded.

And, uh, in those days the, uh, we got a lot of rain, a lot of flooding, and the creek
overflows, comes up to the back end of the house, and, uh, it's not like now.

Of course, now the creek is all there.

They got it all cemented on a big wall.

Those days when it overflows, comes up to the back end of your house.

So, in some ways it's nice to grow, grow up.

So you can go fishing right outside your window.

So, that's about it.

No, I'm sure there's more.

You said that you got in trouble a couple of times.

You said you got in trouble a couple of times.

Oh, well, you know, that's a long time ago.

And, uh, just go around shooting BB guns, you know, and, uh, hit my cousin's eye one time.

Those days the kids always, you know, were always wrestling and quite horsing around.

But, other than that, as far as trouble, you know, there's no big trouble.

What happened to his eye, or her eye?
Was it him or her?
Huh?
Who was your cousin?
Oh, my cousin's, uh, he's out in the, out in the, there's a field there in Chinatown
there and, uh, there's a lot of, uh, dill plants there.

And he was running around there.

It used to be a lot of little tiny, uh, like hummingbirds that go around there.

And, uh, anyway, I shot out there and he was behind one of those little bushes.

Yeah.

Didn't hurt him, of course.

Yeah, you know, bruised him a little bit, but it didn't hurt him.

What did you always want to be when you grew up?
Huh?
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Like, a job.

Did you, what did you want?
Well, I ended up, I got, when I left, uh, when I left school, I, uh, went to business
school and then I ended up cutting meat for about five, six years and then I had problems
with my feet.

And then, uh, I went into counting and, uh, which I'd done, you know, the rest of my
life.

I didn't really care for it.

It was more or less forced into it.

And, uh, that's about it.

I didn't have ambition like the rest of the brothers.

Not much for, uh, not much for a scholar.

I did a lot of hard work.

Well, when I left school, I really didn't have a, you know, no planned vocation.

Just took things as they came.

End up, uh, end up selling real estate, do a little tax work.

That's that.

So if you were to pass on words of advice or wisdom to children or me or younger people,
what would you say?
Wisdom?
Well, when you, when the kids grew up, they said, uh, do what they, you know, kind of
experience around, find out what they'd like to do and be happy in what they're doing.

That's most of your life.

A lot of people working to date are unhappy with their vocation.

And, uh, the other thing is, you know, there's always, uh, those kids, when they're young,
they always figured tomorrow would be another day to make a dollar, but sometimes it rained,
you don't make the dollar, so you gotta save a dollar when you can.

Make two, you put one away.

Yeah, there's, uh, many things to be happy.

A lot of people who work through their lives are not happy, so that's all I believed in.

And, uh, well, stay away from drugs and cigarettes and alcohol and that kind of stuff, which, uh,
there's a lot of it today.

It's a temptation, uh, but they have to learn sometimes the hard way.

They're not going to listen to you, you know.

Same thing when we're growing up.

A lot of things parents tell you they'll never listen to you, so.

Did you listen to your parents?
Huh?
Did you listen to your parents?
Did you listen to your parents?
Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I disagree a lot of times, but, uh, you don't believe, if you don't listen to your
father, he gets after you, and, uh, he just comes swat you with your, with your hand,
and today you do that and they call it child abuse, you know, and, uh, in those days, uh,
if you didn't mind and they make you mind, uh, you can't, well, they don't do that today.

If you talk, if you raise your voice or talk bad about your child and they accuse your
child of abuse, that's probably one of the reasons why there's so much delinquency today.

And, uh, well, that's their problem.

It's a lot of it, yeah.

That, the old days, I like the older days when I was growing up, so.

Families are more close and, uh, well, it took time for, it took time to visit back and forth
and they always, uh, remember the holidays and the birthdays and all that.

Today everybody's too busy.

Always, uh, always, uh, they always got things to do, you know, they always got to do their thing.

How about, um, so what was the biggest time, uh, do you ever remember, do you ever remember
a conversation with your father, something that he told you that, that you've kept with you a lot,
or any particular time?
Well, now, he, he pretty much, uh, he pretty much let us go on our own as far as, you know,
it, there I stood around and did a lot of boss and, and, and it just, just quite a bit of, uh, leeway there.

You know, let you grow up and do what you want to do.

Not, uh, yeah, really no harsh disciplinary, anything like that.

Um, yeah.

Well, anyway, I'll say that.

So your philosophy is to make sure that you're happy.

Huh?
Your philosophy is to make sure that you're always happy.

