C. Y. Lee: Author and Broadway Playwright

The novel “Flower Drum Song” (1957) became a Rodgers & Hammerstein sensation

Chin Yang Lee (1915 – 2018) lived to be 102 years old and is best known for his novel “Flower Drum Song” (1957), an immediate bestseller turned into the fantastic 1958 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical and the 1961 film by the same name. It was the very first Broadway production to feature Asian performers.

The film was nominated for 5 Academy Awards and made several first-generation Chinese stars like Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, and Jack Soo.

Chinese audiences felt that what made it so noteworthy was that the production featured Chinese characters “acting like Americans,” something entirely new.

A 2001 performance of the musical in Los Angeles garnered rave reviews; it was the first major theatrical production with all-Asian cast. And Lee gave a taped interviewed upon the film’s 2006 re-release.

The novel “Flower Drum Song” was expanded from a short story initially titled “Grant Avenue,” also the name of his newspaper column, about an Asian American family’s disagreement over an arranged marriage in San Francisco's Chinatown as one generation longs for the old country and the next one assimilates.

Other books of his, mostly either history or historical fiction, include:

• Madame Goldenflower (1961) — at age 19, a beautiful Peking songstress falls in love with the German colonel who was in command of the "foreign devils" looting her homeland. Perhaps if she gave herself to him she could save her people, despite being branded a traitor and harlot in the process.

• The Land of the Golden Mountain (1967) — a 17-year-old Chinese girl disguises herself as a boy to accompany her brother from Canton to the gold fields of California in 1850 and works alongside him.

• Days of the Tong Wars: California 1847-1896 (1974) — Charles Crocker imported Chinese workers by the thousands to build California’s railroad tracks. (A job young Abraham Lincoln had previously worked in a different part of the country.) Among the workers were x-convicts and gamblers along with rebels and adventurers who would have a profound influence on their new homeland.

Born into a highly educated family in Hunan (China), C. Y. Lee was the youngest of 8 accomplished sons of an Imperial official. His oldest brother Li Jinxi is considered the "father of the Chinese phonetic alphabet" and tutored Chairman Mao Zedong. The second oldest, Li Jinhui, is considered the "father of Chinese popular music," Li Liewen was an engineer and weapons expert, etc. The next generation (now American) also boasts engineers and inventors.

C.Y. Lee, being a younger son, was urged to flee Hunan province for the US when Japan attacked in 1937. This surprised him. After 3 days and nights traveling very dangerous mountain roads by truck, he reached the China-Burma border, where he took employment with a Chinese “maharajah” and arrived in the US in 1943.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in China, and an MFA in playwriting from Yale University (1947) were he studied with his favorite playwright Eugene O'Neill. After that, he moved to Chinatown in Los Angeles where he violated his visa by taking a job with the San Francisco daily newspaper Chinese World, originally established in 1892. From L.A., he soon relocated to San Francisco where he worked on the English and Chinese versions of the newspaper throughout the 1950s and also worked as an English tutor and translator.

Soon he was hired to write for the prestigious Young China Morning Paper, and credits their system of providing room and board for their employees, including 3 good meals per day, with enabling him to finish his first book.

Lee met American writer Joyce Lackey at a writing group that included Ray Bradbury. She volunteered to read his writing aloud at an event and made a number of excellent suggestions to improve it. The self-described playboy admitted he had finally fallen in love. They married in 1963 and had 2 children.

Originally, C.Y. Lee intended to work as a playwright, but finding he was unable to enter the profession, he set his sights on writing a book instead as his ticket into the industry.

Understated humor is one element that makes Lee’s writing engaging. In reference to San Francisco, an opening line of the film, perfectly delivered, is: “It is named for a saint so it must be a very holy city.”

The film features amazing music and dance performances.

The entire film is available for free online: