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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us June 20, 2005 Author journeys to personal freedom By John Darling Tidings Correspondent Irene Kai was raised in a repressive Hong Kong household, which made emigrating to the United States a shock. The Ashland author tells her tale in “Golden Mountain: Beyond the American Dream.” Submitted photo Irene Kai’s story seems to traverse not just nations, but centuries, starting out with a repressive, near-medieval childhood in China, then suddenly landing in the dizzying freedoms of New York City in the ’60s. She became wealthy as an artist and art importer, finding, like many who attain the American dream, that she was “miserable and exhausted.” That’s when life really began, with the finding of her own soul — and the mission of writing her life story, “Golden Mountain: Beyond the American Dream” (Silver Light Publications, Ashland, 2004, $14.95, www.silverlightpub.com). “I realized it was important to understand my culture but to go beyond that,” said Kai. “I didn’t have to be a Chinese girl or a mainstream American materialistic girl. I could choose what’s really important to me. That’s what America is — that freedom.” Kai was at the pinnacle of success as a Los Angeles art dealer, with people telling her any woman would die to be in her shoes. “If I’d made it to the top, why was I so miserable and exhausted? Why is that the American dream?” Kai left it all, divorced, moved to Ashland eight years ago and found her beloved David Wick in a long, deeply felt Internet correspondence. She deepened her practice of meditation, which she began as a refuge from her abuse as a child in China. With this, the events and stories of four generations of women in her family flooded back to her in vivid detail, forming the basis for a story that needed to be told. “David would record my memories as they came in, like movies being unreeled,” said Kai. “I worked eight hours a day writing — and I cried for three years. It was incredible therapy. I was like an observer, not really feeling the pain, yet finally understanding it. My ancestors and I went through a lot of tough experiences.” Kai’s family has a long experience in America. Her grandfather and great-grandfather came to San Francisco in 1900 and ran a laundry but returned to China for the son’s arranged marriage. That son and his wife came to Boston and raised a family, including Kai’s father, James. They returned to Hong Kong, where Kai’s parents had an arranged marriage and raised their children — emigrating to New York with 15-year-old Kai in 1965. Although her parents were native-born Americans, they reverted in Hong Kong to Chinese customs, including her father having concubines and extra-marital children, while her mother, raised in America and expecting a romantic, loyal husband, stayed home raising kids and meting out severe beatings with a rod. Seated in her home beneath a huge, Georgia O’Keefe-style painting of a flower that she’d done, Kai read from her book. “Oi Ling (her Chinese name), bring me the green stick! Mother yelled from her bedroom. The green stick was the element of fear in our house. ... She would grab it in her hand and order us to stand still. She’d raise it above her head and whip it with such force that we feared the whizzing sound before we felt the sting on our flesh. Afterward, welts swelled to more than a quarter inch on our legs and butts. They quickly turned black and blue at the edges and dead white in between. ... “‘Why are you crying? I am not even going to hit you. You are such a stupid child!’ Mother said. ... She was going to hit my elder sister. ... Most of the time we didn’t know why we got hit. She found reasons I didn’t understand. I tried to read her moods, for they could determine whether or not I would be hit.” Kai would escape to the rooftop and sit in a rattan chair for hours, staring at clouds and soon experiencing the clear light and universal understanding known by dedicated practitioners of meditation. In America, Kai learned “powerful steps to define your happiness,” as she put it. “It’s the courage to step out. I knew as a child my life was miserable. I learned that if you get in a bad situation, you try to change it. You have to evolve and gain experience. Even though it’s not ultimate happiness, you’re getting closer.” The denouement of the story is Kai’s understanding of her mother’s torments and the moment of forgiveness at her deathbed. “The once almighty mother seemed so weak and small. Her gray hair reminded me of all the years that had elapsed since I had been the little girl who had tried her best to please her mother to no avail. I was a grown woman and I was still her child. I felt safe in her presence for the first time. “I took mother’s hand and held it with both of mine. I whispered in her ear, ‘Mah-me, I am here.’ I searched her face for minute movements of facial muscles that might indicate she was trying to communicate with me but her face was flat and calm. ... “A warm sensation washed over me. It was as if her life flashed before me. I realized she had done her best. She had been unable to love and nurture her children because she could not function as a mature woman. She was forever that little girl who had never recovered from the devastation caused by her own mother’s abandonment. ... “She exhaled her last breath. Gone with mother was the role of the punching bag. I straightened up and breathed deeply. I felt free and light. The weight of my family’s judgments had lifted, gone with her forever.” With publication of her book, Kai’s journey had come full circle and she’d forgiven herself for being a link in the chain of abuse, released her anger and keeping the cycle from passing to her two children, she said. Irene Kai with her publisher David Wick , head of Silver Light publications Along with climbing the inner mountain, Kai and Wick climbed the publishing mountain, attempting to enter the world of agents and publishing companies, then, after many rejections, choosing to keep full rights and control of the book by starting their own publishing company, Silver Light. They had top-flight book jacket designer Nita Ybarra do the cover, got a print-on-demand printer in Michigan ($1.80 a book) and engaged Publisher’s Group West to do promotion and distribution. Kai speaks to online book clubs, and they travel extensively, promoting the book at book fairs, bookstores and local newspapers — an expensive and exhaustive regimen, but one that leaves them in permanent control of their book and allows them to publish other titles. One of the big hurdles for self-publishers, she said, is credibility with the media. Even though the book has roots in San Francisco history and ethnic understanding, the newspapers there “won’t touch it because it’s self-published.” The book is on tape, distributed by Blackstone Audiobooks of Ashland. It was a finalist for Best Cover Design with Publisher’s Marketing Association and for Best Book of the Year as Auto-Memoir and Mind-Body-Spirit with ForeWord Magazine. Noted consciousness author Jean Houston of Ashland called the book “a treasure, a beautiful and ingenious book that offers us the story of generations of women who dared to go beyond the traditional confines of their known world and to make new lives as they discovered new ways of being.” Next up for Silver Light is a memoir by her daughter, detailing the lonely lives of girls growing up in Los Angeles, followed by “What Do You See?” an eye-tricking, seemingly salacious photo essay created in 1973 while Kai was a student at Royal College of Art in London. “The Golden Mountain” is being used as a text in college-level ESL (English as a Second Language) courses in San Francisco, where emigrants from all over the world consider Kai a role model for people breaking away from the culture of their parents, she said, and redefining themselves of people assimilating into the land of liberty. When she walked into such a class recently, Kai was greeted with a standing ovation and roses — “Such an honor ... because I’d told their story, too.” DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams