Chun Ah Chun

by Jack London

There was nothing striking in the appearance of Chun Ah Chun. Hewas rather undersized, as Chinese go, and the Chinese narrowshoulders and spareness of flesh were his. The average tourist,casually glimpsing him on the streets of Honolulu, would haveconcluded that he was a good-natured little Chinese, probably theproprietor of a prosperous laundry or tailorshop. In so far as goodnature and prosperity went, the judgment would be correct, thoughbeneath the mark; for Ah Chun was as good-natured as he wasprosperous, and of the latter no man knew a tithe the tale. It waswell known that he was enormously wealthy, but in his case"enormous" was merely the symbol for the unknown.Ah Chun had shrewd little eyes, black and beady and so very littlethat they were like gimlet-holes. But they were wide apart, andthey sheltered under a forehead that was patently the forehead of athinker. For Ah Chun had his problems, and had had them all hislife. Not that he ever worried over them. He was essentially aphilosopher, and whether as coolie, or multi-millionaire and masterof many men, his poise of soul was the same. He lived always in thehigh equanimity of spiritual repose, undeterred by good fortune,unruffled by ill fortune. All things went well with him, whetherthey were blows from the overseer in the cane field or a slump inthe price of sugar when he owned those cane fields himself. Thus,from the steadfast rock of his sure content he mastered problemssuch as are given to few men to consider, much less to a Chinesepeasant.He was precisely that--a Chinese peasant, born to labour in thefields all his days like a beast, but fated to escape from thefields like the prince in a fairy tale. Ah Chun did not rememberhis father, a small farmer in a district not far from Canton; nordid he remember much of his mother, who had died when he was six.But he did remember his respected uncle, Ah Kow, for him had heserved as a slave from his sixth year to his twenty-fourth. It wasthen that he escaped by contracting himself as a coolie to labourfor three years on the sugar plantations of Hawaii for fifty cents aday.Ah Chun was observant. He perceived little details that not one manin a thousand ever noticed. Three years he worked in the field, atthe end of which time he knew more about cane-growing than theoverseers or even the superintendent, while the superintendent wouldhave been astounded at the knowledge the weazened little cooliepossessed of the reduction processes in the mill. But Ah Chun didnot study only sugar processes. He studied to find out how men cameto be owners of sugar mills and plantations. One judgment heachieved early, namely, that men did not become rich from the labourof their own hands. He knew, for he had laboured for a score ofyears himself. The men who grew rich did so from the labour of thehands of others. That man was richest who had the greatest numberof his fellow creatures toiling for him.So, when his term of contract was up, Ah Chun invested his savingsin a small importing store, going into partnership with one, AhYung. The firm ultimately became the great one of "Ah Chun and AhYung," which handled anything from India silks and ginseng to guanoislands and blackbird brigs. In the meantime, Ah Chun hired out ascook. He was a good cook, and in three years he was the highest-paid chef in Honolulu. His career was assured, and he was a fool toabandon it, as Dantin, his employer, told him; but Ah Chun knew hisown mind best, and for knowing it was called a triple-fool and givena present of fifty dollars over and above the wages due him.The firm of Ah Chun and Ah Yung was prospering. There was no needfor Ah Chun longer to be a cook. There were boom times in Hawaii.Sugar was being extensively planted, and labour was needed. Ah Chunsaw the chance, and went into the labour-importing business. Hebrought thousands of Cantonese coolies into Hawaii, and his wealthbegan to grow. He made investments. His beady black eyes sawbargains where other men saw bankruptcy. He bought a fish-pond fora song, which later paid five hundred per cent and was the openingwedge by which he monopolized the fish market of Honolulu. He didnot talk for publication, nor figure in politics, nor play atrevolutions, but he forecast events more clearly and farther aheadthan did the men who engineered them. In his mind's eye he sawHonolulu a modern, electric-lighted city at a time when itstraggled, unkempt and sand-tormented, over a barren reef ofuplifted coral rock. So he bought land. He bought land frommerchants who needed ready cash, from impecunious natives, fromriotous traders' sons, from widows and orphans and the lepersdeported to Molokai; and, somehow, as the years went by, the piecesof