Me and my brothers were the first generation of our family born in America. And from when I was a kid, I knew we were expected to take over our father's business, because my father had this mentality (which was justified in those days, not necessarily now) that we didn't have a "Chinaman's chance" in this country. In other words, you were a Chinaman, you couldn't do anything. Supposedly, the American government put shackles on you and you could only do certain work, like be a laundryman or work in Chinese restaurants, and we weren't allowed to do anything else. So we were expected to take over the business. My father used to tell us all the time that he was in the army during WW II, you know, and everybody's trying to put you down because you're Chinese...blah, blah blah. I understand that in those days it might have been true, to a certain extent. But in the 1990s, big companies are run by Chinese. I'll give you a good example: Bugle Boy is a Chinese company. Nautilus--you ever hear of Nautilus clothes? A Chinese company. We are in big business now.

But I didn't have any choice in the matter. After college, I just went into the family business. But you know, that didn't bother me. That was just the way it was. Certain rules were accepted. Like Chinatown borders on Little Italy, right? Well, when I was young, the Italians, they ruled the block. It was just an accepted rule of life but everybody got along. It wasn't like now. Today violence is an everyday issue. In those days, it didn't seem to be that bad. Maybe because we accepted these things.

Anyway, after we took over, my brothers and I expanded the old business and we now sell a lot of other things besides tofu, like rice noodles, rice cakes and soy milk--all different kinds of products. We branched out because the immigrant population has increased so much, it's unbelievable. We have a retail business and a wholesale business. The retail business is a store here in Chinatown. The wholesale side is that I sell basically to restaurant suppliers for Chinese restaurants. I would say 95% of my business is wholesale. So most of my tofu ends up in Chinese restaurants. I sell my retail tofu mostly to the local Chinese community during the winter time. They use it for soups as a meat substitute because there's less vegetables during the winter. The Chinese are very vegetable-oriented. They love vegetables, but they can't get them in the winter, so they eat tofu. It's an ancient thing. In fact, I did a paper on it when I was in college, and it's been around for 6,000 years--a long time.

Tofu has a very, very bland taste. When I was a kid, I hated it. I never ate it. And even to this day, I don't eat a whole lot of it. It's not my favorite food. It takes on the flavor of anything that you put into it. But it's cheap, and ounce for ounce, it's got more protein than beef. That in itself makes it very attractive.

The way we make tofu is we soak soy beans overnight. That means that every night we soak around 2,000 pounds dry weight of beans, which translates to maybe 8,000 pounds wet. We soak them overnight, let them swell, then we wet grind them, and then we steam cook them. After the cooking, we extract the soy milk, add calcium sulfate to coagulate it, and from there we put it in molds, cut it up and put it under a hydraulic press for like ten minutes. Then we cut it into little pieces and it's tofu. That's it. Very simple process, but also very time consuming and labor intensive. The thing about Chinese businesses is that they all depend on labor intensive production. Everything is labor intensive. You go to a dim sum restaurant, everything is done by hand. It's all manual intensive labor. I don't particularly like that. I mean I've done it before, but I think I'm beyond that. To me it's too tedious. I can make more money using my brains than my hands.

When we were kids, though, it was much worse. My father cooked the tofu over an open flame. It took forever. The steam cooking method we use today is a lot faster and a lot more economical. In those days, we did 2,000 pieces in eleven hours; now we do 8,000 pieces in half that time. So we quadrupled the production in half the time with the new equipment. And I remember, when we were kids, we had a hand grinder, instead of a motorized one. We'd grind it by hand. That and the open flame--forget about it! I mean, we were there for hours. Then, instead of using hydraulic presses like we use now, we used to use a sack of rice--we put it on top and let it sit there for like twenty minutes. With the hydraulic press you have no lifting, it takes only five or ten minute to do. A sack of rice is just not a very efficient tool.

I wouldn't say there's any difference in the quality with the way we do it now as opposed to the old way. And I don't have any sentimental feelings about the old way of doing things. None at all. I'm so used to doing it the modern way, I don't want to take two steps back.

Everyone working in the factory today wears rubber boots because of all the water. I run a tremendous water bill every month: maybe around $1400 in just water alone. The thing with tofu is that it's got to be in the water to stay fresh. So there's water everywhere here. We use the water to cool out the tofu so it keeps it from spoiling. If you don't keep it in water, it dries out and it doesn't look good and it doesn't taste good. I've tested it a few times, you can keep tofu for three weeks and, as long as you change the water every day, it's still edible and good. So anyway, everyone wears rubber boots, rubber aprons, and rubber gloves because the tofu when it comes out of the steamer, it's near boiling, 210 degrees, and the rubber takes the sting out of the heat. And during the winter, the water that we soak it in is very, very cold and the rubber gloves take the sting out of the cold water. So we use a lot of latex.

I have mostly Spanish workers. In the beginning, we hired Chinese workers. The Chinese workers are very enterprising. Once they learn the business, they will have no qualms about quitting and opening up a store right next to you to compete with you. In fact, my main competitor used to work for us. So I've learned over the years that I will hire other ethnic people, especially Spanish. The reason why is because they can't take this knowledge with them anyplace else. No one else would hire them except for me. I don't take advantage of them. They work only six, seven hours a day. And I think I pay them fairly well considering a lot of them don't speak English.

