in the graveyard of kung fu

by Angela Wang

IN THE SECOND FALL OF COVID, my septuagenarian parents (who are both still of sound mind and body) decide to update all their estate planning documents because in our family, love means being prepared just in case things go bad—so now we’re shopping for gravesites. Love is weird, for sure, but you know what’s even weirder? Grave shopping. Turns out it’s a lot like house shopping, where only three things matter: location, location, location. Most importantly, you’re looking for that feeling you get when you step into a house you’re putting an offer on. You’re looking for the feeling of home—a forever home.

Our first stop on the graveyard tours takes place a few weeks ago at Sunset Hills Memorial Park in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue. Mom and Dad have since fallen in love with Sunset Hills and sure, the manicured lawns, tidy flat headstones, and expansive views of the Cascade Foothills are killer. They love it because of the freshly-paved suburban parking lot with bright white lines demarcating huge parking stalls generous enough for several giant SUVs to rest next to one another in relative comfort. The only problem is that Sunset Hills is a thirty-minute drive sans traffic across Lake Washington to the burbs from my house in Seattle, and I have to take either an inconvenient toll bridge or an Interstate.

A couple of weeks later, my twin sons’ second-grade has a class party after school at the Volunteer Park playground right next door to Lake View Cemetery in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. Kids are playing fort tag, laughing on swing sets, and pelting each other with pinecones, and I’m parked on a bench emptying errant woodchips out of one boot. Because I’m high on graveyard alert, I notice headstones peeking out at me from behind the swing set and the black PVC-coated fence that separates the graveyard from the playground. And it hits me: I should bring my parents here to tour Lake View as a comp to Sunset Hills.

Many of Seattle’s founding pioneer families are buried at Lake View Cemetery, as well as celebrities like Bruce and Brandon Lee, and the poet, Denise Levertov. Sadly, Kurt Cobain wasn’t allowed into Lake View because the cemetery’s already much too crowded and touristy because of Bruce and Brandon Lee, so Cobain’s ashes were scattered. I mistakenly assume Jimi Hendrix is also buried at Lake View because he’s one of Seattle’s most famous sons, but Hendrix isn’t there and instead has his own marble gazebo memorial at the Hendrix family site at Greenwood Memorial in the suburb of Renton. Who would have guessed that this modern god of rock-n-roll was also a suburb guy? Lake View is clearly the superior graveyard in my mind because the cemetery is so much more convenient for me, and Bruce Lee is buried there.

I stuff my foot back into my boot and scan for my sons on the playground. One of them is on his belly on the swing set twisting himself dizzy, and the other is playing fort tag. Kids are laughing and shouting and, mercifully, no one is crying, yet. A herd of boys run past, chasing each other with large broken tree branches, and stop only after one of the other moms screams, “No running with sticks, boys!” The hunting party stops. One of the boys gets the bright idea to use the sticks as makeshift bats to hit pinecones over the fence into the graveyard. Soon an entire group of savage boys starts doing the same. Gravesites probably wouldn’t be desecrated as such at Sunset Hills since there’s no playground next door. Nevertheless, convenience (mine) trumps all, so I vow to call my parents as soon as I get home to find a time to take them to visit Lake View—but only after I disarm my stick-wielding sons, extract them from the group, and herd them back to our SUV.

In the summer of 1982, my Star Wars-loving best friend Steven, who lives in the red Craftsman down the street, moves away. I’m now a friendless first grader in the fall at Jefferson Elementary School in Pullman, Washington. Friendless first graders who don’t look like the other kids at school usually don’t have the easiest time, but I make the best of it. That is, until recess, when the unsupervised environment allows kids to be kids.

Because I’m seven, my mom cuts my hair in the standard issue 1980s bowl-cut style—"just like Dorothy Hamill.” But I don’t look like Dorothy Hamill. And I don't want to be Dorothy Hamill. I just want to be like everyone else in my first-grade class, climbing up the fort ladder, taking in the views from the high ground, and sliding down the fire pole with my bowl-cut hair flopping against my forehead in the sun. So I make my way to the wooden fort.

But this meathead Justin stands in my way. He’s at least a year older, maybe even two because he’s an idiot and has probably been held back. Justin’s band of boys with their dirty blond hair and western pearl-snaps all look the same (enormous) in their sherpa-lined trucker jackets. The boys tag each other by punching each other in the arm and it looks like fun. They stake their claim on the play fort hollering and smirking to each other when they see me trot towards them in my brown corduroys and orange nylon puffy jacket that I pretend is the rebel X-wing pilot flight suit. The fort is feral boy territory, so they all glare at me, the lone weirdo Star Wars girl in poop-colored pants and bad hair who dares approach them.

Justin stops me. “You must know Kung Fu,” he says. He stuffs his mouth with a Fig Newton and sprays food bits into the air like the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes who can’t complete a full sentence. How someone eats says a lot about a person, and Justin is not a tidy eater.

“No,” I say. I slide around him to the bottom of the wooden fort ladder and place one hand on the middle rung. “Do you know Kung Fu?”

Justin scowls. “You’re Chinese, so you definitely know Kung Fu,” he says. Then he shoves me away from the ladder so hard that I fall on my skinny ass into the woodchip mulch padding the playground. “Show me,” he says.

At first, I think Justin wants me to fight him, which I’m perfectly willing to do. But then I see his freckled thumb jab sideways towards one of the fort’s large round wooden beams. This isn’t the usual “No, but where are you really from?” or the “Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these” chants with pulled back eyes and stretched t-shirts that I either ignore or brush off. This feels like a real physical threat. And while I’m scrappy, I don’t actually know how to fight. I look past Justin and his goons to see if I can spot a teacher or another adult on the playground. No luck. We’re hidden in the shadows on the far side of the fort.

Before I can scramble back up, Justin spits on me, his saliva smattering in my bowl-cut hair. I scramble to my feet and brush the woodchips from my clothes. I try my best to wipe away my surprise as well as Justin’s spit and his half-masticated Fig Newton.

Instead of kicking at him or throwing a punch, I’m a frozen bunny. Did he actually just spit on me? The shock and embarrassment of actually being seen as a target overtakes my body—so much so that I simply do as I’m told. But I can tell that this jackass wants a show, something embarrassing (for me) that will make him feel dominant in front of his boys without him actually having to labor or risk trouble in beating me up. The boys all seem the same, with their crossed arms and glaring faces.

Since I’m so obsessed with Star Wars, it’s surprising that martial arts isn’t already in my wheelhouse. My parents say “yes” to piano, swimming, and the public library. But my repeated requests for karate lessons or toy blasters and light sabers like the ones in Empire Strikes Back are always “nos” and I only ever get to play with Star Wars light sabers and toy guns at Steven’s house anyways, and he’s gone now. In my household, violence is never condoned. So like everyone else who doesn’t know how to fight, I copy what I’ve seen on TV and in movies.

I understand that if I don’t react to Justin and his crew, the rest of my days at school will be miserable. “OK,” I sigh. Even though I don’t know Kung Fu, I summon my rage and picture Justin’s sullen freckled Tasmanian Devil face in his fuzzy-lined jean jacket square in the side of one of the fort’s gray wooden beams. Then I start side kicking the beam with gusto, trying to copy what I remember from old Kung Fu television rerun episodes starring David Carradine. What would Caine do? I realize now that I learned to fight by copying weak sauce moves from a stringy white guy on TV and not Bruce Lee.

I don’t make eye contact with Justin; I direct my frenetic energy into the fading gray wooden trunk. A large dead knot stares back at me and I scream my best blood-curling “Hiyyyyyah!” and pivot sideways and attack the fort leg with my right leg, and my blue and yellow waffle-soled Adidas sneakers thump the thick beam. Soon I start to feel eyeballs on the back of my head as a small crowd of kids from other classes and grades gathers around us. I continue to roundhouse kick and grunt and savage the wooden beam.

