This remembrance, by Linda W. Huang, the second daughter and fourth of the five children of Voy and Fay Wong, was published in “Wong Ho Leun, An American Chinatown, Vol. 1,” by The Great Basin Foundation of San Diego in 1987.
I remember the tea parties we used to have with my dad. He ran a Chinese restaurant, the Chungking, in Riverside, Calif., about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. If the Chinese produce wholesalers from Los Angeles didn’t deliver, Dad would have to drive into Los Angeles to pick up the Chinese food stuffs for his restaurant. We, his children, there were five of us, hated going into Los Angeles. The drive made us sleepy and there wasn’t much to do in the produce district of Los Angeles. Dad, wanting company for the long drive, would try to bribe us with a tea party. He always managed to snag a few of us equate Chungking didn’t serve tea cakes (dim sum), and we had the only Chinese restaurant in town. We loved the tasty “bits of heart” and delighted in my Dad’s “tea ceremony.”
On the road we entertained ourselves with sign games, or got slightly carsick from reading our comic books. Once we spotted Los Angeles City Hall though, we perked up because we knew it wouldn’t be too long before we would be playing with our chopsticks and eating dim sum.
Exiting the freeway we would wind through the busy downtown area that seemed dirty and foreign in comparison to Riverside. The people thinned out and the streets became more desolate looking as we headed towards our destination, Ying Chong Lung, the Chinese whole grocery store. It was located on San Pedro Street across from the City Market. Next to Ying Chong Lung was the New Moon Restaurant where we had our tea parties. It was newly built so it had a clean modern look almost like an oasis in that rundown part of town. Inside, the dining area faced a patio garden separated by glass that created a cool serene atmosphere.
Once we were seated and served tea, my dad would perform his “tea ceremony.” He poured a little of the hot tea into one of the cups and gently swished it around and then poured the tea from that cup into the next cup until all the cups were rinsed out. Next was the sneaky part. He would try to find an unused receptacle for the dirty tea. It was usually the ashtray. In later years I realized this was a common practice in China where the standards of cleanliness were not always the same as here.
Although today I would never ruin a good cup of Chinese tea by adding sugar, we used to love unwrapping the sugar cubes, plunking them into the tea-filled cups, and using our chopsticks to smash the dissolving cubes. Our favorite part, though, was when the waiter brought the huge tray of dim sum. Fresh and steaming, the tidbits were usually served in threes on small dishes. We could choose what we wanted by pointing, or by trying to remember the Chinese names. My favorites were Char Siu Bows (pork buns), Siu Mais (pork dumplings) and Bak Tang Gou (white sugar sponge cake). To this day I have never tasted dim sum as delicious as back then. As we finished each plate we would stack them up. This made it easier for the waiter who calculated our bill by counting the number of dishes.
Dad never let these tea parties get too boisterous, or out of hand. One stern look from him kept us in line. When we were growing up Dad always maintained his role as the strict authoritarian father. He believed strongly in the Confucian ethic that each member of the family had their role. If everyone adhered to their position there would be harmony in the family. Dad was a moralistic, no-nonsense type of person. When we tried to have a conversation with him he would end up lecturing us. He was an intellectual who believed that education and hard work were the only ways to improve one’s condition. He did not believe in looking back. He believed in progress and the advanced technology the future had in store for us. Dad always wanted me to learn to fly an airplane because that was going to replace the car as the future of transportation.
Years later, after Dad’s death, my Uncle who used to take Dad to Las Vegas told us that my dad actually had a great sense of humor. He never revealed that side to us because he felt that in order for us to respect him, he had to maintain the serious father image. Once in a while we would catch a glimpse of Dad’s real personality. He loved watching westerns on television or at the movies. When he took us to the movies we always scrambled towards the middle seats while he sat almost in the last row.
One particular fond memory I have of my dad was when he occasionally let me drive home from the restaurant. It was two blocks and late at night so there weren’t too many cars. Barely being able to see over the dashboard I would slide in close to Dad and he would let me take the steering wheel. It was a lot of fun but the car seemed hard to steer as I remembered my dad having to correct the wheel several times.
Dad loved to talk politics. When we got older his lectures turned into discussions about China’s history and current events. He was proud of his Chinese heritage. Despite our liberal protests, he voted to re-elect former Richard Nixon as president only because he was instrumental in reopening relations between China and the United States. If he ever talked of the past it was about the corruption, the injustices and the imperialism that China suffered.
Gambling was Dad’s one indulgence. When planning our family vacations Dad always tried to include a side trip to Las Vegas or Lake Tahoe. He justified the trip for us by taking us to see Hoover Dam or Emerald Bay. One summer we learned to play mahjong from our Canadian cousins. Dad was amazed we learned to play what he considered a complicated game. He was secretly pleased because now he would have someone to play with. During our next vacation to San Francisco, he bought the family a mahjong set. He also lectured us about the dangers of becoming addicted to this game and neglecting our studies. We were amused at Dad’s seriousness because the game seemed as innocuous as gin rummy. Knowing how to play mahjong gave us an opportunity to interact with Dad on a social level. He used to get impatient with our novice playing skills and tap his tile loudly on the table to hurry us along.
Since Dad was so reticent about sharing his personal story, most of what we know came from my mom, a natural storyteller, and an old shoebox full of old letters and photographs. We found the shoebox while exploring Dad’s old desk. The contents were from when Dad was in his 20s. He was in the United States at the time, while my mom was still in China. It was quite a revelation to see a completely different side of Dad. We saw a youthful person not much older than us laughing, having a good time. He had gone to the historic 1939 San Francisco International Exposition on Treasure Island. There was a photo of him on the Berkeley campus. Some of us would attend UC Berkeley. My dad had mixed feelings at the time. Berkeley was a prestigious school that was ranked one of the best in the country, yet we would be so far from home and exposed to the radical activities going on at the time. Dad would have to deal with our struggles in becoming Asian Americans. There were photographs of Dad in Vancouver and the San Bernardino mountains. Dad had taken us on vacations to Yosemite, New York City, Expo ‘67, Crater Lake … yet our family snapshots show a posed stern-looking man. Yes, Dad took on the responsibility of raising five children with a certain seriousness.
Dad had a sharp critical nature about him, perhaps from his own frustration at not being able to achieve his full potential. He was a sickly child and many of his academic pursuits had been curtailed by illness. He developed a determination that was his strength. Through perseverance and hard work he was able to accomplish more than he ever dreamed he could. He was a successful restaurant owner and an upstanding citizen in his community. He instilled in us the value of education and provided each of us with a college education.
Dad came from a generation of pioneer Chinese who came to America to seek their fortunes and realize their dreams. When he went back to China to bring his wife to America, he had made a decision. He would come back as an immigrant, not as a sojourner. This was the land where he would raise his children.
Voy Wong was born Aug. 8, 1912, in Gom Benn. He brought his wife Fay to the United States in 1947. He died in 1975 after operating the Chungking Restaurant in Riverside, Calif., for 32 years. Fay Wong died in 2000.