As it turns out, right now, my workers are all Dominicans. I know with Latino men, you have to treat them like a man. That's the nature of their culture. I always say to them, if you have a problem, we can always talk about it. As far as I'm concerned, we're all one family here. If business is bad, I can't give you a raise. If you don't take care of my business, you can't get paid. They realize that one hand washes the other. If they do well, I do well; if I do well, they do well. And I take care of them very well. In fact, during Christmas time, I'm under no obligation to give them anything, but my top workers, I give them a bonus.

My workers are not really specialized in terms of what they do in the plant. They all cover for each other. In other words, being that we're a very small company; if one guy has a specific duty and he doesn't come to work because he's sick or whatever, I'm up shit creek, so I'm training everybody to be able to cover for each other. Fortunately, it's not a hard process. I mean, you could learn everything about making tofu in about a month, you'd learn everything and do it well. It's just a matter of getting the technique down.

I would like to think that my workers like me. I know for a fact they like me better than my brother. My brother's very strict. He yells a lot; he barks orders a lot. When I talk to people, I say, "por favor," I say "please," like McDonald's. That's why people get along at McDonald's, because they're polite. As long as you're polite, people don't mind doing things for you. Like McDonald's, after each order they always say "please," it makes the atmosphere that much more pleasant. I took three years of Spanish in high school, so I have a little background in it and as long as they speak slow enough, I can understand what my workers are saying. Once in a while, one of them is even surprised by my Spanish. They don't expect it. Sometimes they'll be talking and I'll jump in and they look at me like wow, he knew what we were talking about. But most of my Spanish with them is about filling out tofu orders, then we maybe talk about the weather a little bit--"mucho caliente, mucho frio"--you know, stuff like that.

Every day, I personally show up at five-thirty, The workers show up at six. We all eat breakfast at the same time. After that, there isn't a whole lot of downtime. I mean the cook, before he even changes his clothes, he turns on the boilers, so by the time everyone changes their clothes, puts on their aprons and stuff like that, the steam boiler is ready to go. Then it's just a matter of getting the equipment ready and the pots ready and start cooking. We used to have a rule that the workers had to work eight hours, but business has been slow a little bit, so I give everyone a deal. As long as you finish your work and everything is clean, then you can go home, even if it's half an hour or an hour early, it's not a problem. So the workers all get a coffee break and they're offered other breaks but they don't take them because all they want to do is finish work and go home, because I allow them to go home early. Whether you work five hours or six hours, seven hours, eight hours, you still get the same pay.

Once a year, we have a company dinner. All the employees and their families can come and we have a Chinese banquet--ten course meal--stuff like that. We have it at a restaurant owned by one of our clients, to give them some business back. So I'm kind of playing politics not only with the workers but with the clients also. Everything is like that. A lot of people don't realize it, but politics plays a big role in everyone's lives.

But anyway, once a year we all sit down to dinner. We have a problem with the Spanish guys, because they never show up on time. We tell them six, but they show up at seven. But we'll hold up the dinner until they show up. Nobody eats until everyone is there. My mother says "No. No. No. No one eats until everyone is here," and that includes the Spanish people. We treat them as equals--all of the time--a lot of people might not think so, but that's their opinion (laughs). One of the Dominicans once told me, "David, to you, Chinese, Spanish all the same." I said, "Yeah, all the same to me--all pain in the asses." That's what I told him (laughs).

An owner-operated business is a lot of work. A lot of stress. When my brothers and I first took over the factory back in 1986, tofu was on my mind constantly, because I didn't really have a whole lot of practical experience at it. I dreamed about tofu and the business all the time and I was very nervous about everything. But I haven't had those dreams in about almost ten years. I've gotten used to it, I guess (laughs). Once in a while, I wish that I had a Monday through Friday job. You know: leave the work at home, spend the weekend with the family, stuff like that. But on the flip side, I wouldn't be in the position I am if I wasn't the boss. And I like what I do because I'm in charge. I like being in a position of authority.

But I don't have any illusions about it. I'm hoping my children will grow up to be well-educated and be doctors and lawyers. I don't want them to do this. I mean, why should they do this? Our kids, they have a hell of a lot more opportunity than we had; let them explore what they can do. I have a brother who was a cop. He retired and came back to the business and he asked me, "After our generation, who else is going to work this business?" And my answer to him was that if nobody's there to work it, it ain't worth anything. Maybe the property is worth more than the business. I don't know.

To tell you the truth, the only reason we're able to survive is sheer volume. We sell the stuff dirt cheap. I'm wholesaling tofu for sixteen cents a piece. Now, I know you go to a supermarket and you buy four pieces of tofu for $4.50, but I'm only getting sixteen cents for it. Someone's making the money there somewhere, but not me. I am just working hard. My family instilled a work ethic in me. I was taught that if you put in enough time and worked hard enough you would succeed at everything. I don't know that that necessarily holds true anymore. Things have changed a little bit, competition is very rough. I wouldn't mind passing this business on, but whether anyone will want it is another story.

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