Fifteen Years in America Chapter Two - The Professor of Duke’s Lane (End)

This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story as told by my dad. If you have missed the previous posts they are all in this category here:

Fifteen Years in America
Enjoy!

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My second secret weapon for being a great salesman is “know the product and prepare for the psychological battle”.

Hawaii is a world famous travel destination, and tourists visit from all over the world. They are not only after this Pacific island’s beautiful scenery, but they are also looking for unique things they have not seen before. In a busy market like the one in Waikiki, it is important to understand how to capture a guest’s curiosity. Previously I talked about selling a pair of exercise balls from China. This is not an item from Hawaii, but how did I capture tourists with this product? The following is my “patented” routine for selling these balls.

First, you must get a customer’s attention. I mentioned in a previous section of the story that I piqued the interest of a customer by rolling the balls in my hands. Oftentimes, it is curiosity that brings out the potential of making a sale. When you capitalize on that potential, you may be rewarded with a sale. This is how I convert that potential into money.

First, after I get a customer to stop I would give an introduction, “Sir, do you see these two balls? The first is a dragon, and it symbolizes a king. The second is a phoenix, and it represents the queen. In China, this also means power, money, and great fortune!” At this moment, I would spin the balls and let the customer hear them ring. The two balls usually have different bells in them. One would be high pitched and sharp, and the other would be deeper toned. Then I would continue my pitch and say, “the higher pitched tone means “yang”, and the lower pitched ball represents “yin”. In Chinese medicine, you will achieve great health and fortune only when you have a balance of yin and yang.” Additionally, I would start to roll the balls on the back of the customers as a massage if they allow me to.

Then I would conclude my act with this, “Buy these two balls and you will bring home power, fortune, luck, and health!”

I took my skills in lecturing as a professor and transferred it to selling products. After my colorful description of the balls many customers seem to feel that if they did not buy the balls they would have lost something. Because I satisfied their hunt for curios I sold more balls than anyone else in the lane. Most other stores do not even sell one box, but I often sold 20 or more boxes per day.

Originally, many Korean shops did not have this product, but as they saw that I sold it extremely quickly they started to add the balls to their inventory. However, they couldn’t sell them as well as I did because they didn’t understand that in selling any product you need a little bit of creativity. Without my stories, their products did not move, and my creativity is not something they can buy.

The Korean salesman next to me saw that I sold the balls by the cases, and gave me the moniker of “number one salesman on Duke’s lane”. Thus some Korean shopkeepers wanted to hire me at a higher salary, but I didn’t agree. The reason is that I liked Peter and the few Chinese salespeople nearby. A few of these Chinese shopkeepers gave me the nickname of “BALL SALES KING”.

Even though fifteen years passed, I still have very fond memories of the marketplace, and the friends I made there.

At that time, the shop across from me was run by an immigrant family from Guangdong, China. Their surname is Lin. The father and mother arrived in America not knowing any English, and could only work in sanitation services. They have four children. The eldest is a man also named Peter. Then there are three women. The oldest daughter is named Ah-juen, the second is named Ah-ming, and the youngest is named Ah-mei. All of them are hardworking and when I just started at Duke’s Lane they helped me quite often. The two eldest children did not go to college. The eldest son Peter worked in a Japanese restaurant at first, and Ah-juen worked for my boss Peter. After they saved enough money, they bought the store across the way from my boss and became shopkeepers themselves. The youngest children Ah-ming and Ah-mei both attended the University of Hawaii. Ah-ming became an engineer and started to work for the government, and Ah-mei majored in international politics because she wanted to be an ambassador.

After I left, Peter Lin bought my boss Peter’s store and another store selling gold jewelry, and his business was booming. I was really inspired by this family from China’s countryside. I saw the spirit of the Chinese people, and their struggles to survive as immigrants in America gave me guidance.

Duke’s Lane was not only the first place that gave me my daily bread in America, but it was also a real life classroom for my daughter. At that time, Hawaii’s law mandated that children under the age of twelve could not be left alone at home. My daughter was only nine, so sometimes after school she would come with me to the store. She witnessed our fight for survival in America. Since America is a free market country that encourages competition, the experience at Duke’s Lane actually helped me quite a bit in my quest for education and employment in the future.

I turned from a college professor to a small street vendor. However, I felt that our living standards were not so bad at that time. Though there was quite a bit of psychological pressure. Here I will address a comment a reader sent to me. Lingling said, “I am very impressed by your courage to go to America, but I am also a little confused. What are you really chasing after with all of your hard work?” I think here I will quote something written by another friend. I really like this section where he said, “When you conquer bitterness and obstacles, obstacles are your riches. When obstacles conquer you, they are your shame.” I think that changing from a real college professor to the Professor of Duke’s Lane is just a set of obstacles to make me stronger. If you think about it, if I did not leave China to come to America, would I have had the colorful experience I had at Duke’s Lane? When we conquer obstacles, we collect experiences of life, and those are priceless treasures.

Stay tuned, Chapter 3 will be coming up! If you do not want to miss anything, feel free to subscribe to the full feed!

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