Yeah.

Right.

You think that you've done that?
Yeah.

Pretty much so.

What brings you to the most happiness?
They never made a lot of money, but, you know, it's, uh, lived day to day and, you know,
it's, uh, well, you can't really, really no complaints because there's always somebody
worse off and, uh, but you enjoy the day the best you can.

Like, do a lot of fishing and, uh, I've always done a lot of fishing.

And, uh, enjoy going out to eat all the time.

That's one of the, it's a hobby.

Not because I have to eat.

It's a hobby.

Good hobby.

What's your favorite food?
Tasty, tasty.

It's a tasty hobby.

Well, mostly, uh, uh, you know, I've eaten a lot of nationality food, but then, uh, pretty
much prefer Chinese food.

It's, uh, got a lot more varieties, a lot more variety of, uh, taste in, uh, in the taste
and, in the cooking.

But, uh, I eat all kinds of foods, right.

And, uh, well, uh, I've had German food, Swedish food, Russian food, Mexican food,
but, uh, Chinese food more, well, like born Chinese, you know, you grew up with your culture
that that's pretty much what you eat.

And, uh, you know, I have Italian friends that, uh, they think, they think ravioli and
spaghetti is the best too, you know, so I've eaten that too.

It's okay.

I stay with Chinese food.

You like to cook?
You like to cook?
Cook?
Well, once in a while, I haven't done much cooking, uh, last year or so, but just, uh,
cook a few dishes, you know, experiment.

Could have learned a lot about cooking when dad was cooking, but, you know, when you're
young, you just don't think of that, see.

Same thing with my mother, see.

Cooked a lot of Chinese, uh, uh, pastries and stuff, but none of the girls really learned
it, see.

That's another thing too, see, you know.

Well, when you go to school here, generally, you're, um, more or less, more or less converted
in the Western culture, so you don't pay much attention to the old folks the way they cook.

But today, now, see, most of the dishes that you go to the Daly Divide doesn't taste like
what your mother used to do, so.

So, you know, it's a loss there, and, uh, of course, that's, you know, time, the way people
do today, you know, and that's another thing, it's, uh, a read.

So, you know, you're not just a teacher now, and you just, old enough, you study and go
to college, and, uh, so you get away from a lot of the closeness at home.

You're away from home most of the time.

So, some ways it's a advancement, some ways it's a detriment, you know, to pull a person
out, you don't spend too much time with your parents to learn some of the past history,
the past culture, and, uh, most, uh, Chinese kids today can't speak Chinese, you know,
that's because they're away from school, and, uh, they're away to school and away from
the parents, so when you come home, uh, when you come home, you don't speak your native
language, you speak English to your parent, so you start losing it little by little, okay?
And, uh, but then, in some sense, you can't have, you can't have everything, you can't
be doing everything, right?
What have you retained most about being Chinese?
What kind of culture or what about being Chinese have you retained most?
You know, if you say that you're carrying on Chinese tradition, how have you carried
on Chinese, what's Chinese about you?
Now, well, I still go, I still believe in some of the, you know, what the old folks do,
and, uh, well, like your family customs.

Today, today, in the Western way, your children, uh, come home, they speak, speak whenever
they want to speak.

In the old days, the parents have most of the say, and in some form today, if they practice
some of the old family tradition, maybe a lot of the younger generation would be better
off, I don't know, but, uh, uh, most of the kids today, like, uh, all the kids that go
into university in California now, they say that, they say that, uh, that other students
are saying that the library is a little China, because all the Chinese students are under,
really studying away.

Well, that part's, that's fine too.

You know, you gotta stay with the grades, but then a lot of children today are getting
to where they don't know how to relax and, and, uh, enjoy living.

They get away from, uh, they're all striving for that straight A, and then after you get
out of college, that's past tense.

To my estimation, it's not your grades that gets you where you're going to go.

You gotta get out and work and, uh, you know, perform.

And, uh, a lot of the students today, especially once the parents come from China, they're,
they're pushing the kids, and, uh, that's fine as far as schoolwork's concerned, but
they're getting so much of it now, they're concentrating on it, and that's, that's all
the, the student know, the child know.

They don't know what it is to relax and, uh, tense all the time.

And, uh, well, some say it's good, some say it's bad.

I don't think that, uh, I don't think that, uh, too much pressure is good for the person.

You, after they get out of, even after they graduate from college, you can't go back.

You can't change that thing.

What's happening, you can see it.

You can see where the parents were unfortunate years back, and then they want the best for
the children, especially ones that come from China today, competing with the Western society.

