Q: This is the Museum of Chinese in the Americas’ historical oral recordings. Today we have invited the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association chairman, Mr. Ting Deng Ng, for an interview. I am Florence Ng, and I will conduct the interview. Could you please tell us when you came to America?
NG: I came towards the end of 1975 to America. Before 1975, I went from mainland China to Hong Kong, and then came to America. For eighteen years, I worked in the Hong Kong educational environment. When I first came to America I, well, when I first came to America, the main reason was that I was concerned about my children’s education, I had four children that were going to go to college, and at that time, Hong Kong’s situation was very difficult, and there weren’t so many slots for students, and college was very difficult… So I came to America. Having arrived in America, my whole family worked at textile factories, laundries, restaurants, and for over ten years, I worked continuously for the sake of my daughters. So as far as that time goes, I didn’t really know much about New York’s Chinatown. That’s because I didn’t work in Chinatown during that time. I worked on the outside, in places like Manhattan and Queens, so I didn’t know too much about New York’s Chinatown. Ten years ago I had retired, and since I didn’t have anything to do after retirement, I went back to a family clan organization, and other community organizations, localized, locally organized community groups, and I joined some organizations of people with the same birthplaces. I got to know Chinatown from that time on.
Q: Chairman Ng, when you first came to America, what was your impression of Chinatown? What problems existed in Chinatown?
NG: In 1975 when I came, back in 1975, Chinatown didn’t have so many immigrants. The immigrants started coming after the eighties. When I came, most of Chinatown was garment factories, textile shops, and, as far as Chinese people went, they worked in textile shops or in restaurants. At that time, Chinatown wasn’t so flourishing. It was very quiet. That was thirty years ago.
Q: At that time, did Chinatown have any serious problems, such as safety, housing, or troublemakers?
NG: Back then, Chinatown, because most of the… the history goes like this, in the beginning, most of the people in New York’s Chinatown had been from Taishan, there were lots of people from Taishan, and a lot of decisions were made by those from Taishan, all the way until they created the Lian-cheng Gong-suo. In Chinatown, Wen-ye was mainly used by the people from Taishan. This situation continued all the way until the eighties before it started to change, because in the 80s, China became more open, and after it became more open, lots of new immigrants came. Due to the shock of this wave of new immigrants, Chinatown changed. It started to change. In any case… Because the living area within Chinatown is so restricted, a lot of the new immigrants expanded out into the outer areas, developing into the surrounding areas. Chinatown couldn’t handle so many new people, living there, staying there, working there, and so forth, and that’s why they expanded into the surrounding areas. So after the 80s, it shifted and expanded towards Flushing, Brooklyn, and developed into these new areas.
Q: Chairman Ng, when you joined the community organizations and did public service, which of the major groups did you join first?
NG: It was the Wu Xu Shan Gong-suo.
Q: At that time, what role did you serve?
NG: At that time, I joined and served as a copy clerk, a secretary. I acted as a secretary on behalf of Wu Xu Shan Gong-suo. And I also joined the Hai-yan Same-Village Organization, this was one of the Chinese-American same-village organizations within the Chinese Community Center. We had all been born in the same area, and I acted as the chairman of the Hai-yan Same-Village Organization. Later, I joined the Taishan Province Independent Middle School Alumni Organization, I joined that, and acted as the meeting chief for six years. Now I am still the chairperson of the Dong-shi Committee. After the eighties, I joined the Xie-sheng Gonghui, and the American Business Assistance Organization when I joined I became the secretary, I acted as the secretary for them all the way to today.
Q: Chairman Ng, how did you later join the CCBA?
NG: Well, it was like this, I was in a number of organizations, and I had worked as a chairman and a clerk and a secretary, and I came into contact with more and more of the Chinese-American organizations in the Chinatown Chinese-American community. There were a lot of meetings with Chinese-American organizations because I had acted as the chairman for sixty Chinese-American organizations, and often came back to hold meetings, so I met a lot of them.
Q: Chairman Ng, I believe you took office in 2002?
NG: Yes.
Q: So that was already about half a year after 9/11 occurred. How big was the impact of 9/11 upon Chinatown, in your opinion?
NG: Oh, it’s like this. Before I had taken office, the previous chairman, in ’01 -- At the time of 9/11, Zhong Qiao-zheng had been acting as the chairman of the CCBA. Ever since 9/11 occurred, the CCBA has done a lot.
Q: What do you think was the greatest impact that 9/11 had upon Chinatown, for example, which businesses or areas were most affected?
NG: 9/11 had a big impact on Chinatown. Ever since 9/11, since they closed off all the roads, it affected – all of Chinatown was paralyzed. Since nobody could move, business couldn’t go forward for about a week or two. Factories and textile mills all closed up, and transportation was stuck, causing there to be more and more unemployed people. So all of the business in Chinatown was impacted. After a few weeks, when they lifted the restrictions on entering, Chinatown couldn’t rebound, and business… There was nobody coming to Chinatown. The businesses at the time, all of the businesspeople suffered to an extent that can’t be put into words.
Q: After 9/11 occurred, did the CCBA lead in coordinating other organizations to do some services and planning related to disaster relief?
NG: In that regard, Chairman Zhong Qiao-zheng, in 2001, Chairman Zhong Qiao-zheng was serving when 9/11 took place, and the CCBA immediately opened all our locations and let those relief organizations set up in our community centers. We supplied these locations without attaching any conditions. Lots of relief organizations, even government economic assistance organizations, all set up at the CCBA. We hoped that we could diligently assist the government, and we worked hard to help our Chinatown citizens.
Q: How big was the effect of 9/11 upon Chinatown? Has the total loss been calculated?
NG: There hasn’t been an official calculation. I think that at that time, for one year or half a year, none of the businesses could go forward, and all of them, not just some of them, they all said that they had huge losses.
Q: Chairman Ng, where were you when 9/11 occurred?
NG: I was in Chinatown when 9/11 occurred. I was there until after 9/11, in March of 2002, when I took over as the chairman of the CCBA. I continued with all of the work that had been done by the previous chairman, and we did things more openly. After I took over… it was like this… the important thing was restoring the economy of Chinatown, the most important and most critical first step was restoring the economy of Chinatown. In that regard, what I did was, I cleaned up Chinatown, that’s the first thing, I wanted to clean up and beautify Chinatown, and I wanted everything about it to attract visitors, because Chinatown is a tourist destination. If the visitors don’t come, then it doesn’t matter what we do, everything will be useless. So in that way, we worked hard to attract tourists, and we did things like hold parades and floats. Last year was the most successful, there were two or three hundred thousand people that came and took part in our parade activities, and we wanted to try hard to attract more of these visitors, because that’s the only way to restore Chinatown’s economy.
For many years, we requested that the government come and help us fix the roads, because a couple years ago the roads in Chinatown were really bumpy and raggedy and driving wasn’t convenient, and so we requested that the government fix the roads. They’ve already completed it, and they’ve opened up all the roads again. Now there’s only Park Row that hasn’t yet been reopened, the rest have been reopened. This has been a big help to Chinatown. Next, we worked hard to negotiate with the government about the parking problem. In addition, we have already started making a ceremonial gateway, we want to create a Chinese-style, a colorful Eastern, Chinese-style ceremonial gateway in Chinatown. We’ve collected donations from a lot of good people. Our work has already gone through the second district, and got the help of the third district and Manhattan, so we can do it. We’ve already asked Mr. De He Tie Ji to help us apply to the government on these plans. This work is all to beautiful Chinatown, and to attract visitors.
NG: In the beginning when I was at Hong Kong, because I had some siblings and some relatives, all of them in America. My entire family had already left mainland China then, they had all left mainland China.
Q: Left where in China?
NG: Taishan. Taishan in Canton. I’m of Taishan descent. After 1957, our entire family left Taishan. The old folks, several of the old folks, some somewhat younger ones and my sister, everyone came to America and Canada. Myself, I stayed in Hong Kong, because I hadn’t… I had to stay in Hong Kong to finish my education. I remained there all the way through 1967 or ’68, when Hong Kong started becoming having violent protests, at which time I had already applied to come to America. My older relatives applied for me to come, and I was accepted, but I didn’t go, at the time I thought that there was no point in coming to America. Especially if we could live all right in Hong Kong, we didn’t want to come to America and struggle. Especially my old folks and my other relatives all said: “You’re a teacher, and people in academics are useless in America, because you can’t speak English, so if you come, it’s just to suffer.” And they didn’t encourage me to go. Now, 1967 and ’68 was a time of violent protests in Hong Kong, and I had been accepted, but I didn’t go. All the way until ’73 or ’74, I continued to stay and work in Hong Kong, temporarily at Bo-ya Academy.
Because of my children, my children, they had all studied from elementary school to high school, and three or four of them were going to go to college in a row. In the 70s, in Hong Kong, having several children to go to college was an impossible financial burden, unless you were a rich family. It was just an impossible burden. The second problem was that at that time there weren’t enough slots for students in colleges in Hong Kong, there was only one Hong Kong University and a newly established Chinese Literature University, just these two. And in these circumstances, my children would have no chance of studying further. And my own abilities weren’t sufficient to provide, to provide for my children. In ’73, I had a daughter who tried to get into college, but was unable to test into it. She didn’t get a high enough score. After they finished studying at secondary school, they’d have to start work, and none of them felt they had any hope for the future. And so I decided to come to America. Standard of living was one thing, but the main issue was my children. I had heard, although I didn’t know it personally, in America, if you want to study, you can always study. And it was in search of that ideal that I brought them over with me.
Q: Chairman Ng, after you came to America, was the life there the same as what you had imagined? Or how did you adjust?
NG: I, I, as far as I go, I just do whatever, it doesn’t matter. Even when I was in mainland China, if I ploughed the field, I just ploughed it. In this regard, I didn’t think of doing anything else, I didn’t give up on things, I definitely wouldn’t do that. I just hoped that I could be very stable, that my life would be stable and that my children got a good education. That’s all.
Q: Chairman Ng, when you taught in Hong Kong, what did you teach, what classes and where?
NG: It’s like this, I was at an academy, Bernard College, I was an administrative head and I managed the administration.
Q: OK, Chairman Ng, could you please introduce to us to the CCBA and how you came to be selected as the chairman?
NG: It happened like this, the CCBA has already had 120 years of, 120 years of history. In the beginning, in the very beginning, the people from the Taishan Ning-yang Organization went and acted as the chairman of the CCBA. Because one hundred years ago, the Chinese in New York, 99% of them were from Taishan, Taishan people, so those who acted as the chairmen of the CCBA, and those that took responsibility for things at the CCBA were all people from Taishan. Each year, the chairmen came from the Taishan people. Later on, before 1990, there was a period of ten or twenty years when there were a different four, they weren’t from Taishan, I think Enping, Kaiping, and they weren’t Taishan, there were even those from other provinces, and when they came, there wasn’t any reason why the CCBA was just for Taishan people, so they formed a group, Mei-Dong Lian-cheng Gongsuo, Lian-Cheng Gongsuo, and later they had a revolving chairman. Later on, it would be two-year periods, the Lian-Cheng Gongsuo would lead for two years, and then it would go back to Ning-yang, and then Ning-yang would do it for two years and then give it back to Lian-cheng, like that. The selection of the chairman was done like this: once every two years, and I’m doing it now, it was in ’02, started in ’02, and I was put forward as a candidate by Ning-yang Gongsuo, and was selected by the greater organization, I was selected by 84 members to be the chairman. They have to put forward two or more candidates. Ning-yang Gongsuo has to put forward two candidates, and then the greater organization selects the chairman. They ended up selecting me. To put it another way, after I finish, it will go to Mei-dong Lian-cheng Gongsuo, and they will have to put forward at least two candidates. Speaking of the organizations within the CCBA, there are 60 Chinese-American groups, 60 Chinese-American groups, and outside those 60 Chinese-American groups, there are also twenty-four members, and of those 24, there are eight committee members who are selected from Lian-Cheng Gongsuo, and the other eight committee members come from Mei-dong… I mean, Ning-yang Gongsuo selects them. The other eight committee members are selected from the Business Organization, all together, that’s 24 members, and the 60 community groups, and in this way, they make up the CCBA.
Q: Chairman Ng, could I bother you to explain a little what the CCBA did after 9/11 occurred in order to provide disaster relief? Is there anything currently going forward now?
NG: After 9/11, besides doing some work that progressed over many months during the end of 2001, we also did lots of work with the government. All of that work, we did for the government without making any sort of demands. We didn’t get any kind of economic… everything we did, we ourselves believed that we should do however much we could do, however much we could help the government, we did that without any… so in this regard, we were just a kind of assistance to the government, and we didn’t have any sorts of demands towards them.
