Wild Orchid: From Beijing to La-La Land

By Lucille Soong

Wild Orchid is the remarkable true story of one woman’s journey from pre-Communist China to Jamaica, then London, and finally to Hollywood. Lucille Soong started as the daughter of a wealthy family. When Communism takes over China, her family suffers greatly. Seeking freedom, she marries and ends up in London, becoming one of the first Asian models in Britain. Eventually, she ends up in Los Angeles and struggles to realize her dream as an actor before finally being cast in a beloved role in a popular sitcom.

Her story shows that you must persevere and be strong in order to survive, but you don’t have to lose your dignity and pride to achieve your dreams. If you give love and care to people, you’ll get the same and be a successful, happy person.

 

About the Author

Lucille Soong is an actress, model, sculptress, and escapee from Mao’s Red Guards. She was the first Chinese fashion model in “Swinging London” where she dated entertainment giants like Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali). Soong was cast in Darling with Julie Christie and also shared the screen with acting greats like Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, Sammy Davis Jr., Jamie Lee Curtis, and Mark Harmon. Her best-known movie roles are from Freaky Friday and Joy Luck Club. Her TV roles include Desperate Housewives, Dharma and Greg, According to Jim, Huff, and most recently the grandmother in Fresh Off the Boat. In 2022, she starred in a movie for the Hallmark network to be released Christmas 2023. Lucille’s life-long journey from China to Hong Kong, to Jamaica, to London, to Hollywood is one of courage, survival, and success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: May 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890275882

Book preview

Soong_Title_page.eps

The contents of this work, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of events, people, and places depicted; opinions expressed; permission to use previously published materials included; and any advice given or actions advocated are solely the responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for said work and indemnifies the publisher against any claims stemming from publication of the work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without consent of the writer and IAG representative.

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2024 by Lucille Soong

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, downloaded, distributed, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without permission in writing from the publisher.

Dorrance Publishing Co

585 Alpha Drive

Pittsburgh, PA 15238

Visit our website at www.dorrancebookstore.com

ISBN: 979-8-8902-7090-0

eISBN: 979-8-8902-7588-2

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Amy Tan's best selling  novel, Joy Luck Club was made into a 1992 movie that gave Chinese actors work. I played the grandmother and got to know Elizabeth Sung, a wonderful actress, who played another family member. Elizabeth was interested in my life story and urged me to write about it. Not skilled in English I was reluctant to do so. Elizabeth said Just write down the important events. I did so and am grateful to Elizabeth for her direction and encouragement. Unfortunately she passed away before she could read what she helped me to create.

Chapter One

CHINA

When I was one month old, my mother hired a fortune-teller to read my fortune; an old Chinese custom for newborn babies, the old blind fortune-teller rolled his eyes up, like he was thinking and all that could be seen was the white cloud in his eyes. Then counted with his fingers and mumbled some strange words only used in the lunar calendar for fortune telling.

Suddenly he stopped, shook his head, and said, If this is a female’s life, it is not good. Very sad!

My mother asked, Why?

He continued, She has no children… born rich, but she has to work very hard for everything in life.

My mother asked again, Does she have a husband?

He answered, Marry more than once, but never enjoy her husband’s wealth. He also said, She’ll not be at her parents’ death bed, but she’ll live a very long life.

Nobody paid much attention to what he said then. As the years passed, my mother came to realize that my life happened pretty much as the fortune-teller had predicted. Like my mother, I have an amazing memory. I can recall every detail of my childhood as though it were before my eyes.

We lived with our grandfather in a big house in Tianjin, next to Beijing which was the second industrial city after Shanghai. It was in the British Concession and was considered the nicest residential area. There was a horse racing track and an English football ground. Our house was of English style, with an upstairs, downstairs, a basement, and the servants’ quarters. We also had a tailor, Loa Jaing, who lived in the house as well. Every day he would sew Chinese dresses for the women and the children and silk gowns for our grandfather as he refused to wear the foreigner’s suits. Grandfather had a very noble presence. My mother brought her personal maid Wong ma with her when she married my father. Girls from a wealthy family considered the maid as part of the dowry, so Wong ma was devoted to our family for her entire life. When we were little, each of us had a nanny. One of my twin brothers also had a hired nurse who fed him milk. We call her the milk mother.

Yu ma was my nanny. We called our nannies ma because they cared for us like a real mother. With only four teeth in her mouth, Yu ma was quite old but very loving toward me. She called me Da Bai Pang Siu, which means big fat baby Siu with fair skin. Siu was the name I was born with. As long as she fed me with my favorite cherries and dry dates, I was happy. I especially enjoyed it when she would peel the mandarins and feed each juicy wedge in my mouth. I would chew each piece a little then spit them back into her palm, watching her gums chewing the remaining morsels. She looked so funny when she smiled with her four big teeth showing. As I wriggled in my chair, I would laugh with delight. I loved to eat, sleep, and play with my blue-eyed, curly haired baby doll. I was a troublefree happy child. I don’t remember my mother much at that time because as a dutiful daughter-in-law, she was always busy taking care of my grandfather and arranging everything in the house. Then there was a day that I will never forget.

My eldest aunt and her baby daughter of three months were living with us at that time. My aunt was a grieving young widow, and she was always in a bad mood. One day the cook and his helper put out a table full of delicious meat, fish, chicken, and vegetables of eight dishes. All of a sudden, we heard my aunt shouting. She had walked into the big round table full of food. The tabletop was separate, and it was laid on top of a small table. She flipped the tabletop with both of her hands and all the delicious meat, chicken, and fish pieces fell off and onto the floor. I was shocked and couldn’t understand why she did that. Apparently, she had destroyed the family’s feast because the cook hadn’t prepared her favorite shrimps. Since she was not happy, she didn’t want anybody else to enjoy the meal either. No one dared to say anything to her as she was my grandfather’s favorite daughter. The cook came out from the kitchen with a big cleaver in his hand crying aloud and threatening to kill himself. My mother was horrified and humiliated and ran off to her room crying like I had never seen her before or since. But as the head of the household, she had to instruct the cook to quickly whip up some food to feed the family. I felt the sadness in my mother’s heart. That was the first time I saw tears in her eyes.

When I was three years old, the Japanese army landed on Chinese soil. The first city they invaded was my hometown Tianjin in 1937. The Japanese soldiers would come to every house to inspect at mealtime. They’d take our food away if they found us eating good white rice and meat. Mother would put the white rice in the bottom of our bowls, covered with the yellow grains that we fed the chickens on top, and only the green vegetable dishes on the table. The soldiers were surprised to see what seemed like an affluent family eating chicken grain. So, they left us alone. I knew then that we had a brave and clever mother.

Baba was a kind and loving father. He loved children and never scolded or hit us. When he learned to sing Peking opera as a hobby, we used to sing along with him. He could even sing in English, songs like Old Man River, he also could do tongue twisters in English, such as Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, Peter Piper picked… The most fun was when we all lined up to do Tai-Chi with him. Baba was a very charming man and liked to tell stories and joke with us. We even enjoyed hearing him brag about his business deals, how he exported the furs to Spain and Portugal and the Chinese mink furs to America. He had an American business partner always gave Baba chocolates and braided egg bread {Chalah bread} to take home for us. I loved the peaches with sweet juice in the huge can and felt fortunate we got to taste unusual exotic foreign treats.

Grandfather was a very successful businessman in bristles and furs had many people working for him. He had his own fancy rickshaw and a hired runner to carry him and ran very fast to work as he refused to ride in my father’s Buick motor car with a professional driver and a bodyguard. We had twelve servants working for our big family.

Father was the oldest son. Naturally, he worked with my grandfather in his bristles and fur businesses, both were very important business in 1930s as in China. The bristles were pig’s hair and were used to make toothbrushes and brushes for writing. Chinese write calligraphy or painting pictures with brushes dipped in black ink. Chinese mink and other animal furs were used to make coats to wear in the cold winter in northern China. I always joked that I was born wearing furs. When I was six years old, my favorite coat was a mix-colored rabbit fur coat with tails hanging down the bottom. It was the envy of other children.

The invading Japanese were terribly cruel to the Chinese people and the war had made it a struggle for my father to keep his business open. Father decided to head for Shanghai, first on his own and then came back for the family. My mother was relieved that my grandfather and my aunt did not want to leave our hometown Tianjin.

As for my grandfather, he fell in love with an Italian woman who played piano, and she became his mistress and lived in the Italian district. They had a son with big brown round eyes, we called him number four uncle. We didn’t meet him until he was thirty years old when my mother, out of compassion, insisted that we accept him into our family. We liked our number four uncle, he always visited us on the day of Chinese New Year with his wife and two children and brought us the special red and sour preserved little baby apples covered with toffee, stranded on a stick. Oh, I miss eating that fruit candy which I’ve never seen in other countries.

