From China to Chinatown: An American success story
By MATTHEW THAYER
Hands deep in the pockets of her oversized travel coat, the attractive Chinese farm girl gazes to the left of the camera as its long-ago shutter clicks.
It's easy to imagine Chan Sun Choy studying the stranger from Hawaii, the number one son who handpicked her to be his wife. Or she might be looking to the loved ones who urged her to marry, to trade home for an uncertain future in a foreign land. Is she thinking: “What have you gotten me into?"
The betrothed farm girl who would go on to be one of Honolulu's most famous lei sellers poses for a photo before leaving China with her new husband more than 70 years ago. Photo courtesy of the Lau and Lee families.
More than 70 years later, the evocative black-and-white photo hangs at that woman's work station in Cindy's Lei & Flower Shoppe in Honolulu's Chinatown. The former farm girl is now Cindy Lau, longtime owner of the legendary shop on Maunakea Street. Considering how things turned out—how she became a mother, successful entrepreneur and all-around American success story—it’s easier to spot the strength emanating from within than the fear she was feeling at the time.
"I asked my popo one time about that photo and she told me that she wasn't smiling because she was scared," recalls her grandson, Nick Lee. "She didn't know this man. She didn't know if the marriage was good. She had no idea of what her future would look like."
He says though she enjoyed working on the farm, eating fresh food and playing sports, she was pressured by her family to accept the arranged marriage. Cindy's daughter, Karen Lee, says her grandmother in China relied heavily on Sun Choy, but she also championed the move to Hawaii.
"My grandmother, her mother, said, 'you should marry this family, it's a good family,'" Karen said. "My grandmother knew nothing about our family, but I think it was just the opportunity. My grandmother had her when she was older. Her brother left the village to go to Hong Kong and became a shopkeeper. Her sister got married and left the village, so it was just my mother and my grandmother. My grandmother wanted to find security for her."
The stranger in this story is Raymond Lau, the eldest son of a Honolulu barbershop owner. Karen says Raymond's parents were so determined to have him marry a suitable Chinese girl they took him to Guangdong Province to find one.
Raymond and Cindy Lau pose in a photo hanging from a wall in Cindy's Lei & Flower Shoppe. Photo courtesy of the Lau and Lee families.
"His brothers and his sisters were all connecting with different ethnicities and that didn't make my grandmother very happy," Karen said. "My father was number one Chinese boy, so she told my grandfather, 'Take him back to China now. Let's go. Let's go find him a wife, a Chinese girl.' So they went abroad and they went around to two different villages, so I hear. And then, when my mom appeared, he said, 'I choose that lady, I choose that girl.'"
Raymond and Sun Choy traveled around China and Hong Kong for about a year before landing in Honolulu. Not long after their arrival, Sun Choy gave birth to their first child, Karen. Though she spoke little to no English and basic housework was equally foreign, she was as willing to learn as her accepting in-laws were to teach.
"She was eager," Karen said. "Everything was new to her. Her mother-in-law and her father-in-law treated her well. The in-laws welcomed her. I think it was just sort of like a welcome addition to the family.
"My mother didn't even know how to cook. She said, 'I didn't even know what a washing machine looked like.' Her sister-in-laws helped her, helped her with dressing, helped her learn how to cook a little bit, how to do laundry a little bit."
Before long, she and Raymond had three kids and she was a busy housewife. Occasionally, she would visit her father-in-law's Chinatown barbershop where, in the back, her sister-in-law Janet Lau ran a small lei shop. Something about stringing lei and feeling the flowers in her hands appealed to the former farm girl.
When her beloved mother-in-law suffered a stroke that left her totally paralyzed, Sun Choy and Raymond served as primary caregivers for five years.
"With three kids and also taking care of this invalid, I mean, my mom just miraculously handled this all. Usually, when you have total paralysis, you don't last that long. My grandmother lived five years bedridden. And you know, there were no diapers back then."
Shortly before her passing, Raymond's father asked what he could do to repay their efforts.
"My grandfather wanted to show gratitude and obligation, and also not feel so… maybe to lighten his guilt because he was already planning his next wedding," Karen said. "He asked my father and my mother, 'What would you like tonight? You know, to repay you. What would you like?'"
The property on Maunakea Street appealed to them.
Cindy's Lei Shoppe is located on Maunakea Street in Honolulu's Chinatown.
"They both said, 'Let's take this small space, this property here.' Well, my mom was still helping out at the store here, and that's how they got this property."
Several foundational changes for the business happened around this time. Sister-in-law Janet eloped and offered Sun Choy the then-unnamed lei business.
"She [Janet] had a couple of Hawaiian workers that helped her, and she said, 'They will stay and help you,'" Karen said. "You can have the business. See what you can do. My mom was delighted about that idea and my father said, 'OK, if that's what you want to do.' That was kind of the beginning."
It was around this time that the lei shop supplanted the barbershop at the front of the store, and that Sun Choy adopted an Americanized name. The name change came by way of a favored hairdresser who suggested a slight riff on the Chinese dialect's pronunciation of Sun Choy.
"She used to go to a hairdresser regularly and the hairdresser said, 'Why don't we do it like a nice name?' And then she said, 'What about Cindy?' My mom quickly came home and told my father about it and he thought that was, 'OK, great, a good idea.' And shortly after, my father prepared the sign that you see that is still hanging. And it's called Cindy's Lei Shoppe."
Set to turn 93 this month, Cindy Lau remains a fixture at the busy flower store. The photo of her peering into the future hangs where she still strings flower lei alongside store employees. Her daughter Karen now leads the business that serves the needs of local customers and also ships lei to every state in the union.
Longtime shop owner Cindy Lau makes a lei.
