In the Shadow of the Cypress by Thomas Steinbeck Page B

increasing in most all areas of endeavor, and for all classes of our population, except one, the Chinese. I have noted that they seem to function on an arcane monetary philosophy that is incomprehensible to westerners. The Chinese receive less compensation for their labors than anybody else, but they also prudently subsist on far less than most people could imagine. Therefore, they realize profit and, to a greater or lesser degree, even property and prosperity.
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    T HE C HINESE FISHING VILLAGE AT China Point had been in existence for over fifty years, and its profitability had been such that, in all those years, not once had the village ever been in default or arrears on its lease payments to the Pacific Improvement Company, which owns the land. For that matter, the Chinese are acknowledged for their prompt attention to debts of any kind. They are just as insistent that others do the same.
    The village corporation is managed by what the Chinese refer to as a tong. I don’t know about other Chinese enclaves, but in Pacific Grove the village tong is more like a mayoral arrangement: the tong supervises all the village’s business and maintains social order within the community. In effect, it is judge and jury in all matters of local importance. I’m well aware that in places like San Francisco, Seattle, and other large ports, some tongs are little more than organs of criminal extortion backed by threats of violence, but that wasn’t really the case at China Point. There, the local tong was, for the most part, a righteous set of old gentlemen who genuinely cared for the well-being of their constituents and conducted village business on their behalf.
    I am convinced that the underlying conflict was basically aesthetic in nature, though racial considerations certainly buttressed the fundamental discord on both sides. And no one in their right mind would ever claim that the coastal Chinese fishing villages were pleasant to the eye. Their fragile shanties were slapdab affairs made from anything at hand, and looked as though they had been washed ashore by some terrific storm. And this is not far from the truth, since driftwood supplied a good portion of the construction material used. Many of the buildings are precariously perched on the coastal boulders, withthe odd piling driven here and there to hold things in place during a heavy blow. The wobbly, rope-lashed appearance of China Point, for instance, may have been quaint to the visitor’s eye from a distance. But for the local white population, it was an eyesore and, in some important instances, far worse.
    In all fairness it must be said that when the Chinese dried their abundant catches of squid, which they laid out on every conceivable flat surface in the village, the odorous stench could become quite overpowering. If the wind was hauling from the right direction, the reeking odor could bring up the gall of an individual living at the top of Forest Avenue. For some reason the smell never seemed to bother the Chinese, leading some locals to speculate that the Chinese had no olfactory sensibilities whatsoever.
    In short, I believe this conflict between the land agents and the Chinese came about as a result of the confluence of all these elements in an environment of rising property values and much increased revenue brought in by visitors who came to enjoy the pristine beauty of the Monterey Peninsula. As far as the Pacific Improvement Company was concerned, lease or no lease, China Point, with its accompanying perfume, was anything but a jewel in the crown of civic pride, and naturally the company sought any legal means to reclaim the land.
    The Chinese, however, would not be bullied. They held a well-drafted, ironclad ninety-nine-year lease, and were not about to relinquish it without very substantial compensations, which the PIC could ill afford after the added damage expenses brought on by the earthquake. Even with the tacit backing of the railroad, which held a