Journey Across the Four Seas (31 page)

I tried to reason with Patrick. "Listen! You have to pass this time. If you don’t, you can’t even go on to secondary school. You’ll have to go out and work. You know what kind of job you can get at your age? A coolie, that’s what you’re going to be. Day in, day out, rain or shine, you’ll be carrying heavy burdens on your back. You’ll be poor all your life. Do you understand why studying is so important? Do you?" A blank stare was his reply.

Other times I got so exasperated that I resorted to insulting him, hoping that it would goad him to prove me wrong. "I’ve never seen anyone as stupid as you. You’ll never pass the test." I wished he would cry, argue with me, or resolve to succeed, but all he could do was blink his beady eyes.

Once again, my heart was in my mouth when I searched for his name in the newspaper. The local dailies published the rank and scores of every examinee. From this list the reputable secondary schools would have the pick of the oranges on top, while the rotten ones at the bottom of the basket would be tossed aside. Every year a number of children jumped off buildings because of failing marks. Patrick wouldn’t go to that extreme, but I would be sorely tempted. My hand was shaking when I fingered down the column in search of my eldest son’s name. I wasn’t ambitious. Some mothers prayed that their children ranked within the first hundred, but all I wanted was the minimal score to keep my son in Wah Yan. My ears were ringing when I found Patrick’s name. The numbers next to it rippled as if they were under water. He’d passed!

Joe was also a laggard in his early years. When he arrived in Hong Kong, I thought that as he’d already had a year of schooling in
Bangkok
, he was ready for Kindergarten 2. But the teacher interviewed him and discovered he didn’t know anything. It was partly because he spoke only Thai, and partly because I’d miscalculated his age and put him in school a year earlier than I should have. The teacher put him back in K1.

Joe’s report cards in the first few years were below average. In a class of thirty- something, he usually ranked in the upper twenties. One day in third grade he brought home a report card that had the number "1" in the upper right-hand corner. My immediate reaction was, there must be a mistake. I called the school, and the teacher confirmed that Joe was indeed first in his class. According to a piece of gossip that Number Five picked up from the other amahs, the child who’d been bumped from first to second place got a thrashing from his mother. What a crazy woman!

For some reason, Joe had been inspired to study that term. He’d never cared before, but now that he’d climbed to the top of the class he could see that the view was worthwhile. He kept his axe to the grindstone and sweated to keep it sharp. He memorized everything, even the answers to arithmetic problems. For example, once he’d figured that 16 x 32 = 512, he would recognize the problem in any test and write down 512 without having to do the calculation. Joe is like that. When he sets his mind on something, he’ll pursue it with a do-or-die intensity.

*

Another area I devoted myself to was my children’s health. From my own painful experience I’d learned that without good health, there was nothing else. Thus when any of them got sick, I sought out the best doctors, most of whom were my fellow Hong Kong University alumni.

When Veronica was around seven, she contracted a cough that wouldn’t go away. Our family doctor at the time was Dr. Tang, Cousin Helen’s husband. The children were in mortal fear of him because his remedy for any illness was always a shot in the rump. His syringes were bigger than other doctors’, and he had a torturous habit of prolonging the anticipation. First he would swab a large area of the patient’s behind with alcohol. Next he would fan the wet spot with his hand. When it was good and dry, he would hold up the giant syringe in his shaky hands and tap it with a finger to check the fluid in it. All this time, the poor patient would be dreading what was coming. My children cried at the mention of Dr. Tang. At first, I didn’t want to switch doctors for fear of offending Helen,, but after giving the matter some thought, I decided my children were more important.

Peter Fok, one of the "boys" who had traveled with me to
Chungking
, was practicing as an internist. I took Veronica to him and told him, "You better cure her, or I’ll never talk to you again." "You’re unreasonable!" he said. "Is this the gratitude I get for protecting you from the Japanese?"