Q: For example, Chairman Ng, you must have been involved in the allocation of disaster relief funds—
NG: They didn’t come here for allocation of relief funds. There was 750,000 to be spent, but even up to now, they haven’t even done it.
Q: Why?
NG: Because there are many, many technological problems that haven’t been solved. Congressperson Velazquez worked with us to help us apply for 750,000 dollars to help with transportation issues, but now, because of technological problems, lots of things need to be solved, and there still hasn’t been a satisfactory resolution.
Q: As far as the transportation problems go, what kind of problems are they? Or what needs to be improved?
NG: This problem extends rather far, because it involves the entire Lower East Side, how to solve transportation issues, and they have to find an expert to do it, they have to do a “proposal,” how do we say “proposal” [in Chinese]?
NG: Jihuashu. So they need to find an expert to create the proposal, and after that they need to think about how they’ll carry it out, and only after that they can apply again to the government, so we’re still in the preparation stage. It hasn’t been completed yet.
Q: So the application has been going on from the time of 9/11 all the way until now?
NG: At that time when we applied, after 9/11, the Development Office still had some money left over, and they wanted to allocate that remainder to use, and we applied, and they approved 750,000 dollars, but all the way until now, they haven’t started.
Q: But have you calculated when they will be able to officially start?
NG: As far as that goes, we’re in the midst of consulting on it, because government matters have a lot of problems relating to support.
Q: OK, well, Chairman Ng, I’d like to ask in regard to the disaster relief carried out after 9/11, there were lots of Chinatown civic groups that took part. Do you feel that the overall coordination and progress went along smoothly, or were there some problems that had been overlooked?
NG: As far as that goes, it’s like this. As far as I see it, earlier, not before 9/11, but a long, long time ago, Chinatown was split into two worlds. One was the traditional overseas Chinese community; the other was Zeng-Zheng Organization, the American Fujianese Association, the Hua-lian Organization, and because of political issues, the two sides didn’t join up. You ignore me, and I won’t pay any attention to you. And on lots of issues, they opposed each other. When I took over as chairman of the CCBA, well, I had this kind of thinking – why do we Chinese people let these small issues divide us like that, you ignore me and I ignore you; if we don’t unite together, then no matter what we struggle for, we can’t achieve it, so in this area I put forth a lot of effort. I made overtures to a lot of other Chinese-American groups, other Chinese-American groups, and in this regard, I wanted everyone to work together in this direction. OK.
NG: While I’ve been at the CCBA, from the previous administration until now, and it will be two years in another two months, and then my term will be completed. I’ve always felt that two years is too short, I can not accomplish a lot during that time. My greatest wish, I believe that the Chinese-American community must become more unified. Regardless of whether or not someone is a member of the CCBA, they are still our fellow Chinese-American compatriot, and we should all be united. Everyone can have his own opinion, and can join together on the things we have in common and listen to those opinions different from our own. We can unite our efforts to work hard for things that we agree on, and on those topics we disagree on, you can have your opinion, and I’ll have my opinion. But everyone definitely has to unite, we have to unite on good terms, that’s the only way we can succeed, only as part of mainstream society can we actually accomplish something. If you strive for this and I strive for that, then there’s no benefit for Chinatown.
Q: Chairman Ng, 9/11 is already two years ago, now, with your remaining time, what areas of Chinatown do you wish to improve, or do you have any advice on what can be achieved?
(Tape SIDE B)
NG: I think, as far as Chinatown goes, our ceremonial arch… we have to do it. We’ve already consulted on every aspect of it, and a lot of specialists have said to us, you don’t want to rush this sort of thing, you don’t want to try to get it all done in a couple years or a year and a half, this isn’t something you can hurry up. You’ve got to take your time to do it. My hope is that this is something that the next chairman and the following chairman will all continue working on. A ceremonial arch would be, Chinatown needs to have a symbol, and if it doesn’t, I think that’s not good. If we had a ceremonial arch, it would be good for the Chinatown economy, it would be good for everything, it would be a benefit to everything. The first thing we ought to do is the ceremonial arch, the second thing we need to do, as I’ve said before, the Chinese people need to unite. It doesn’t matter what form it takes, but we must expand our group in order to have the power to develop our Chinatown.
Q: Chairman Ng, I know that historically, Chinese-American organizations have divided up into political factions. Do you think that this situation has improved at all?
NG: Before, to the extent that I know, before, the leftist faction – what we call the left and the right don’t interact with each other, they almost consider each other enemies. There’s a lot of people who, when it comes to the right-wing faction, that is, the Nationalists, a lot of people won’t go join their Nationalist celebrations or anything else. Even if it was just having tea parties, just going out to drink together, they still wouldn’t go. And the tea parties hosted by the leftists went the same way, the Republic of China [i.e. Nationalists] and those of us who are more traditional won’t go join them. I think, that problem has gone too far. There’s no need for it to be like that. Why must it be like that? Everybody is Chinese, so why do we need this political stuff. If you want to talk politics, go talk it by yourself. But as far as Chinese go, as far as Chinatown goes, we need to unite. Towards that end, I’ve already worked really hard, and I’ve tried to invite those in the Hua-lian social circle to take part in the traditionalist activities. That would be the American Fujianese Association, the Fujian Tong-xiang-hui, the Hua-lian Zong-hui, and the organization of Mr. Liang Guan-jun. We’ve tried hard to invite them to come and do things with us. For example, beautifying Chinatown -- when we cleaned the streets, we invited them to come. When we cleaned up Mott Street and East Broadway, we did it together, everyone did it together, and we had a good time, and we at the CCBA did it together with them. So in conclusion, I hope that the Chinese people will unite.
Q: Chairman Ng, I’d like to ask, after 9/11, do you think that the mainstream media and the government treated Chinatown with sufficient importance?
NG: I’d say that looking at it from the present day, the government doesn’t treat us as important. I’ve said many times that we can’t cry sour grapes, but on many issues the government doesn’t consider us to be important.
Q: What do you think is the reason for that?
NG: We’ve already done lots of applications, and we’d like to work with the government to do things, but we haven’t gotten any help from them.
Q: Have you ever thought of what the reason for that might be? For example, the community groups in Chinatown not being sufficiently united? Or something else?
NG: One of the reasons is the lack of unity. I think the main reason is that we haven’t been able to push Chinatown out in the public eye. We definitely need to push Chinatown’s current situation out into mainstream society, and cause mainstream society to understand our situation. If we are always living closed off from others, then the problem becomes very serious, and it will greatly influence Chinatown’s future development. In the last two years, I have tried hard to push Chinatown onto the Western [i.e. non-Chinese] newspapers and mediums, and cause those people to understand that there is a Chinatown… We need to get them to respond. If they don’t respond to Chinatown, then the result will be very bad for Chinatown.
Q: Chairman Ng, I’d like to ask you, do you think there is something influencing the mainstream media and the government, causing them not to pay sufficient attention to us? Do you think there is anything we can do to improve the situation?
NG: Regarding this area, my thoughts are like this. A lot, a lot of people think that we are discriminated against. But in regards to the issue of discrimination, we need to examine ourselves first. My thoughts are like this: We need to work hard to push ourselves out in the public eye. We can’t just… decide that because of some discrimination, we won’t do anything anymore. The more you discriminate against me, the more I push my own things out there, and see what you do about it. I think American society is very free. There are a lot of things we can strive for and achieve.
Q: Chairman Ng, what work do you wish for the next chairman to do in order to improve Chinatown? For example, promoting Chinatown after 9/11?
NG: It’s like this. Speaking personally, I can say that the following chairman, maybe they have something that they want to do. Everyone has their own thoughts on this. I’m not needed. I hope that all of Chinatown can unite, and that I can do more work to push Chinatown out into the public eye, and work hard to improve the economy of Chinatown.
Q: Chairman Ng, after you finish your term as chairman, what will you do? Do you have some plans?
NG: I will retire.
Q: Retire. How old are you, this year?
NG: I am over seventy.
Q: Over seventy.
Q: Chairman Ng, I’d like you to please speak a little, what plans has the CCBA had for promoting the small businesses of Chinatown?
NG: We’ve requested that the government create a small credit organization to serve small businesses, and we’ve already gained the government’s approval, and now all the small organizations, and each small group needs to take responsibility to make progress. That small business credit organization will be able to help the small businesses do the work of getting credit, and we’re currently moving ahead on this project, we’re doing it now.
Q: Chairman Ng, how long will this plan take? And what does it consist of?
NG: The plan will last a year.
Q: And what does it consist of?
NG: It consists of helping the small businesses make their applications.
[END]