CHAPTER 1
Childhood and Youth: Shaping of the Character
A man's character is his fate.
— Heraclitus
"He hanged himself!"
I ran to the window and with one quick move pulled the shades. I had done it so many times that I didn't even need to think about it. The room became dark and filled with anticipation and uncertainty. My mom always made me pull the shades when something happened in our neighborhood and the town crier brought the latest horrifying news. Because of her fears of Tong, Chinese gang men, and not wanting to provoke them in any way, my mom would not permit us to look outside.
"He hanged himself because of an unpaid gambling debt! He chose to hang himself instead of waiting to be killed!" the town crier continued to scream. His voice was as striking as the sound of a church bell that echoed through the empty street and resonated inside my house.
My mom, younger brother, and I were quietly standing on a cold wooden floor far away from the windows, hiding, as if someone could still see us through the curtains. I felt a small stream of sweat from my temple run like a snake slowly down over my face under the collar of my shirt, making me shiver as it continued its way down my back. It seemed that time had stopped moving.
Footsteps of our neighbors broke the silence — we shared a house with two other families, as well as a small communal bathroom that had a large wash tub that we used as a bathtub, though it was hard to understand what it was made of. That was pretty much how everyone lived in our neighborhood.
Our neighborhood: Oakland, California, Chinatown of the 1920s and 1930s, with poor sanitation and habitations. It had well-organized tribunals of its own to punish offenders when it was in their interest to punish. Indeed, our neighborhood was very isolated with its complex society.
It was a time when arranged marriages were still in practice. In the early twentieth century, the advent of photography modernized traditional arranged marriages in Asia. Photographs and letters replaced face-to-face meetings between families and matchmakers. It became the "picture bride" system. For the first time, prospective couples living in different parts of the world could be introduced. Pressured to get married by his own father, my dad, who lived in California, decided to take advantage of that new technology, since there were not many options due to the very low number of Chinese females in America.
That was how my mother, Florence, came here as a bride of U.S. citizen Henry Quong Joe.
My father had been a Navy man in World War I and served until he was honorably discharged. I was born in 1923. I hardly ever saw my dad; he ran a business back on the East Coast. Nevertheless, my little brother Kenneth was born six years later.
My father's relatives were all here on the West Coast. My dad's father was a very successful businessman. He owned several meat markets and jewelry businesses. I remember my mother playing mahjong with Chinese opera stars at our home. Life was good for a while, but those days ended when Dad left us.
I remember my father telling me goodbye. He paused for a moment as if he were trying not to forget to tell me something that was important. Then he said, "Take care of your mother." He was waiting for the streetcar. I had the feeling that I was seeing him for the last time. I was ten years old.
After that, we lost track of him. But that image of my father jumping on the streetcar and vanishing into the unknown, leaving me alone in the middle of the street, is still in front of my eyes now. The pain is always there. "Why did he desert me?" I wondered. (Years later, when I grew up, I tried to track him down, just to find out that he had died of leukemia at the age of seventy-five and was buried in a Navy cemetery in Florida).
Soon, my grandfather passed away. My mom was struggling to raise us — it was time for me to help my family.
So at the age of thirteen, I learned the meat cutting trade and became a butcher's apprentice. That was my first job; later, I worked as a newspaper boy, but not for long. At sixteen, I moved to Berkeley, where I was given room and board for working in a mom-and-pop grocery store in the meat department. It was then that I became interested in the gymnastic rings and horizontal bars at the James Kenny Park in Berkeley. The bodybuilding started later on, in 1939.
It started with me looking at Health Magazine where I saw a Charles Atlas ad. The ad showed a skinny guy named Mac getting sand thrown at him and saying, "Some bully bullied me!" I remember like it was yesterday: "The Insult that Made a Man Out of Mac!" It promised the seven-day "path to perfect manhood."
The more I looked at the ad, the more I believed its message. It was a story in the format of an American comic book. My attention was immediately drawn to the bully's muscular body, which implied a threat to the skinny Mac. The ad pulled me like a magnet and sucked me into it. All of sudden, I became Mac.
Then Mac's girlfriend Grace informed me of the bully's reputation. The huge bully had humiliated Mac by commenting on the smaller man's size; it became kind of personal to me.
Mac angrily takes matters into his own hands when he decides to order the magazine to start his exercises. I was ready to buy that magazine; with my free hand, I was going through the change in my pocket, not taking my eyes from the ad. The ad's vivid transition then showed Mac posed in a mirror to exhibit his new masculine body; then he returns to the beach, simply waves his fist, and the bully backs off. I was proud of Mac!
Wow, it looked so easy! My problem was solved! That's what I thought, running to the magazine stand to buy that magazine. Yes — it was right there, the solution to my problem — with the fastest health-, strength-, and physique-building system. Without hesitation I paid twenty-five cents. My heart was pumping hard as I scanned through the pages.
The World's Most Perfectly Developed Man, Charles Atlas, born Angelo Siciliano in 1893, developed his body-building program on his own, inspired by the stretching of lions and tigers at Brooklyn's Prospect Park Zoo. He began developing a series of isometric exercises that eventually gave him a classically sculpted musculature. He became "a new man" without the aid of weights or drugs. He was named "The World's Most Beautiful Man" and "The World's Most Perfectly Developed Man." His "Dynamic Tension" equipment-free body-building program used comic narratives to demonstrate its benefits, such as Mac's story — based in part on Atlas' own experiences.
He was a hero and a role model to me because I had been bullied in school, and I didn't have a father to show me what to do. Because of him, I began to think about taking good care of myself, getting stronger, and getting good nutrition. I could have been a kid who got into trouble; instead, I worked to improve myself.
Dynamic Tension is a self-resistance exercise method which pits muscle against muscle. Practitioners would tense the muscles of a given body part and then move that body part against the tension as if a heavy weight were being lifted. It is nearly impossible to be injured during exercise using this method because your own muscles provide the force and, as they tire, the force used also decreases. Likewise, the benefits can continue beyond more traditional exercise methods because as you grow stronger, the exercise becomes more intense. I began to notice changes in my body soon, but of course not in seven days.
You might ask why anyone would want to work out without weights — especially since everyone now knows that using weights and machines is the fastest, most efficient way to gain size. Yes, this is true, but there are many reasons why someone might choose to train without the benefit of using weights.
Someone working long hours may not have the time to get to a commercial gym, and may not have the extra space or money to set up a good home gym. Plus, in those days, most people thought lifting weights was pretty strange behavior. Coaches even warned athletes that weights would make them "muscle bound."
But I did not care; my muscles had grown bigger. Girls started noticing me, and guys looked cautiously at me. I wanted more muscles. Now, I had some money. So I started with a spring, and that was what I bought. That was my first exercise equipment. It was a big deal. Buying other equipment was expensive; therefore, I used empty cans, filling them up with cement and using them for weight lifting. Then I got some more money and I built my first weight set, eighty pounds. Oh, boy, I looked good in a mirror. My first gym was in a garage, which I rented for five dollars every month. That was how Ed Yarick and Jack LaLanne, two legendary pioneers of bodybuilding, both got started — in a garage.
In those days the only public gym was the YMCA, and it was mostly for swimming. It had very little equipment for power lifting, nothing for bodybuilding, and it was always crowded. That's the reason why Ed and Jack wanted to open a new kind of gym for bodybuilding. I met Ed Yarick through my best childhood buddy, James Lee. We had lived across the street from each other, had gone to the same school, and for some reason we always were interested in the same thing. I went to the gym; James was already there. Later on I started to take martial arts classes; James was also taking them but at a different location. If something bad or good happened to us, it happened almost at the same time.
Now, imagine the Ed Yarick Gym: Walking from the street you would see a tiny space, squeezed between other small storefronts on a busy block of Oakland's Foothill Boulevard, the dusty white blinds pulled down over the windows.
When you came inside, the first thing you'd see is a small wooden desk. We called it "Ed Yarick's office." This was where you paid your dues. It was an honor system; you simply put money in the upper drawer of his desk. Money was not important to him.
He liked to train. Ed considered me a friend, and if you were his friend, he would never charge you a penny. He was that kind of man. After Ed marked you down as a member, he would walk you through the beginner's routine. And you were being given the very same treatment he gave to Steve Reeves, the "man's man," legendary bodybuilder, and Hollywood star. That was Ed Yarick.
You walked all the way to the back into a long, narrow room with a slant board for sit-ups and the leg extension apparatus. Next to it, a little further back, you could see metal shower stalls with plastic curtains and a tiny bathroom. There was a bench to sit on. You changed your clothes and put them in your bag by the wall — that was our "locker room." Through an open door next to the stall showers, you could glimpse a small backyard with benches, dumbbells, and barbells.
You turned around and went back, passing a lat pulldown, a cable row, a leg extension device, and a vertical leg press. Along one wall you'd see fixed-weight barbells that were racked vertically like the Pyramids of Giza. Against the other wall was an endless rack of dumbbells. Above the weights were mirrors and framed photographs of famous weight lifters looking down at you, watching your every move.
