| Title | : | On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0679768521 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780679768524 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 394 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1995 |
On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family Reviews
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If you happen to be a member of the See family you will find this fascinating. If you are researching family histories about the Chinese as a growing factor in California culture in the 19th and 20th century, this book will give you material. Not having either of these roles, I found this the most tedious book I have read in the past 20 years. If it weren't the choice of my book club, I could never have gotten through it.
As it was, I scanned the middle 150 pages.
See seemed that she just had to get in every piece of information her family members had provided her. What would Aunt ...say if she left out her choice piece of family history? So glad the last page has been turned! -
I have read almost all of Lisa See's books, so it only made sense for me to read about the true story concerning the past generations in her family tree. Gold Mountain, the west coast in America, was supposedly filled with gold, and that truth/rumor drew multitudes of people from America and overseas to the west. So many Chinese men came, leaving their wives and family back in small Chinese villages, hoping to make a fortune. In order to survive, the Chinese were hired to do the backbreaking work of building a railroad for very little money. In reality, little money was sent "home," and families were separated for years on end. Lisa's ancestors were those people. The first person to come over to America was an herbalist. Little money was made. His son, Fong See, however, had a good head for business, and became one of the only respected Chinese citizens living in Chinatown. At first, his workers made lacy underwear for prostitutes. When Fong See met a white woman with business sense who needed a job, and eventually became his wife, his store no longer sold underwear, but Chinese antiques that appealed to the wealthy whites. Fong See opened up many stores and profited greatly. Fong See and his wife escaped much of the prejudice that Chinese families faced because they had amassed quite a fortune. Chinese people at the time were not allowed to marry Caucasians, (many married in Mexico), families were not allowed to come to America from China due to immigration laws and horrendous American interrogations.
Most of Fong See's children also had business sense, and when the war put a damper on Chinese Antique Inventory, See's sons made good business decisions themselves to add money to the "pot" that benefitted the whole See family. As Fong See got older, his Chinese heritage came to the forefront of his very being. He no longer wanted a wife who made family decisions. He wanted to be a "traditional" Chinese man. He divorced his white wife, traded in his fancy suits for long silk robes, and married several Chinese women who bore him two more families. Many of his older children married Caucasians. Lisa See came from one of those mixed marriages.
Lisa told every story well. I felt like I personally knew most of the characters, and suffered along with their failures, their heartbreaks, and reveled in their successes. Her family's stories were worth the telling. Lisa has embraced her Chinese heritage in the wonderful books she writes - stories from China, and stories of Chinese immigrants who left China to live in America. I am so glad I got the chance to become somewhat intimate with Lisa's family! -
Subtitle: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of a Chinese-American Family.
This is See’s “biography” of her family, starting with her great-great-grandfather, Fong Dun Shung, who immigrated to America (“The Gold Mountain”) in 1861 as an herbalist / healer working for the railroad. He brought with him two of his four sons, who both worked as laborers helping to build the transcontinental railroad. His fourth son, Fong See, arrived in 1871 at age fourteen, and soon became an entrepreneur shopkeeper, with wives on two continents. See-bok, as he became known, was illiterate, but a shrewd businessman, and he founded a family dynasty. The story of this family is a history of the immigrants from China (and other Asian nations).
See used extensive research that began with the oral history passed down in her family. She looked at national archives, immigration records, property records and news articles. Her narrative explores not just her family’s history, but shows the history of America’s policies on immigration, specifically those coming from Asia.
It’s a fascinating story and exceedingly well told. I was very glad that the book included maps and a family tree, because I frequently made use of both.
The last forty pages or so of the book are Lisa See’s own story, including her trip to China to get more information from the family members still there. This really brought her family’s story full circle for me.
I’ve had this book on my TBR for ages, but it was the prompt to read a memoir that had me finally picking up. Additionally, I have recently learned that an opera has been written based on this family story and that also piqued my interest. I’m so glad I finally read it. -
I think this may be the first or one of the first non-fiction memoirs about a Chinese American family I’ve read. It reminds me of my dad's request to write our family's story. I have read some of See's fictional work and have always been a bit confused bc they seem to glorify the "olden days" in China prior to the Cultural Revolution (which I'm sure is worth glorifying in a political & social sense). I also did let my prejudice get ahead of me and I wondered why a white woman was so fixed on Chinese settings. Now I understand that while she has red hair and appears Caucasian, she identifies heavily as of Chinese descent given her family's rich history here in California/West Coast as well as overseas in Guangdong. I appreciate the history lesson of Chinese Americans in Sac, SF, and LA. Great glimpse into what Chinatowns were like and how society differentiated Chinese and Chinese businessmen. It also explains to me why SF Chinatown is the way it is today. I've always wondered why there were SO MANY shops selling the same mementos and culturally appropriated trinkets. Now I understand them to be really just meeting a demand that was created from back when Chinatowns were first created -- as a cultural hub for Chinese immigrants but also for folks who wanted a taste of that culture. The curios are no longer high quality as Fong See specialized in but just little trinkets to take home. All very fascinating. There's one takeaway quote I have from Mrs. Leong to her children: "'Youre more or less ambassadors. You represent all other Chinese kids. People are going to watch your conduct and the way you talk. Many of these Caucasians have never had contact with a Chinese person, so do your best...You take the best of Chinese culture, you take the best of American culture, and blend the two. You are American citizens. You were born in this country, so you have to take on American culture, too. Do not think everything has to be Chinese. You are Chinese American.'" This is how I've felt my entire life.
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I love this book because it made me look at the immigration issue in a new way. It's amazing to read many of the political speeches given in the early part of the 20th century about the Chinese and then to realize that many are saying the exact same things about some of the immigrants coming over today. Don't we learn! Immigrants are always looked at as a burden but they have always proven the doubters wrong in the past. This book taught me that lesson. It is not for the squeamish. Some of the things that happen to her family are tough to read.
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This was my introduction to Lisa See, an affair that is enduring and endearing. My own Los Angeles roots, if you can call the San Fernando Valley "Los Angeles", led me on odyssey through familiar places with a whole new perspective. I read it by accident, it being on my daughter's reading list for a college class and handy on the bookshelf. Well, what a gold-mine I've discovered through this chance encounter. Ironically, my daughter never read the book. She missed a gem.
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Lisa See has written her family’s history over the course of over one hundred years. The narrative traces back to the author’s great-great-grandfather, who traveled from China to California to reap the riches of “gold mountain” (as America was called in China). He worked as a laborer on the Transcontinental Railroad. In 1866, the author’s great-grandfather, settled in California. Lisa See examines the many family members’ hopes, motivations, struggles, business ventures through the generations. Themes include the Chinese immigrant experience, racial discrimination, and women’s issues. It is easy to spot the influences of her family’s history on her fiction. She sets her family story against a backdrop of historic events. It also provides a number of cultural insights. Recommended to those interested in immigration accounts, family sagas, or California history.
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A very entertaining and interesting family story, although I wasn't crazy about the writing style, which occasionally reminded me of The Boxcar Children (which is a fine and dandy writing style when you're writing for elementary school students, but this one was full of whores and opium). I also kept finding myself thinking, "How could she have KNOWN what he was thinking at that moment?" so I think either her family interviews were EXTREMELY in-depth or she speculated about a lot of stuff. I took it as sort of a fictionalized memoir, like the Little House books.
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This was way too boring for me to continue. I love the idea of the book but it goes into way too much detail...
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It told the story of the Chinese in America through the eyes of one family.
Thus the author summarizes exactly what she accomplished with this amazing book, in the epilogue added to the 2012 reissue I just read. It's her family history that she tells, based on copious research and oral histories. I found it nearly impossible to put down, stretching out breaks from work and staying up way too late just to read more of this story of Chinese immigration in California.
'Gold Mountain' is the Chinese name for the United States. See's great-great-grandfather, Fong Dun Shung, with his 2 eldest sons, left his very small impoverished village in Southern China (directly north of Hong Kong and near Canton now Guangzhou) in 1866 to come to the Gold Mountain in search of work and money. He was an herbalist and worked on the building of the transcontinental railroad but as an herbalist/healer rather than a laborer, the work his sons took. After the railroad was completed, he opened a store in Sacramento selling herbs and tinctures. A few years later, Fong See, See's great-grandfather and Fong Dun Shung's Number 4 son, emigrated and established the family roots first in Sacramento and then in Los Angeles. Fong See was 14 years old and is 97 when he dies in LA, leaving a large prosperous Chinese American family behind.
This may be a memoir or a biography of an immigrant family from the time they arrived to the end of the 20th Century, but it is also a serious history of Chinese immigration in the US, and California in particular. There is so much here I never knew: Exclusion Law, anti-miscegenation laws, extreme immigration limits and restrictions on Chinese, all persisting until mid-20th century and to some extent later (state laws). The story of Old Chinatown vs. New Chinatown in LA, the incredible story of how Fong See and other immigrants worked around these laws and restrictions to own businesses, bring family and especially wives from China, buy property, and especially marry caucasians is utterly engrossing.
Also told is the story of the inevitable conflict between desires of the immigrant generation to have their children remain steeped in the chinese traditions, culture, and behavior and their children born in America, and desperately wanting to assimilate. See also does not neglect the story of the family that remained in or returned to China. We see some of the history of China play before our eyes, including the impact on Chinese Americans when Mao defeated Chiang Kai-shek and the borders of China were closed tight. While writing and researching the book, See went to the village of her family, Dimtao, meeting with cousins and extended family there, and collecting yet more oral histories and information to fill in some of the gaps. When See returned, some of the elders in her family actually opened up and confirmed information never before discussed.
See's special storytelling gift is evident here, her first published book: the ability to keep out western judgment while telling a compelling story. It's not as perfected as in her later historical fiction, but it is very evident. While occasionally a tad episodic in the middle, those moments are few as the story of See's family on Gold Mountain totally engrossed me.
There are photos, maps, a family tree (which I consulted frequently), and an extensive bibliography and list of sources. First published in 1995, it was reissued in 2012 with some updated material based on new information and photos that Lisa See has acquired since its first publication, as the process of learning a family's history never ends. -
Anyone who does so much research for a book and tells good stories deserves five stars.
This is a remarkable historic and biographical book that not only covers Lisa See’s own family history, but also the Chinese in America. Gold Mountain is the Chinese name for the United States. Having heard stories as a child in Los Angeles Chinatown in her family’s antique business of her family’s past and especially that of her great-great grandfather (Fong See) who emigrated from China to the United State in 1871 to work on the transcontinental railroad and as a herbalist, she decided to research it all and put it all together in a book. He married a Caucasian (Ticie), although it was considered a contracted partnership since California law forbade miscegenation and they raised five children. He became a prominent Chinese on “Gold Mountain” and eventually went back to China many times to take on other wives. I loved the book because it’s a history, a biography and autobiography and a bit of fiction. She is an outstanding story teller and despite all the generations and people who are covered in the book.
The anti-Chinese laws were very harsh and I was reminded of many such laws against other minority groups, especially African Americans. The Sees were an interesting family in that their personal identity was always called into questions. Even if they were American, they still struggled with identity depending on the color of their skin and the choices they made in life. Were they American or were they Chinese?
The family tree was interesting, but the photos of her family were particularly fascinating to me. Not everyone would necessarily want to wade through his family history, but whether you know a lot about Chinese immigration or very little, this book will surely give you good insight into this subject. I am very fond of Lisa See as a writer and admire her writing style, her ability to tell a good story and her perspective on life as a Chinese American is eye opening. I have read “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,” “Peony in Love,” “Shanghai Girls” and “Dreams of Joy” and really liked them all. She doesn’t go into much of her own personal life in this book, but she does recommend “Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America, which I plan on reading. -
What an amazing story of ambition, love, family honor and tenacity - over many generations. See has done a remarkable job of writing rich stories but with distance that belies her family ties. Personally, I was struck many times as I read this book about the irony of my timing. Some days I didn't know what was worse - the outrage I felt with the day's news or reading her account of the shameful immigration policies of our country (that I thought we had moved past).
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Although it took me forever to get through this book, I found it a fascinating read and something that I'll never forget. It is heartbreaking how awful Chinese immigrants were treated in the last 100 years in America. I think it is a national disgrace. And it was still going on in the '50's and '60's! What an eye-opener this family history is. Well done Lisa See.
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I probably would not of picked this book up to read if I had not decided to join my local book club this year. This is February's book for 2018 in which it will be discussed, and I'll be able to meet the author through Skype. I'm looking forward to that.
I'm really glad I read it, as I learned so much about the Chinese immigration here to the United States, and how they contributed to the city of Los Angeles, CA when Los Angeles just started out from the ground up. Being that I live right by Los Angeles makes this extra special, so when the author talked about how the family had their businesses locally around me, I was thrilled to think, "HEY! I know those cities!"
Lisa See, author of this true historical story, talks about her family from late 1800's till present day. Large Chinese families and what they went through to get to the U.S. (immigration laws were discussed), and the prejudice and racism they had to deal with being here was very rampant throughout the novel, including within their own family traditions. They were prejudiced within their family customs of only marrying into pure Chinese to continue the family line. Marrying a Caucasian was just not something you were suppose to do, but I love that despite all that, it happened anyways, because, well, love knows no color or race.
I especially was very interested in Fong See's story with his second Caucasian wife Tricie Pruett. Without her I doubt the family business would of ever been successful. She treated everyone equal. She even put in place Fong See's original store employees with her words that she isn't a "White Ghost" (what the Chinese called the Caucasians at that time).
As the story continues, it talks about how Fong See marries several times during his life (four wives total --which is part of the Chinese culture at that time). Women were below men and they were to be subservient to their husbands. The book talks about all the layers of what it was like to be a Chinese in China, how it was like to be a Chinese in America, and how it changed as time went on, depending on if you had money or not and what the immigration laws were at the time. It's come a long ways since then, and so it opened my eyes to the Chinese culture and history at that time. How they contributed to the growth of the cities in the United States, and the railroads that were built.
The last 20% of the book was a little too long and drawn out for me, especially in reading all the details on how Lisa See's relatives looked like. By the end of the book she had written about all the families involved and it was a bit overwhelming trying to remember who was son or daughter or cousin to who, etc. It makes for a good genealogical history for the See family though. Maybe I just got tired of trying to keep track, but I was glad the story was over when it was done. I did enjoy the very very end though when Lise See finds out that part of her original story was not accurate, and how she found out some other truths instead through other relatives that were not originally interviewed for this book the first time around.
One thing I notice about people from older generations: they were very private and didn't talk about personal matters, especially matters they were embarrassed about within their family history. So, I'm sure there's more to her story than even the author knows about.
All in all a great book, but be prepared for a long read. -
This book is wild. It's like Sidney Sheldon's
Master of the Game meets
Sons of the Profits: There's No Business Like Grow Business. The Seattle Story, 1851-1901. First, to come clean, the book hits a bullseye with many of my reading interests: 19th century US history, California history (all), biographies and memoirs, culinary books.
It's all those things. And something else entirely.
What it is is it should be taught in California schools (of which I am an unfortunate graduate). There's a lot that was merrily skipped over in grades 3-12 (long story) about California and the US' racist past. And this book spares no rod for that nonsense. It looks long and hard at the Exclusion Act of 1822 and the subsequent "Driving Out" (white people enacting violence against Chinese immigrants). It looks long and hard at the anti-Chinese immigration practices and procedures in this country as filtered through San Francisco and Angel Island.
But it's also a sweet and rolicking comedy and drama, by turns, telling the story of a long romance and subsequent betrayal, a wartime caution, and of course, how during the 1970s California tried to kill its young (My PhD in progress).
Did you know that California only rescinded its laws forbidding interracial marriages in 1948? I did not know that. That is not that long ago. California, get it together, girl.
The book's sweet spot is easily the incredibly poetic 19th century section (what. stop looking at me like that.) which vividly evokes the life of a worker on the railroad, as well as the founding of what is now the hideous tourist trap of Oldtown Sacramento. It's still wildly fascinating up through WWI and WWII, plus the post-war
Calinese furniture movement.
It's let down quite a bit by everything after the author's birth, including her ha-ha-cringe trip to China to connect with her family's relatives in rural Guangdong, replete with American Abroad faux-pas. I am old. I do not want this. I want better than this.
Still, as the book wound down to its inevitable conclusion (everyone you just read about is dead), I dug it. I really enjoyed it a huge amount. I skived off apple-picking to get a few extra chapters in.
Seriously, California. This would be an excellent required reading for schools. -
Lisa See recounts her chinese ancestors coming to America story. Her great great grandfather, Fong See, emigrated to search for his father and ended up being a successful merchant with four wives, two in China and two in the US. It's a fascinating story.
The author recounts the exclusionary laws against the chinese. They were not allowed to own property or marry a white person. Fong See's marriage to his white wife was contractual but not legal. The Chinese were not eligible for citizenship until after WW2.
She tells of the generations in America and in China. See sent money back to China his whole life and made many trips buying everything from everyday baskets to rare antiques.
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Having read "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" and "Peony in Love", I looked forward to reading "On Gold Mountain" by Lisa See. This seems to be one of her earliest books and it's the immigration and assimilation story of the Chinese and Chinese mixed with Caucasion part of her family. The book was spotty. Parts of it were very compelling and read like a novel. Other parts felt like laundry lists especially when she talked about the various businesses her relatives had. Nevertheless, for the most part, I found it an interesting read because the author has many colorful characters in her family and she described them well.
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This is a DNF (did not finish). I love Lisa See's novels, and am looking forward to reading The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. I love the history of the American West in the 1880's. This however, was an exhaustive history of her family's lineage dating back to the 1880's. It was okay in parts, but then almost ended up feeling like the "begats" in the Bible, where it kept including minutiae I wasn't interested in.
I was hoping to get more history of the area, conditions, and the building of the American West vs the history of one family down to the specific details of their immigration records interviews (consequently where I gave up). If you're a "See" family, awesome book. Anyone else, it might be a difficult read to get through.
Still looking forward to The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, though. :) -
Quite a book. The amount of research that went into this is somewhat mind boggling. Lisa's Chinese great grandfather had such an incredible life, if he was a fictional character it would be a little bit hard to believe. I especially liked the first sections about railroads and the family establishing their stores. As it progressed it was of particular interest to me, being from Los Angeles, to read about the development of Chinatown. (although I got my usual agitation reading about the cavalier way historic LA was wantonly destroyed for so many years) I read this slowly, so I didn't get overwhelmed by too much information and too many characters, and I kind of missed it when I was finished.
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I am a huge fan of Lisa See's fiction, but this one was tough for me to finish. I just seem to bog down in non-fiction. This is an interesting story of an extended Chinese/American family and early days in California. I'm sad that some of the same prejudice lives on today regarding immigrants. I wish everyone was given a fair shake in life regardless of your ethnic background.
I think this one could have used some editing to make it flow better, the print was so small too. I'm glad to have read it, but I'm so ready to go back to my thrillers/murder-mysteries/historical fiction. This is why I like my book club, though, I get outside my usual genres to broaden what I read. -
I picked this up expecting another fiction book by Lisa See. So I was surprised to find it was the true story. Nevertheless it was fascinating to learn of her history and that of the other Chinese immigrants. The mixed marriage was so unusual at that time.
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Detailed and illuminating view of the Chinese immigration experience in the United States. I suspect much of this carefully assembled information will be new to most readers. Lisa See has crafted the book painstakingly and with love.
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This was a fascinating book by one of my favorite authors. And sadly, it was very timely with the recent rise in anti-Asian violence.
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Interesting and absorbing look at Lisa See’s family. It’s the sort of book I’d like to write about my own family history. Particularly interesting glimpse of early LA and Pasadena history.
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On Gold Mountain is the history of the See family and like most histories it is most interesting to the one telling it. For me, this book club choice was boring with a capital B. Approximately 400 pages of family history from Lisa See's great great grandfathers immigration to work on the transcontinetal railroad to her latest sojourn to the small Chinese town of Dimato to meet her great grandfathers and great uncles third and fourth family relatives from their concubines left in China. Make your head spin? Keeping the memebers of the original See family straight was tough but trying to keep up with the second wives, third wives and fourth wives and their children was frustrating and boring. It seemed to me that this was in essence the American story. It told about the lives of immigrants who came to a new place to find wealth and happiness and instead found discrimination, back breaking work and in the Fong See's case success. Lisa See interjects throughout the book facts regarding Chinese discrimination and hardship through the years as this group of immigrants struggle to become citizens with equal rights in this country. In all the most amazing part of the book for me was the marriage between Fong See and Letticie Pruitt. This was an unheard of union at the time and must have required a bravery on both their parts. The fact that this couple produced four sons and one daugther and two successful import companies is no small feat. As the book went on it was heartbreaking to read about the distance, petty differences, and shortcomings between the five original See children. I suppose that their story is also the story of every family. As children grow up they often grow apart. What original immigrant parents value their children often turn against. In the end, Lisa See provided a very detailed account of her families joys, hardships, success and failures. For me, it was about 200 pages too long and in the end bittersweet.
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This is the history of the Chinese side of the family of author Lisa See. Through research and talking to relatives, she has been able to trace back the beginnings of her family in America, when her great grandfather arrived from China when he was still in his teens, and pretty much uneducated. Despite the lack of education, he had ambition; he worked hard and became a successful businessman. He married a Caucasian woman, which was almost unheard of in those days. They fought prejudice and discrimination, and went on to raise children who became successful too. Most of the book covers this part of the family, though it does briefly touch upon the lives of the author's parents, and her trip to China before she wrote the book to meet other relatives.
This book is rich in history of the family, and of the experiences of the Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans in California at a time when they had to deal with a lot of racism. I really enjoyed this book; it read more like a novel rather than just a dry history. I felt I really go to know the family and felt saddened when members passed away, and I was a little sad when the book ended and I had to "leave" the family.
I thought that her great grandfather was an amazing man; I didn't always agree with his ways or opinions, but I had to admire his work ethic and the importance he placed on family. It's impressive that he came to this country with nothing, never learned to read but through determination and hard work became a highly respected and wealthy man. He lived to be almost 100 years old, and he saw a lot of changes in technology and society in that time; it was interesting to read how he conflicted at times to keep up with the modern world but still be able to live within the old traditions too.
