By Mahlon Meyer
Northwest Asian Weekly
Scalloped clouds cast a harsh light outside Legacy House, the assisted living community in the Chinatown-International District, shining on the long boards posted over the front windows, remnants of the days of rioting in the first year of the pandemic.
But inside the atmosphere was all bustle. The dining room was swept clean. And residents were waiting for lunch.
A visit arranged by the community for Northwest Asian Weekly on a recent weekday showed a well-cared for community, a vibrant staff, and residents who appeared engaged and cared for. In one case, the community had literally saved a life. In another, it meant a new phase of relaxation and freedom.
Dr. Lei Baizhong (Photo by Mahlon Meyer)
For Dr. Lei Baizhong, his room upstairs seemed reminiscent of the dormitory rooms he occupied when he was working his way up the long list of appointments he held in China’s medical establishment. He ended up the chief of the provincial university hospital of Hainan Province, no mean feat.
The rooms are not large, but they are tidy and practical. There is a clean, spartan feeling about them, as if being old, one finally has the right to shed the encumbrances of early years and relax and simply enjoy. There is no fussiness, no trim lamps with Chinese lamp shades or carpets that smell of cleaner.
Dr. Lei, for instance, had a clean medium-sized bed pushed back in the middle of a wall, a desk and other appurtenances that were lost in the cool, refreshing light that came through the blinds.
Lei is 90 but could pass for a robust 60 or maybe 70. His cheeks were flushed and ruddy. He had come into Legacy House shortly after being kicked out of the hospital because Medicaid wouldn’t pay for a longer hiatus.
“I was in there for five days after the surgery, the scar hadn’t even healed, and they said you’ve got to go.”
He went home to senior housing he shared with his wife. But he couldn’t eat. He couldn’t move. And the only recourse offered by the hospital was to bring him back in for a course of radiation.
“But I’m an internal medicine doctor,” he said. “I knew that wouldn’t help for this kind of cancer.”
He lost weight and was nearly on his last legs until he contacted the manager at Legacy House. She arranged an assessment. Immediately, he was moved into the assisted living community. With the care he received, within a month, he was back to his old strength.
“I now eat two bowls of rice at every meal,” he said. “Not just one.”
Legacy House was taken over by the International Community Health Services (ICHS) in 2019, just before the pandemic hit. This in a way puts it squarely in the legacy of Bob Santos, who led the rejuvenation of the area and helped found many of its institutions. In the wake of the pandemic, after it was forcibly locked down for almost two years, Legacy House has now been left with a few vacancies, like most of the rest of the industry.
From what you can observe if you visit the community during lunch time, or talk to its staff, this seems surprising.
On a recent weekday, the residents were waiting in a large, clean, well-lighted dining hall as servers served up boxes of Asian food. On that particular day, there was salmon in thick slices, almost slabs, sweet and sour pork, soup, vegetables of two varieties, a white crispy cabbage—even after being stir fried—and something darker, and different kinds of rice.
Taking off one’s mask even for a moment sends a lurch of hunger through one’s stomach. And there was Lei sitting on his side of a table with a glass partition down the middle. Jovial, smiling, waving.
“I have my appetite back,” he said.
Lei’s health (he said he only has high-blood pressure) is the kind of indicator that families looking for assisted communities would consider.
The average for residents to live in assisted living communities is measured by a few years, in most places. In fact, it’s a closely guarded secret because it plays into the calculations of how much communities will charge upfront to residents and their families. If they live longer, the charge might be more.
Lei has lived in the community now for 17 years.
Legacy House relies on Medicaid for all of its care and medical expenses and food for residents, said Vivian Hon, a supervisor. The rest is made up by fundraising and ICHS.
There appears to be little turnover of staff, a bane of the industry.
A petite, gray-haired Asian woman hurried to pull a white cleaning cart out of the way for visitors. She has been there for 24 years as a housekeeper—a rarity in the industry.
“She was our first employee,” said Hon.
A nurse with short cropped hair, also Asian, leans intently, focused over a tray of medicines and paper cups at the lunch hour. All of the staff, except one server seen that day, were Asian or Asian American.
The residents speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and other Asian languages or dialects. There is not a single white person among the residents.
“You could be the first one,” said Hon to a reporter, noticing his enthusiasm for the activities room (a group of residents were knitting and sewing at a table around bright fabric and supplies).
Legacy House takes anyone.
“But we’re in the International District,” said Hon, who is from Hong Kong, “So it makes sense we’d have all Asian residents now.”
Ted Wong (Photo by Mahlon Meyer)
Ted Wong, 79, is another resident. One would expect him, being a hotel manager before he retired—and for some of the top hotels in the world—to have lots of misgivings about his new environment.
He’s been in Legacy House for two and a half years. His room is filled with books and a yoga mat and dumbbells. He is clean cut and well-shaven, as if he were still hosting an important guest to tour the Peninsula in Hong Kong or the Hilton in Seattle, both places he had worked.
But his easy manner shows he is relaxed as he jokes with the guides and staff. He said he’s lived longer because of the care he’s gotten in the community. He walks around the neighborhood in the afternoons, which keeps him lean and fit.
He seemed proud that he had filled out an application and “been accepted.”
Signs also seem to show that family members feel comfortable visiting, which is not always the case in senior living communities.
Out in the hallway, a young woman with dark hair and in a mask escorted an older woman with white billowy hair, that looked like it had been caught and wracked this way and that with two hands mussing it up. The older woman went forward with a walker into the elevator, and the younger woman, apparently her daughter, laid back a little, as if her mother was still taking charge, even in old age.
“We have a lot of family members visit,” said Hon.
There are no old people sitting with sullenness on their faces in wheelchairs by the doorway, a constant in some communities. There are morning exercises, in which about half the residents take part, and then they break into subgroups where they get individualized attention.
The photos on the bulletin boards seem to genuinely show scenes of relaxation and celebration. Rather than the forced grimaces and dissimulation of young family members pained to see their elders in places they might find uncomfortable, these are photos of young people among the residents with faces like spotlights, beaming with joy and certitude that they have found a place if not only for their parents, then also for themselves.
Dr. Lei is a frequent contributor to the bulletin boards. He has a whole half of a bulletin board devoted to him. Articles in Chinese about heart troubles and other maladies are posted so everyone can read. There are also articles about his life.
After he left China, he came and settled with his daughter in Seattle who later started a company to sell Chinese and western medicine, with his help. His two sons and wife, all of whom are doctors, came over shortly after and helped with the company. One of the sons, however, has now gone into IT.
The building itself seems inviting for visitors. The hallways are wide and seemed to reach out forever to lighted doors at the ends—which was surprising because there are only 25 residents on each of the three floors. It seemed more like an old fashioned European hotel, or hostel, than an assisted living community.
Wong, the hotel manager, was in Guam, opening a Hyatt before coming to Seattle. He liked the easy life there, the peaceful ocean, and the kind people. But he wanted his sons to come to the mainland for opportunities.
When asked why he didn’t offer advice to the staff given his long experience in the hospitality industry, he said that five-star hotels had their way of doing things, and senior living facilities had their ways of doing things. He said he was happy with the change.
“There are three steps in life,” said Wong, summing up his experience until now. “The first is getting educated, the second is working, and the third is enjoyment when you retire.”
After a moment, he asked with that kind of Hong Kong humor that makes the city unique, “don’t you agree?”
Mahlon can be contacted at info@nwasianweekly.com.