Welcome to Moon Chest Stories

I'm Bowen.

I've written historical novels about my pioneer Chinese American family who have been in California since 1847. Chinese American history is hidden and lost. It's a past that the old people never talked about, didn't want to talk about. But we are silent no more.

About the Novel

Read the First Installment >

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Meet the Characters >

Moon Chest Stories:

The Moon Chest was given to me by my parents, who got it from my father’s mother, who got it from her mother, who was born in California in the 1890s. The chest is carved of cedar, one of those trees, like the redwood and the maple, that grow and thrive on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. It represents the Chinese diaspora that grew and prospered on two continents across a vast ocean.

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The history of my family is secret and untold. The clues as to what happened to my pioneer ancestors are rare, mostly lost. So a fiction writer can go at it, and that is what I have done.

The Chinese Store at Sutter's Mill that my great great great grandfather ran.

I am serializing these novels about my Chinese American family history after the way some books were first published two hundred years ago.

Serial publication gives the author opportunity to have many eyes and minds engaged in the writing, and to apply good edits where needed.

Reader Engagement

My great great great grandfather had a store near Sutter's Mill, and it is still there at the Gold Discovery State Park in Coloma, California. The Chinese stores are museums now. One of the two Chinese stores that are there contains artifacts from the 19th century, set up how a Chinese store of that time would have appeared. The pictures on this page are from that store.