Legacy of tycoon L. Ah Leong lives on

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Books Editor

L. Ah Leong was a powerful merchant who's death set off legal battles among his offspring. His great-granddaughter explores his life in a new book. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser Pam Chun appearances 12:30-1:30 p.m. March 28, reading and signing, Bestsellers downtown 6:30-8 p.m., March 28, reading and launch party, Native Books at Ward Warehouse 11 a.m., March 30, reading and signing, Bookends, Kailua 5:30-7:30 p.m., April 1, Ramsay Gallery celebration, including book-signing, Ramsay Gallery, 1128 Smith St.

But when Chun asked her mother about these unknown relatives, Sara Lau Chun would put her off: "Oh, they're from the other side."

Then, when she was 40, she was talking with the father of a school friend, U.S. Sen. Hiram L. Fong, and his wife, Ellen. "You know," Ellen Fong said, "you are the great-granddaughter of L. Ah Leong — a great businessman."

It was another name she had never heard before, and it opened a door that would send Chun, now 52, on a quest.

The stories she painstakingly teased out of family members, newspaper clippings, immigration and court files and Chinese archives went into her first book, "The Money Dragon," a tale she rightly compares to that of King Lear: a legend about a larger-than-life man, a king of commerce who ruled over his sprawling family and who, in the end, alienated many of those who loved and served him, and died the subject of controversy and speculation.

"Money Dragon" (Sourcebooks, hardback, $24), released this month, is a fictionalized version of the life story of the great-grandfather whose name in Chinese sounds like "Lau Faat Ler-ong," but who is best known by the Americanized version, L. Ah Leong

The merchant, who arrived in Hawai'i in 1879, was so powerful in his time that, as he lay dying in 1934, hallucinating demons, Honolulu police were summoned, at his request, to "chase the demons away."

He had so much influence that that he could flout Hawai'i's discriminatory immigration laws to get his ailing grandchild off a ship that had been detained in the port, and, years later, he could employ the former attorney general when he wished to put off the claims of one wife in favor of another in a proceeding that was the talk of Honolulu.

His death, elaborate funeral and subsequent legal battles among the heirs were reported in detail in the Honolulu newspapers — English and Chinese language — which hailed him as the wealthiest merchant in the city.

L. Ah Leong's decision to deny the legitimacy of his first wife and first son divides the descendants of his five wives to this day. Descendants of wives Two through Five are the ones Pam Chun's mother — the daughter of First Son Lau Tat-Tung, born to Fung Dai-Kam and L. Ah Chong — considered "the other side."

L. Ah Leong's shadow is very long. Ten years ago, when Chun began to research her genealogy, she visited the Hawaii Chinese History Center to enquire about her great-grandfather. When the told them she was L. Ah Leong's great-granddaughter, the people in the small office stared at her, refused to give her any information, and suggested she "go downstairs — his name is downstairs."

Trudging through Chinatown that rainy day, she sought in vain until she looked up and saw, in a plaque above a group of brick storefronts, "1909 L. Ah Leong Building," a chicken-skin moment.

This experience sent Chun, who now lives in Alameda County, Calif., to the national Chinese archives where, at last, she found a bulging file of information about L. Ah Leong and his troubles: a charge of co-habitation with multiple women (all his wives by Chinese law), immigration issues, the notorious divorce.

"I came home to Hawai'i and asked my grandmother to look at these papers and then, finally, she started to tell me."

Pam Chun's beloved "Popo" (grandmother), the late Lau Fung Yin, whose name meant "The Phoenix," had been hand-selected by L. Ah Leong to be the wife of First Son Tat-Tung. Popo always said that money was not important, family was important; Chun used this argument to persuade her grandmother to do what no one in the family would do: talk about the past.

Each morning during her visits, Chun would visit Lau Fung Yin, who died just a few months ago at 102, and they would share a pot of steaming tea and a story.

Later, "I told her I was writing about the family and she just said, 'Mmmm, hmmmm' and got this resigned look on her face," recalled Chun, who admits to some nervousness as she heads to Hawai'i for the book launch. Her widowed father, Kwai Wood Chun, 94, jokes that he's going to be famous now, but Chun is a little concerned that her intentions will be misunderstood.

"I am hoping that this will bring us together, so that we can put the hurts in the past and just be proud of our heritage," said Chun, who dedicated the book to her son, Ryan Courtney Leong, 25. "He is the next dragon," she said, proudly, "sixth generation Chinese American, but he would never have known this story."

Chun decided to make the book fiction because she wanted to make the voices of the people come alive, just as her grandmother's stories were alive for her.

Treating her ancestors as fictional characters allowed her to make connections where none could be found. This allowed her to flesh out her conviction that the third wife, who died young, was the true love of L. Leong's life. To this day, it's said that the apartment where she lived over one of L. Leong's stores is haunted.

Writing the novel also helped her to see the sad truth of her great grandfather's life:

"I respect him for coming to this unknown land ... and how he handled himself and for his success," she said. "But I think like King Lear, he made a really bad decision toward the end that broke up the family. ... He was blinded by his own power."