And, uh, I don't think it's all that good, but, uh, gotta learn to work.

What kind of, um, this is an off the wall question.

What kind of cakes did your father make?
Do you remember?
What?
What kind of cakes did your father make?
Cake?
Oh, I used to do a lot of bacon.

Uh, it's, uh, fruit cake, and, uh, dad used to make good, uh, drop biscuits, so you know,
fine today.

It's hard to find in the, in the most of the restaurants today.

They don't, uh, they don't make them.

And, uh, it's real good in the morning, you know, and, uh, make good pies, apple pie, pumpkin pie.

And, uh, uh, waffle.

Used to make good waffle from scratch.

Now you buy all this commercial stuff in packages.

And, uh, did a lot of bacon.

Used to make good pot roasts.

And, uh, and mother used to mostly, uh, make Chinese, you know, Chinese pastries.

What kind of things?
Jinguay?
Yeah, Chinese doughnut and, uh, uh, bean doughnut and a salty doughnut.

And, uh, and then, uh, you make, uh, oxtail soup, uh, bean cake, and, uh, just a lot of stuff that you don't,
you know, you don't see in the stores today.

And else you want to say about growing up in Grass Valley?
What?
Anything else you want to talk about growing up in Grass Valley?
Yeah, also.

How's Grass Valley changed the most?
Well, Grass Valley, now there's no Chinatown now.

And then what two Chinese are here, uh, we have, we get together once in a while,
but they mostly, they all mostly go about their own way.

Don't have the closeness that we used to.

We don't visit like we used to.

And, uh, there's no Chinatown now.

There's, uh, it's, uh, got a bowling alley there in Chinatown and, uh,
where Chinatown used to be in a, in a plant store and an office building there.

So that's the change there.

And, uh, well, as far as the Chinese is concerned, there are different parts of Grass Valley now,
but, uh, back in the 1800s, there were just a turn of, uh, about 1855 right in there.

There was over 6,000 Chinese in Nevada County.

So what you don't hear about it today is, uh, we're, uh, sort of a lost race when it comes to population.

Of course, then there's, uh, in the past, in the past you don't,
well, in the younger days, people were a little prejudiced and that,
so you sort of, most of us sort of went on our own, you know,
wait for somebody to hire us.

So today, uh, most of the kids are professionals.

And, uh, then they left, left Grass Valley to go to college
and seek better opportunities elsewhere because, uh, back in the days when they were growing up,
their occupation, vocation was limited here.

And the old Chinese, that's what most of them, you know, peddlers, vegetable peddlers,
or they worked on ranches and pruning trees and spraying, you know, trees and that.

There was really no, um, well, most of us manual labor.

But now there's, uh, ones that learn the profession come back,
but the rest of them go work in the big city as, uh, you know, employment was limited.

That's another reason why there's no big population in Chinese or anything.

There's really, um, well, there were really no reasons for most of them to come back here
because there was no worker.

That's why all the people that come in now are people who run Chinese restaurants.

So in our family, more or less, uh, you know, old timers here
just sort of really didn't ever drift away.

And, uh, I don't know, I like the town, you know.

And, uh, a lot of things you can't bring back past tense.

So I had a chance to move to Los Angeles one time
and my friend that wanted me to go partners with him, he had a counting firm.

And, uh, he made so much money, he run his health down and he died of a heart attack.

And, uh, he built a nice home, had a couple of Cadillacs with him.

Uh, I prefer, I guess, what I have, not too much.

So there's two sides of it, you know, two sides of life.

And, uh, but looking back, I still think it's, you know,
I miss, I miss Chinatown and, uh, the closeness that people used to have,
which you don't see today.

Even in the big city, even in Chinatown, the big city,
they're all striving for success in prestige and all that.

Uh, maybe I got the wrong philosophy,
but after you get there, you don't mean too much either, see.

A lot of people in Sacramento got there, you know.

Well, when you go to their home, they show you their wealth, you know,
but there's no happiness in the home, you can see there, you know.

So that isn't all that great, but then being I'm not that in that position,
that's probably the way I feel.

But, uh, I think longevity,
longevity, good health is better than a whole lot of wealth.

That, that, that also was drilling in a lot of Chinese children today, see.

Back generations before, their parents had been successful,
so they think, you know, they, children got to do the same.

And, pressure them to succeed.

And, uh, well, after you, uh, after you get there,
uh, then really what is success?
You know, uh, it's a little bit of, a little bit of everything.