After several kicks, my right leg starts to get sore. Naturally, I improvise and switch over to left-legged roundhouse kicks only to discover that (surprise) I am clearly not ambidextrous, and so my left-legged kicks prove to be significantly weaker delivering a much less convincing performance. I pivot again and add in a few hand chops and random fist poses and scowls for good measure. I scream louder “Hiyyyahs!” to compensate.

Justin finishes off his pack of Fig Newtons and tosses the yellow wrapper on the woodchips and sneers and pretends to clap. The bell rings and I finally spot the yellow-vested playground monitor mosey towards us. Everyone turns around to walk back into school. No one says anything or touches me. I’ve transformed from this timid girl at school into a weird tomboy Kung Fu girl you don’t want to mess with. I’ve established playground cred, paid for with mortification and surprise, and passed my first test in “fake it till you make it” theology. I learn to be prepared for the next time. 

Later, I would learn to fight back by using sophisticated words. I would cling to the certainty of escape from this small provincial town for college away in a big city, any big city for that matter, just like Luke Skywalker bolts from Tatooine the first chance he gets.

But for now, the bottom of my foot hurts and both my legs are sore. I’m sweaty, and my bowl-cut hair is sticky and smells like Fig Newton. Aside from the obvious humiliation and embarrassment, I will myself to be fine. I am now Kung Fu Girl.

No one at school would ask me if I know Kung Fu again.

Well played, little grasshopper.

On the drizzly morning of our Lake View visit, my parents pull up to my Northeast Seattle house in their old Lexus SUV for the fifteen-minute drive to Capitol Hill. Mom sits in the passenger seat, bundled in her usual black puffer, beanie, and dark sunglasses, one arm clutching her purse and the other the grab bar. Dad has on a black baseball hat, sunglasses, and driving gloves. He looks like he’s ready for racing—but at a top speed of 45 mph.

I jump into my own SUV and take my time, making sure Dad follows me onto the highway, but before we even get to the highway, Dad leaves too much space between our two cars, so I pull over to let cars pass us. Once we both are on the highway, I stay in the far-right lane to accommodate his 45 mph. Cars honk and speed off trying to exit the highway and end up swerving into different lanes.

After several exits, we pull off the I-5 ramp into a tree-lined residential neighborhood with large Craftsman houses. Like my family, the houses are square and symmetrical. We drive past a Metro bus stop and through East Highland Drive into Volunteer Park, where we slide into easy parking next to the playground.

After placing his leather driving gloves on the dashboard, Dad struggles to put on his giant black puffer outside of the car. When he finishes, he straightens his black baseball cap. Mom adjusts her wool beanie and scans the periphery through her dark sunglasses. It’s just before lunch and no one is in the playground, but my mom clutches her large handbag under an armpit out of habit.

The rain has stopped, but the air is still damp. “That was easier than driving all the way out to Bellevue, right?” I say. “We’ll stick to the sidewalk, but it might be muddy.”

Dad and Mom are semi-prepared for the rain but seem dead set against sensible boots required for walking in the Seattle mud. Instead, they both sport brand-new running shoes. I scan for an opening from the playground where we are parked into the cemetery, but the back gate is closed and locked, which means we’ll need to walk all the way around to the other side of the block in order to enter the cemetery. Even though my parents don’t say anything, they clearly aren’t thrilled about trudging around the block through slippery wet leaves in their Brooks technical running shoes.

We shuffle back down the road to the park entrance, turn left and ram straight into a parked Metro bus. I hadn’t noticed there wasn’t a proper sidewalk on the near side of the street, so we have to cross over to the opposite sidewalk and cross back, but part of the sidewalk is cordoned off for construction, so we’re forced to veer into the street again. When we finally reach the entrance to Lake View at the bend of the road, I look both ways for oncoming traffic and, like a mother duck with her brood of ducklings, hustle my parents back across the blind corner.

Mom takes off her black beanie and shoves it into her pocket. “Well, that was inconvenient. Why didn’t they open the gate over by the park?” she says.

“Probably because they don’t want little kids on the playground playing hide and seek in the old graveyard next door,” Dad says.

The entrance displays a dark wood sign with “Lake View Cemetery established 1872” in an old serif font etched in yellow, like the kind you might see at an old country club. A white metal gate swings open onto a paved road that leads up a gentle slope into the cemetery and extends in one simple loop. There are already a few people inside strolling (Exercising? Visiting departed loved ones? Researching pithy epitaphs?), and I see other cars parked off to the side. 

I feel my mother’s eye roll through her sunglasses. “Look, we could have just driven in and parked anywhere,” Mom says.

Dad waves his hand. “It’s turning out to be a beautiful day for a walk. The rain is already clearing up,” he says. “We need our exercise.” 

I feel awful for making my elderly parents walk around the block in the middle of the street dodging cars and buses. With no parking lot, how was I supposed to know that once this cemetery opens, you can just roll up and park wherever you want next to some random grave? Daughter fail, but I remain undeterred in my plan to hype up Lake View not only because famous Seattle people are buried here, but (well, mostly) because Lake View is infinitely more convenient for me versus Sunset Hills since I don’t have to cross Lake Washington to drive out to the suburbs to get to this cemetery.

Where we stand right now, the chain-link fence demarcating the cemetery’s eastern border along 15th Avenue cuts into framed views of Lake Washington. The fence would disappear if we just made our way higher up. Lake View is peaceful and well kept, but some of the headstones are raised and varied as opposed to the flat uniform ones at Sunset Hills, so it feels less orderly.

Mom and Dad follow at their own pace, pointing at various headstones and chatting among themselves in Mandarin. “Look, these ones are from the 1870s!” Dad points to a row of gravestones. “They’re all lined up in tidy rows, just like elementary school desks!”

“But look at all the moss and grime,” Mom says. “Do they actually clean your headstone here?” She stares at me behind her huge dark sunglasses and pulls them down for effect. “If not, I expect you to clean my grave, OK? I don’t want moss and grime all over my headstone.”

I wonder what ongoing maintenance will be required in the upkeep of a headstone? Isn’t headstone maintenance included in the outrageously expensive fee for your plot? I make a mental note to clarify this line item during a future meeting with a sales representative. 

Mom clutches her purse under both arms and wanders closer to examine the headstones underneath the fir tree. “They’re right under this giant tree! I don’t want to be stuck in some shaded gully under a shedding tree. I want to be higher up and in the sun.”

The name etched in a serif font on the headstone next to Mom reads Henderson. The red granite grass marker lies flat next to the fir tree and is partially obscured under pine needles and cones. I brush the needles away from the headstone with my foot. “I think this family wanted to be underneath this tree. They probably paid extra,” I suggest. “Besides, this is a prime location at the top of the hill. Look at this view behind us.”

We gaze down the slope and catch the sun breaking through the clouds while fog from the morning drizzle evaporates. The rainy day clears up into a glorious sunny Seattle day with Lake Washington gleaming a deep shade of sparkling blue against the Cascades in the distance.

“THIS is why it’s called Lake View,” I say and thrust my arms ta-da style out into the distance towards Lake Washington.

Dad and Mom smile, nod their heads behind sunglasses, and wander off. We make our way around the loop at the top of the hill to more prime graveyard locations, and I start calling off famous Seattle families, as if my parents care. “Look, it’s the whole Denny clan! They have their own section up here with a huge monument. And here are the Nordstroms!” I yell. Dad and Mom remain unimpressed. We pass by the Mercers, the Blethens, the Yeslers, and other well-known Seattle streets, schools, and neighborhoods, all of them with prominently marked last names engraved on fancy headstones or elaborate memorials. My parents continue to ignore me as I call out more meaningless European surnames like Smith, Turner, and Halverson.

We finish touring the upper part of the loop, and as we make our way back down the hill, I catch sight of a young couple from the corner of my eye. The pair of them zip up the hill on green and white Lime-S electric scooters. Craft beer guy sports a thin mustache and is clad in a buffalo check flannel shirt and a mustard Carhartt beanie, while VSCO girl swims in an oversized pastel sweatshirt and carries a signature black Fjallraven backpack. Craft beer guy slows to look up at something on his mobile phone while VSCO girl stops about twenty yards in front of us. She hops off her scooter and points to a spot just beyond us, about a third of the way down the hill. “Here, babe! I see it!” she yells. 

Now craft beer guy jumps off his scooter and rolls both scooters off to the side of the road, and VSCO girl slides her backpack off her shoulders and pulls out a (predictable) Hydro Flask water bottle. But then she also proceeds to pull out a small bouquet and a selfie stick and adjusts her large scrunchie bun on top of her head.

Oh my God, what is happening? Graveyard booty call? Are they about to make out in front of us? I get that today has turned into a gorgeous Seattle fall day and this is naturally what young people (and bunnies) do, but who makes out at a cemetery?

“What’s going on down there?” Mom asks. I’m pretty sure Mom is thinking the same thing I’m thinking.

I try to play it down and hope I’m right. “I think they’re just tourists paying respect to Bruce Lee. We missed his gravesite earlier. Look, they even brought flowers.” I pray the couple refrain from making out at Bruce Lee’s gravesite and glance again to see if they brought a picnic blanket. Mercifully, I see no blanket. The VSCO girl flips her long, bleach-blond hair back, and the couple exchange a few short kisses and take a few more selfies. They leave the bouquet of flowers on the memorial, collect all their belongings, and jump back on their electric scooters to disappear back down the hill.

“Wait, this is where Bruce Lee is buried?” Dad asks, using Bruce Lee’s Mandarin name, “Lee Xiao Long,” which sounds much cooler.

We venture down to the Lee gravesite. In order to accommodate all the tourists and visitors, a level tile platform had been installed along with a sleek steel black railing surrounding the two graves and a built-in bench to sit and enjoy the views. Several other bouquets and an orange have already been placed on both headstones. Bruce’s headstone on the left is a rectangular polished red stone, while his son Brandon’s is a sculpted black stone on the right.

“Both of them are here. Tragic,” Mom sighs. “At least he’s here with his son.”

Past the black PVC-coated fence, our two worn SUVs sit parked next to the playground like a pair of giant tortoises, and Dad’s ancient dinged-up Lexus is even the same pearl-gray hue as a tortoise shell. My gray Volvo is solidly middle-aged but also sports its fair share of scrapes and dings. At my sons’ class party, I had sat on the opposite side of the chain-linked fence on a playground bench scanning these very same headstones, but today’s perspective from the graveyard back into the playground is noticeably more somber. I can’t wait to leave the cemetery and cross back into the land of playground woodchips and kids’ laughter.

“I think we’ve seen enough, Ange,” Dad says. “Thanks so much for bringing us. It turned out to be another beautiful sunny day.” He gives me a hug. 

The three of us head back out the cemetery gate and double back across the street and down the block, past the Metro bus, and across the street into Volunteer Park. Once we’ve reached our SUVs, I notice my parents’ brand-new running shoes are caked with mud, but they don’t seem to mind. I hug Mom through her giant puffy coat and Dad helps me into my car and closes the driver side door for me. As I pull away, I see my parents waving at me from the rearview mirror.

I wave back. 

About the author:

Angela Wang lives in Seattle with her family and is currently working on a book about graveyards and family history. She is a graduate of Pacific University’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing.