[
    {
        "id": 211410,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 126,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "102\n\nand others. Grandfather was the book-keeper and his 'sworn brother', Lum Gam Chin, was the manager. In those days Chinese immigrants were very clannish and used these stores for various purposes. Consequently Wing On Tai was patronized by those from the See Dai Doo District. They spoke a subdialect of Fukienese known as Nam Long. Many of them were rice farmers from Waiahole, Waikane and Punaluu on Oahu and from the Panalei Valley on Kauai. They would charge their purchases during the year and would clear their accounts just before the arrival of the lunar New Year; they would send their grain to be milled and sold; they would remit money to their families in China through the store facilities; they would stop by to socialize; and some would use the living quarters located behind the store as a temporary stop-over place. In those days meals were served to the employees, an amenity extended to visitors. Therefore, Wing On Tai was not only a place of business but also a community centre, as were other stores to their own clansmen.\n\nIt was around 1899 that Wing On Tai started the Iwilei Rice Mill on a large piece of land on Iwilei Road, in the heart of the then Red Light district. Ping Lim wrote to Father in Hilo that Yim Quon, one of the principal shareholders, had selected Chew Lum Chan (probably a distant cousin) to oversee the weighing of the grain. There were also living quarters on the grounds for the employees and I remember being there with Mother to visit Mrs. Lum Gwo, a daughter of a Chan clansman married to the book-keeper who succeeded Grandfather. Even for that short distance we went there in a hack, a horse-drawn buggy. In the early 1920s when Lum Siu Bun was manager, the two businesses were dissolved and the mill property was sold to the Hawaiian Pineapple Company and on this land stands the huge pineapple tank. Because Grandfather had deeded his holdings to Father when he left for China, Mother and we children received several thousand dollars of the liquidation distributions. Mother sent her share to First Paternal Uncle and Second Paternal Uncle, and used the balance to build a duplex on our Fort and Kuakini Streets property where a store was already standing.\n\nGrandfather cared very much for his second wife. When she became ill, reportedly from tuberculosis, he nursed her tenderly. When she died on 4 October 1899, he felt the loss so keenly that he sought solace in opium. His grief was compounded by the death of Ping Lim a few years",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211437,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 153,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "129\n\nwhen she became very ill, she married the girl to Uncle, thinking that she could be a companion for Mother, who at that time was 14. Aunt Jong's version was that Lum Gin had wanted to marry my Mother, but Grandmother would not consent to it. Regardless of the reason, her two nephews became angry and left without repaying their indenture and the family relationship was severed. Lum Gin later married and settled in Hecia where he had a small country store, but the strain continued. In 1901, Uncle married Wong Fung. On 16 March 1903, my Mother, then not quite 16 years old, was married to my Father.\n\nFarm life was rough. The adults had to work hard and diligently, but rice farming did not prove profitable. There seemed to be constant worries if it was not the unpredictable weather, it was the depressed price of rice. To add to the family's problems, Grandmother's illness became more serious. A herbalist tried unsuccessfully to 'burst' a growth in her abdomen which he had diagnosed as a 'turtle'. There was much bleeding and intense pain. She probably was suffering from cancer. It was during her terminal days that I fell off the porch of the farm house onto broken glass, and sustained a cut on the top of my head, a scar I bear to this day. Grandmother died on 5 December 1907. Although I was only two at that time, one incident during the wake stands out in my memory, Mother and Aunt sitting on the floor in front of the bier, joss sticks smoking and flickering candles burning, as Uncle poured wine into tiny cups and ordered us four girls to empty the cups and kowtow before the coffin. Because we giggled during the ceremony, Uncle gave each of us a hard rap on the head with his knuckle. Grandmother was buried on the farm. Her remains were exhumed about 10 years later, stored temporarily at our Broad Road home until they were taken to China by Cousin Gum Chin for final burial.\n\nIt was not until my paternal Grandfather Chan, who was a partner in the Iwilei Rice Mill, offered to mill the grain and sell the rice in California at a better price, that Grandfather Jong was able to realize a profit. With savings of about 1,000 dollars, he returned to Shekki in 1909 when he was 55 years old. I remember being with Mother to see him off at the pier, which was located opposite the Oahu Railroad Depot not far from our Iwilei home, and observing tears in her eyes as we stood beside the s. s. Manchuria. The next year Grandfather married a widow with a young daughter, who was later to become the wife of Pong Fai,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211464,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 180,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "156\n\nmore emancipated, she underwent surgery several times for a uterine tumor, for hemorrhoids, for a gastric ulcer and gallstones, and finally for intestinal obstruction at the age of 79. She was fortunate to come under the care of excellent surgeons Dr. Wah Kwai Chang, Dr. Samuel Yee, and Dr. Livingston Wong. And Dr. Richard Chun treated her for many years for hypertension and a bad heart.\n\nI do not think that Mother had ever worked through her feelings of repeated separations and losses. At the tender age of 16, she became separated from her family by marriage, only visiting once or twice a year, although Kaneohe was only about 12 miles from Honolulu. The death of Grandmother Jong in 1907, the departure of Grandfather for China in 1909, never to return, the gift of Me Yuk to First Paternal Uncle Chan before she could walk, her death at five years of age, and Grandfather Jong's rejection of Mother when he learned that she had embraced Christianity and wrote that he had lost his daughter — all these increased Mother's feelings of loss. When I was growing up, I would sometimes come upon her with tears in her eyes. Although it troubled me, I never thought to ask her the reason and I was too young to understand and to give her comfort. These experiences no doubt coloured her outlook on life, for whenever any of us left home, she would cry and worry unnecessarily. Oddly her fears were often confirmed.\n\nMother was never pressured by Father to become a Christian. An elderly Chinese Bible woman, whom we addressed as \"Fourth Aunt\", would visit us in Iwilei, talk with Mother, and teach Ruth and me to sing \"Jesus Loves Me, this I know\" in Chinese. At Christmas \"American\" ladies would come by and give us cornucopias filled with candy. We still have a booklet from them, pasted with pictures of Bible stories and a photograph of Central Union Church on its cover. I used to look at the pictures over and over again, and was particularly struck by a picture of a boy lying on the ground and a woman sitting beside him in a prayerful attitude with her face turned towards Heaven. I later learned that it was Ishmael and his mother in the desert after Abraham sent them away.\n\nIn 1911 when we moved to our home on Board Road, Mother became acquainted with two staunch Christians, Mrs. C. K. Ai and Mrs. Edwin Cooper, under whose influence she became more enlightened and\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    }
]