land he had bought proved to be needed for warehouses, or coffeebuildings, or hotels. He leased, and rented, sold and bought, andresold again.But there were other things as well. He put his confidence and hismoney into Parkinson, the renegade captain whom nobody would trust.And Parkinson sailed away on mysterious voyages in the little Vega.Parkinson was taken care of until he died, and years afterwardHonolulu was astonished when the news leaked out that the Drake andAcorn guano islands had been sold to the British Phosphate Trust forthree-quarters of a million. Then there were the fat, lush days ofKing Kalakaua, when Ah Chun paid three hundred thousand dollars forthe opium licence. If he paid a third of a million for the drugmonopoly, the investment was nevertheless a good one, for thedividends bought him the Kalalau Plantation, which, in turn, paidhim thirty per cent for seventeen years and was ultimately sold byhim for a million and a half.It was under the Kamehamehas, long before, that he had served hisown country as Chinese Consul--a position that was not altogetherunlucrative; and it was under Kamehameha IV that he changed hiscitizenship, becoming an Hawaiian subject in order to marry StellaAllendale, herself a subject of the brown-skinned king, though moreof Anglo-Saxon blood ran in her veins than of Polynesian. In fact,the random breeds in her were so attenuated that they were valued ateighths and sixteenths. In the latter proportions was the blood ofher great-grandmother, Paahao--the Princess Paahao, for she came ofthe royal line. Stella Allendale's great-grandfather had been aCaptain Blunt, an English adventurer who took service underKamehameha I and was made a tabu chief himself. Her grandfather hadbeen a New Bedford whaling captain, while through her own father hadbeen introduced a remote blend of Italian and Portuguese which hadbeen grafted upon his own English stock. Legally a Hawaiian, AhChun's spouse was more of any one of three other nationalities.And into this conglomerate of the races, Ah Chun introduced theMongolian mixture. Thus, his children by Mrs. Ah Chun were onethirty-second Polynesian, one-sixteenth Italian, one sixteenthPortuguese, one-half Chinese, and eleven thirty-seconds English andAmerican. It might well be that Ah Chun would have refrained frommatrimony could he have foreseen the wonderful family that was tospring from this union. It was wonderful in many ways. First,there was its size. There were fifteen sons and daughters, mostlydaughters. The sons had come first, three of them, and then hadfollowed, in unswerving sequence, a round dozen of girls. The blendof the race was excellent. Not alone fruitful did it prove, for theprogeny, without exception, was healthy and without blemish. Butthe most amazing thing about the family was its beauty. All thegirls were beautiful--delicately, ethereally beautiful. Mamma AhChun's rotund lines seemed to modify papa Ah Chun's lean angles, sothat the daughters were willowy without being lathy, round-muscledwithout being chubby. In every feature of every face were hauntingreminiscences of Asia, all manipulated over and disguised by OldEngland, New England, and South of Europe. No observer, withoutinformation, would have guessed, the heavy Chinese strain in theirveins; nor could any observer, after being informed, fail to noteimmediately the Chinese traces.As beauties, the Ah Chun girls were something new. Nothing likethem had been seen before. They resembled nothing so much as theyresembled one another, and yet each girl was sharply individual.There was no mistaking one for another. On the other hand, Maud,who was blue-eyed and yellow-haired, would remind one instantly ofHenrietta, an olive brunette with large, languishing dark eyes andhair that was blue-black. The hint of resemblance that ran throughthem all, reconciling every differentiation, was Ah Chun'scontribution. He had furnished the groundwork upon which had beentraced the blended patterns of the races. He had furnished theslim-boned Chinese frame, upon which had been builded the delicaciesand subtleties of Saxon, Latin, and Polynesian flesh.Mrs. Ah Chun had ideas of her own to which Ah Chun gave credence,though never permitting them expression when they conflicted withhis own philosophic calm. She had been used all her life to livingin European fashion. Very well. Ah Chun gave her a Europeanmansion. Later, as his sons and daughters grew able to advise, hebuilt a bungalow, a spacious, rambling affair, as unpretentious asit was magnificent. Also, as time went by, there arose a mountainhouse on Tantalus, to which the family could flee when the "sickwind" blew from the south. And at Waikiki he built a beachresidence on an extensive site so well