Lisa See’s Long Voyage

Anne Kelly-Saxenmeyer

Special to the Mirror

   In the sunny office of her Brentwood home, novelist/librettist Lisa See, talks about gardens and the intuitive links which bind us to our forebears. 
   From where I sit, I can see Lisa's own garden, in gorgeous late-spring bloom. It's beautifully manicured; roses seem to be the dominant flower. But even with her western style garden and her naturally red hair, as she writes in her memoir, Lisa is Chinese in her heart.
   "Ten years ago I did this day trip from Hong Kong to Guangzhou . . . It's about a two-hour train trip, and as soon as the train crosses the border onto the mainland, there are these houses of the poorest of the poor, right up against the tracks. And down in their little courtyards were these gardens that were the kinds of gardens I'd grown up with, very lush, very tropical, filled with bodhi trees and cymbidiums, very very beautiful but also filled with all this junk, kind of scavenged and picked up by the side of the road. And it really struck me that even though the family had been here [in the United States] for 120 years that the visual aesthetic was the same as the South China peasant's. That as much as we'd been educated, as much as we'd become diluted, as much as we had changed our clothes, so much of what we did in our family still was just directly traceable to that lifestyle in South China."
   Thirteen years ago, See hadn't envisioned writing a memoir, much less an opera. Since then, her personal interest in her family's history has taken shape in multiple mediums and has already caught the attention of national and international audiences.
   In 1995, two months after a chance meeting with L.A. Opera General Director, Peter Hemmings, and his wife, Jane, See was joined with composer, Nathan Wang, and director, Andrew Tsao, and the three set out to adapt her family memoir, "On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family," for the stage. 
   The opera which has emerged is set to premiere on Friday, June 9, at the Japan America Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, not far from the spot where, in 1894, Lisa's great-grandfather, Fong See, opened what would become a thriving antique imports business and the centerpoint of an exceptional family.
   See's family memoir, a work of epic scale, arresting richness, and comprehensive historical detail, presented some interesting challenges to its adapters. How would they capture the scope of such a work in ninety minutes? In operatic form, the story still spans 100 years, but is shaped by the reminiscences Fong See as an old man, recalling his immigrant experience, his love affair with Ticie (See's Caucasian great-grandmother), and his three other marriages.
   For the sound of the opera, See and composer Wang strove to create the sense of hybridity, of melting, conveyed in the memoir. To this end, the score utilizes both eastern and western instruments, and the language is infused with Chinese sayings, aphorisms, and allusions to traditional fairy stories.
   "This is a Chinese-American story, and it really needed to combine, I think, elements of eastern and western opera, theater and music . . . Nathan and I would talk a lot about music and what we wanted. So many contemporary operas are very modern, atonal pieces, and certainly with something that is Chinese influenced you could go very atonal, but we wanted something that would feel very rich, and also that you could walk out and be humming the music."
   It was with a family audience in mind that this composer-librettist team opted for music that would be accessible, yet capture the journey of the memoir in all its depth. Speaking of families, over a hundred of See's own relatives, the real-life characters of this vivid chronicle, will be in attendance on the opera's opening night.
   Back in 1987, with nothing more than a desire to preserve some family anecdotes, Lisa entered into the years of research that would become "On Gold Mountain." At the time, a friend had asked to include the family of Fong See in a book of profiles of prominent Chinese-American families. 
   Having been approached many times to do a book, or a magazine article, or even a film script about their experiences, the family, represented by See's great-aunt Sissee, declined as usual. Two years later, Lisa gave her great-aunt a copy of this book at her eightieth birthday party in Chinatown. 
   The next morning Sissee's daughter called See. "My mom realizes she made a mistake. Why don't you come over? She has some stories."
   "I think all of these families had stories that they really didn't want to tell or don't want to remember . . . There was a lot of hardship that had to do with discrimination, and racism, and the Exclusion Act. So I think that [Aunt Sissee] always felt, or the family always felt that there was no way that you could talk about that in a way that could be equal to the things that you were proud of . . . That first day that we did the interview, I heard things that I'd never heard before."
   Sissee Leong passed away very suddenly three months later, and at her funeral, a traditional Chinese funeral with a big banquet, people began to approach See. "We know Auntie Sissee was talking to you. Why don't you come over, and we have some stories too."
   Yet another manifestation of the See family history will come to fruition only weeks after the premiere of the "On Gold Mountain" opera. In 1993, two years before the publication of her family memoir, See began talking to the Autry Museum of Western Heritage about doing an exhibition on Chinese immigrant history, using the family as a through line. Showing at the Autry from July 23, 2000 to January 2nd, 2001, this very interactive exhibit will include recreations of an immigrant ship; a Los Angeles Chinatown street; an Angel Island interrogation room; Lisa's grandfather's restaurant, the Dragon's Den; and his art gallery, complete with some of its original pieces. The exhibition is the largest ever, anywhere, on the history of the Chinese in America, and has just been invited to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.
   "The idea that this history would actually be on the mall in our nation's capital is just phenomenal. Especially when you think that when I started I was sitting in the back of the store with my aunt and a tape recorder and just thinking I'd do a little ten-page thing I'd send out at Christmas. But I think it's because people respond, well, in two ways . . . The main response I've always gotten about this book is 'Oh, I never knew, I never knew that history, I never knew this happened.' But the other is, I think everyone can relate to the immigration experience. Everyone has a family, everyone has a mother and a father, and for everyone, in order for us to be here today, there were people who struggled, who failed, who succeeded, who suffered and triumphed."
   The LA Opera's production of "On Gold Mountain" will premiere at the Japan America Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, performances June 9, 10 (mat), 11. (213)680-3700. The production will then move to the Barclay Theatre in Irvine, performances June 16, 17, 18 (mat). (949)854-4646. Tickets range from $10 to $20 and will be available for purchase at each theater's box office.
   Lisa See's family memoir, "On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred Year Odyssey Of My Chinese-American Family," is published by Vintage Books. 
   "On Gold Mountain: A Chinese American Experience" will be presented July 23-October 29, 2000 at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage.