In search of a better life

Inside a small kitchen on Helena’s Westside, Hung Wong and his wife, Theou, laugh like newlyweds, scurrying about the pots and pans as if expecting the arrival of a very important guest.

It’s noon on a rainy Wednesday and Wong’s Chinese Kitchen has just opened for business. What will become almond chicken simmers in 350-degree oil near the flour and eggs. The pork-fried rice hisses in a wok on the stove. Paper lanterns hang by the door offering prayers for health and happiness, and the bamboo plant grows green and tall, a sign of strength, Mr. Wong says.

"One customer — he comes for 28 years," said Mr. Wong, scooping rice into a take-out box, a red pagoda printed on its side. "He still eats my food. He likes it very much."

Mrs. Wong breaks in, telling how she has watched her customers’ children mature these past three decades. Many have come back with children of their own. It is, she believes, a sign of the restaurant’s enduring presence and prosperity. "We’ve been here very long time," she smiles.

Today, the Wongs have been here for an hour, dicing celery, carrots and mushrooms; cutting spare ribs into finger-sized pieces; slicing pork legs into strips; turning out Chinese fare for hungry American customers.

It’s just past noon but these Chinese immigrants, now American citizens, have 10 hours to go before closing shop and calling it another day.

The Wongs’ life in Helena hardly resembles their years in China where they lived under the rule of Mao Zedong and his Cultural Revolution.

Here, the place they call home, they’ve succeeded in laying the foundation for a new generation of Chinese American citizens. Of their four children, two were born in Montana. The Wongs now have three grandchildren, two of them twins. Their pictures hang in the kitchen and sit near the register.

Daughter Mey Wong was only 1 in 1973 — the year her parents left China for Hong Kong. The family spent a year in what then was a British colony, waiting for their immigrating documents to arrive. The year before, Mr. Wong explained, President Richard Nixon paved the way for Chinese Americans to visit home for the first time in 22 years. The number of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. also increased, and the Wongs were among them.

By MARTIN J. KIDSTON

Full Story: http://helenair.com/articles/2005/06/05/top/a01060505_01.txt