Moon Lee was born in Guangdong province in 1905, just after the US Chinese exclusion act had abated. He is the only boy among 5 children, during his childhood year his family didnt live a rich life. Luckily for him, the family used their only little extra money to send him through elementary school, then middle school, which makes him the only educated one among 5 kids. Deep in the heart, he was aware of the responsibility of feeding and supporting the family when the parents retire. .
By the time he reach 16, right out of middle school, unfortunately the Lee family can no longer afford his education, Moon as what most of people would, decided to get a job to relief some of his parents' load. At the time(1921), words out on the street describes a place western of pacific ocean called "Gam Saan"(California), offers gold to be mined, great opportunities of high pay jobs. Moon came home one day very excited to tell his parents what he heard from a friend, "an average person could only make 5-6 dollars a month here in Guangdong, but if I go work in America, a place they call Gam Saan, I can make 30 dollars per month easy. I want to go there for a little money making adventure, if everything goes well, in 3 to 4 years I could have saved 800 dollars if not thousand, then I will return home a very very wealthy man and maybe sending home some money every month to help out." Moon's parents didnt oppose his plan, because the family was really in need of some extra financial support. .
After couple months of planning, in December of 1921, Moon Lee got some advance money to pay for the passage through a broker under something called the credit-ticket system, in return, Moon has to pay back double the amount of money he borrowed as soon as he start working in America. With his last goodbye at the city harbor, he got on a boat and headed for the first time to Gam Saan v/s San Francisco, California.