My aunt was remarried to a nice bachelor finally. I remembered her once saying, The river may dry up one day, but my father’s wealth will never end. I don’t need to marry. How wrong she was, but who could have imagined the Japanese invasion that would destroy our good life?

We took a train to Shanghai. Our family maid, Wong ma, always got sick whenever she traveled. I remembered her getting sick in father’s black motorcar and now she was sick on the train. It was hot and crowded and the air smelled terrible. People were coughing and complaining; some were fighting for seats. Father took Wong ma to the open part of the train to get her some air. Seeing Wong ma’s condition, a Japanese soldier threatened to throw her off the train, but my father stopped him in time. The soldier saw that my father was carrying a medicine case, so he assumed my father was a doctor and left Wong ma alone.

We always thought that the Buddha protected our father because he was kind and always helped people. He had saved many men from committing suicide. Whenever that happened, he had to accept them as his godsons and their lives ‘belonged’ to him. That was the Chinese custom. I remember that my father saved one man’s life and gave him the job as his chauffeur. Another man his bodyguard. Years later, during the Communist regime when my father was ill, the chauffeur drove him to the hospital as he was forever grateful to my father.

My mother was from the finest village near Tianjin named Tangshan, she did not marry very young because she was waiting to meet a husband from the city. My father was a very handsome, gentle-looking man in an elegant English suit. Mother smiled and nodded when the matchmaker showed my father’s picture to her. Father was an exquisite dresser; he wore the best tailored made-to-order English suits, a beaver or wool hat in the winter, a fine Panama straw hat in the summer, and two-toned shoes called spectators.

Father jokingly told us when we were teenagers, Your mother held my picture in her hands and wouldn’t let go.

We all laughed. I loved father’s humor. Mother was pretty too. She had a slender figure and liked to wear colorful brocade Chinese dresses. Her skin was very fair, and she had fine features. The only make-up she had on her face was a dash of pink rouge on her cheeks. When she smiled, it showed a little dimple on the corner of her lips and her face lit up with warmth.

Father used to tease her and say, Your mother’s face shaped like a duck egg.

That’s the best style of the classic Chinese beauty’s face. Mother smiled happily and I felt the love between them. People thought she was from Su-zhou province that had a reputation to have the most beautiful women. Mother’s feet were bound and then let loose when she was six. By then, binding of the feet was no longer fashionable. She was happy that her feet grew bigger, and she could wear the modern English shoes stuffed with cotton wool in the front of the toes. She could walk quite fast, and she was able to fulfill her ambition to dance the waltz. In 1900s China, there was no public school for female students. Mother’s father was a wealthy landlord and he hired tutor to teach her read and write Chinese at home. Young girls were taught to do household things before they married. Mother learned to cook tasty meats, fish, chicken, and she knew how to make noodles, dumpling wrappers, and bao from scratch.

After ending up in Shanghai during the war, the only servant we had was Wong ma. She had become a V.I.P. in our family. No longer just my mother’s personal maid, Wong ma now had many more responsibilities such as going out into the street to shop for food. This used to be the male cook’s job.

During the war, there was food shortage and hungry people all over the city. One day, Wong ma bought some salty duck eggs and had them in a basket that she carried on one arm. A rugged beggar tried to grab the basket from her, so she beat the beggar’s hand, then the beggar grabbed two of the duck eggs and ran. Poor Wong ma tried to chase him with her little bound feet on her fat body. Hearing of her sad adventure, we both laughed and cried imagining her wobbling on those tiny feet. Since we no longer had a cook, Mother had to take the job as our cook. She cooked as good as the hired cooks. We were so fortunate to have such a capable mother. She often surprised us with her many talents.

Shanghai was the most exciting city. At twenty-four stories high, the Park Hotel was the only tall building in all of Asia for many years. We loved to stand in front of it and look up to the top. There was a moving stairway, or what we now call an escalator, in the Shanghai No.1 department store. How we loved to go up and down the moving stairs just for fun.

Mother took me to the English Bally shoe store as a result of my nagging. I asked mother for a pair of white open-toed summer sandals. Mother was very practical and frugal; it was considered an important and good quality for a woman. She didn’t like the idea of spending so much money for just a few strips of leather on a pair of shoes. So, she refused to buy them for me. But when I wanted something, I must have it somehow. For the next few days, I cut strips from paper and tied them on my feet. I had designed my own sandals. When Mother saw my artistic ability, her heart softened and bought me a pair of unforgettable, beautiful blue colored shoes with fancy design around the edges. I was only allowed to wear them on special occasions.

