The Curse of Wu

Wu Chen immigrated to California from China as the secretary for Kong MaK's tong in the 1850's. A tong was an embassy in a strange land, a kind of fraternal society for Chinese who arrived in San Francisco. It was from this tong that a lone Chinese male gained access to work, food, shelter, and entertainment. The tong members mined gold, silver and built the railroad up and over the Sierras.

Throughout his 34 years of working for Kong Mak, Wu had accumulated 800 pounds of gold and had hidden...