Elizabeth Partridge, Book Author

Oranges on Golden Mountain

For more than twenty years I have been an acupuncturist and herbalist in California. Watching Chinese medicine adapt to our Western medical needs, I became curious about the history of Oriental medicine in the United States and wondered if I would track down enough information to write an article.

I headed for the nearby University of California library, never dreaming that my searches would lead me to create a picture book text about a Chinese boy who came here during the 1870s.

At the library, I found many accounts about Chinese acupuncturists and herbal doctors dating from the time of the Gold Rush. They often ran flourishing medical practices, seeing both Chinese and Caucasian patients. I was surprised to discover over 300,000 Chinese had come to "Golden Mountain," as they called California, between 1849 and 1882. They worked in the gold fields, railroads and factories, ran small businesses, planted orchards, and fished up and down the West coast.

In the 1870’s there were several dozen Chinese fishing villages lining the San Francisco bay. Hundreds of men and boys lived and worked in these villages. I was fascinated by the idea of these fishermen who had come here so long ago. What had their lives been like? Why do we know so little about them today? Instead of writing an article on Chinese medicine, I became captivated by the idea of telling the story of living and working in one of these villages.

Not far from where I live is the China Camp State Park , a fishing village that has been preserved by the state. (http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=466)

Though I had driven by the sign on the freeway innumerable times, I had never stopped to visit. One bright, windy spring day I headed for the park. The China Camp ranger, Pat Robards, took me out on the rebuilt pier, showed me how shrimp were brought in, cooked and dried, and where and how the fishermen lived.

In the afternoon, I sat on the sandy beach and tried to go back in time and imagine what it would have been like to go out fishing on a sampan, or boil up thousands of shrimp and spread them to dry in the sun. I wondered what it had been like to live right on the edge of the water, where the waves lap at the shore and the sun shines through moisture laden air. I remembered the many times as a child when our family spent weekends at a cabin perched on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Summers we ran free on the beach, and winters we gathered near the fire as wind and rain buffeted the tiny cabin with its thin wooden walls.

Back at the UC Berkeley library, I found old books, magazines, and documents about the Chinese in America. I read about Chinese fishing boats and working conditions in the fishing camps. I spent hours talking with an elderly friend, Augusta Li, and several of her relatives. Mrs. Li was born in San Francisco and told me stories of early Chinatown and working in the fish canneries down by the bay.

A story was forming in my mind, about a boy sent to live with his uncle in a fishing camp on Golden Mountain. But I didn’t know much about fishing, or being out on a boat for hours and hours. So I went to my friend Rusty McBride, an avid fisherman and San Francisco Bay Pilot. For years he has sailed out of the Golden Gate and clambered up ladders into the big ships coming in, taking over the controls and piloting them through the waters. He knows every inch of the bay, every tide, every cove, every hidden shoal, every school of fish. I asked him hundreds of questions. How do the winds feel? When you are out on the water, does the fog hold the smell of seaweed like it does on shore? How does a storm feel when you are out in a little boat?

Publisher: Puffin
40 Pages, ages 4 to 8
Softcover ISBN-10: 014250033x
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0142500330

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Oranges on Golden Mountain

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