Doug Eng
August 2023
O n Fer tile Ground. . . continued
Further thoughts on the Wing Lee Yuen Truck Farm
Project History
On Fertile Ground is a photographic documentary project about my family’s Chinese produce farm, The Wing Lee Yuen Truck Farm in Jacksonville, Florida. After a lifetime of weekend visits to pick up vegetables, a decision was made to sell the property and in September, 2007, I returned to the farm for the last time to record the barn and adjoining structures. In 2010, I received a grant to produce an exhibition at my studio, and in 2014 I revisited the project with an exhibition at the Lufrano Gallery at the University of North Florida. As with many projects, there remain items that are not addressed due to time constraints or other factors. Here are items on the original project list and add a few more that I hope to complete:
1. Interviews with surviving relatives who lived on the farm to record their impressions of life there and the influence it had on their subsequent lives.
2. Clarification of family history, dates, and retrieval of business documents to paint a clearer picture of farm activities. Recently alerted to the availability of family information in the Chinese Exclusion Act case files at the National Archive in Seattle.
3. Inventory of family photos from reunions and recollections of my relationships with my immediate family.
4 Inquiry into ship-to locations evidenced by shipping templates retrieved from the barn. Includes a Google Street View of the addresses and possible visit to locations. I began this phase with a recent trip to NY Chinatown. Also includes restoration of the Ideal #2 stencil “cutter” and research of the history of these machines.
5 Still life studies of each produce variety harvested on childhood weekend trips, to include groupings with vintage cooking utensils and active Chinese kitchens.
6 A detailed look at the Farmall tractor, the workhorse of the American farm. There were several Farmall’s in use at the farm, but only one left by the time I arrived.
7. Upon reading the book From Farm to Canal Street, I began to understand the food network system of Chinese farms and found my spouse’s family farm, Sang Lee, cited in the book. We contacted her two cousins who are actively farming (not Chinese produce) for further discussions.
With the above material integrated into the project, I hope to increase my understanding of life on the farm through its participants, a deeper understanding of the items grown, and how the farm touched many others far away. Food is a common connector for culture, family, and interdependence. The production of food forms the basis of my own beginnings and viewpoints. I am grateful to have the opportunity to explore the details of this particular aspect of my family’s history.
This book is a progress report of what is planned and a preview of what’s completed. I will provide updates regularly. Thank you for your interest.
More information about On Fertile Ground can be found on the website: https://www.dougeng.art/on-fertile-ground-1
August 2023
Exhibition book
Property in 2013
Lufrano Gallery Exhibition 2014
The Barn
Uncle Chan’s Garage, Barnscape, Foo-Gwah, Crates and Barrels, Offering, View from Grandpa’s Garage, Chinese Farmhouses, Legalities
Family History
On Fertile Ground was never intended to be a family history project but the farm affected so many people that it is hard to avoid delving deep into the relationships and players who defined the farm. The origins of the family are not perfectly clear and the family tree spreads very far. I am interested in the lives of the people living on the farm and have begun to interview the surviving relatives.
Business Center
Portrait, Great Grandparents
Grandfather’s family
“Ng Lee Fong Affidavit,” 1921, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, Record Group 85, NARA-Seattle
Ng Jung Go, Ng Jung Fie, Ng Sun Wing
Ng Jung Fie and 3rd Wife
Records
Census
1940, “Wing Lee Yuen Chinese Farm – Route #5, Box #117”
Ongoing Interviews
Edward Eng (Uncle Chan’s son)
Lived on the farm from second grade until he left for college
“Yeah, it's all hand labor. That's the way grandpa did it. That's the way everybody did it. So grandpa was in charge, each had their own task. Grandpa loved to plant. Grandpa loved the garden…”
Marita Eng (my mom)
Lived on the farm for a year after marrying dad while waiting for their house to be built
“Oh, and talk about stories, one thing grandpa liked was the Ed Sullivan Show, Sunday night. That was when no one could talk or speak. He had to sit in his easy chair and watch TV. And I don't know what he understood about the Ed Sullivan Show.”
There are two surviving uncles of 10 children who lived on the farm, Wah Quon Eng, Wah Gat Eng, and a distant uncle Wah Poy Eng that need interviews.
Family Reunions
Every few years the Eng family would get together at the farm for a family gathering. It was a big deal. I can’t remember the first time we had everyone together, but frequently uncles and aunts would come visit the farm and we would go out to visit and have dinner. There were always competitions amongst families when gathered – new cars, new clothes, new spouses. My brother and I hated these gatherings because we had to dress up and we hated the “authentic” Chinese food. When the visiting families had children, they would usually arrive a few days earlier so everyone was playing together and when we arrived for the evening, we just sat there uninvolved. Dad bought a new camera and handed it to me.
Shipping Stencils
When photographing the barn and farm property back in 2007 I made a point not to take objects and keepsakes. One item I did take from the barn small office was a box of stencils used to mark each crate with an address for shipping along with the machine used to punch the stencils out. There were 113 pieces in the box, some were older and made out of tin, the others of cardboard. Most were thoroughly covered with black paint, dust, cobwebs, and roach droppings.
Stenciling crates was the most efficient way to apply an address
Ideal No. 2 Stencil Cutting Machine
Patent No. 1,131,956, dated March 16, 1915
Stencils being photographed
The Secret life of Chinese Vegetables
When I told my friends that my family owned a farm they often asked what kind? I replied, “Chinese vegetables,” and I always got a curious response. I realized that what we grew on the farm was completely different from what was sold at the local market. There are Chinese “versions” of cabbages, lettuce, squash, beans, turnips, okra, and melons. This was hard to explain, as it was not common knowledge that different kinds of vegetables even existed.
I remember on our weekly trips to the farm going out to the fields to cut some greens. Grandpa always put on his big rubber overshoes, grabbed a knife, and put on his hat. Then we walked into the field, usually a row of plowed soil with thousands of plants. Grandpa always chose the best ones for us to take, cutting off the outer leaves. I remember the Chinese cabbage (bok choy) being huge, much bigger than the ones you find in the markets today. Dad always liked the bitter melons (foo gwah).
Sometimes we would get into their old raggedy pick-up truck and travel to a field on the edge of the farm. The road was so bumpy I can remember being thrown from my seat (no seat belts here). There were so many fields with different things growing, some planted in neat rows of plowed mounds and others having large stakes with strings woven into a lattice to hold vines for squash and beans.
When we got home Dad would put the vegetables in a big tub and start soaking them to get the sand off. Then he would usually cook the Sunday dinner which wasn’t my favorite meal. For some reason I wasn’t fond of his “authentic” Cantonese-style home cooking and much preferred spaghetti or fried chicken.
It’s hard to recall exactly what produce was grown on the farm, as we didn’t partake in all of what was available. Dad must have had his favorites, so we didn’t always take everything. Here is what I remember:
Bitter Melon (foo gwah)
Pak Choy (or bok choy)
Mustard Greens (gai choy)
Turnip Greens (mo ching)
Chinese Broccoli (gai lan)
Chinese White Radish (turnip)
Fuzzy Melon (mo qua)
Winter Melon (tung qwa)
Chinese Garlic Chives
Chinese Long Beans
Mung Beans
Chinese Okra
Gai Lan Still Life
Farmall Tractor
The first question I asked my Uncle Chan when I called him about photographing the farm was, “are the tractors still there?” His reply was that all were sold, but one was left in the barn to be picked up soon. I arrived at the barn the next day. This is a McCormick Farmall 400 tractor, symbolic of the strength, flexibility, and reliability of American manufacturing. On February 1, 1974, at 9:00 A.M., the 5,000,000th IH tractor came off the assembly line at the Farmall Works plant in Rock Island, Illinois.
Former Workhorse
Views of the Farmall
A History of Connection
The Wing Lee Yuen Farm was part of a vast food network supplying Chinese produce to NY Chinatown and multiple locations across the country. Amazingly still active today but with different players
“From Farm to Canal Street reveals why Chinatown produce markets are so abundant and of such high quality and how they support small farmers and feed food lovers of modest to low incomes. In the face of agribusiness, the global patenting of seeds, and huge chain supermarkets, From Farm to Canal Street offers stunning insights about alternative, translocal network of producers in the Americas supplying urban markets with fresh, quality fruits and veggies.” – John Kuo Wei Tchen, New York University
“I drove the produce truck into Chinatown almost everyday. My first stop was 35 Mott St. – Wing Fat…we finally had to stop farming Chinese produce due to the fluctuations in the market and the large agri-businesses out pricing us. We now grow organic specialty vegetables.” – Fred Lee, owner Sang Lee Farms
Ongoing studies of Chinatown’s food system by City as Living Laboratory
Sang Lee Farms – first Chinese vegetable farm on Long Island and Fred Lee
Pagoda Groves – farmed by Tommy Lee in Hobe Sound, FL (formerly the southern operation of Sang Lee)
On Fertile Ground
continued
Further thoughts on the Wing Lee Yuen Truck Farm
Doug Eng August 2023
Wing Lee Yuen is known as a “truck farm” – a farm devoted to the production of vegetables for the market (Merriam-Webster).
“A truck farm is a small agricultural enterprise devoted to raising vegetables, fruit, dairy and other delicate edibles. “Truck” comes not from the vehicle they were transported in yet to be invented in the late 1800s but from the French troquer, meaning exchange or barter, as many such farmers traded their yield at the town market. Truck farms were sometimes known as market gardens, and their bounty fed both the family and as well as the local community. “Truck” came to be synonymous with fresh fruit and vegetables.”
Between plantations and urbanization, New Orleans’ oft-forgotten truck farming era - Richard Campanella November 1, 2022, Preservation Research Center of New Orleans
doug.eng@comcast.net
https://dougeng.art @dougengphoto
© 2023 Douglas J. Eng