CHINESE CONNECTION: Hakone is a Japanese garden with quite a Chinese connection. Students from Jean Libby's De Anza College class took a field trip to the garden recently to hear the story straight from the lips of Saratogan Steven Hayes Young. Young is a great nephew of one of Hakone's former owners, John Young, so he knows the story well.
The younger Young is also the co-author of Sandlot Stories, a collection of essays about the different ways baseball is played in different parts of the world and what a unifying force it can be for different cultures. For instance, one of the essays in the sandlot book is from his cousin Connie Young Yu.
Yu, a historian, is the daughter of the John Young, who was one of the five Chinese-Americans who owned Hakone for about six years, before it was bought by the city. Yu tells the story of how her father and uncle played baseball against a Japantown team when they were growing up in the '30s and '40s.
Sentiment ran high against these minorities. There were the Exclusion Acts, to give to just one example: Asians could not own property. In the late 19th century and early 20th, San Jose's Chinatown was burned to the ground in more than one instance, acts of blatant racism.
Ultimately a walled enclosure with brick housing was built. A Caucasian watchman patrolled the area. The man who developed the land was John Heinlen and the area became known as Heinlenville, an area four blocks long, two blocks wide. He was reviled at the time, but stuck to his plan.
(Today an award in his name is given for humanitarian service and Martha Kanter, chancellor of De AnzaFoothill College District, is a recipient of that award.)
John Young grew up in Heinlenville. Yu's story tells of him playing hooky from Chinese school to play baseball. The teacher squealed to the parents and all the boys were roundly punished, but Young's love of baseball endured.
His achievements were legion: Young served in the Air Force in WW II, went to Stanford to earn a petroleum engineering degree and ran a successful soy sauce business. He was active in the community, served as chairman of the Chinese New Year's Parade for a dozen years. Along with five other families, he was one of Hakone's owners in the '60s.
Since members of this group also owned two famed restaurants—Kan's in San Francisco and Ming's in Palo Alto—rumors circulated that Hakone would be turned into a restaurant, a rumor patently untrue, says Steven Hayes Young.
When John Young lay dying he avidly followed the World Series. And when the underdog Minnesota Twins emerged triumphant over the heavily favored St. Louis Cards, Young declared, "It's a great day for the Twins and a great day for me!"
MYSTERY MECCA: The Mystery Book Group is just back from a trek to mystery meccaland—10 days on a Smithsonian tour called Classic Mystery Lovers' Tour of England, complete with knowledgeable guide and lecturer.
The six are Margaret Bard, Irma Jean Crouch, Kathy Cusick, Bernice Giansiracusa, Mary Henderson and Saundra Hill. They are part of a group which meets monthly in members' homes and has for more than a dozen years. Cusick is a Los Gatan, Bard lives near the Los Gatos line and the others are all Saratogans.
In Britain they followed the haunts of Brits, alive and dead, who write whodunits. They even met several: had tea with Colin Dexter, lunch with Susan Moody and (later) Andrew Taylor and dinner with Simon Brett at Claridges. In Torquay, a Devon seaside resort, they followed the trail of Agatha Christie's life and mysteries.
At Dartmoor they glimpsed the setting for Sherlock Holmes' Hound of the Baskervilles. At Oxford they toured Christ Church College environs, the settings for Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, and Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse. Then they were on to the Inns of Court, to savor P.D. James' legal London.
One of the most thrilling sights were the race horses on their morning gallops, a staple of Dick Francis books, since he was a former steeplejock. At Monmouth, Giansiracus, a retired doctor, broke her arm but gamely soldiered on, buoyed with a sling and a plethora of pain pills.
After all, Wimsey, et. al., would have continued. And, at every stop there was time to visit local bookstores—to buy more mysteries.
SARATOGA SCENES & BEYOND: The work of 10 Saratoga artists will hang on the library wall through December. The 10 are Kate Curry, Kay Duffy, Karen Garappolo, JoAnn Lambert, Joan Lowell, Ronnie and Mel Rabadeau, Helen Scheel, Dan Tellep and Robert Francis Tomaino.
On view are familiar scenes—Victorians, orchards, Memorial Arch, farmers market, the Bank and Hakone—plus Alaskan icebergs and English gardens.
ON HER TOES: Kylie Brunngraber is a featured dancer in the CMT production of A Christmas Carol which plays at the Montgomery Theatre in San Jose Dec. 312. The box office is at 408.288.5437.
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By Mary Ann Cook