The American Dream Fully Lived

In Loving Memory of Michael Chin (September 17, 1927– October 25, 2019)

Thai Nguyen
Nov 1 · 12 min read

By Thai Nguyen (Eldest Grandson)

I sat in a comfortable seat, not a blemish or stain noticeable anywhere on its pristine surface. Like every other feature of this high speed train I had boarded in Guangzhou, it was immaculate and brand new. As a tapestry of tall narrow trees, square green fields and circular duck ponds rushed past my window, I saw on the train’s glassy digital display the characters for “Toisan” (台山). A foreigner traveling in the land of his ancestors, I realized I had entered the hometown of my grandfather.

Next stop: Toisan.
A small settlement in Toisan as seen from the high speed train.
Farmland and aquaculture make up much of the landscape.

To understand who my grandfather (“Gong Gong,” 公公), Michael Chin, was, one must know from where he came. Yee Chong Yuen (余邆源), my grandfather’s birth name before he adopted the surname used by the many other “paper sons” who immigrated to America, was born in a China that bears little resemblance to what I had seen in my recent travels. Ninety-two years ago when my grandfather was born in Toisan, China did not have high speed trains, large modern cities, a dominance in global trade or robotic probes crawling the surface of the Moon. The China my grandfather grew up in was a fractured country wrecked by turmoil, chaos and misfortune. One of the earliest stories my grandfather told me was of the warlords who, in their thirst for control of a divided China, waged war against each other to the misery of the common people. My grandfather was a self-described “farmer’s boy,” the youngest and cherished son in a family of three older sisters and an older brother. He would often tell of his doting mother who would spoil him on Chinese sausages (臘腸) and other delicacies. One of my grandfather’s favorite stories of his childhood, and earliest examples of his future entrepreneurial success, is how he bought a female pig and nurtured it through its pregnancy. I vividly remember the delight in his voice as he described how he for months dutifully cared for the gestating pig whose offspring turned a profit for my grandfather, the amateur farmer. This early experience would lead him to a personal truth on human nature and the role of parenting. When I was a boy, he would often pose the question, “how do you know humans are born selfish?” Having been tested on this question by him many times, I would deliver the answer that had become rote: “Because a child will cry until it’s given a mother’s milk.” I’d like to think this perspective shaped how he dealt with and managed the many competing self-interests he encountered as a businessman, whether they were from chefs, employees or partners. It also signifies how he viewed his role as a parent, one which he embodied, as that of a nurturing provider to his children.

With the Chinese mainland stricken by famine, overrun by marauding Japanese soldiers, and competing political factions, my grandfather, at age 14, fled with his family to Hong Kong in 1941. While his family found refuge on the tiny island, life proved to be challenging. His father having immigrated to America to earn money for the family, my grandfather and his older brother were left to care for their mother and three sisters. My grandfather spent this period of his teens working various jobs to support his family and learning the basics of English.

In 1948 at the age of 21, my grandfather, at his father’s urging, scrabbled together years worth of wages and boarded an airplane to America. Since I was a child, my grandfather’s words of his immigrating to the U.S. have never been far from my mind:

“I came here [at] twenty-one years old, no English, no education. All I had were my dreams.”