And finally, the center of the room. You'd carefully step onto a slightly elevated wooden platform which was reinforced with metal four-by-fours and lit from above by a skylight window. Two Olympic sets, lots of plates, a squat rack, and a heavy-duty flat bench would be waiting for you. Right there, next to you, a small box on the floor with chalk in it. You put chalk on your hands, firmly grip the Olympic bar, heart beating fast, and you'd feel the adrenaline rush as you lifted the weight. Yes! You did it!
That was my kind of gym — nothing fancy, simple and right to the point. The attraction of that gym was Ed Yarick. The man himself was the ambiance of that place. I remember that he liked soy nuts and always offered them to the kids. "Have you tried these?" he would ask with a big smile. "They are good and good for you." And they were really good.
I do not recall many women coming to his gym, but even so, everyone was welcomed there.
Ed Yarick was a big guy. He was six feet four inches tall and weighted more than two hundred and fifty pounds. If he had wanted to be intimidating, he could have been. But instead he was kind, good-natured, and friendly. He liked jokes. For a while he not only trained Steve Reeves but he was also his training partner. I happened to be training with them at that time. They were like two giants, tossing dumbbells, swinging barbells, making you wonder if they were real.
Through Ed Yarick I met Jack LaLanne, the "godfather of fitness." They were good friends and often performed handstand shows together. I went to Jack's — one of the nation's first gyms — in Oakland when it was opened. It was in 1936. Oh, boy, it was a dream gym: bright lights everywhere, fancy floor with plush carpet, elaborate equipment, multiple shower units, locker rooms for men and women. This fitness gym became a prototype for dozens of similar gyms using his name. He was a real businessman and, at his gym, people were dressed like businessmen, too. It was a different crowd — not my cup of tea, and so that was the reason why I came back to Ed Yarick's place.
Back then everything was competitive, very competitive. And I liked to train with somebody bigger to push me that much harder. Ed Yarick, who had become my mentor, said, "Hey, you can do it! You train with me." And he started training with me. Ed was not only my friend and mentor, he also was a father and an older brother, since I did not have either one. He motivated me, not only to train harder, to lift more weight — he made me believe in myself, and that no matter what I COULD DO IT! Ed was the world's greatest motivator.
Of course I had been going to school all this time. In my Oakland Chinatown, which ran from the waterfront up to 10th Street along the Webster neighborhood, I went to Lincoln Elementary School and in the afternoon, like all Chinese children, I also went to a Chinese school, which I did not like much because it was hard to read and write in Chinese. We had a dozen such schools there. As I remember myself, I was always doing something. School, work — time was flying by.
Then I entered the Oakland Technical School; there, I became interested in gymnastics and in Reserve Officers' Training Corps, or ROTC. I was good at the rings. But my favorite was rope climbing. I could climb hand-over-hand with my legs stiff, using only my hands.
It was during these high school days when I started dating my wife, Annie, the love of my life. Annie had five brothers, and that was probably why she always hung out with boys. Annie was fun, easy to talk to, always happy and full of energy, a person that you want to be around. Plus she was very good looking. Annie was like a magnet for boys in our neighborhood; they liked to gather at her porch.
Her father did not like that; I did not like that either. And pretty soon she didn't have any visitors. Annie asked me, "Do you know what happened to all the boys? I do not see them any more." Oh, boy, did I know ... but I shrugged my shoulders and said, "I have no idea."
Annie's father owned a successful restaurant that served both American and Chinese food in Chinatown. They had a car and were considered to be rich. Annie always laughed if someone told her that. It was funny, how in those days if you had a car you were considered rich.
One day her father invited me for Thanksgiving dinner, and I knew that I had been accepted by the family. Years later Annie said, "You were at our house every day. My family practically adopted you; yes, Allen, we raised you up. Everybody liked you because of your personality. Well, I liked you too, Allen. You were a very nice boy and you were very persistent; that was what I liked about you."
World War II sneaked up on us during our senior ball. Our graduation was held during a blackout. And after that, life was completely different.
As an Asian, I was required to wear a pin that said "American Chinese" when I was in public, so that I would not be mistaken for Japanese. But I had already decided that I wanted to join the Air Force and volunteer for the war.
Not waiting to be drafted, my classmate and I went to the Army recruitment post in San Francisco to enlist in the Air Force to be pilots, but both of us failed the math test, since it was more for college students than high school graduates. And so we could not get in.
At that time, with men enlisting in the war effort, the work force had diminished. Filling a gross shortage of manpower, the women, both young and old, would punch in to work at the shipyards, factories, and munitions plants across America. We called them "Rosie the Riveter"3 girls. Rosie the Riveter was the star of a government campaign aimed at recruiting female workers for the munitions industry. Based in small part on a real-life munitions worker, but primarily a fictitious character, the strong, bandana-clad Rosie became one of the most successful recruitment tools in American history and the most iconic image of working women in the World War II era.