He gave Veronica a battery of tests that day. She was very brave and didn’t even wince when the nurse poked a needle into her finger to draw blood. Peter diagnosed her ailment as something called "hundred-day cough." We went home with a couple of bottles of awful-looking medicines, one pink and the other baby blue, to be taken three times a day. Since I was working, I couldn’t be home to make sure that Veronica took it at regular intervals. Number Five was busy taking care of Chris. I looked into my cash flow and did a quick calculation—yes, I could afford to hire a nanny for Veronica. Sam-Koo suggested a relative of hers who was an ex-nurse and the daughter of the people we stayed with in
Macao
during the war. I thought I remembered her, but when she came to see me, I didn’t recognize her at all. She’d gained at least a hundred pounds since our last encounter. Because she was Sam-Koo’s relative and not an ordinary servant, I instructed Veronica to address her as Auntie. She took one look at her future nanny and called her Auntie Fatty.

Aside from the medicines, I also ordered Veronica be given the traditional tonics to boost her immune system. Several times a week, Auntie Fatty picked the feathers off a swallow’s nest, stewed it in chicken broth, and fed it to Veronica. At night I rubbed her chest with a mixture of oil and ginger. The heat generated was to keep her from coughing in her sleep. This was an old remedy that my mother had used on us.

Weeks went by and she was still coughing. Finally, I decided to get a second opinion. The doctor with the highest medical degree was a pediatrician trained in
England
and married to an Englishwoman. I didn’t know him personally, although we were students at
Hong Kong
University
around the same time. Again he ran a gamut of tests on Veronica and sent us home with a hodgepodge of medicines. I don’t know whether his potions worked or the hundred days were over, for Veronica’s cough went away.

Patrick was once very sick too. He was thirteen when he got his first asthma attack. To observe him at close range, I moved him to my bed. In the middle of the night the wheezing got so bad that the whole bed shook. I took him to Peter Fok and demanded a cure. Peter gave Patrick a shot a day until the wheezing disappeared.

In the course of the treatment, Patrick discovered a little protrusion on his chest. Worried that it was a tumor, I mentioned it to the doctor. Peter told me not to worry. The swelling was a sign of puberty. Girls aren’t the only ones who grow breasts, he said. Boys have their bit of development in that part of the body too. He then took out his medical books to illustrate his point. Page after page of nipples and mammary glands of all shapes and sizes appeared before me. I dared not look at them and yet I had to because the doctor was giving me the explanation I’d asked for. To him it was just science, but to me it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

Chris, the baby, suffered from allergies of all sorts. Her skin was particularly sensitive and prone to rashes. The doctor recommended a variety of lotions and powder, which seemed to help some. I also made a pair of cotton mittens and tied them over Chris’s hands so she wouldn’t scratch herself raw.

As a result of her allergies, Chris was an irritable baby. We all tried to be considerate of her when she got upset. When she was tired, she would cry, "I want to go to bed!" Number Five would pick her up and carry her to the crib. The moment her feet touched the mattress she would cry, "I don’t want to go to bed!" Number Five would pick her up, and then it would start all over again. Back and forth, she would turn Number Five round and round.

While Mother was visiting in the summer, Chris threw her usual tantrum. "I want to go to bed!" "I don’t want to go to bed!" Mother, who had never allowed such nonsense from her own children, rolled up a newspaper and put a match to it. I tried to explain to her about Chris’s allergies, but a stinging glare from her shut me up. She approached Chris, who was thrashing in Number Five’s arms. Holding the fire close to Chris’s bare feet, she said, "If you don’t shut up, I’m going to burn your feet." Chris froze; her tears froze. Whatever allergies she had were cured at once.

How I wished my children would grow up quickly. But after they grew up and left home, how I wished they were small again.

3

Living in
Hong Kong
was similar to living in a disaster-prone area. We shared the same precarious existence as communities residing at the foot of an active volcano or on the banks of a flood-prone river. The risks were great, but greater still were the benefits that attracted people there in the first place. To snatch the handfuls of prosperity between the ruins of catastrophe was all we asked for.