Reuniting with his father, he arrived in Boston with “[only] a suitcase, shoes, and a jacket.” He worked for his father at the family laundromat where the work was unrelenting and hours long. As he closed the steam press on the suits and trousers, clouds of vapor soaking his brows with sweat, my grandfather realized that “without education [there was] no way to get ahead.” Despite my grandfather’s pleading, my great grandfather refused to let his son pursue an education seeing his place by his side at the family business. Perceiving education as a necessity to attain the American Dream he had traveled half the world in search for, my grandfather disobeyed his “old fashioned” father. He was able to find work as a chef and waiter at a Chinese restaurant by offering to work for free in exchange for food and time, in between his shift, to study. With an edition of Webster’s Dictionary in the front pocket of his black waiter vest, my grandfather would run in and out of the steamy kitchen and the crowded dining area. Amidst the complaints of the fire wielding chefs and the orders of the manager, he listened to the conversations of the American customers. He noted in his pocket dictionary each buzzword he picked up, “Boston Celtics, bull market, SBA, law office, putter, bank loan.” When the sign outside the door was turned over to “Closed,” the waiters began sweeping the bits of rice and bone from the floor while the fatigued chefs, aprons a Pollock painting of soy, chili, and Hoisin sauce, squatted outside in the alley cigarette in hand. All the while, my grandfather sat in the storage closet among boxes of fortune cookies under a dimly lit bulb, his lips attempting to form the right sounds of each new word he had learned that day. ​In his time spent as a waiter, grandfather used “the kitchen as [his] laboratory.” His fellow waiters and kitchen staff became the network with which he used to meet other people in Chinatown. When waiting tables, he made sure to converse with the patrons taking note of each one’s occupation. The relationships he formed included teachers, lawyers, and university professors among others. For grandfather, these contacts were his human resource, the means by which he would leave the sheltered confines of Chinatown and enter mainstream American society. During this time, he pursued different opportunities of education. He attended Boston University night school for eight years often failing his courses because of his poor English. To this day, he recalls the hours of after-class help his professors gave him. In addition, he would sit in on lectures during the day, attended English classes at local churches, and even enrolled in a correspondence school based out of Chicago. To complement his pursuit of a formal education, he also spent his limited leisure time taking dance classes and even joined the Toastmasters Club to learn the art of public speaking. I still recall seeing the brown leather bag of golf clubs in the trunk of his old Cadillac, symbols of one of his many attempts to mingle with middle class Americans. The lessons he learned during this early period of his life in America would form the sage advice he would not spare a single moment dispensing to me as a kid. After picking me up from school, he would never forget to ask me, “Thai, what are the keys to success?” Leaving me little time to answer, he would state with a confidence that came from years of experience:

“First, you must work harder and smarter than others; second, you must market yourself and your skills; third, you must delegate — never go at it alone.”

As a young man in his late twenties, my grandfather seized any and all opportunities to make money that crossed his path. He remembers his big break came when he was in Florida. Overseeing vast areas of swamp land, he envisioned the possibilities for these undesired plots of marsh. Facing few restrictions, he bought several acres at the cheap price of $900 a piece. He was able to pay the $50 monthly installments with the money he earned as a waiter. As he fondly remembers, “Nobody wanted it, I wanted it.” After a while, the land began appreciating eventually selling for twice its original price. With the money he earned from this investment, he began to seek someone with whom he could share this new life he was building. Like the early Chinese laborers who helped build this country, he had spent much of his time in America as a bachelor; however, he would not have a difficult time finding a woman from the old country. Upon the insistence of my great grandfather, he flew back to Hong Kong to meet the daughter of his father’s best friend.

Having wrote letters to my grandmother for months, my grandfather finally met her in person in 1954 in Hong Kong. As my grandmother once recalled years ago, at age 19, she was eager to follow her brother and attend college in Taiwan. My grandmother pleaded with her father for his approval; however, he refused to allow her to go to college believing, like most father’s of the day, that “the men go out to make money. The lady stays home and takes care of parents.” She recalls that after being denied the opportunity to go to college she “got mad at [her] father and got married” to my grandfather. In my grandfather’s version of the story, he would describe how he triumphantly wooed my grandmother, having made the strategic effort to make himself well-liked with her father and older brothers. Regardless of the differences in recollection, that brief first encounter between my grandparents would eventually blossom into a family of five, travels around the world and a marriage that endured for over sixty five years.

​With his new bride, my grandfather returned to Boston. Throughout the 1960s, my grandfather was hard at work trying to support his family, which had grown to include three children one of them being my mother. Inspired by the rewards of his investment in Florida, he opened up his own Chinese restaurant in Braintree, MA. He often tells the story of how with little money and a lot of determination he was able to start a business that spanned thirty-years. According to my grandfather, “In the United States, money is not the problem. Ideas are the problem.” His belief in America’s endless opportunities comes from the achievements he made with the little he had. One such story he tells is how he started his restaurant. Having lived in Braintree for a short while, my grandfather was at one of the local diners enjoying a cup of coffee. An elderly man occupying the stool next to him struck up a conversation with him. My grandfather shared details about his life and his origins in China. One of the questions the grey haired man asked was, “so what do you want to do in America?” My grandfather replied, “I want to one day be my own boss. I hope to own my own restaurant one day in town.” My grandfather insists he meant this as more of a joke than as a proposal. Hearing this, the old man probed him on the subject asking my grandfather what was stopping him. My grandfather responded “I got no money.” The old man then introduced himself as the manager of one of the local banks. Reassuring my grandfather with a casual smile and a cool “don’t worry about it,” the elderly gentleman weeks later would help my grandfather get his first bank loan. My grandfather’s Chinese restaurant would go on to become a well-known establishment around the South Shore community, which back then did not have the plethora of ethnic cuisine it has today. It would also become the starting point for many Chinese immigrants that began their life in America working there. As a kid, I remember eating a plate of assorted Chinese foods and seeing my grandfather at one other end of the restaurant adeptly conversing with customers. To see him socialize, even with complete strangers, was like watching a trained musician skillfully play an instrument. Whenever he met a new face, he was prepared with a wide variety of topics to spark an engaging conversation, whether it be about politics, sports or the economy. He credited his ability to meet new people to one of the seminal self-help courses of the time, Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends And Influence People.”

Ed and Kristen, loyal customers of my grandfather’s restaurant (Mandarin Garden).
Copenhagen, Denmark c. 1998

My grandfather’s life would not be without tragedy. Having lost his only daughter Susie, my mother, to cancer, he felt the deep grief of a parent having to outlive his child. One of my grandfather’s favorite sayings that I often remind myself in periods of personal difficulty is, “Tough times come and go, but tough people stay.” To those that knew him, my grandfather was a living fortune cookie of aphorisms and proverbs; he was Confucius incarnate. Along with my grandmother, my grandfather would turn the pain he felt from the loss of his only daughter into being a caring and supportive grandparent to four grandchildren. In the absence of my mother, my grandfather filled a large void in the life of my brother and me. He and my grandmother never missed an opportunity to visit us every Monday and Thursday, regardless if the drive took them one hour or several. He made sure we understood that “education is the key!” and spent long afternoons with us at the library. He always made me feel that he had as much to learn from me as I from him. I fondly remember when he once asked me to explain the Internet. As I used different analogies to describe the abstract concept of the World Wide Web, I could see the sincere interest and curiosity on his face. We often would get lost in long conversations on just about any topic. Whether it was sharing his love for watching the NBA or pro tennis (passions reflected in his vast library of taped VHS recordings) or discussing his latest stock pick, my grandfather treated me like a son and I saw him as my father.

Grandfather and I at my 2nd birthday.

If there are two qualities I will remember most about my grandfather it was his generous heart and his determined spirit. My grandfather, in spite of a life of adversity, saw himself as one of the luckiest men in the world. He exuded the gratitude of a man who felt every day he had won the lottery. And he never missed an opportunity to pass along the fortune and opportunities he received to others, whether it be providing advice, financial support or even, on occasion, playing the romantic matchmaker. Toward the end of his life, he maintained a refusal to give up. Over the past couple of years, I would see him struggle with an aging body, slowly but resolutely pushing his walker up and down the paved driveway of his home. When he fell, he always got up. This is who Michael Chin was; and to his wife, two sons, four grandchildren and the many people whose lives he touched, this is one of the ways by which we may remember him. To repeat one of his cherished sayings, “tough times come and go, but tough people stay.”

My grandfather, grandmother, Mikey (my brother) and I at my brother’s graduation ceremony at Babson College c. 2013.
“Father” Yee Chong Yuen.
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