An eighty-five-year-old grandmother smiles warmly as her grandchildren
come to visit her. With an exchange of embraces, she presents a batch of
brownies to the enthusiastic youth, only one of the many ways she shows her love
towards them. Currently residing in Los Angeles, Lucille Fong was born and
raised in China from 1920 to 1948. When she was seventeen years old, the Second
Sino-Japanese War broke out between the Republic of China and the Empire of
Japan and difficult times ensued. She retells her experiences of coping with
those years alongside her three sisters…
I was born in Canton, China on November 11, 1920. I lived
in the village. There was no, no radio, no telephone either. No T.V., no
nothing. In the village, no church. They, they all Buddhist. There was just a
temple. My father hired a teacher from the city to teach us. They have a, uh, shi
tong, a building, a big building, hired teacher from the city to teach us.
The whole village had to pay. Only the rich people can join in, about more than
ten people. There was one teacher, a man. Boys and girls were together. About
two years then we go to the school, the public school had a elementary school in
the village for two years, after two years then I, then we moved to go to the
high, the school, new school. It’s a high school, they have senior high,
junior high, and elementary. I was uh, fourteen years old. We learned English,
Chinese, all that, history, music, like here.
When I was in junior high in Canton in 1937 then the war start. The Japanese bombed the Canton, then the school moved to Hong Kong because when we was in class then the bomb come. The airplane bombed the Canton. We could hear it. Then we were in class then we run to the basement to hide then the, the principal said that we cannot study this way. Then he went to Hong Kong to look for a big mansion, have lots of room. Then we moved to Hong Kong. Then Pau pau (Grandma) and my mother come over here, come over to the United States then we, the four sisters, lived in school in Hong Kong in the dormitory then we moved to Hong Kong.
Somebody lived in their house. You know, don’t stay in the house in Hong Kong you cannot, they don’t let you stay in school because not much room. Then because the room daytime is a classroom, nighttime is a bedroom. After the class all the, the maids, all the maids moved all the chairs, moved all the beds together, make their beds for the students. There were three hundred students. Some lived at home and came to school everyday. Some with no house, no home lived in the home.
At dinnertime, there was a room that at dinnertime
was used like a dining room. Come here the restaurant-cafeteria, they all the
got some rice, go back to their classroom. The classroom was like a dining room.
It’s a dining, it’s a bedroom, it’s a restaurant.
I went high school; my high school was a Christian school. Before school start, eight o’ clock they have a service, worship. That lady come from here, American, and speak a half hour service, but I don’t go there. It was in True Light School, in the high school.
Some have the bed don’t have to move the bunk bed only the high class junior highers…The older ones then the senior high, the junior high had the same room. You eat here, study here, sleep here. After three years then I graduate high school in 1940. I tried to go to Shanghai for college, but after 1940, the war start, no money. There was no ship to take me there because of the war. Then our family cannot send money to us, send money back to Shanghai. Then we tried to get a job. It’s war times. It’s hard to get jobs.
Eventually, I go to the uh, Shanghai Red Cross hospital, a nursing school, for three and half years. Then war end then we could come over. It’s hard! It’s really hard. You have to study and then go to, go to work while in the hospital and then even you work at nighttime, daytime you had class. Nine o’ clock you had class and nighttime you had to work in the hospital.
Then after three and half years the war ends. Then war end then we could come over (to the United States).
Interviewed by Marty Fong