Summary of Lisa See's On Gold Mountain

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Fong Dun Shung was a herbalist who traveled from village to village teaching people about the importance of balancing their qi. He was given a free trip to the Gold Mountain, and his sons were promised jobs.
#2 Fong Dun Shung was a Chinese doctor who helped the Chinese workers on the railroad when they got sick. He was ministering to a woman with boils when the scout asked if he would like to go to the Gold Mountain to help the Chinese laborers when they got sick.
#3 Fong Dun Shung, traveling to Canton, China, in 1862, was one of the first Chinese merchants to go there and sell products to the Europeans. He was a successful Gold Mountain man, and he hoped to become the headman of his village.
#4 When Fong Dun Shung and his two sons arrived in San Francisco, they were confused and lost. There were no immigration procedures or customs officials. They were told they would be met by someone, but they didn’t know who.

Sujets

• 19th Century
• Histoire
• United States
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669396697
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Lisa See's On Gold Mountain
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Fong Dun Shung was a herbalist who traveled from village to village teaching people about the importance of balancing their qi. He was given a free trip to the Gold Mountain, and his sons were promised jobs.

#2

Fong Dun Shung was a Chinese doctor who helped the Chinese workers on the railroad when they got sick. He was ministering to a woman with boils when the scout asked if he would like to go to the Gold Mountain to help the Chinese laborers when they got sick.

#3

Fong Dun Shung, traveling to Canton, China, in 1862, was one of the first Chinese merchants to go there and sell products to the Europeans. He was a successful Gold Mountain man, and he hoped to become the headman of his village.

#4

When Fong Dun Shung and his two sons arrived in San Francisco, they were confused and lost. There were no immigration procedures or customs officials. They were told they would be met by someone, but they didn’t know who.

#5

Fong Dun Shung and his family arrived in San Francisco in 1850, two years after gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill. In 1862, the first anti-coolie club was formed. That same year, Leland Stanford became governor. He said, To my mind it is clear that the settlement among us of an inferior race is to be discouraged by every legitimate means.

#6

The Big Four, Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, and C. P. Huntington, embraced the idea of a transcontinental railroad and its profits. They hired Chinese workers to build the railroad, as they were cheaper than Caucasian workers.

#7

The laborers would gather around the campfire to play fantan, a game similar to craps. The storyteller would place a small handful of buttons on the ground under a cup. The men would bet on how many buttons would be left after the count. The winner would be determined by how many buttons they had placed their bets on.

#8

Fong Dun Shung was a herbalist who spent his days in the camp. He attended to men who were sick, and prepared tonics to stave off chills, fever, phlegm, coughs, nausea, and heatstroke. He did not dwell on his hardships, and he did not feel any emotions.

#9

The Chinese in Fong’s camp worked twenty-six days out of a American month, from before dawn to dusk. They earned twenty-eight or thirty American dollars a month. The white men treated them differently, and Fong learned that they drank a lot and passed out in their own vomit.

#10

Fong Dun Shung dreamed of selling herbs to the villagers of China, who asked for something to cool them off, or to help them purge their inner fire. He missed his wife and children.

#11

Fong Dun Shung, a Chinese immigrant, would pass by older houses with bell-shaped roofs that he remembered from his childhood. He would dream of the rain that beat down on his roof during summer months.

#12

Shue-ying, the mother of Fong See, was a poor peasant woman who was sold as a child. She was strong enough to carry people on her back from village to village. She had no oiled hair or silks, but she was a heroine of the snow because she was used-up and had no other options.

#13

After the railroad was completed, Fong Dun Shung took the little money he had saved and came to Sacramento. He opened the Kwong Tsui Chang, which means Success Peacefully. He was able to continue his occupation as he had since his father died.

#14

Fong Dun Shung, after years of being on the railroad, began working as a doctor in San Francisco. He was lonely for a woman’s companionship, and tried to forget about his family in China.

#15

The Great Railroad was completed in 1872, and Fong See’s mother heard from his father for the first time in years. She was excited to send her son to America to find his brothers and reunite the family.

#16

Fong See had been born in 1857 in the village of Dimtao in the district of Nam Hoi in the Pearl River delta of Kwangtung Province of the Middle Kingdom. He had seen girls even younger than him going to silk factories before dawn and returning home after sunset.

#17

Fong See had heard many things while in San Francisco, from puppet shows to snake charmers. He had wanted to go inside the compounds and see what was behind those heavily carved doors.

