Hawaii (83 page)

With tears in her eyes, she started to storm at Mun Ki, and he patiently listened for some minutes, then got mad. Flashing his pigtail about the kitchen he shouted that any fool could learn to make yeast in one week. He had been courteous and had studied for two weeks and now he wanted her out of the kitchen. Not understanding a word he was saying, she continued to mourn for the lost yeast, so he firmly grabbed her shoulders and ejected her onto the lawn. On Monday the new batch of yeast was as good as ever and

she consoled herself philosophically: "It's the same strain, sent forward by different hands." Suddenly, she felt the elderly white-haired woman she was.

Mun Ki also had difficulty understanding why Americans ate so much, and he would consistently omit dishes to which the robust appetites of the white men had become accustomed. A typical Whip-pie dinner, served at high noon in the heat of the day, consisted of fish chowder, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, creamed cabbage cooked in ham fat, delicious chewy biscuits made of taro and drenched in butter, mashed potatoes, candied yams, pickled mango, alligator pear salad with heavy dressing, French bread with guava jelly, banana pie marvelously thick and rich, followed by coffee with cream, and cigars. If guests were present, two extra vegetables were served and French brandy.

Later, the Chinese would eat steamed cabbage with no fat, a little fish cooked with soybean sauce, a bowl of rice and some unsweetened tea, and it was often remarked that Hawaii must agree with the Orientals, because even though they worked harder than the white men, they lived longer.

When she finished supervising the preparation of food, little Amanda Whipple, in her sixties, turned her attention to Nyuk Tsin and taught the hard-working Chinese girl how to care for a large house. Dusting was particularly stressed and caused some difficulty, because in China, Nyuk Tsin's mother had waited for a likely omen before bothering to dust, whereas energetic Mrs. Whipple demanded that it be done regularly every day. The floors had to be dusted, the flowered china lamps, the chandelier, the rosewood love seat with its multiple curlicues, the endless embroidered decorations, the peacock chair from Canton and the bamboo furniture that never looked clean. Nyuk Tsin's special nightmare was the great fish net on the parlor wall from which shells, leis and other keepsakes were hung. In fact, there was scarcely an inch of the Whipple house that did not contain some gimcrack whose main purpose was gathering dust.

In comparison, the Kee household contained one table bearing the genealogy book, a flint lighter, a candle and a wine bottle. There was also a rope bed above which hung the impressive sign: "May This Bed Yield a Hundred Sons."

According to the agreement reached by Whipple and his Chinese, Mun Ki received two dolkrs a month and his wife was to have received fifty cents, but when Mrs. Whipple saw how excellent Nyuk Tsin's work was, from five in the morning till nine at night, seven days a week, her generosity was touched, so she paid the girl a full dollar each month, and from this salary of $36 a year the two Chinese were required to clothe themselves, pay for the birth and education of their children, provide for entertainment and luxuries, and send money home to the official wife in China. They did all these things, but their problems were eased a bit by the unnecessary generosity of the Whipples. Unexpected gifts here and there added to the family treasury, and 'the allotment of an acre of

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good land which Nyuk Tsin could farm for herself allowed the couple to earn some real money, for Nyuk Tsin was a fine farmer and soon appeared on the streets of Honolulu with a bamboo pole across her shoulders and two baskets of fresh vegetables slung from the ends. She hawked her wares mainly among the Chinese, accumulating from them a growing store of American dimes, Australian shillings, and Spanish reals, for Hawaii had wisely decided that any of the world's money could circulate freely within the kingdom.

The Kee funds were further augmented by some shrewd enterprise on the husband's part, for each day as soon as breakfast was finished, he hurried down to Nuuanu Street, to Chinatown, where nondescript shacks huddled together in ugly profusion and where white men rarely went. His destination was a particularly disreputable hovel in which sat an elderly Chinese with wispy beard and a brush and book in which he entered bets as they were offered. Behind him, on the wall, hung a luridly colored sketch of a man, with twenty-eight parts of his body indicated: nose, ankle, knee, elbow . . . The game which had captured Mun Ki's whole imagination consisted of placing a bet as to which of these words would appear in the sealed capsule that stood under a glass on the table before the game's operator. Most of the Chinese in Hawaii played the game, at odds of thirty to one, which gave the player an advantage, except that if there were too many winners the prize was proportionately lowered; the bank never lost. Nevertheless, the odds were enticing, and each day upon rising, families would inquire of one another: "Did you dream of an elbow last night?" Careful attention was also paid to any sudden pain, or to an accident involving any part of the body. But mostly it was dreams that brought good fortune, and it was uncanny how the dreams of Mun Ki kept pointing the way to the lucky word.

"You were again with the winning word?" the game's manager asked sourly.

"Today it's bound to be chin," Mun Ki assured him. "I woke last night with my chin itching furiously, and I can read through the glass and see the word written on the paper."

"How much are you betting?"

"Two dimes."

The proprietor's face betrayed his displeasure as he brushed the entry into his book. "You're a clever man, Mun Ki," he grumbled. "Why don't you join me in this business?"

"I'm a cook," Mun Ki replied. "It's better to win from you than work for you."

"What I have in mind," the older gambler proposed, "is for you to collect bets at the far end of town and bring them in here by ten each morning."

"Then, I couldn't bet for myself, could I?" Mun Ki asked.

"No, then you'd be part af the game."

From one of the towers along the waterfront a clock struck eleven,

people crowded in from the alleys of Chinatown, the excitement grew intense, and the proprietor ceremoniously lifted away the glass to uncover the capsule. To prevent the quick substitution of a word on which no one had bet that day�a trick that had often been tried in the past�a man was selected at random, and under the most careful scrutiny he opened the capsule and shouted: "Chin!" Mun Ki leaped with joy and cried, "I had two dimes bet, because I woke with a definite itch on my chin." He explained to everyone the precise minute at which he had wakened and his thoughts at that propitious moment. With his two dimes and his dream he had won two months' normal wages.

He was about to leave the gambling shack when the old proprietor caught his arm and said, "You ought to join me. Today you made, a lot of money, but I make it every day."

"You do?" Mun Ki asked.

"Every day. If too many win, I cut the prize. I send hundreds of dollars back to China."

"Could I?" the young gambler asked.

"Easily. If you worked with me."

It was in this way that the cookhouse of the missionary home at Nuuanu and Beretania became one of the principal outposts of the chi-fa word game. Mun Ki kept on hand a supply of gaudy posters which showed twenty-eight parts of the human body that might be named; and for each bet he took he got six per cent from the bank and fifteen per cent of the prize money from the winner, if the ticket won; and he became one of the chi-fa's best operators, for as he had proved by paying the brothel operator full price for Nyuk Tsin, he was meticulously honest with both his employer and his customers. His chief return, however, came from his happy idea of having the chi-fa poster printed in Hawaiian and in enlisting dozens of native gamblers. They enjoyed doing business with him, and bought so many tickets that soon there were chi-fa drawings both at eleven and at four. With the money he made, Mun Ki slipped away two or three afternoons a week for the wild fan-tan and mah-jongg games that ran uninterruptedly in Chinatown. He was a fierce competitor, and his store of dimes and reals and shillings grew steadily.

The only disagreement the Kees had with the Whipples occurred when it became obvious that Nyuk Tsin was going to have a baby. For some months she had hidden the fact behind her loose smock, so that when Mrs. Whipple finally did discover it she said, "You must do no more housework, Mrs. Kee. Rest." But that same afternoon she saw Nyuk Tsin trudging down Nuuanu with two huge baskets of vegetables at the ends of her bamboo pole. Amanda stopped her carriage, climbed down, and commanded her maid to drop the burden and wait till Mun Ki could be sent to pick it up; but when the cook arrived he studied the situation in astonishment and said, "Swinging the bamboo pole is the best thing a pregnant woman can do. It gets her ready."

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That night Dr. Whipple went out to the Chinese house and said, "I'll make arrangements to deliver the baby." He was disturbed when Mun Ki explained in the little English he had picked up: "No need doctor. I bring baby." It was a rather difficult point to argue, since neither man was proficient in the other's knguage, but Dr. Whipple got the distinct impression that Mun Ki was arguing: "In China husbands always deliver their wives' babies. Who else?"

