RSVPstyle

A House on Columbia Avenue

You may not even notice the house if you’re walking down the street. It’s behind rows and rows of newer apartment buildings, all rectangular, all uniform in color. What was the massive back yard is now two apartment buildings. An alley with a vegetable market was put in at the front. You can’t even see the front door—somebody has built a little one-room unit under the porte cochere. A bank of green mailboxes tells you that 15, maybe 16 families live in the house.

The house itself is very run-down. The paint is all peeled and the wood is worn, and it’s very smelly and dark. Every door is now somebody’s apartment, and the doors are closed and locked. The big old wooden sliding doors to the dining room—closed and locked. The old kitchen is still there, they use it as a communal kitchen. The main staircase, this beautiful old wooden staircase that wraps around with carved posts, is still there, but it’s dirty and worn. You go up and you can see how people have run electrical to each unit, and the wires are kind of tacked along the walls. What was this beautiful entryway is now a pathway of wires and meters.

My mom’s bedroom had a bathroom and built-in vanity. We knocked on the door and the family let us walk in—now it houses a family of four. There’s four twin beds in there with a little table in the middle, and the vanity is still there.

Keoni, Keri and I first saw this house six years ago. The woman who lives in my mom’s old bedroom saw Keri and said, I remember the little girl! Look at her now, all grown up! Six years ago this woman had been caring for her father, who was ill. My aunty was surprised—here’s the same family and the same man in the same bed. My aunty said this woman must take really good care of him. He picked up his hand and waved to us.

My mom has not talked a lot about her childhood, I think because there was a part that was hard, leaving her home and coming to the U.S. and starting over. She always says she doesn’t remember. The little bit she’s told us is about the more glamorous things, but she kind of masks the harder part.

My grandfather worked as general manager for the Kailin Mining Administration, a big British coal company, and my mom lived in this house on Columbia Avenue until she was 13. Her two older sisters had already been shipped out to school in California so it was just my grandparents, my mom and my uncle, who was much younger. My mom grew up with her own driver, cook and servants and went to a well-known private school.

Then there was unrest in China between the Communists and Nationalists and things started getting bad. My mom was sent to live in Hong Kong. It was before her fourteenth birthday. My grandfather went to Hong Kong shortly after on business and faked an ‘illness.’ My grandmother said she had to go take care of him. That’s when she sewed jade buttons onto her clothes, layered on as much clothes as she could, then left with my uncle. My mom did not see that house again until she was past 50.

Today my whole family’s in real estate, so homes to us are special. To see the house my mom grew up in so run-down is very sad. Then also to see how people have to live there compared to how we live… There’s this overall feeling of being very lucky to live where we live and have the things we have and the ability to travel.

We really want Keri to realize how lucky she is. She has her own room with all her toys. For many years she’s donated her Christmas presents to the Children’s Alliance for the children who don’t have as many presents.

We also took Keri to this house to show her where we all came from. We wanted her to have a little history about our family, and this was one way that we could get Keri to see it. Who knows when we’ll get to go back? Now Keri’s almost 8. Now she can remember a little of her heritage.