Good health, family, and not just money.

But, a lot of the Chinese families now, they, they, they drill that into the children.

Reach out, after grabbing all the time.

Do you remember, um, a lot about my grandfather?
Uh, do you remember a lot about my grandfather, Sherman?
Your grandfather?
Oh, Sherman?
Yeah.

What was he like?
Huh?
Yeah.

What was he like?
Well, Sherman and I were, well, we started, he was my brother-in-law, but, uh,
but, uh, we argued a lot, but I always had respect for him.

And, uh, I more or less worked with him most of my lifetime.

And, uh, when they had to store, after the produce,
after a quick run in the produce truck, and we started Sherman's Market,
and, uh, I worked with him, and then later I, I cut meat and opened up the meat,
the meat counter, and I worked with him.

And, uh, well, we never agree a lot, and, uh, so she's pretty temperamental too,
but we always respected one another.

It's something you don't see today, see?
Just because you argue with somebody don't mean you hate them, you know?
And, uh, but I, I pretty much, well, I don't know if he ever felt that way,
but I sort of like one of the family, as far as the kids are concerned.

Because I never really drifted away, and then from, uh, back when the,
when Chinatown sold out, we moved up here,
well, uh, uh, Sis lived just a couple of stores,
a couple of houses down from where we lived,
and then we moved here, we moved here together, lived here in this house.

And, uh, and I worked with Sherman in the store.

What did you argue about?
What did you argue about?
What did I argue about?
Well, different things that he does, like cutting meat.

And I, I learned it away from there, like when I come home,
and, uh, and he wouldn't take, he wouldn't listen to my way,
he wouldn't listen to his way.

And, uh, well, what I learned is I learned from another shop, see?
But that was his store, so, um, you know, that's, uh,
him and I really, uh, we really got along,
we disagree a lot, like I say, we always got along,
and I never, uh, all these years, some 30 years, never left.

You know, we were right close to family all the time,
because I lived here until I got married, you know.

And, uh, when the kids were all going to college,
you know, I used to, he used to have me bring clothes
and, you know, groceries down to them,
until, until Jerry finished school.

When did you get married?
Huh?
When did you get married?
When did I get married?
Uh, 1963, uh, 63.

Yeah, and, uh, last about 13 years,
my wife died of cancer.

And, uh, well, since then, it was one time's enough.

What was her name?
Huh?
What was her name?
Lucille.

Yeah.

So that's another thing there, too, you know.

So, uh, well, we got along, you know,
just things that, there's things in life that you don't control.

You don't have no control of, you know.

So now I just retired.

Nothing to do but sit around and draw so security.

Heh heh heh.

No, no.

How'd you meet your wife?
Huh?
How did you meet your wife?
How did I meet her?
How did I meet her?
Well, heh heh.

Her car broke down one night, and, uh,
she was working in the restaurant in Nevada City,
and I happened to come in there,
and, uh, the Chinese people that ran it
were friends of mine as well.

And, anyway, she, she'd only been there about two weeks,
and, uh, she didn't have no way home,
so I drove her home.

That's how we got acquainted.

So it is, you know, heh heh heh.

Yeah, anyway.

Did she share the same philosophy as you?
Huh?
Did she share the same philosophy about being happy
in life that you did?
Uh, we argued a lot there, too.

But, you know,
disagreed, and never really hated one another.

That's happened in there.

Well, every marriage always disagreed
because, uh, certain, you know,
certain pattern of life that a man wants to run
is, you know, I've got ideas of her own, too,
so you've got to kind of put two heads together.

They'll always work that way,
but, you know, you've got to keep trying, right?
But now I don't have, uh,
I don't make any decision for two people now,
I just make it for one.

Right or wrong is just the one thing.

Yeah.

So how about a couple of jokes?
Huh?
A couple of jokes.

Yeah.

Your famous jokes.

My jokes?
Yeah.

No jokes now.

Why not?
No jokes.

Yeah.

No favorite jokes.

Oh, the latest one is,
what's the pelvis?
It's a brother to Al's press week.

Yeah.

Okay?
Yeah.

Where'd you get your son's humor?
Huh?
Where'd you get your son's humor?
You're joking around all the time.

Your son's humor?
Yeah.

Oh, no.

Most of the family think I'm crazy.

Well, life's pretty much a laugh.

Yeah.

Kind of sit around and cry.

You know?
Yeah.

That, you know, there's Chinese people, there is, one of the things that they have a lot
of mental problems in their lifetime.