chosen that later on, whenthe United States government condemned it for fortificationpurposes, an immense sum accompanied the condemnation. In all hishouses were billiard and smoking rooms and guest rooms galore, forAh Chun's wonderful progeny was given to lavish entertainment. Thefurnishing was extravagantly simple. Kings' ransoms were expendedwithout display--thanks to the educated tastes of the progeny.Ah Chun had been liberal in the matter of education. "Never mindexpense," he had argued in the old days with Parkinson when thatslack mariner could see no reason for making the Vega seaworthy;"you sail the schooner, I pay the bills." And so with his sons anddaughters. It had been for them to get the education and never mindthe expense. Harold, the eldest-born, had gone to Harvard andOxford; Albert and Charles had gone through Yale in the sameclasses. And the daughters, from the eldest down, had undergonetheir preparation at Mills Seminary in California and passed on toVassar, Wellesley, or Bryn Mawr. Several, having so desired, hadhad the finishing touches put on in Europe. And from all the worldAh Chun's sons and daughters returned to him to suggest and advisein the garnishment of the chaste magnificence of his residences. AhChun himself preferred the voluptuous glitter of Oriental display;but he was a philosopher, and he clearly saw that his children'stastes were correct according to Western standards.Of course, his children were not known as the Ah Chun children. Ashe had evolved from a coolie labourer to a multi-millionaire, so hadhis name evolved. Mamma Ah Chun had spelled it A'Chun, but herwiser offspring had elided the apostrophe and spelled it Achun. AhChun did not object. The spelling of his name interfered no whitwith his comfort nor his philosophic calm. Besides, he was notproud. But when his children arose to the height of a starchedshirt, a stiff collar, and a frock coat, they did interfere with hiscomfort and calm. Ah Chun would have none of it. He preferred theloose-flowing robes of China, and neither could they cajole norbully him into making the change. They tried both courses, and inthe latter one failed especially disastrously. They had not been toAmerica for nothing. They had learned the virtues of the boycott asemployed by organized labour, and he, their father, Chun Ah Chun,they boycotted in his own house, Mamma Achun aiding and abetting.But Ah Chun himself, while unversed in Western culture, wasthoroughly conversant with Western labour conditions. An extensiveemployer of labour himself, he knew how to cope with its tactics.Promptly he imposed a lockout on his rebellious progeny and erringspouse. He discharged his scores of servants, locked up hisstables, closed his houses, and went to live in the Royal HawaiianHotel, in which enterprise he happened to be the heavieststockholder. The family fluttered distractedly on visits about withfriends, while Ah Chun calmly managed his many affairs, smoked hislong pipe with the tiny silver bowl, and pondered the problem of hiswonderful progeny.This problem did not disturb his calm. He knew in his philosopher'ssoul that when it was ripe he would solve it. In the meantime heenforced the lesson that complacent as he might be, he wasnevertheless the absolute dictator of the Achun destinies. Thefamily held out for a week, then returned, along with Ah Chun andthe many servants, to occupy the bungalow once more. And thereafterno question was raised when Ah Chun elected to enter his brilliantdrawing-room in blue silk robe, wadded slippers, and black silkskull-cap with red button peak, or when he chose to draw at hisslender-stemmed silver-bowled pipe among the cigarette- and cigar-smoking officers and civilians on the broad verandas or in thesmoking room.Ah Chun occupied a unique position in Honolulu. Though he did notappear in society, he was eligible anywhere. Except among theChinese merchants of the city, he never went out; but he received,and he always was the centre of his household and the head of histable. Himself peasant, born Chinese, he presided over anatmosphere of culture and refinement second to none in all theislands. Nor were there any in all the islands too proud to crosshis threshold and enjoy his hospitality. First of all, the Achunbungalow was of irreproachable tone. Next, Ah Chun was a power.And finally, Ah Chun was a moral paragon and an honest business man.Despite the fact that business morality was higher than on themainland, Ah Chun outshone the business men of Honolulu in thescrupulous rigidity of his honesty. It was a saying that his wordwas as good as his bond. His signature was never needed to bindhim. He never broke his word. Twenty years after Hotchkiss, ofHotchkiss, Morterson Company, died, they found among mislaid papersa memorandum of a loan of thirty thousand dollars to Ah Chun. Ithad been incurred when Ah Chun was Privy Councillor to KamehamehaII. In the bustle and confusion of those heyday, money-makingtimes, the affair had slipped Ah Chun's mind. There was no note, nolegal claim against him, but he settled in full with the Hotchkiss'Estate, voluntarily paying a compound interest that dwarfed theprincipal. Likewise, when he verbally guaranteed the disastrousKakiku Ditch Scheme, at a time when the least sanguine did not dreama guarantee necessary--"Signed his cheque for two hundred thousandwithout a quiver, gentlemen, without a quiver," was the report ofthe secretary of the defunct enterprise, who had been sent on theforlorn hope of finding out Ah Chun's intentions. And on top of themany similar actions that were true of his word, there was scarcelya man of repute in the islands that at one time or another had notexperienced the helping financial hand of Ah Chun.So it was that Honolulu watched his wonderful family grow up into aperplexing problem and secretly sympathized with him, for it wasbeyond any of them to imagine what he was going to do with it. ButAh Chun saw the problem more clearly than they. No one knew as heknew the extent to which he was an alien in his family. His ownfamily did not guess it. He saw that there was no place for himamongst this marvellous seed of his loins, and he looked forward tohis declining years and knew that he would grow more and more alien.He did not understand his children. Their conversation was ofthings that did not interest him and about which he knew nothing.The culture of the West had passed him by. He was Asiatic to thelast fibre, which meant that he was heathen. Their Christianity wasto him so much nonsense. But all this he would have ignored asextraneous and irrelevant, could he have but understood the youngpeople themselves. When Maud, for instance, told him that thehousekeeping bills for the month were thirty thousand--that heunderstood, as he understood Albert's request for five thousand withwhich to buy the schooner yacht Muriel and become a member of theHawaiian Yacht Club. But it was their remoter, complicated desiresand mental processes that obfuscated him. He was not slow inlearning that the mind of each son and daughter was a secretlabyrinth which he could never hope to tread. Always he came uponthe wall that divides East from West. Their souls were inaccessibleto him, and by the same token he knew that his soul was inaccessibleto them.Besides, as the years came upon him, he found himself harking backmore and more to his own kind. The reeking smells of the Chinesequarter were spicy to him. He sniffed them with satisfaction as hepassed along the street, for in his mind they carried him back tothe narrow tortuous alleys of Canton swarming with life andmovement. He regretted that he had cut off his queue to pleaseStella Allendale in the prenuptial days, and he seriously consideredthe advisability of shaving his crown and growing a new one. Thedishes his highly paid chef concocted for him failed to tickle hisreminiscent palate in the way that the weird messes did in thestuffy restaurant down in the Chinese quarter. He enjoyed vastlymore a half-hour's smoke and chat with two or three Chinese chums,than to preside at the lavish and elegant dinners for which hisbungalow was famed, where the pick of the Americans and Europeanssat at the long table, men and women on equality, the women withjewels that blazed in the subdued light against white necks andarms, the men in evening dress, and all chattering and laughing overtopics and witticisms that, while they were not exactly Greek tohim, did not interest him nor entertain.But it was not merely his alienness and his growing desire to returnto his Chinese flesh-pots that constituted the problem. There wasalso his wealth. He had looked forward to a placid old age. He hadworked hard. His reward should have been peace and repose. But heknew that with his immense fortune peace and repose could notpossibly be his. Already there were signs and omens. He had seensimilar troubles before. There was his old employer, Dantin, whosechildren had wrested from him, by due process of law, the managementof his property, having the Court appoint guardians to administer itfor him. Ah Chun knew, and knew thoroughly well, that had Dantinbeen a poor man, it would have been found that he could quiterationally manage his own affairs. And old Dantin had had onlythree children and half a million, while he, Chun Ah Chun, hadfifteen children and no one but himself knew how many millions."Our daughters are beautiful women," he said to his wife, oneevening. "There are many young men. The