COLUMBUS PARK, 2018
We met up with Farn S. Lee, ninety-three, and his daughter Mel Young in Manhattan Chinatown, where she gave us the lowdown on his life story, since Mr. Lee is hard of hearing. Her father was born in a tiny village in Toisan nicknamed “Dog Head Ridge.”
“He was fourteen years old and a scrawny sixty-nine pounds when he came here in 1939,” Mel said. His parents had bought him passage by ship and train. “He was never to see his mother again.” A ninety-five dollar “special third class” ticket took him from Hong Kong to Canada, then to Ellis Island—a journey that took almost a month.
“He was never afraid,” she said. “It was all one big adventure for him.”
His father and two older brothers were already in New York City, and they all worked at the Lee Fong Laundry at 200 East Fiftieth Street in Manhattan.
Mr. Lee was the first in his extended family to go to college. He studied structural technology at New York State Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences, now known as the New York City College of Technology. The school was established for World War II veterans to receive technical education after the war. He later taught a course there once a week for additional income, as well as delivering mail during the holidays, co-owning a Chinese restaurant in Rockefeller Center, and selling life insurance and World Book Encyclopedias to get his kids a discounted copy.
Mr. Lee was drafted into the Korean War, where he worked as a draftsman, creating technical drawings for using dynamite. Afterward, he worked as a civil engineer for the New York City Transit Authority, where he became the first Chinese person to hold the position of project coordinator, and retired at fifty-seven. He keeps a lifetime bus and subway pass in his wallet, a never-expiring MetroCard—a retirement perk for all his years of service. He uses it to take the subway from his house near Coney Island to his son-in-law’s eye surgery practice in Manhattan, where he helps with office work. “We tell him to take it easy at home, but he hates being cooped up,” Mel said. Post-retirement, he’s taken fishing trips to adventurous places including Cuba, Venezuela, the Yukon, England, and Belize.
As for his style, we liked his pink aviators and his petite pompadour, which his daughter refers to as his “curry puff.” She thinks he wears it this way that way to add a few inches to his five-foot-six frame. “The Malaysian waitresses in Chinatown used to tease him for sporting a gaa lei gok (curry puff),” she said.
He still favors that look today. “He always keeps a comb in his pocket,” she said.