A lot of families.

And they don't have a lot of different diseases like a lot of other races.

But they have emotional problems mostly.

And that's partly because their parents are too serious about everything as well.

Every day's got to be perfect.

Well, every day's not perfect.

And plus, when you've got problems, if you keep drilling on your problems, you don't
have a laugh or two, the situation gets worse.

And a lot of Chinese parents, they don't feel that way.

They don't see that side of a child.

You see it.

You look around, you see a lot of them.

There's friends right now that are well-to-do, but they don't have the family closeness.

And the head of the house is shaking all the time.

That's emotion.

And they don't know what it is to crack a joke and laugh.

Well, to the ones that don't believe my way, I think I'm crazy.

But a laugh or two, if you've got problems, your problems just sort of fade away by the
time you get through laughing, right?
Well, a lot of people don't believe that.

They think everything is, you know, serious.

You can't have a laugh.

Well, I think a laugh is good for a person.

It can save you a lot of doctor buildings, going to the psychiatrists and all that, because
the head shrinkers or whatever you want to call them.

You yourself, you yourself is the one that's going to make you happy.

Somebody else can't do it.

And a lot of people that are unhappy, they want you to feel the same way.

So your jokes or your humor is dry and it's stupid.

It's a waste of time or whatever.

Well, fine.

That same person continually, later in life, go to doctors all the time, go to psychiatrists
all the time, because there's no head shrinkers that are going to shrink your head no better
than yourself.

You know yourself better.

That person don't really know.

They're just reading stuff out of a book.

And then psychoanalyzing your, you know.

So why don't you end this and make us laugh?
Why don't you end this again and make us laugh with a good one?
That's the saying, see?
Everybody has different outlook in life.

A lot of families think that that's the biggest thing, is success.

To succeed.

Well, years ago, the older folks come from this country that they always had to do hard
work, mostly manual work.

So they drill it into the children and try to impress them that the only way to get ahead
is get an education and so forth and so on.

That's fine.

But then see, after you keep pushing and pushing, how high do you go?
How high do you go?
If you go to like the Agnew State Hospital down there, it's a mental hospital.

Do you ever go in there and visit the place?
It's a pretty good Chinese population in there.

And I say why, when the old folks didn't have the opportunity or the education, the old
folks have more or less good mental health.

So a lot of it is competition, got to succeed, and lots of them, too much pressure.

That's just that one hospital.

And Napa State's got a fairly good-sized population of Chinese, and what's the reason for it?
Well, thank you.

Anything else you want to say?
So then, if they come back to me and they say, well, this guy's never really a big success
and so on and so on.

I don't know what he's talking about, see.

And I had a very good friend that was in the real estate business, and he had the idea
that, well, when he hit a million dollars, that he had to make another million.

Well, he left this earth at 59.

So then all of a sudden, what a success.

Anything else you want to say?
When it's your time to get up in heaven, you can't take that sack of money with you either.

You can still take your smile with you, though.

That's right.

Thank you.

Anything else you want to say?
Anything else you want to say?
It's very good.

One more joke.

One more joke?
No.

Oh, you're not shy.

Go ahead.

I can't think of one right now.

How about the one you told me last night at the restaurant?
The one you told me at the restaurant?
The tourists.

You know, an American couple went to Mexico on a visit, you know, vacation,
and coming down this ridge down the bottom of the hill there, there's a big quicksand,
a big pond called quicksand, and there's Mexicans sinking in the quicksand.

The American couple come down, and your wife said to the husband,
looky, looky, she says quattro-sinkles.

I think my dad got his sense of humor from you.

Oh, good.

Thank you.

Okay.

Mother's Park.

There was a screening porch here, and she had a washing machine and her dryer on this side of the house.

Uh-huh.

And this was two back bedrooms.

And then, then what was it?
Two back bedrooms.

And her living room was out this way.

How was it?
Out there.

Where the living room is now?
Yeah.

Right? But we didn't have the upstairs here.

Right.

This was all closed.

I mean, the upstairs was all closed.

We couldn't get up there.

We didn't know how to get up there.

Until later on, we found the secret passage for you.

There really wasn't.

Were there stairs?
No, there wasn't no stairs.

It was a chimney.

And it was all the way up.

Right in the section.

And it was all the way up the chimney.

We never knew it was there.

It was all encosed in there.

And then later on, we tore down and we found this chimney.

You know, the friction.

The whole thing was brick.

And that's why we got the brick in.

And then we went into the stairway to the loft.

