This is a serialization of short story collection, Staring into the Sun. Start here for more info and the full index.
Previous installment: An Upright Man, Part 1
Oakland, June 1924
Not one customer entered the Oakland Toggery that day. Henri and the handful of clerks watched dolefully as the brass band marched back and forth along Washington Street, the clanging surprisingly loud through the closed door. Every so often, a new round of colorful streamers and confetti would flutter down from the sky. Observing the celebration through glass, Henri felt like a clown giving off a sour air of tragedy.
The China Toggery’s grand opening stung for three reasons: it was right next door, the property was utterly unaffordable for Henri and Lo, and it was Mr. Shoong who bought it.
Joe Shoong owned the China Toggery. He opened a store every year or two: nine so far, all over California. But none were in Oakland, which was home to the Wus and the Shoongs. The Shoongs would show up sporadically at Sunday services at the Chinese Methodist Church; Mr. Shoong spent a lot of time traveling around the state and his wife reportedly preferred San Francisco to Oakland. Henri had heard that most of her family still lived across the bay, not part of the exodus to the East Bay after the earthquake in 1906.
Henri’s opinion that the Shoongs were standoffish was confirmed by Mary. Though Henri’s first child, a girl, was the same age as Mr. Shoong’s third child (his only boy), there was no contact at all between Mary and Mrs. Shoong. The Shoongs relied on a nanny to raise their kids.
Lo had finally accepted Henri as a committed worker and agreed for him to be a shareholder. Whenever the two of them ran into the oddly formal Mr. Shoong, they stuck to pleasantries. Later, the Oakland Toggery partners would speculate that Mr. Shoong was leaving Oakland to them, which seemed fair. It was their territory, the city that gave its name to their store.
Henri and Lo started exploring new locations. Even knowing it was unobtainable, they had nosed around the empty building next door which was ten times larger than their space. Then Mr. Shoong swooped in.
China Toggery in Washington Street Home
Company Now Has Stores in Nine California Cities
The China Toggery is now established in its new home at the northwest corner of Washington and Eleventh Streets, a four-story-high building, with basement and mezzanine floors, giving over 30,000 square feet of floor space. The new store carries everything in ladies' wear as well as apparel for children and for men. In fact, the China Toggery's new home is a veritable department store, and compares in varied stocks and equipment with many of the finest in California.
The China Toggery was founded in 1907 by Joe Shoong, starting with one small store on Fillmore Street in San Francisco. The business grew and a new store was opened in 1909 at 929 Market Street. Today, the China Toggery is listed as one of California's great mercantile organizations, operating stores in ten cities: San Francisco, Sacramento, Vallejo, San Jose, Fresno, San Diego, Long Beach, Pasadena, San Bernardino, and Oakland. Joe Shoong, founder of the company, is president of the China Toggery Corporation.
The phone rang. Henri answered, dejected, “Good morning, Oakland Toggery, how may I help you?”
It was the advertisement desk at the Oakland Tribune asking about his sale announcement. “Sir, would you like me to change ‘Oakland Toggery, 1111 Washington Street, next door to Woolworth’s’ to ‘next door to the China Toggery’? The China Toggery is a better landmark now than Woolworth’s.”
Henri retorted, “Keep it as it is!” and hung up. Mr. Shoong was the last person who needed extra help promoting his store.
Lo didn’t make an appearance that day. He must have been avoiding the spit-in-the-face festivities. Tomorrow, Henri would tell him that he wanted to change tack: put their location search on hold until they could fill their coffers and do it properly. They would have to settle with expanding in their own, smaller way—the Oakland Toggery couldn’t go head-to-head with Joe Shoong’s stores.
April 1929
Donnie was like a mannequin from the Oakland Toggery come to life: dressed head to toe in clothes and shoes from the store, his pants turned up at the bottom leaving room to grow.
Henri had insisted on a banquet for his son’s second birthday. It took him three trips from home to bring all the presents he had been setting aside since Donnie’s first birthday. The prize gift was a metal tricycle with oiled wooden handlebars. The gathering was even bigger than the red egg and ginger party that marked his first month of life.
About fifty people celebrated the day, filling the restaurant: the Wus, store staff and their families, others from church. Henri wished Lo and Mamie could be there. They had relocated to China right before Donnie was born, “back to China” for Lo and “over to China” for Mamie. It took them two weeks to cross the Pacific. Once back in Canton, Lo took a concubine, hoping for a woman who would bear him children (that is, a son) but so far, he was unlucky there too. Mamie recounted in her letters that after a while, she started to appreciate the benefits of him having a second woman: it took some pressure off her, both as a wife and potential mother, yet she could keep her status as the first wife. And the two women got along surprisingly well. The concubine was fascinated with Gold Mountain and adored this American-born woman who shared her household. Mamie indulged in having tasty meals and plenty of servants.
She sent one photo of herself, Lo, the concubine, and a fourth woman (probably a servant, judging from her plain dress) standing in front of towering double doors. Bespectacled Mamie looked pleased and relaxed; Lo his usual stern and authoritative self (even with a half-smile on his lips); the concubine comfortingly unattractive and earnest; the servant caught with her mouth agape, obviously in the middle of saying something. They all looked into the camera, squinting against the midday sun, with short sharp shadows at their feet.
Henri had bought out Lo and was now sole proprietor of the Toggery. He started allowing himself to go home early to Donnie, every time making the store manager recite to him all the closing-up duties (he had shared the stolen $500 incident as a tale of warning). In a letter to Lo and Mamie, Henri raved about finally finding a second location, on 23rd Avenue. Negotiations were nearly complete and he was getting ready to sign the lease.
During the entire banquet, Henri stayed at Donnie’s side, fussing over him like he was a doll. The little boy kept touching his new bracelets, the wide gold bands circling each wrist. That morning, Henri had gently wetted down and combed his son’s downy hair and put the part on the left, like his own.
The guests orbited around the duo, offering congratulations and more gifts. The female Wus—Mary, Lum Shee, and Donnie’s three older sisters—clumped together on the far side of the round table. From across the lazy susan, Mary beamed at the procession of her friends, who smiled back at her. Henri was too engrossed with their son to look up. Lum Shee, not one for crowds, inspected her food. She had knitted Donnie a cardigan for the occasion, with toggles she had bought in San Francisco’s Chinatown, but Henri had dressed him in a factory-made shirt. The girls, who rarely ate out and had never seen such a party, enviously whispered to each other a catalog of their brother’s gifts.
Henri’s wallet was fat with cash for the banquet, plus one slip of paper: a clipping from the Oakland Tribune. “WU—To the wife of Henri Wu, April 9, a son.”
September 1942
Wedding Links Leading Chinese Families Here
In one of the most brilliant weddings of the season, two of Oakland's most prominent Chinese families were united last night when Miss Corinne Wu became the bride of Milton Shoong.
The ceremony was performed at 8 p.m. in St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Oakland. More than 700 guests filled the church to overflowing.
Along the flower-banked aisle to the altar, the bride was escorted by four bridesmaids and her matron of honor, Mrs. Richard Tam, sister of the groom. The bridesmaids were the Misses Beatrice and Cecilia Wu, sisters of the bride.
The bride, gowned in a white wedding dress with train, was given in marriage by her father, Henri Wu.
A throng gathered outside to watch the wedding party leave. Following the marriage, a reception for more than 800 guests was held in the Gold Room of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.
The new Mrs. Shoong will study at an undisclosed university while her husband continues his work with the aviation ground forces of the U.S. Army. Where he will be stationed has not been determined.
Shoong is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Shoong of 385 Bellevue Avenue. His father is president of the National Dollar Stores, formerly known as the China Toggery. The new Mrs. Shoong's father is proprietor of the Oakland Toggery. The Wu home is at 375 Perry Street.
It wasn’t their children’s romance that first united Henri with Joe; it was the strikes.
The Shoongs weren’t even in the country when the workers’ unrest began in the spring of 1937. In September 1936, the family of five had left for Hong Kong. Henri heard that Joe’s fifteen-year-old son Milt had stayed with his parents in some fancy hotel there the whole time. When the Japanese invaded China in July 1937, the three of them hastily left for the U.S. But Joe’s daughters were attending a university somewhere in Canton and had to make their way to Hong Kong, where they just managed to board the last departing President ocean liner. The ship went to Shanghai, where it was unable to dock, so they anchored out in the water and witnessed the Japanese firing into the city. Finally, they sailed safely to San Francisco.
For once, Henri wasn’t envious of the Shoongs; they had jumped out of the oil pot and into the fire pit. While the family was gone, stores in Oakland had joined up to defend themselves against the unions. Small ones like the Oakland Toggery stood side-by-side with F. W. Woolworth and J. C. Penney. In Joe’s absence, the Oakland manager of the National Dollar Stores ensured that the burgeoning chain was represented. The thirty-five members of the Retail Merchants Association of Oakland chipped in for a page in the newspaper that set forth their position.
Who Visits Calamity on Oakland?
Seven thousand people and their families face suffering and hardship. Forty Metropolitan Oakland retail stores face tremendous losses and possible ruin. The entire business structure of a great community faces stagnation and losses impossible to regain.
Operators of 40 Oakland and Berkeley retail stores began negotiations as long ago as last April with representatives of organized labor in the stores.
Every effort was made to arrive at an agreement that was fair—fair to the employees and fair to the managements.
Substantial progress was made. Salary adjustments were offered. Union recognition was offered.
Then Mr. K. M. Griffin, an international organizer for the Retail Clerks, entered the picture.
Mr. Griffin substantially agreed to everything offered.
Then he made a demand which the employers, in all conscience and in fairness to their employees, could not accept.
Mr. Griffin insisted that the employers sign a contract WHICH WOULD MAKE MEMBERSHIP IN THE UNION, “IN GOOD STANDING,” A CONDITION OF EMPLOYMENT!
This would give Mr. Griffin absolute control over store employment and would assure him of compulsory collection of dues from every one of the thousands of clerks in the retail stores.
Negotiations bogged down at that point.
But meanwhile, working agreements were reached with the other 15 unions organized within the stores, with the assistance of a committee from the Central Labor and Building Trades Councils.
The good auspices of the same committee, composed of labor's real leaders with a stake in the community, were spurned by Mr. Griffin, this ambitious young organizer.
To quote Mr. Griffin directly: “I have to have a union store. That's the only way I can keep our people in line. That's the only way we can collect dues!”
Last night, at a meeting of his union, he gained from his members authority to take a strike vote, on the one issue of “union store.”
He also said that because he had failed to force this condition on all the stores as a group, he would “take them on one by one.”
The retail merchants of Oakland and Berkeley have been dealing as a group and do not propose to be “taken on one by one.”
A STRIKE AGAINST ONE IS A STRIKE AGAINST ALL.
Henri hardly admitted to himself how flattered he was to be the businessman Joe chose to fill him in on the situation upon his return from Hong Kong. Some unions, like the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, came out of New York, where Joe had been on numerous sourcing trips. For Henri, New York seemed like it was on the other side of the world.
Joe asked him, “How many of your employees have joined unions?”
When Henri responded, “None,” Joe looked surprised. Henri wondered how many of his employees were unhappy enough to join.
Masking his pride, Henri explained it away, “I think that everyone is dazzled by the number of unions and people approaching them with different agendas. I joined the Retail Merchants Association so we’d have a common front, and as a precaution in case any of my employees do sign up to a union.”
Before this unrest, Henri saw himself as weak for empathizing with all points of view. Appreciating that people were just trying to make a living and look after their families made him wishy-washy. Lo would have been firmer.
Now, treating his employees well was working in his favor. He found it unsettling that adversity would come from within people’s stores, even from fellow Chinese. His father had owned a store in Courtland, near Sacramento, which burned down. Though never proven, the fire was almost certainly a racist act of arson. It broke Henri’s father; like the store, his spirit was left in ashes.
Joe said, “I need to be harsh with our employees who have joined up. It’s a betrayal.”
First, a store in Oakland that was a member of the Retail Merchants Association was picketed. Then it hit the National Dollar Stores.
To be continued on 6 September 2025.
Fascinating. I found myself looking up different things online, to learn even more. I can't wait for the next installment.