house is always full ofyoung men. My cigar bills are very heavy. Why are there nomarriages?"Mamma Achun shrugged her shoulders and waited."Women are women and men are men--it is strange there are nomarriages. Perhaps the young men do not like our daughters.""Ah, they like them well enough," Mamma Chun answered; "but you see,they cannot forget that you are your daughters' father.""Yet you forgot who my father was," Ah Chun said gravely. "All youasked was for me to cut off my queue.""The young men are more particular than I was, I fancy.""What is the greatest thing in the world?" Ah Chun demanded withabrupt irrelevance.Mamma Achun pondered for a moment, then replied: "God."He nodded. "There are gods and gods. Some are paper, some arewood, some are bronze. I use a small one in the office for a paper-weight. In the Bishop Museum are many gods of coral rock and lavastone.""But there is only one God," she announced decisively, stiffeningher ample frame argumentatively.Ah Chun noted the danger signal and sheered off."What is greater than God, then?" he asked. "I will tell you. Itis money. In my time I have had dealings with Jews and Christians,Mohammedans and Buddhists, and with little black men from theSolomons and New Guinea who carried their god about them, wrapped inoiled paper. They possessed various gods, these men, but they allworshipped money. There is that Captain Higginson. He seems tolike Henrietta.""He will never marry her," retorted Mamma Achun. "He will be anadmiral before he dies--""A rear-admiral," Ah Chun interpolated."Yes, I know. That is the way they retire.""His family in the United States is a high one. They would not likeit if he married . . . if he did not marry an American girl."Ah Chun knocked the ashes out of his pipe, thoughtfully refillingthe silver bowl with a tiny pleget of tobacco. He lighted it andsmoked it out before he spoke."Henrietta is the oldest girl. The day she marries I will give herthree hundred thousand dollars. That will fetch that CaptainHigginson and his high family along with him. Let the word go outto him. I leave it to you."And Ah Chun sat and smoked on, and in the curling smoke-wreaths hesaw take shape the face and figure of Toy Shuey--Toy Shuey, the maidof all work in his uncle's house in the Cantonese village, whosework was never done and who received for a whole year's work onedollar. And he saw his youthful self arise in the curling smoke,his youthful self who had toiled eighteen years in his uncle's fieldfor little more. And now he, Ah Chun, the peasant, dowered hisdaughter with three hundred thousand years of such toil. And shewas but one daughter of a dozen. He was not elated at the thought.It struck him that it was a funny, whimsical world, and he chuckledaloud and startled Mamma Achun from a revery which he knew lay deepin the hidden crypts of her being where he had never penetrated.But Ah Chun's word went forth, as a whisper, and Captain Higginsonforgot his rear-admiralship and his high family and took to wifethree hundred thousand dollars and a refined and cultured girl whowas one thirty-second Polynesian, one-sixteenth Italian, one-sixteenth Portuguese, eleven thirty-seconds English and Yankee, andone-half Chinese.Ah Chun's munificence had its effect. His daughters became suddenlyeligible and desirable. Clara was the next, but when the Secretaryof the Territory formally proposed for her, Ah Chun informed himthat he must wait his turn, that Maud was the oldest and that shemust be married first. It was shrewd policy. The whole family wasmade vitally interested in marrying off Maud, which it did in threemonths, to Ned Humphreys, the United States immigrationcommissioner. Both he and Maud complained, for the dowry was onlytwo hundred thousand. Ah Chun explained that his initial generosityhad been to break the ice, and that after that his daughters couldnot expect otherwise than to go more cheaply.Clara followed Maud, and thereafter, for a space of two years; therewas a continuous round of weddings in the bungalow. In the meantimeAh Chun had not been idle. Investment after investment was calledin. He sold out his interests in a score of enterprises, and stepby step, so as not to cause a slump in the market, he disposed ofhis large holdings in real estate. Toward the last he didprecipitate a slump and sold at sacrifice. What caused this hastewere the squalls he saw already rising above the horizon. By thetime Lucille was married, echoes of bickerings and jealousies werealready rumbling in his ears. The air was thick with schemes andcounter-schemes to gain his favour and to prejudice him against oneor another or all but one of his sons-in-law. All of which was notconducive to the peace and repose he had planned for his