So where was there a doorway that went to your part of the house?
Yeah.

There was a door right here to my part of the house.

That's my part of the house.

And then there's a bedroom here.

And then there's another bedroom there.

And then there was another bedroom in the back.

Two bedrooms in the back.

Where they are now?
Yeah, side by side.

And the bathroom was in where my room is now, I think.

The bathroom.

And there was a couple of steps raised to go to the bathroom.

And then that was my part of the house.

Right?
And then there's a living room right here.

Right?
And this part here, that's the living room.

So it's pretty much where the living room now is the same.

And that part here was mother's.

Oh, but it was right here.

Yeah.

This is the living room.

And this is the living room right here.

It's mine.

And then you go outside and then the door goes into mother's side.

And this is mother's side.

And then there was a door that goes through your back there.

So I don't know how you guys tell how you guys tell.

And then this is the back.

No, there wasn't anything there.

There wasn't any deck there.

We open up the deck later.

What's back there?
The creek?
What is that creek?
You used to have trees back there, didn't you?
We planted those trees back there.

Those trees weren't back there before.

It was just back by bush.

And then we planted the trees back there.

And we put the table back there.

And that was it.

I mean, the creek was running there.

This tree, the island tree was still there though.

Yeah.

And that was it.

And this here was, I said, remember?
That square there that we tore down the shed.

You see the foundation there?
The foundation there.

That was the mill shed.

They called it the mill shed because that's where they cooled the mill here.

Because it was a mill farm before, I guess.

So that's where they cooled the mill in that shed there.

And it was nice spring water.

Because, you see, there's a little square there.

That's where they put the well.

You can dip into the spring water.

It was really nice and cool.

But you wouldn't dare drink it now.

But they did before.

So that was the shed.

And I guess they kept trying to keep some school in there.

And they put the mill in there.

I don't know how many cows they have.

We planted that tree, that elm tree there.

When it's Larry.

Larry had one of those trees that they gave away at the school.

Or Arbor Day, we call it.

That's it?
Wow.

Oh, my hair is all over the place.

This is where Carol and Shirley are.

And this was the kitchen.

Don't take my messy room.

This was the kitchen in here?
The kitchen is in here.

The kitchen is in here.

And there wasn't anything in there.

This was added on.

This was added on.

This was the old washroom.

Oh, yeah, that was the old.

So where was the stove in here?
The stove was right over there.

By the window there.

That window didn't need to be there.

No, that window.

There was a door that was going out from here.

The washroom was back there.

There was a step going up there, wasn't there?
Going up to the bathroom.

Going up to the bathroom, but up this side.

When you went down, you went down some steps to the washroom.

Then you went up some steps to the bathroom.

Yeah, that's why we had so much trouble in my room after it was built.

We just got to take way down into the foundation to cement it
because it was leaking.

A lot of it came in the house.

This used to be the living room.

The bathroom?
No, there was no bathroom here.

They added all this on.

The front entry was right there.

It was right where?
Yeah.

Huh.

Okay.

It really changed.

Yeah.

Do you like the remodeling?
Oh, I don't know.

I guess it's.

.

.

I'm not going to tell you what's the mention
because I'm trying to tell so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then Mother's is on that side.

And then Mother's front door is right over there somewhere.

Going into Mother's room.

That was our living room.

Not here.

Yeah.

Kitchen.

And then you have a step going down there that would door open
and then the boys' bedroom.

What's one person doing with such a big house?
Well, my kids come home.

All right, Melissa.

Well, I said about success.

Yeah, but Popo has a lot of happiness too.

I don't have no money,
but the other stuff is just as good and better.

Yep, that's the way.

Well, it says he lost a lot of weight.

She says, I knew you when you was wealthy.

You lost a lot of weight.

I said, yeah, I lost a lot of weight.

I'm healthy now.

Not wealthy, healthy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Anyway.

So why don't you have lunch with us after a while?
No, I'm sorry.

I gotta go.

We got lots.

There's plenty of food.

I got a phone coming out to pick up these tax papers, so I gotta click while I can.

So, I'll see you folks later.

All right.

All right, Allison.

Hi, Kim.

What do you want to say to Kim?
Hi.

How's gymnastics going, you guys?
You want to talk about anything?
It's going good.

Yeah.

How old are you guys now?
You're 13, right, Allison?
Yeah, I'm 11.

Hi, Kimmy.

I ate your pasties for you.

Kim, have a nice time in Santa Fe.

I wish that I could be there.

Okay.

Bye.

Bye.