RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q
102

and 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.

It 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.

Grandfather 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
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q
137

My Father

My father was born on 30 October 1878, in Cha In Village, Nam Long, See Dai Doo, Heong Shan District in Kwangtung Province. He was generally known by his 'milk name', Ping Yip #4. His marriage name was Poo Kau and his adult name was Ying Tung. He was the third son and youngest of six children born to grandfather by his first wife. When Grandfather married again, his second wife reportedly favoured her own son, Ping Lim, who was five years younger than Father.

After the family business failed, and Father's two older brothers moved to California, Grandfather went to Hawaii and sent for his wife and Ping Lim, leaving Father in the village. Feelings of deprivation and poverty during this period left a lasting imprint on Father's attitude towards life. He worked hard, conserved what he earned, nurtured a great ambition, and in time, he appreciated and loved his own children. Meanwhile, as a child in the village, his days were devoted to the study of the Classics in the ancestral hall under the strict tutelage of a teacher, Li Chich-hsiang, who had been hired from outside the village to instruct 20 to 30 boys. Father recalled how he was made to kneel on sand or was hit on the head with a piece of wood when he did not learn his lessons well. This kind of discipline did not enhance his self-esteem and he expressed a wish that he be either very brilliant or so stupid that he would not know enough to be concerned by his mediocrity.

In 1892 at the age of 14, Father sailed for Hawaii, in the company of First Paternal Aunt Yim. They landed first in San Francisco where they transferred to a whaling vessel for Honolulu. Father probably attended public school before entering the Christian Boarding School for Oriental Boys, later known as Mills Institute, which was then located at Chaplain Lane, off Nuuanu Avenue, near the original site of Love's Bakery. This school was founded in 1892 and was administered by Rev. Francis W. Damon and his wife Mary, both of whom had come from missionary families and both of whom had command of fluent Cantonese. Father studied hard and became one of Rev. Damon's favourite students. These early years must have been a pleasant period, for later

* See Registration Record. Chinese Consulate, 1911.
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