Painted Rock

If you ever hike at Lands End in San Francisco, bring a pair of binoculars.  If you are lucky, and it's a clear day, you can make out the remains of Painted Rock. A sign will warn you of the dangers, but intrepid hikers can move beyond the sign to see the beautiful creation that has stood for over a hundred and fifty years.

Painted Rock was erected in the 1800s as a memorial to Chinese slaves. The rock is man-made and was designed and built by a Chinese immigrant, Wu Zhao. Zhao had come to the area in the hope of finding a job because, in China, she had been a slave.  She came with no money, just the clothing on her back. Every day, Zhao would take a boat out to the site and drop stones to create a platform. The memorial structure resembled a lighthouse, with Chinese symbols engraved on all sides. It was about fifteen feet tall.  The actual structure is made of limestone, and because of this, it has eroded slowly, leaving just a small tower in the bay.

Zhao worked tirelessly on the monument for nine months.  One day while chiseling the Chinese symbol for "slave" into one side of the monument, Zhao lost her footing, fell into the bay and drowned. Her body was never recovered.  Her son, Yi Zhao, took on the job of completing his mother's project, which took an additional five months The young man left the Bay after finishing the project. He returned to China, where he became a rice farmer.

Ever since the construction of this monument, descendants of Chinese slaves have been boating out to Painted Rock to place flowers and light joss sticks in memory of Wu.