Youth: Part 2. Junior High Summer

Show me the heroes that the youth of your country look up to, and I will tell you the future of your country.

― Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for all Africans: How Every African Can Live the Life of Their Dreams

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.  ― Ogden Nash

On the one hand maybe I’ve remained infantile, while on the other I matured quickly, because at a young age I was very aware of suffering and fear.  ― Audrey Hepburn

Fort Bragg Summer

The summer after school, my family sent to me to California to work in my aunt's shop. Uncle Ben and Aunt Corky owned a camera and music store in Fort Bragg, 4-5 hours drive north of San Jose and San Francisco. Fort Bragg is an isolated former logging town on the northern California coast in Mendocino country, not far from Eureka and Ukiah. It is a small town, relatively cool in the summer compared the hot inland. 

When I got there, I learned how to make a green salad for my uncle. He ate salad every day. Uncle Ben was Jewish. So he ate Western and kosher food. It was the first time in my life I made and ate lettuce salad. Growing up, my parents normally cooked Chinese food, with rice. We ate rice 6 days a week. One day we ate pasta. Salad was a foreign food. Lettuce was for putting in your sandwich for school lunch. So, eating salad was a cultural experience.  

My mother actually kept a letter from Aunt Corky:  June 23.

Dear Glo,

Cary is cooperating very well so far. We are making him play the viola every night and he does not complain. 

We are giving Cary lots of different things to eat. So when we had lunch yesterday I opened a can of soup and he had three quarters of it. 

He said, "I don't get a chance to eat much ordinary food." 

And so he finished it up. So far, he has true to form not eaten raw carrots, radishes, green olives or raw tomatoes.   

Love, Cork

Mom also kept my detailed letter to the family: June 24

Dear Mom, Dad, Chip Jan Darrell, 

Monday I started work in the shop, it's bigger than I thought and had a lot of stuff in it. At first they had started with only one one room shop but since have expanded into two rooms, one for the music department and a photo department. There is plenty of stock to know. First I just swept the sidewalk in front of the store and inside the shop. 

On Monday I also started to dust off the shelves in the camera apartment. It's hard work because I had to take off the merchandise, dust that off, dust the shelf, and replace the stuff. I did behind the counter where they keep the photo chemicals, dark room equipment, camera film, and cameras, accessories . 

On Tuesday I finally finished all six shelves, then I dusted the show windows using the same procedure as before. Uncle Ben bought the show windows from a bakery. 

So Uncle Ben and Auntie Corky have made me practice on one of their Violas. Ben says that before the summer is over I will be the first concert violist for the orchestra. But actually practicing here is becoming bothersome. I don't exactly enjoy every minute of it. 

Also all the food has been Uncle Ben certified for fanciness. Nothing is ordinary, not even the mustard. They have this German hot mustard. You can tell it's all the thinking of Uncle Ben.
Even though they buy some ordinary food, I have to serve or prepare it fancy. Most of the stuff I want to eat except for some junk, but that doesn't mean I like it. Once when having roast lamb, and tonight with T-bone steak, they have apple mint jelly with theirs! What is that?

Uncle Ben disapproves of putting much salt on anything, like on ham, scrambled eggs, steak, lamb, Etc. So everything tastes very plain . I put on salt and pepper a little bit anyway. Best time of day I like is going to sleep. Working and eating are about the same but the rest whatever there is, is worse. 

Uncle Ben is going to the East Coast next week for I don't know how long. Wonder if my life living here will return to normal. I doubt it. 

Aunt Corky says I'll have to work about 40 hours a week, 6 days a week. For the past 2 days I have done 7 hours each day. If I get $1 an hour and 40 hours a week I'll have enough for a plane ticket in less than a month. Then I'll have another month for profit. Of course every single day I'll have to go through what I've been through, and it's been only satisfactory. I hope I can last the summer. 

It hasn't been too hot or too cold up here. It rained the day I came with Uncle Tim and Popo, but that has been it for foul weather. 

I have been provided with a room of my own and a sofa bed to sleep. And a three drawer clothes chest, and a towel. 

The store hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Actually Ben closes shortly after 5pm because of lack of customers. Hope everything was well on Martha's Vineyard.
love, Cary  

Aunty Corky was my mother's younger sister. Both she and Uncle Ben were professional musicians. She played piano, organ, violin, viola, and was a solo vocalist. Uncle Ben played violin. They had no children together, although uncle Ben had children from a previous marriage. Uncle Ben was much older than Aunty Corky and just a few years younger than my grandfather Goong goong.

Uncle Ben drove a classic car, a 1955 Packard. It was a behemoth, heavy, built like a tank, tall as a truck and as spacious as a limousine. The Packard was the special car for Sunday drives and long distance trips. Aunty Corky's car was a simple compact Dodge sedan. 

