When she was a girl, Lisa See spent summers in the cool, dark recesses of her family’s antique store in Los Angeles Chinatown. There, her grandmother and great-aunt told her intriguing, colorful stories about their family’s past- stories of missionaries, concubines, tong wars, glamorous nightclubs, and the determined struggle to triumph over racist laws and discrimination.

As an adult, Lisa spent five years collecting the details of her family’s remarkable history. The result, her memoir, On Gold Mountain, is the true story of Fong See, a pioneer of Los Angeles’ Chinatown who immigrated to America to work on the railroad and find his fortune.

Now you will have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience On Gold Mountain at our Daylong Adventure. Enjoy a leisurely coach transport from San Diego to the San Marino area where, upon arrival and prior to the show, you will enjoy an authentic Chinese meal at a local Chinese restaurant with Lisa, after which we will transport you to the newly-expanded Chinese gardens of The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens to enjoy On Gold Mountain the Opera. And to sweeten the day, you will each receive a signed copy of On Gold Mountain.

Your Adventure includes round-trip coach transportation from San Diego, autographed paperback copy of On Gold Mountain, a delicious Chinese dinner with Lisa See, the On Gold Mountain Opera performance at the exquisite Botanical Gardens of The Huntington, tax, and gratuity.

If you are in the Los Angeles area and wish to join us without coach transportation, please email your request to [email protected].

PLANNED ITINERARY: 

12:30pm – Bus pickup at Mission Bay Visitors Center, San Diego
1:00pm – Second bus pickup at La Costa Park and Ride, North County
4:30pm – Arrive
5:00pm – Chinese dinner with Lisa See
7:00pm – Attendance at On Gold Mountain Opera
9:30pm – Depart for return to San Diego
12:00 midnight – Bus stop at La Costa Park & Ride
12:30am – Bus stop at Mission Bay Visitors Center

*Due to the special nature of the event, no refunds are available after February 28, 2022.
The event is expected to sell out, so early purchase is highly recommended. Itinerary above may vary slightly.

About the Author and Book

Lisa See has led an active and varied career. She was the Publishers Weekly West Coast Correspondent for thirteen years. As a freelance journalist, her articles have appeared in Vogue, Self, and More, as well as in numerous book reviews around the country. She wrote the libretto for Los Angeles Opera based on On Gold Mountain, which premiered in June 2000 at the Japan American Theatre. She also served as guest curator for an exhibit on the Chinese-American experience at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, which then traveled to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in 2001.

Her beloved New York Times bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, Dreams of Joy, and China Dolls, have brilliantly illuminated the strong bonds between women. These books have been celebrated for their authentic, deeply researched, lyrical stories about Chinese characters and cultures.

Ms. See was honored as National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women in 2001, was the recipient of the Chinese American Museum’s History Makers Award in 2003, and received the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California in 2017. She sits on the boards of Los Angeles Opera, National Historic Preservation Trust, and The Music Center.

Documenting the history of her own Chinese-American family, Lisa shares the results of five years of research in her novel, On Gold Mountain, which includes interviews with nearly one hundred Chinese and Caucasian relatives, in a story of acceptance and discrimination.

In 1867, Lisa See’s great-great-grandfather arrived in America, where he prescribed herbal remedies to immigrant laborers who were treated little better than slaves. His son Fong See later built a mercantile empire and married a Caucasian woman, in spite of laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Lisa herself grew up playing in her family’s antique store in Los Angeles’s Chinatown, listening to stories of missionaries and prostitutes, movie stars, and Chinese baseball teams.

With these stories and her own years of research, Lisa See chronicles the one-hundred-year-odyssey of her Chinese-American family, a history that encompasses racism, romance, secret marriages, entrepreneurial genius, and much more, as two distinctly different cultures meet in a new world.

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