FRANK MA Dunwoody, GA * * * Date: May 9, 2010 Location: Home of Frank Ma, Dunwoody, GA Interviewer: Kate Medley Transcription: Shelley Chance, ProDocs Length: 1 hour, 35 minutes Project: Buford Highway - Georgia Frank Ma 2 [Begin Frank Ma Interview] 00:00:04 Kate Medley: This is Kate Medley interviewing Frank Ma in the living room of his home in Dunwoody, Georgia. Today is May 9, 2010. And so Mr. Ma, I’ll get you to introduce yourself and I’ll just hold this [microphone] right in front of you. 00:00:22 Frank Ma: Yeah, my name is Frank Ma. I came from Taipei, Taiwan, in 1972, and settled down in Atlanta, Georgia. The reason why I came here because 1970, 1971, I was on a business trip here. I fell in love, this is a relaxing place, so that’s the reason why I decided to immigrate here. 00:00:45 In Taiwan I was doing an import/export business for 10 or 11 years and very successful. But when I came to here, as far as the buyer, how am I supposed to make a living here? So I decided to go into the restaurant business and so I was lucky at the time. I had the first northern Chinese restaurant to open in Atlanta in 1973. It’s called Peking Chinese Restaurant in the northeast part of Buford Highway. I went there and applied for a job. They said what you can do? What do you know about a restaurant business, the owner asked me? I said, well I don’t know nothing but I can do a lot of things. He looked at me and said well you’re pretty honest. And he took me. And it take(d) me a little bit – one day I was working as a dishwasher, mopping floors, kitchen help, do the fryer, do lots of kinds of work and then about six or seven months [later], moved me to the front as a waiter. That’s the reason why I learned the whole system of ©Southern Foodways Alliance www.southernfoodways.org Frank Ma 3 the restaurant and how it worked. Otherwise I don’t know nothing before that. That’s where I got my start. [Laughs] 00:02:01 KM: Let’s go back. Tell us again where and when you were born. 00:02:07 FM: Yeah, I was born in Northeast China. It’s called in Kailu, a kind of small village in--now it’s the Liaoning Province. Our family lived in the area that’s called Inner-Mongolia. That’s what it is. And I was born there. I went to first grade over there and then the Civil War started and we have to run because my father was working for the Chiang Kai-shek government staying over there, a big shot, so we had to run. So we run to Cheng De City small hometown to Beijing City and lived there for a while and then run to Tienjing and then Shanghai and then to Nanjing who is the capital at that time. So I had been living there, studied there, go in the second grade over there. All the sudden the Ho Minh in China – it fell apart. So we have to run all the way to Taipei Taiwan. I was nine years-old and got in Taipei Taiwan. 00:03:19 Unfortunately my father went back to China for the government to do some work. I don’t know. Quite honestly I was too young to know that. On his way back to Taiwan the ship wrecked. He died from there. So— 00:03:37 KM: What was your father’s profession? ©Southern Foodways Alliance www.southernfoodways.org Frank Ma 4 00:03:39 FM: Actually I haven't quite understand. He was just working for the government doing some kind of budget control or something. And worked for the legislature. It’s like the same as Congress or something like that. 00:03:59 th So in 1949 he passed away, January 27 . 00:04:05 KM: And you were how old? 00:04:06 FM: I was nine years old, almost, actually eight and a half. And I got one brother, two years older than me, and then three younger sisters. So the family all the sudden just – pango – it’s a disaster. So my mama at that time probably was only 32 years old. So we really had suffering and then we have to – all four of us, the younger ones just still holding – mama still feeding, breast feeding at that time, so we all went to the orphanage. 00:04:45 KM: You went to the orphanage? 00:04:47 FM: Yeah, for five years. 00:04:49 KM: All five of you? ©Southern Foodways Alliance www.southernfoodways.org Frank Ma 5 00:04:49 FM: Four. The younger one was too young. 00:04:53 KM: Four of you. 00:04:55 FM: Well for four years until me and my brother all graduated from the orphanage. It’s like an elementary school graduate--but living there, boarding there, everything is in there. 00:05:04 KM: Where did your mother go? 00:05:08 FM: My mother, I don’t know. She was fighting and she tried to get some kind of money from the shipping company, whatever line company – tried to get the money and didn’t get it. They were just little at that time. That’s almost no government. [Laughs] It just was a chaotic period of time you know. So we been suffering in Taiwan for a lot until we all graduated from the orphanage school, me and my brother, and then the other two sisters were pulled out. 00:05:42 KM: What do you mean pulled out? 00:05:44 ©Southern Foodways Alliance www.southernfoodways.org Frank Ma 6 FM: They won't stay there no more because me and my brother were graduated from there and we go to the regular school. At that time it was government a little bit assistance kind of granted, yeah, so we just started. Mama started at that time. Chiang Kai-shek was in charge of the government and then put my mama working for the Congress – start of it, the whole thing is going to get better, that’s it, but the whole young childhood, it is terrible, yeah. [Laughs] 00:06:21 After I graduated from National Taiwan University. I was majoring in Economics; that’s the number one university, just like Harvard here. So I graduated from there. I was doing an import/export for 11 years. I’ve been traveling around the world, been to Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Thailand, everywhere just about. 00:06:48 KM: What were you importing and exporting and who were you—? 00:06:51 FM: Import PVC to make the electric wire and cable and that kind of things and some sundries, toys, all that kind of things that do the export – electric fans, it just about everything you can make money. That’s what I was doing there for 11 years. And then we find the chance to come to the United States. That’s why I decided to come because I had been here twice, I loved it. I had been to San Francisco, Chicago, New York and everything but I don’t think I like the place, so we just picked up Atlanta and we came to the here and settled down. And at that time [in 1973] it’s the first time Taiwan was [taken] out of the United Nation. That was Taiwan’s big shock. They said, oh lord, we were not born there. The Taiwanese come to consider me an outsider, so we have to run at that time. That’s when we came to here. It’s a political region a ©Southern Foodways Alliance www.southernfoodways.org Frank Ma 7 little bit. Actually Taiwan is pretty nice now. It’s hard to tell if you made a good move or not. If I was in Taiwan now I might be a billionaire, big shot. If I was coming here and working my butt off and tired, exhausted, you know the restaurant business. Yeah, even I keep it now it’s okay. If that’s the way you’re doing it’s okay. But compared to the people living over there the level, you know, just different. You don’t have to work that hard in Taiwan – the homeland and it’s different. 00:08:35 KM: Tell me more about your mother. 00:08:38 FM: Yeah, my mother is a high school graduate. At that time and her age that’s not--that’s a [inaudible]. Most of the Chinese housewives are just stay at home and not educated, just illiterate. My mama is pretty good. So she got married to my father and they had five children and then she lost her husband early – at 32 years old. It was just rough for her. Plus Taiwan at that time entered the Civil War period of time you know. It make it very rough at times for her. So we respected her a lot. She was buried. A few years ago she passed away in 2006. [Emotional] We buried her over at Green Lawn over in Alpharetta over there, way out by the [inaudible] up there [inaudible] around her. 00:09:44 As a matter of fact, Saturday morning, yesterday morning we were there for Mother’s Day.