I realize now what inspired me the most was the Third Shanghai movie studio just a few streets from our house. JieJie (elder sister) and I were taken to visit the movie studio by my mother’s friend. It was so much fun to watch people pretending to be someone else. They were singing and dancing. Sometimes they made funny faces, and I laughed out loud when they looked silly. A man with a clapperboard in his hand gave me a hard look. He then put his finger on his lips to make sure I stayed quiet. That was my first experience with movie acting. After that, I practiced singing in the bathroom. Even though my sister and brothers made fun of me when I tried to sing a high note, my teachers always chose me to dance in the school shows. I didn’t think I was any good. I was very shy.

My father had been exporting Chinese mink to America. One day, his American business partner and his wife came to visit in our home in Shanghai. I had never seen a foreign woman so beautiful; she had blue eyes and golden hair, and she was wearing a hat with a feather on it. She looked at me and said, cute. Father told me it meant pretty. My mother used to tell me that I had little eyes and she thought I was the ugliest girl in our family. I started wondering may be the foreigners liked the way I look. I liked this lady. The American couple learned about Chinese customs. On Chinese New Year’s Day, they brought a lot of candies for us children and we jumped with joy. It took six months for us children to eat it all. They also learned about the Chinese tipping custom and the lady gave Wong ma a big tip that made Wong ma bow three times to the American couple. They made us very happy. Those were pleasant memories from Shanghai. There were terrible things too. I had seen a man’s leg, just a piece of thigh and the knee, surrounded by blood lying in the street. I was so shocked. My mother would cover my eyes and tell me not to look. I learned not to cry or scream at a young age. China fought the Japanese for eight years. In Shanghai, where we lived for four years, they speak a different dialect of Chinese called Shanghainese. The words are pronounced quite differently in Mandarin, our northern Chinese dialect. I never spoke Shanghainese in school because I was afraid to be laughed at by other children if I didn’t pronounce correctly. The teachers had to teach me in Mandarin, and I never made any friends in school for that reason.

My parents really wanted a boy when my mother was pregnant with me. My arrival was a disappointment to them. Two years later, my brothers were born. Not only were they boys, they were identical twins. They were my mother’s pride and joy, her great accomplishment. All the attention went to the twin boys. When guests came to visit, my mother would call out to the twins to show them off. They hated being at the exhibition and became very shy and withdrawn. I felt like I had disappeared between the clever big sister JieJie and the adorable twin brothers. Nobody pampered me. I wasn’t smart and didn’t study hard in school like JieJie. I only liked to paint pictures and make arts and crafts, but my Chinese composition and English as second language were scored as the best in my class. Teacher read out loud of my Chinese story writing to class. Three years my senior, JieJie was number one in every subject in her class except art. I was very jealous of JieJie when we were little. Father taught JieJie English and always showed her off when he was playing Mah-Jong with his friends. I remembered once tearing up her pretty dress to stop her from going out with father without me. I always felt that my parents ignored me. They even forgot my birthday.

When we first arrived in Shanghai, my father got a job as a consultant in a cigarette factory. He was quite an expert on tobacco. We children would sit around father and test his ability to identify different brands of cigarettes. He’d puff a few times and say, Hmm, this is Craven A, it’s mild, English made. I like it the best. Then we looked at the package. Wow, he was right. After a puff or two on another cigarette, he’d say, This is strong, American Camel brand, not to my taste. We’d go on and on testing him, but he never made mistakes. I guess that’s why the cigarette factory paid him such a good salary for his expertise.

We lived a modest, good life during the war in Shanghai. I was there from seven to ten years old. I had learned to play poker and was good at bluffing with my inscrutable face expression. Monopoly game was my favorite. I loved to buy houses with my winnings. Father loved to experience new things from America. One day he came home early to take us to watch the first color movie by the famous swimming movie star Esther Williams. I was out playing with boys as usual, so they went without me. To this day I still feel sad. I was left out!

After the Japanese surrendered, we were so happy to move back home to Tianjin. Father exchanged his savings from four years of hard work for gold bars. Mother put the gold bars deep down in the bottom of her large, fashionable, shiny blue handbag and covered with candies on the top and gave JieJie the handbag to carry. Just thirteen, JieJie looked very innocent. Although she later said that she was trembling inside and her heart was pounding, but the custom examiners did not suspect her and let her pass without searching the handbag.

My parents used the gold to buy a