Cindy Lau holds court at the front of the shop.
Having grown up around the shop, Karen says she took a break after college before returning for good in 1987. She says she has many fond memories, including when her aunt Janet was in charge of the small no-name shop.
"When I was a little girl, I would come over and hang with her because I really liked the idea of getting away from my 'Chinese-iness,'” Karen said. "There was a chance for me to, like, you know, be out in the street and have fun and string lei. My auntie didn't have any girls, so I was kinda like her little Calabash daughter. I loved being a part of it all here, stringing lei and taking the baskets down to the pier and helping her."
Surrounded by family photos, Cindy's Lei & Flower Shoppe general manager Karen Lee pauses her busy day to talk about the history of the business.
Karen says when Cindy took over, the immigrant housewife found she had a knack for business. Cindy was good with customers and not afraid to try new ideas. Her willingness to shift with changing consumer tastes and suppliers helped her shop survive where many Chinatown stores, from big boxes to mom and pops, have fallen by the wayside.
"You gotta realize she came from a village and everybody's Chinese there," Karen said. "Nobody speaks English there, right? Nobody's Americanized yet at that point. I think she was just so enchanted by the whole thing.
With 92-year-old Cindy Lau stringing a lei in the background, a leimaker creates a lei in the back area of the iconic Honolulu Chinatown lei shop.
"She was pretty. She was charming. They [the customers] liked her broken English. I think people thought that she was, you know, I'd say, clean and trustworthy. We would have politicians and we would have musicians, the local entertainers. People that came off the Lurline would go back and spread the word of this cute little shop."
Chinatown has gone through growth spurts and downturns, Karen says, adding that the historic district appears to be on the upswing.
A leimaker strings a hefty carnation lei at Cindy’s. Once a staple of Hawaii politicians and entertainers–even Elvis famously wore them–carnation lei are making a comeback. General manager Karen Lee said the shop is planning a carnation promotion for the upcoming graduation season.
"Gosh, when I think of when I was growing up, it was just the pool halls, the dance halls, a few chop suey restaurants," Karen said. "And I would say most of the people were from China, Chinese. But now it's not so Chinese. It's more like a mixed Thai, Vietnamese, locals and then all of a sudden you got the bars, you get the restaurants, you get the art scene. I see a lot of different faces. A lot of the Chinese people have moved out.
"I think we went through kind of a stagnant time, maybe about 15-20 years ago. I think now you see kind of a resurgence. It's like a curiosity, or people are interested in being in Chinatown."
She says an influx of new businesses, from bakeries and pizza shops to a pickleball facility that has taken over the old Fort Street Walmart store, have injected new life into the area. In the middle of it all sits one of the only old-time family shops still going strong: Cindy’s Lei Shoppe. Its staying power can certainly be credited to Cindy, but also all the other family members who have contributed their own time and energy. That it currently has three generations working side by side makes it an anomaly, Karen said.
Cut flowers and flower arrangements have become part of the shop’s offerings as it stays nimble in an ever-changing consumer market.
“Usually, you don't go on to three generations. It's a real fine line. It's a lot of toil. Everything is by hand here and it can be grueling sometimes during high season where, you know, you gotta work later."
She says after a stint on Maui in the 1980s she decided to see if she had what it took to survive in the family business.
"I thought, I'll just come and kind of park myself and see if maybe something will come of it. One year led to another, to another, and here I am. Like with my mom, I just got so enchanted by it all. Selling lei is so much easier than selling real estate. And so much more rewarding. It's a happy thing. Giving lei is happy, it's happiness. You know you are moving someone's heart some way."
Karen serves as general manager of the business, while her son Nick is the comptroller and her nephew Alex Lau is the manager. All three were hustling around the busy shop last month as Cindy did her part by stringing a plumeria lei. They say the matriarch has her "good days and bad days," and her hearing and short-term memory may not be what they once were, but she's still the boss.
When it came time to take a photo of Cindy and Karen for this story, Cindy refused until they each held a lei. Having posed for countless reporters, photographers and camera-happy tourists through the years, she knows the value of including the shop's product in pictures.
Cindy's Lei & Flower Shoppe owner Cindy Lau poses with daughter Karen Lee. Having grown up around the shop, Lee is now the shop's general manager and a driving force of the popular business.
"She is a force to this day, to this minute," Karen said. What she's done, she is definitely a force. All the cousins, the aunties, they see, they recognize this. This force, this magic that she has."
Nick says Karen is made of similar stuff. Like Cindy, she has never been shy about shifting with the changing times or putting in a full day's work, day after day after day.
Nick Lee grew up in the business and now serves as its comptroller.
"My mom is a real inspiration," Nick said. "She's somebody that's a big person for product. I think working with other people, talking to other people, prompting them and I guess, in some way, getting them to open up. She has that talent, that skill. It's natural. She has a lot of the same instincts as my grandmother, my papa, and my uncle Raymond as well. I think that they're quick on their feet, quick in mind, and with great instincts with people. I think they know how to make people feel seen, heard and remembered. And that goes a long way."
Karen said the family plans to honor Cindy's birthday with a party this month. Every attendee will be encouraged to stand close to Cindy so she can hear them offer a three-minute tribute.
"I'd rather it be said now than when she's no longer here. And I think it'll be easy to say. The words will come easy because of what she's done."
Cindy's Lei Shoppe is open Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. To place an order online or learn more, visit cindysleishoppe.com.
Manager Alex Lau slides buckets of cut flowers to the walk-in cooler.
A leimaker creates a haku lei at Cindy's Lei & Flower Shoppe. Haku lei are worn around the head like a crown, often for very special occasions such as weddings, graduations and hula competitions.
Cindy Lau creates lei in a line of leimakers.