Adolescence is like having only enough light to see the step directly in front of you.
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Girl Who Chased the Moon

One time he was driving me in the Packard from San Jose to Fort Bragg late at night. I was sleeping in the backseat. Suddenly I was woken up when the car jolted. 

I heard Uncle Ben say, "Woah!" 

The car came to a standstill off the road. He had fallen asleep at the wheel. The engine was still running and the headlamps on. We both got out of the car and looked in front. There was dust everywhere. We had hit a wooden fence, the kind of fence that's used in horse ranches and farms. Strong, heavy pieces of wood. 

We looked at the car. There was a small part of the front grill of the Packard that was broken, the size of my fist, but nothing else was wrong. Everything on that Packard was made of solid steel. We climbed back in and continued our journey without further incident. I stayed awake and of course, Uncle Ben did, too. 

The purpose of my time in Fort Bragg was to work in the store. It was a very good experience doing retail in a family shop. It was a photo and camera shop, called Fiddles and Cameras. At that time, they were the only music photo store for miles. I think Ukiah or Eureka were the nearest places with competition. 

I worked full time. I swept the sidewalk every morning, opened up, dusted the displays, swept the floors and straightened up everything. The most frequent business was camera film and photo developing. We had guitars and violins, harmonicas, flutes, recorders for wind instruments, and page music. Uncle Ben taught me how to ring up the cash register, take film or photo orders, and handle customers. He also taught me how to watch out for shoplifters. The final tip was when to ask someone to leave. There was no smoking inside. 

But, there were times when a person reeked of alcohol or other substances. And Uncle Ben would tell them to please leave the store. I learned to detect that smell, the aroma of drugs. To this day, I recognize it. My smell memory is strong.   

On Sunday we three would venture over to visit Uncle Ben's friends, the Leon family, a mixed couple living just outside of town. The husband was White and his wife was Japanese. They had two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was 5 years old and the girl was 12.  I forget their names. The girl was kind of cute, being half White, half Asian. Because we went over there every week, I kind of got used to that family, it is sort of felt like relatives. 

A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present?   ― Confucius, The Life and Wisdom of Confucius

Chinese family camp

The next summer my parents announced that our whole family was going to a 7 day Chinese Family Camp. What?! Us kids had no idea what that was. 

Well, Chinese parents from North Eastern states like Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, and Massachusetts had formed an Association of Suburban Chinese families. It was called East Coast Chinese Family Camp, ECCFC. 

Back in those days anyone who lived in the suburbs did not have much contact with other Chinese. Mom and dad knew a couple of the families from Maryland who are going to be attending and had been part of the camp leadership.

So, those Elders decided they needed a Chinese Family Camp to bring their families to meet others. To teach Chinese culture, to cook and eat good food. And maybe, hopefully their children would meet a boyfriend or girlfriend and be their future spouse.

At first, my brother Steve objected, complained and grumbled about having to go with the family. He was the rebel, age 15. He had already run away in junior high school. After all, camps were just for kids. No parents. Who wanted your mother and father there? 

I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn't know who I was or wanted to be.
― Milan Kundera, The Joke

Well, this wasn't any camp. It was Chinese family camp. And by golly we were going as a family. So, we drove to Hershey, Pennsylvania and we all ended up having a wonderful time. There were maybe 25 families altogether. It was like a Chinese village, a big extended family. We called other parents uncle and aunty even though they were not blood related. Most families were Mandarin or Taiwanese, with a fair number were Cantonese.

Parents bought, prepared and cooked delicious Chinese meals using the camp kitchen. Yes, they took over the kitchen. They also taught Tai chi, calligraphy, and art, while the children played sports, showed off pop talent, and danced. We all sang the doxology in Mandarin before meals. Like church for one minute. 

The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.   ― Saki, Reginald

Steve even met a girl there during the last night party. I think her name was Mary. I saw them walk off together into the night, departing from the last dance. I was happy for him, happy that he had a good time at camp and met someone. I was a bit wistful.

I did not meet a girl there, as I was 14 and shy. Most of the teens were older. I was starting to appreciate Chinese - American girls. They were growing on me.

One goal of Chinese Family Camp was to strengthen ethnic identity, family and the relationship between older and younger generations. I think they met that goal. Another was to make Chinese friends and build relationships for the future. Yes. And maybe more than that. 

The beauty of collaboration between older and younger generations is that we combine strength with wisdom—a surefire way to accomplish more for the glory of God.
― Brett Harris

What did I learn?

I learned about the beauty of family, extended family, and our ethnic identity and culture. I learned that we could have fun with parents and uncles and aunts all together like a big Village. It was nothing wrong with it, it was just very different than other typical youth camps. It was a suburban Chinese family cultural experience. 

Youth ends when egotism does; maturity begins when one lives for others.

― Hermann Hesse, Gertrude