Memoir: On Gold Mountain Section 2

MaiNou Vang
Ms. Peifer
Creative Writing hr. 3

In the next couple chapters that I have read so far, the story of Fong See, Lisa See's great-great-grandfather, starts to unravel in his success in America. Through the years, Fong See only became more wealthy and recieved fortunate events in his years.

Fong See and his wife, Letticie Pruett, gave birth to five children in all. First came the four oldest sons: Ming, Ray, Bennie, and Eddy. Then the last child of the See family was a young girl named Florence but later nick-named 'Sissee' by her brothers. The story starts to narrate the lives of Fong See's five children and how they grew up being in a Chinese-American family. The memoir shows some difficulties that the children faced while growing up in a dominant society that I believe still exist today.

The two older boys, Ming and Ray, went to high school together. Though they were obviously handsome and intelligent and born into an already financially stable family, the two still had trouble fitting in or finding friends in school. Because at the time the majority student population were white and were not sociably accepting of Ming and Ray because of their half-chinese blood, the young boys were not able to explore and be a part of any form of group of friends, etc. but "have been ignored, shunned, excluded" (pg. 136). I believe that even today, sometimes we still see this bias in schools between the student population. Though not so much anymore, there is still truth in what this passage was talking about.

In this section of the memoir, one thing I found that caught my attention was the disagreements that the two parents, Fong See and Letticie, had over their daughter, Sissee. Because Sissee is half-Chinese and half-Caucasian, obviously there were certain things that a mother and father would expect from their only daughter. Sissee's father is a traditional Chinese man versus her mother who is an American who wasn't born into a religious family. Fong See argued that his daughter must "not work, except to help her mother decorate baskets and do her embroidery" (pg. 91). To Fong See, he saw it that "No man would marry a Chinese girl if she didn't master the womanly arts" (91) which was her needlework and "needed to be trained to be virtuous, graceful, courteous, polite, and obedient" (89). On the other hand, Letticie argues back that Sissee "is an American girl..." (89). Letticie believes her daughter needs to have her fun and be a girl. I could understand this situation of Sissee because being a Hmong-American, I understand the two different cultures that clash together. Though I'm not half-Hmong and half-Caucasian, I grow up in a traditional Hmong family that lives in America. It is demanding and complicated for a young girl to try to fit in two different cultures but never really satisfying anyone because the two cultures are so different from one another. So to learn that in the past so long ago and then also in present times that families are still troubling over how to participate in two different cultures and live in peace, this will still be a problematic situation in years to come.

In the last couple chapters I read, the children grew up and started their lives and contributed to the F. Suie One Company owned by their father. Ming and Ray both got married and Bennie and Eddy had girlfriends.

The greatest change of all in the See family was that during a trip to China, Fong See had stayed overseas by himself for about two or so years. He built a hotel in China and for 'business' purposes, married a young girl by the name of Ngon Hung. It was said that Fong See only married Ngon Hung so he would have a trusted family to take care of and run the business of the hotel set in China but only Fong See would really know the truth. When Letticie discovered the second marriage, she signed for an official seperation with Fong See and lived with her five children. Fong See and Letticie divided the companies they had in America and suprisingly, were still able to become successful people despite the seperation.

On Gold Mountain, I soon realized, has a lot more depth than I had imagined. There are a lot of truths and theories in a certain event that happened so long ago that I, too have to wonder what really happened versus what didn't. I'm looking forward to how the author finishes this memoir.