"I think I'd better get an interpreter," the confused doctor interrupted. He went to fetch the scholarly man who served as unofficial Chinese consul, and explained: "I'm afraid my servant here is intending to deliver his wife himself." "Why not?" the consul asked.

"It's preposterous! I'm a doctor, living right here."'Then, fearing that perhaps money might be the problem, he assured the consul: "I'll do it without charge."

Patiently the consul explained this to Mun Ki, who was awed by the presence of an official and who wanted to avoid trouble. "My wife and I don't need the doctor," he said quietly.

"Explain that there will be no charge," Whipple began, but he was interrupted by the consul, who, after listening to Mun Ki, explained: "If this man were in China, and if his other wife were pregnant, he would deliver her."

"What other wife?" Whipple asked in bewilderment. "The wife here is only his number two wife. The real wife stays at home with the ancestors in China."

"Do you mean to say . . ." Whipple spluttered, but again the consul interrupted to explain: "Mun Ki says that his Uncle Chun Fat has three wives in China, two in California and one in Nevada." "Does he also have children?" Whipple asked. There was some discussion of this, and Mun Ki reported: "Seven in China, four in California, two in Nevada."

"And did this uncle deliver all of his thirteen sons?" Whipple snorted. "I'm sure they must have all been sons." "Of course," the consul replied blandly. "Of course he delivered them, or of course they were sons?" This confused the consul, and he suggested: "Maybe we had better start again," but Dr. Whipple had had enough. Pointing at Mun Ki he snapped: "Do it your uncle's way. He seems to have had more experience than me." And he left.

Working by himself, Mun Ki produced a fine boy, but everyone in the white community was outraged to think that the barbarous Chinese would follow such a custom. "And to think," one of the Hewlett girls cried, "all the time not fifty feet away there was one of the best doctors in Hawaii! Really, the Chinese are scarcely human." And it was generally agreed that for a stubborn man to insist upon delivering his own wife when practical, proved assistance from a real doctor was available, was proof that the Chinese were not civilized.

The Whipples got another shock when they asked what the chubby, healthy little boy was to be called. "We haven't been told yet," Mun Ki replied.

"How's that?" Whipple asked.

Mun Ki said something about not yet having taken the poem to the store to find out what the child's name would be. Dr. Whipple started to ask, "What poem?" but he felt he'd better not, and said no more about the name, but some days later Mun Ki asked Mrs. Whipple if he and his wife could be absent for a few hours, and when Amanda asked why, he explained: "We must take the poem to the store to find out what the baby's name is." Mrs. Whipple called her husband and said, "You were right, John. The Kees are taking a poem to the store so as to get a name for their baby."

"I'd like to see this," Dr. Whipple said, for such things were of concern to him, and Mun Ki said he would be honored to have such a distinguished man assisting at the naming of his first son, but before they started to the store Whipple asked, "Could I see the poem?" And from the precious genealogical book Mun Ki produced a card containing the poem from which all names in the great Kee family were derived. It was an expensive, marbled, parchment-like cardboard bearing in bold poetic script fourteen Chinese characters arranged vertically in two columns. "What is it?" Whipple asked, his scientific curiosity aroused, but Mun Ki could not explain.

The Chinese store to which the trio headed stood at the corner of Nuuanu and Merchant streets and was known simply as the Punti store, for here that language was spoken and certain delicacies favored by the Punti were kept in stock. The storekeeper, an important man in Honolulu, recognized Dr. Whipple as a fellow tradesman and ceremoniously offered him a chair. "What's this poem my cook is talking about?" Whipple asked, whereupon the Punti said, "Not speak me. Him. Him."

And he pointed to a scholar who maintained a rude office in the corner of the store, where he wrote letters in Chinese and English for his Punti clients. Gravely the letter-writer picked up the poem and said, "This belongs to the Kee family. From it they get their names."

"What's it say?"

"That's not important. This one happens to read: 'Spring pervades the continents; earth's blessings arrive at your door. The heavens increase another year; and man acquires more age.' "

"What's it got to do with 'names?" Whipple asked.