Posted on Sun, May. 07, 2006

Life in a Chinese laundry

By Ed Grisamore

TELEGRAPH STAFF COLUMNIST

When John Jung stretches his memory across the years and the miles, it

takes him to a place far away yet still close to every chamber of his heart.

There is the sound of trolley cars along the wide avenue of Mulberry

Street in Macon. There is the revolving door at the old Lanier Hotel and

the alley behind Christ Church. His father planted a vegetable garden

there, and Jung played in the small courtyard with his brother and sisters.

There is the Bibb Theater, where his father once took him to see a Tex

Ritter cowboy movie. And there is the quaint old ballpark, Luther

Williams Field, where he watched his first baseball game.

At the foot of Coleman Hill, there is the Whittle School, where he once

finished third in the county spelling bee. Down on Cherry Street, his

mind's eye takes him inside the Kress Five & Dime store. There were two

water fountains. One was marked "White," the other "Colored." He was

never quite sure which one he was supposed to use.

From his office in the psychology department at California State

University in Long Beach, where he is now professor emeritus, Macon is a

tether to his past.

He was born here and lived in Macon until he was 14 years old. It helped

shape him in so many ways, a mental scrapbook filled with joy and pain.

It poured the footing and provided the backdrop for a memoir he calls

"Southern Fried Rice."

From 1928 to 1952, the Jungs were the only Chinese family living in

Macon. "A minority of one," he said. It was not an easy life, but he had

nothing to measure it against.

His family was weighted down by long hours of work and the emptiness of

cultural isolation. They never ate in a restaurant. They never owned a

car. It was difficult to socialize and make friends.

"As Chinese, we were neither fish nor fowl," he said. "We were just

different from everyone else, and we learned to live with that."

They operated the Sam Lee Hand Chinese Laundry at 519 Mulberry St., near

the old Lanier Hotel, where a new parking deck has been built. He lived

upstairs above the laundry with his father, mother, two sisters and brother.

It was called "Sam Lee" because it sounded like "Family." In the

laundry, where the steam circled and heat stuck to their bones like

static cling, they used fans to push the air around. Even at night, in

the tiny two-room apartment above, the heat was oppressive, almost

suffocating.

"Hell itself couldn't be much hotter than a Chinese laundry in Georgia

during August," he said.

It was not the only kind of heat that leaned against their skin. The

Jungs were often ostracized and misunderstood in the segregated South,

which was intolerant and suspicious of foreigners, too.

"I was isolated from other people, but I wasn't lonely," he said. "I was

content to be an observer."

Many of those observations provided the foundation for his book. It

began as a tribute to his mother, who died in 1997. Her name was Quan

Shee, but her American name was Grace.

"I wanted to write about all she went through and how she dealt with

it," he said. "It was a way for me to honor her."

His first working title was "Amazing Grace." But the reaction from other

scholars was that he needed to broaden his story to be more

autobiographical.

His wife, Phyllis, suggested the title, "Southern Fried Rice," and he

tacked on the subtitle: "Life in a Chinese Laundry in the Deep South."

(A few copies are available locally at Golden Bough Bookstore on Cotton

Avenue.)

Last weekend, Jung was the keynote speaker at the inaugural gala for

Who's Who in Asian American Communities in Georgia. More than 500 people

attended the black-tie event at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in Atlanta.

He was invited by Sachi Koto, a former news anchor for CNN who now has

her own public relations firm. He called his speech "Everything I Need

to Know I Learned in a Chinese Laundry."

I was interested in Jung's stories but we also talked about immigration,

a hot-button issue these days. His father, Kwok Fui, was an illegal

immigrant when he came to the United States in the 1920s. He was among

the thousands of Chinese men who came with false documents and became

known as "paper sons."

In 1882, Congress passed a law called the Chinese Exclusion Act, which

prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers into the country. But the

Chinese took advantage of a loophole to circumvent the law. Chinese men

who lived in the United States prior to 1882 were allowed to return to

China to marry and start a family, then bring their sons back with them

to the United States.

By claiming more sons than they actually had, they were able to sell the

immigration papers to younger Chinese men who were not related to them.

During the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, which marked its 100th

anniversary last month, many of the U.S. immigration papers were

destroyed, making the law difficult to monitor and enforce.

Jung's mother often told her children about how their father purchased

false papers in order to come to America.

"I was torn between feelings of shame for being 'illegal' and fear that

someday my parents would be apprehended and deported," he said. As a

child, he said he was unaware of all the social and political

implications of being illegal aliens.

"But it bothered me," he said, "I thought my father had this deep, dark

secret."

In a sense, the Jungs were bystanders when the law was repealed in 1943.

It came after a visit by Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, the first lady of

China, during her historic trip to the United States.

As the only Chinese family in Macon, the Jungs were invited to meet with

her in June 1943 when she arrived here to receive an honorary doctorate

from Wesleyan College, where she had started her college education.

Her maiden name was Mei-Ling Soong, and her family had lived in Macon

during the early 1900s while her two older sisters attended Wesleyan.

Jung doesn't remember much about that sultry summer day when he met

Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. He was only 6 years old.

(But he reflects on the irony of a college in Macon awarding her an

honorary doctorate. In September 1910, the Bibb Board of Education

denied Mei-Ling Soong admission to Gresham High School because she was

considered an "alien." Gresham was an all-girls school in Macon. The

board cited a policy that students must be "naturalized and of the

Caucasian race.")

It was during her 1943 visit to the United States that Madame Chiang

Kai-Shek met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to rally support and

aid for the World War II effort against the Japanese. Her visit also

brought significant attention to the U.S. immigration policy toward

China and greatly contributed to FDR's decision to repeal the Chinese

Exclusion Act of 1882.

Jung's parents eventually became U.S. citizens. His family moved from

Macon to San Francisco in 1952.

But he has never forgotten the days he spent here.

A few years ago, while writing and researching his book, he and his wife

came for a visit. The memories embraced him.

Although he and his family often were the objects of racial ridicule,

taunting and curiosity, he realized one cannot change the past by

refusing to acknowledge it.

Looking back, he chooses to remember there were happy times, too.

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/Reach Grisamore at 744-4275 or egrisamore@macontel.com

<mailto:egrisamore@macontel.com>. Visit www.grisamore.com

<http://www.grisamore.com>./

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