A boy, name forgotten, was born somewhere in the Chinese countryside in 1915. When he was three years old, roving bandits kidnapped him and sold him to a family named Lai. The family lived in the tiny village of Sha-tou Ch'uen in Tai-shan County, Guangdong Province, China. The Lai family named the boy Lai Bing Chan.

Better than half of the husbands in Tai-shan County lived in either the United States or Cuba so that they could earn money to support their families back home. Country residents referred to the U.S. as Gold Mountain.

As a youth growing up in Sha-tou Ch'uen, Lai Bing Chan witnessed a group of Gold Mountain wives who had come to the village to retrieve a girl who had run away from the mistress who had purchased her. The women were all dressed in their Sunday best, with gold bracelets, gold earrings, and gold rings set with precious stones.

"As a six-year-old boy, seeing the way they came and hearing their voices, I was awed and frightened. The smell of perfume that wafted from their beautiful dresses made the farm wives envious with startling eyes. . . . [B]ut only a few [Gold Mountain husbands] made enough to send money home. Wives back home had to toil alone for their daily bread. Much worse, they had to live alone."