Wing Tek Lum on using history as inspiration for writing his second and third books:
“I was able to get out of my first person voice, kind of limitation, and started to write in second person or in third person and imagine people other than myself. And try to tell their stories, which, you know, became my stories.”
introducing issue #125!
Wing Tek Lum’s new collection of poetry, The Oldtimers, imagines life in Honolulu Chinatown circa 1900 and gives voice to a forgotten pioneer generation of sojourners and settlers, detailing the trials and temptations of this bachelor society living far from their homeland—their hard work, their diversions, their challenges, and, even amidst the notorious plague and fire, their perseverance.
Verses in The Oldtimers reflect on themes of displacement, labor, isolation, familial bonds and obligations, cultural heritage and adaptation, and the preservation of traditions and values amidst the islands’ rapid growth.
“I got inspired by going through a lot of my grandfather’s records. He owned a store in Chinatown in the early 1900s and it was located on North King Street near ʻAʻala Park. I got a lot of information from different sources, about the store, and then thought about what I knew about Chinatown at that time,” Lum said in an interview with Ann Inoshita of The Reading Room.
Lum reads aloud his poem “In the Store” and shares what lines were influenced by what sources. Check it all out below!
In the Store
The rumors about the fight at the sugar mill
swirl around the salt fish and travelers plum,
the sleek sausages hanging under the open transom,
the dried scallops—fat medallions of gold—
sorted by origin in wicker baskets.
A barber comes in early to buy some young ginger
but stays a while to chat
with the schoolteacher’s petite wife
who is looking for peanut oil.
Before she leaves, she coaxes her toddler
to recite a quatrain out loud;
all the “uncles” applaud, and the little girl
gets to choose a rock candy
from the tall glass jar under the counter.
In the far corner of the courtyard
beside blue bundles of fishing lines and nets
the letter writer at his table listens patiently
as the housepainter relates the death of his brother;
the two agree, however,
to omit any mention to his widow
of how he had died of opium poisoning.
As the two get up to leave,
a kinsman, who raises ducks by the marshes,
presses a small coin without a word
into the painter’s gaunt hand.
At the long counter the taro farmer
arranges with the owner to settle his accounts;
he confesses the work in the fields is too harsh,
and he must return to care for his ailing wife.
The government postman arrives
with a thin envelope
addressed to a stonecutter in care of the store.
It is placed inside a locked drawer
behind the main counter,
and will be picked up by the old man
when he and his native wife
stop in as usual the next Sunday.
At noon a clerk is sent out to buy vegetables;
another clerk doubles as the cook,
and everyone eats their lunches discreetly,
standing at their stations.
They leave the scraps for the pair of calico cats
—just enough to keep them coming around,
but not enough to stop their hunt for rats.
Rather than losing it again,
a gambler sends his night’s winnings to his mother;
the cashier collects his money
and will mail a coded letter back to the village
where an elder holds a chest of silver for the store.
The purveyor of bean curd pudding
asks to barter for this week’s delivery;
instead of cash, he will exchange
his whole, freshly made bucket
for their best grade of tobacco.
Surrounded by large tins of assorted tea
in the storeroom off the kitchen
the owner’s son fills out
the manifests and shipper’s declarations
in between his English school assignments.
Rice growers gather on the wide front lanai
to complain about the sparrows,
dark flocks swooping, devouring their crops;
a few talk about buying a scattergun as a last resort.
In the mezzanine where they keep
imported abalone and decades-old tangerine peels,
the fugitive and his supporters,
heads bowed, murmur softly
in earnest discussion about the next rally.
Clerks later on clear out a space for a card table
among the displays of kitchen crockery;
after work the owner and his buddies
will stick around for a night of gin rummy.
Newly arrived, a teenager is introduced all around
—where he is from, whom he is related to,
what manner of work he has done.
The oldtimers take in his every word about home.
Watch below as Wing Tek reads this poem out loud in an interview with Ann Inoshita of EMC Leeward Community College in The Reading Room.
And check out the press release for The Oldtimers, visit our events page for Wing Tek Lum’s latest readings and appearances, or read transcripts and listen to sound clips from his BR Oral History interview.
Wing Tek Lum is a Honolulu businessman and poet. Bamboo Ridge Press has published two earlier collections of his poetry: Expounding the Doubtful Points (1987) and The Nanjing Massacre: Poems (2012). With Makoto Ōoka, Joseph Stanton, and Jean Yamasaki Toyama, he participated in a collaborative work of linked verse, which was published as What the Kite Thinks by Summer Session, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 1994.
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