old age.He hastened his efforts. For a long time he had been incorrespondence with the chief banks in Shanghai and Macao. Everysteamer for several years had carried away drafts drawn in favour ofone, Chun Ah Chun, for deposit in those Far Eastern banks. Thedrafts now became heavier. His two youngest daughters were not yetmarried. He did not wait, but dowered them with a hundred thousandeach, which sums lay in the Bank of Hawaii, drawing interest andawaiting their wedding day. Albert took over the business of thefirm of Ah Chun and Ah Yung, Harold, the eldest, having elected totake a quarter of a million and go to England to live. Charles, theyoungest, took a hundred thousand, a legal guardian, and a course ina Keeley institute. To Mamma Achun was given the bungalow, themountain House on Tantalus, and a new seaside residence in place ofthe one Ah Chun sold to the government. Also, to Mamma Achun wasgiven half a million in money well invested.Ah Chun was now ready to crack the nut of the problem. One finemorning when the family was at breakfast--he had seen to it that allhis sons-in-law and their wives were present--he announced that hewas returning to his ancestral soil. In a neat little homily heexplained that he had made ample provision for his family, and helaid down various maxims that he was sure, he said, would enablethem to dwell together in peace and harmony. Also, he gave businessadvice to his sons-in-law, preached the virtues of temperate livingand safe investments, and gave them the benefit of his encyclopedicknowledge of industrial and business conditions in Hawaii. Then hecalled for his carriage, and, in the company of the weeping MammaAchun, was driven down to the Pacific Mail steamer, leaving behindhim a panic in the bungalow. Captain Higginson clamoured wildly foran injunction. The daughters shed copious tears. One of theirhusbands, an ex-Federal judge, questioned Ah Chun's sanity, andhastened to the proper authorities to inquire into it. He returnedwith the information that Ah Chun had appeared before the commissionthe day before, demanded an examination, and passed with flyingcolours. There was nothing to be done, so they went down and saidgood-bye to the little old man, who waved farewell from thepromenade deck as the big steamer poked her nose seaward through thecoral reef.But the little old man was not bound for Canton. He knew his owncountry too well, and the squeeze of the Mandarins, to venture intoit with the tidy bulk of wealth that remained to him. He went toMacao. Now Ah Chun had long exercised the power of a king and hewas as imperious as a king. When he landed at Macao and went intothe office of the biggest European hotel to register, the clerkclosed the book on him. Chinese were not permitted. Ah Chun calledfor the manager and was treated with contumely. He drove away, butin two hours he was back again. He called the clerk and manager in,gave them a month's salary, and discharged them. He had madehimself the owner of the hotel; and in the finest suite he settleddown during the many months the gorgeous palace in the suburbs wasbuilding for him. In the meantime, with the inevitable ability thatwas his, he increased the earnings of his big hotel from three percent to thirty.The troubles Ah Chun had flown began early. There were sons-in-lawthat made bad investments, others that played ducks and drakes withthe Achun dowries. Ah Chun being out of it, they looked at Mamma AhChun and her half million, and, looking, engendered not the best offeeling toward one another. Lawyers waxed fat in the striving toascertain the construction of trust deeds. Suits, cross-suits, andcounter-suits cluttered the Hawaiian courts. Nor did the policecourts escape. There were angry encounters in which harsh words andharsher blows were struck. There were such things as flower potsbeing thrown to add emphasis to winged words. And suits for libelarose that dragged their way through the courts and kept Honoluluagog with excitement over the revelations of the witnesses.In his palace, surrounded by all dear delights of the Orient, AhChun smokes his placid pipe and listens to the turmoil overseas. Byeach mail steamer, in faultless English, typewritten on an Americanmachine, a letter goes from Macao to Honolulu, in which, byadmirable texts and precepts, Ah Chun advises his family to live inunity and harmony. As for himself, he is out of it all, and wellcontent. He has won to peace and repose. At times he chuckles andrubs his hands, and his slant little black eyes twinkle merrily atthe thought of the funny world. For out of all his living andphilosophizing, that remains to him--the conviction that it is avery funny world.

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