#18

Fong See learned a lot on the boat. He learned that the drafts of these ships were so shallow that they could run on land after a rain. He also learned that the captains rang their bells at night and waited for an echo to bounce off a building so they would know which way to go.

#19

Fong See had come to America to make his fortune. He had a wife back home in China, and he wanted to dress her in the finest silk and give her enough servants so that her feet would never touch the ground.

#20

Fong See’s life was a constant stream of events mixed with mystery, fantasy, and apocrypha. But one thing is for sure: he came to America and gave his name to the immigration officials, who then renamed him See.

#21

Fong See’s story was that he had come to the United States in 1871, when he was fourteen years old. But in reality, he had only come to California in 1897. He may have been two weeks short of his hundredth birthday when he died.

#22

The first pioneers to cross the Oregon Trail in 1845 had the luxury of open land with plenty of grass and good water for their horses, oxen, and other livestock. However, there were hardships along the trail. The four-hundred-mile stretch from the Platte River in Nebraska to Fort Laramie in Wyoming averaged twelve graves to the mile.

#23

The Pruetts were among the first families to settle the Rogue River Valley in 1872. They had a hard time finding land, but when they did, they registered for it. They began the backbreaking work of clearing the manzanita, chaparral, and grass that grew on the valley floor as high as a horse’s shoulder.

#24

During his first days home, Fong Dun Shung hosted a banquet to show off his new wife, his wealth, and his booty to all the neighbors who had thought him dead or lost forever among the white demons. He paid his respects to the ancestral graves, then went out to see if there was a man in the village willing to gamble.

#25

Between 1871 and 1874, Fong See witnessed incredible changes in the land and the quality of life of Sacramento’s citizens. The Chinese had reclaimed 500 million acres of swampy land, and the wages they offered seemed adequate for either reclamation or farm work.

#26

The Chinese worked in many different industries in San Francisco, from building highways to brewing beer. They were also popular salesmen, who would walk from door to door selling anything they could get their hands on.

#27

Fong See went to the city clerk’s office to get his business papers signed, and then went to the Conrad Young Photography Studio to have his picture taken. He walked to the intersection of Third and I streets, where Chinatown was.

#28

Fong See always felt a wave of relief when he entered Chinatown between Second and Fourth streets. It was a place where his fellow sojourners could enjoy pleasures and diversions that they could not find in their home villages or in the big city of Canton.

#29

Fong See had transformed himself from a brave little peasant boy to a young man who eschewed the dress of the poor whites for the elegance of the wealthy ones he had seen on the riverboat. He was training himself not to be a peasant.

#30

Luscinda was sick in late February, and she was constantly worried about money. They owed Magruder’s over in Central Point for syrup, starch, candles, matches, castor oil, and salt, and W. C. Leever’s Hardware for washtubs, chamber pots, watering cans, and washboards.

#31

The next morning, a light dusting of snow lay on the surrounding mountains, and the ground was sticky from the rain of the previous evening. John Pruett paid six dollars for a coffin, two dollars to a man to dig the grave, and another couple of dollars to have his wife carried to her final resting place on McHenry’s land, down the road from the farm.

#32

Fong See, the oldest brother, ran the Kwong Tsui Chang Company, which manufactured underwear for brothels. He traveled up, down, and across the state selling the company’s merchandise to Chinese and white prostitutes.

#33

Fong See sold his goods and brought back a profit. He was the one who went next door to Israel Luce, the tombstone cutter, to pay the rent. His brothers couldn’t do it, they didn’t have enough wits, courage, or English.

#34

Fong See learned how to sell and defend himself against the foreign devils who wanted him out of the country. He began to think there was a market for Chinese goods in America, and that he could sell them for more in China.

#35

The Chinese had endured many hardships since coming to the Gold Mountain. They were treated worse than the village dogs, and they had no idea how to revolt. They learned to bai hoi, or stand aside, avoid conflict.

#36

The Chinese were seen as a threat to the white labor force, as they would take their jobs. The Chinese were also blamed for the state’s poor economy, as they were seen as taking advantage of the tourist trade.

#37

The Chinese were also excluded from entering the country, and the Exclusion Act of 1882 was devastating. It barred Chinese laborers from entry for ten years, the wives of current residents from entry, and all Chinese needed to be registered and carry their residency papers at all times.

#38

The Chinese were not the only ones who were affected by the Exclusion Act. The law was extremely effective at keeping Chinese immigrants out of the country, and it allowed the worst elements of men to boil over and become cruel.