Journey Across the Four Seas (2 page)

TAPE ONE

EATING BITTER SQUASH

1

I was three when my father died. Although it happened far away from home, and at a time when I was too young to understand the meaning of death, vivid images of my dying father filled my childhood memory. I could have been right by his side when he expired. He was lying on grimy sheets on a hotel cot, coughing up yellow sputum. His hollow eyes were fixed on the door, waiting for Mother to appear.

The year was 1921. I was living with my mother and three brothers in
Hong Kong
. It was a sleepy outpost of the
British Empire
at the time, with a population of a few hundred thousand. We Chinese lived in the flatland close to the sea, while our green-eyed rulers lived on the peak. We were the people, and they were the ghosts, and our worlds seldom mixed.

My mother was the daughter of a well-established family in
Hong Kong
. My father was a traveling merchant from Swatow, a coastal town in
China
.
He shuttled between his hometown of Swatow and his business in
Bangkok
, in addition to stopping over in the places that dotted his trade route.
Hong Kong
was one of these stopovers, which was how he met Mother and had four children with her.

At the time of his death, my father was on a trip to Wenchou, a town close to
Shanghai
. Being a businessman, he was often out at night entertaining clients. After having had a little too much to drink, he stumbled back to his hotel and rolled into bed without pulling covers over himself. It was winter, and the inn didn’t have indoor heating. He caught a cold. When Mother got a letter from his business partner saying that he had fallen sick, she considered going to him. However, her youngest son was only seven months old and still nursing. Leaving him behind was impossible, while taking him north at the height of winter could endanger his health. She decided to wait till the weather warmed up. Two weeks later, a second letter arrived. My father had died of pneumonia at the age of thirty-three.

There wasn’t much of a funeral for Father. Because of the distance from any of his homes, he had to be buried on the spot. It wasn’t until my eldest brother turned eighteen that he was sent to take Father back to his ancestral grounds in
Swatow
. To make up for the lack of ceremony, Mother took the entire family to
Swatow
to commemorate the first anniversary of Father’s death.

We went by boat to
Swatow
. It was a port in southern
China
from which many generations of my father’s people had set sail. They’d journeyed to many places, trading in rice, herbs, precious metals, and whatever was profitable. If you went to
Bangkok
and mentioned the Li family of Swatow, people would tell you that this clan was among the earliest Chinese traders to set foot on
Thailand
. Some of them had taken local women for wives. Their progeny, all trained to be shrewd businessmen, soon founded a commercial empire that reached into every sphere of the Thai economy.

A small crowd was waiting as we landed in
Swatow
. I remember being presented to a woman whom I was told to call Mother. Instinctively I knew there was something wrong. I glared at her with my lips sealed, and to my surprise, my mother didn’t force me to open them. A person of the older generation was always addressed as an aunt or uncle, but I’d never been told to address anyone as Mother except my own. This woman, too, had four children, and they were staggered in age with the four borne by my mother. It took me a while, but by the end of my stay I understood that this woman was my father’s first wife and her children were my half brothers and sisters.

I stayed at the house of Fifteenth Uncle. He was Father’s next-in-line brother and the third of four sons. In the hierarchy of the extended family, however, he ranked fifteenth among all the boys of his generation. In the Chinese society of those days, the extended family was the one that mattered, making a cousin as close as a brother. I remember this uncle distinctly because of his eldest son, Crooked Mouth. An illness had twisted his mouth, and I couldn’t help but gawk as he talked and ate from one side of his face. He was around ten, too old to be my playmate, and yet I followed him around like a lost kitten. I don’t know why he fascinated me so much. Maybe it was because I felt sorry for him, which made me forget to feel sorry for myself. Too many people were coming up to me, sighing and petting me on the head. Some even had tears in their eyes.

Normally, I wouldn’t dare cry in front of Mother, who believed that crying brought bad luck to the family. But when I saw her convulsing with sobs during the ceremony, I took it as my license to open the floodgates. Instead of getting a scolding, I received praises for being a loyal and loving daughter.

I watched with curiosity the goings-on of the memorial. Monks circled the altar, chanting like one person singing in many voices. Their heads were shaved like little boys’, and as they moved around, their yellow robes rose and fell like waves. People filed in, bowing to Father’s portrait and shaking incense at him. When my turn came, Mother nudged me toward the altar. She’d taught me what to do: clasp the incense in both hands, away from my eyes, and make three deep bows. But as I stood in front of the altar, her instructions left me.

Father’s eyes gripped mine. The chanting and wailing faded into the distance. Father and I were the only people in the room. We were face to face, chatting quietly. I told him I wanted to touch him—his open face, strong square jaws, and shock of black hair. He said he wanted to touch me too; it had been a long time since he’d done that. I told him to come back from
Bangkok
, or
Shanghai
, or wherever he was. He thought about it for a while. Then he replied with a look so sad that even a four-year-old could grasp the message.

"Take a bow," Mother hissed at me.

My body bent over, slowly and deeply. A teardrop stained the fabric of my shoe. For the first time, I understood what the crying was about. My father was never coming back. My father was dead.

*

The ceremonies went on for several days. At the end, I felt like a dry towel. Every tear had been wrung out of me. My brothers also had an empty look about them. Even the baby was quiet. The only one who was still buzzing around was Mother. She had a sudden urge to return to
Hong Kong
, and no matter what the relatives said, she insisted on leaving on the next boat. While I was helping her roll up our clothes, Mother said to me, "I have a feeling something bad is going to happen. Don’t ask me what. I only know we have to get out of here
…
we just have to." She stared out the window for a while and resumed packing. I watched as she tucked Father’s portrait into several layers of clothing. She then wrapped them all with a big piece of cloth and tied the ends into a big knot.

Crooked Mouth was one of those who saw us off at the port. I wanted to say something in parting to him. All I could think of was the grown-up words I’d heard. "Be good and obey your mother," I said to him. Everyone burst out laughing. My chest, which had been feeling tight, suddenly lay open, and I was proud of myself for causing the merriment.

The voyage home seemed faster than the one out. We arrived in
Hong Kong
before my baby brother could fret too much. The moment we got home, the landlord came to our flat, exclaiming, "Thank Buddha you’re back!" He began reading from a newspaper in his hand. There were many big words that I didn’t know, but this much I understood: a typhoon had hit
Swatow
. The town was flooded, homes were swept away, and thousands died. Mother was anxious to find out about her in-laws, but she had no way of reaching them. Many people came to visit us in the days that followed. All they talked about was what had happened to various people in
Swatow
. Sometimes Mother would say, "Thank the goddess Kuan-Yin for protecting him!" Other times her reaction would be, "What did he do in his previous life to deserve this!" I didn’t see anyone cry, but people spoke as if they had a fish bone stuck in their throats.

 
Mother gathered us in her room. My elder brothers, Yung (Courage) and Kin (Strength), were twelve and ten years old. I came third, the only girl in the family, and was named Ying (Jade). The baby, Ngai (Perseverance), was two. Mother said the gap between Brother Kin and me was six years wide because Father seldom visited during that time. If she hadn’t gone to
Shanghai
to meet him that fall, she wouldn’t have had me. For a long time I thought I came from
Shanghai
.

Mother sat on the bed with Ngai in her lap. The rest of us stood at attention.

"You listen carefully now," she said. "I don’t want anymore crying. Your tears have drowned your father’s hometown. You think you deserve sympathy because your father died, but you should look at what happened to your Fifteenth Uncle’s family. He wasn’t home when the typhoon hit, but the flood swept his house away and with it his entire family." Mother closed her eyes and murmured, "He’d be better off dead, Buddha have mercy."

Immediately I saw an image of Crooked Mouth swimming in the sea. His twisted mouth was opening and closing like that of a sick goldfish.

"From now on we can’t depend on your uncles in
Swatow
to help us out. In fact, we have to help them. Your father has left you some money, but we must spend it carefully and save wherever we can. Seventh Aunt has agreed to let us share her flat. The rent will be half of what we’re paying now, but the space will only be half as much. I don’t want to hear a whimper from any of you!"

I stopped breathing. I could feel my brothers do the same.

"Yung, you’re the oldest," Mother went on. "At your age, your father was accompanying his father on trading trips. I can send you to
Thailand
to learn business, but my heart feels it’s not right for you. Business is as unpredictable as the weather. One day it is fair, and the next day it can be stormy. Going to school is a safer path. I may not know how to read and write, but I do know that an education is more valuable than money. Money can be spent, but education is something that no one can take away from you. You too, Kin," she shook her finger at her second son. "Both of you have to score the highest marks. If you’re not good enough to get scholarships, you’ll have to go out and do coolie work. I can’t afford to pay tuition and feed you at the same time."

"What about me?" I piped up. "When am I going to school?"

Mother gave a dismissive chuckle. "You’re a girl. Girls don’t go to school." She paused to give me a good long look. Everybody said I had smooth and fair skin like Mother’s, and I was going to grow up to be as pretty as she. "To marry into a rich family, you must never dirty your hands. They must be kept lily white or the matchmaker would think you come from a lower-class family. Remember this—you must never touch any housework, and never, never enter the kitchen."

Mother laid my hands on her palms, examining them. Her skin felt coarse, but I liked the way it chafed against mine. It made me feel small and safe. Mother would protect me, as she had protected me from the typhoon. I swore to be a good girl and listen to everything Mother said.

*

We gave up the apartment and moved into half of a flat. The other half was occupied by the landlady, whom I called Seventh Aunt. She was close to Mother, having grown up as a slave girl in Mother’s household. A businessman had bought Seventh Aunt her freedom by taking her as his third concubine. She was childless and was glad to have our company.

Mother, my brothers, and I crowded into one bedroom. While Mother slept with Ngai, I slept in a big bed with my elder brothers. In addition, we had a maid who did chores for the family in exchange for room and board. Her name was Skinny, but because she was a fat girl, we called her Fat Skinny. She pulled out a canvas cot at night and slept in the corridor.

We shared the living room and kitchen with Seventh Aunt. Once in a while, her husband showed up for dinner. The grown-ups always had lots to talk about. While my brothers couldn’t wait to leave the table, I liked the sound of adult voices. Seventh Uncle was constantly talking about a department store called Dai Yau, which means Big Have. He made it sound utterly fantastic—one store that carried everything from clothes to candy. When he wasn’t speaking, Seventh Aunt would be muttering in Mother’s ear, "It’s good to make your money grow." I thought it was an odd thing to say. Trees grow, children grow, but how can money grow? Mother mostly listened and nodded. When she spoke, her voice was low, not like when she lectured us.

For a long time, Dai Yau hung constantly on their lips. Dai Yau was opening, Dai Yau was written up in the papers, Dai Yau made good sales, and so on. But by and by, the tone changed. The voices that spoke of Big Have were sounding smaller and smaller. The problem seemed to be something about the clerks swatting flies. I didn’t see what was so bad about that, but Mother thought the clerks should be doing more than swatting flies. Uncle told her to be patient, although he sounded rather impatient with her. He came to dinner less and less, and Mother ate more and more. She took to eating rice from a noodle bowl, which was many times the size of a rice bowl. Her face grew round, but it wasn’t a happy kind of roundness. When she wasn’t scolding us, her mouth hung downwards.