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A “Joke Sing” is a person of Chinese descent who identifies more with Western, than Chinese, culture. In contrast, a “sojourner,” as described by sociologist Paul Chan Pang Siu, is an immigrant who journeys westward to earn money but intends to return home someday.
In the past, “Joke Sing” was a derogatory term derived from “zuk gong,” Cantonese for bamboo pole. The metaphor goes thus: Water, once poured into it, gets stuck at the node and never comes back out. Today, though, it is a term of endearment.
In his book “Sojourners to Joke Sings: Tales of Chinatown and Beyond,” author Ron Lee traces the history of his forebears in California, a story that goes back to the 1840s, predating the gold rush. It is published by Conocimientos Press.
Chinese-American history and some of her personal experiences as well. Courtesy Ron Lee.
Lee, who is a fifth-generation Californian of Chinese ancestry, found the blueprint of his book in his late mother L.K. Lennie Lee’s memoir, which he discovered after she died in 2021 at the age of 98. The final product, which carries inputs from both mother and son in equal measure, is a look at Chinese-American history through the point of view of the Lee family.
“My whole family knew she (Lennie) was very interested in family history, but none of us had any idea she had completed and written an actual draft of a book,” said Lee, in an interview with the Weekly.
The material went from being personal memorabilia she left for her grandchildren to something Lee considered distributing among extended family at his mother’s celebration of life memorial service, and later sought to publish it as an ethnic studies-related high school text.
But it turned into something much larger — a book for public consumption.
Lennie tacked a message on her memoir: “Grandmother Lee’s Autobiography. Note: Needs corrections and upgrading.”
“I wasn’t quite sure what she meant,” said Lee, who at the time had no more than a passing knowledge of Chinese-American history. “In the process, I had to read the manuscript … I soon began to realize the story she was telling almost defied belief.”
In addition to information about Chinese-American immigration history, like the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the book is packed with many “wild stories” and outlandish anecdotes about the bold seafarers who sailed from Kwong Hoy in China to what was then Yerba Buena, now San Francisco.
“My mother was not given to hyperbole; she was a very serious-minded person,” he said, which is what made her words all the more compelling to him.
Examples abound. Lennie wrote about “snake potion” that her ancestors in Arizona made by bottling live rattlesnakes in liquor. She wrote about how her forefathers, who were in the funeral business, surreptitiously ferried people from China into California by hiding them in teakwood coffins being shipped here — and about how these hidden stowaways were discovered and killed by white unionists.
“They nailed the coffins tightly shut. Then they hammered extra-long railroad spikes through the tops of the coffins down into the bodies of the stowaways. The killers continued drinking and celebrating as they listened to the dying Chinese scream and thrash in the coffins. The murderous rampage ended with the whites beating up the Chinese seamen still on board; a number were thrown into the San Francisco Bay,” wrote Lennie in the book.
She wrote about the Chinese tradition of burying bones of deceased immigrants for a decade, then exhuming and shipping them back to the motherland. She also wrote about how she managed to avoid being sold into slavery by her own mother; this, sadly, was a practice in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where she grew up.
Lennie turned her fortunes around by getting an education and working as a real estate agent and later as a teacher and counselor. “My mom and my forebears were badass people, I’m just a pretty regular person,” said Lee, who also worked in the real estate business and was a teacher like his mother. He taught middle school science in the San Jose Unified School District, Hayward School District and Redwood City School District.
His wife, Lucretia Lee, was a teacher at Walter Hays Elementary School for over 20 years. They’ve been in San Mateo for about four years, before which they lived in Palo Alto for around five decades.
Lee has been a passionate advocate for the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities. At present, he hopes his book will help educate people, especially youngsters of Chinese origin, about a slice of their own history.
“I see this book not as a historical treatise; I see this book as the telling of a really interesting adventure story that lasted a couple of 100 years,” he said. “The goal is to present a real, adventurous story that’s based on Chinese-American history.”
When — thanks to Charlie Chin, historian at the Chinese Historical Society — Lee learned that many people of Chinese descent today are unaware of their own history, he was all the more motivated to publish his mother’s memoir, he said.Â
Besides, the subject matter, though personal, has a lot of relevance in the present political moment, he said.
“I don’t necessarily see it as something exclusively for Asians or Chinese. I would like to have something that would appeal to just everybody,” he said, noting that the tribulations of the early Chinese immigrants have a lot in common with the problems immigrants from other cultures and geographies faced over the years.
The working title of the book was “Becoming American: A 600 Year Odyssey,” which he changed given the ongoing political discourse around immigration, assimilation, xenophobia, and what it means to be or “become” American.
To him, it’s important “that we all understand where each of us is coming from.”
Find more information about “Sojourners to Joke Sings: Tales of Chinatown and Beyond” at odysseytoamerica.com.
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