The threat we faced was our history. The Crown Colony of Hong Kong hadn’t evolved in one day, but over half a century. It was a three-bite process, in which the British tore off more and more of the Chinese pork until they were satisfied. The first nibble was
Hong Kong
Island
, which
Britain
annexed after trouncing the Chinese navy in the First Opium War in 1842. The second was
Kowloon
Peninsula
and
Stonecutters
Island
, acquired in 1860 after the Second Opium War. The third was the
New
Territories
, which was no longer a nibble but a large morsel chewed off the mainland in 1898. Citing defense purposes,
Britain
forced
China
to lease to it the area north of
Kowloon
. The term was 99 years, making 1997 the year of expiration. When the
New
Territories
went back to
China
, so would Hong Kong and
Kowloon
. The three parts formed a three-legged stool. One missing limb meant the collapse of the whole.

1997 was thirty-some years away, but for those of us who lived in
Hong Kong
, 1997 was only a day away. Politics is as unpredictable as a volcano. The subterranean pressure building in the Chinese Communist Party could erupt any time. We held little illusion that the British government could save us. Our only hope was in ourselves: that somehow we would live up to our reputation of being the most resilient people in the world.

In the meantime, we wrung every drop out of life. We pushed our children to expand their ability so that no disaster would daunt them. We worked long hours, days, and weeks. Whenever we had time off, we gathered to create so much noise and excitement that we forgot the inescapable upheaval that awaited us. Restaurants, theaters, marketplaces, and beaches were always bustling. We felt safe huddled together, talking, laughing, and turning our radios up to their highest volume. On Saturday nights, entire buildings shook from the thunderous clatter of mahjong. Scrambling the tiles, we also scrambled away our worries. Life between disasters was good.

Eight years sailed by in this euphoric lull. My home at
La Salle Rd.
was the best I’d ever had. My children quickly put down roots and were growing up secure and happy. Their laughter echoed through the rambling apartment, mingled with a few tears now and then. My husband, despite his nasty temper, brought home a steady income. Eight years in one job was a record for him. In all his previous posts, he’d quit after a fight with his boss. In Southeast Asia Trading, he was the boss.

In the ninth year, however, Uncle Ben began to itch for changes. Love for risk and adventure ran in his entrepreneurial veins. The rice trade was too tame for him, and he wanted to diversify into shipping. When Hok-Ching heard about it, he got so anxious that he collapsed. He was in the bathroom when he cried out. I ran in to find him doubled over in pain. I called emergency at once. An ambulance came and carried him out in a stretcher. The children stood by, weeping and asking whether their father were dead. At the hospital the doctors diagnosed his illness as a bleeding ulcer. While he was recuperating, Uncle Ben came to babysit the company. The moment he stepped off the plane, he said to me, "Hok-Ching is going to be all right. I’ve decided not to go into shipping."

Hok-Ching recovered, and Uncle Ben returned to
Thailand
. I thought life was back to normal, but an urgent cable from Uncle Ben portended more rough weather ahead. He wanted Hok-Ching to transmit to
Thailand
the proceeds for the consignment of rice that had just arrived. It was an extraordinary request, for the auction wasn’t due for several days. Nonetheless, Hok-Ching felt obliged to comply, which he did by digging into the company’s reserves. He didn’t think much of it at first, as the money would soon be recouped. However, as soon as the rice was sold, Uncle Ben sent him another request for remittance. This happened not only once or twice, but routinely. Thus for each shipment of rice, the
Hong Kong
branch had to pay the mother company twice. Hok-Ching got so worried that he started popping antacids again.

I didn’t dare ask Uncle the reason for this new practice. But as I observed his comings and goings, I got some inkling. Uncle Ben was restless, and when a man is restless, he can either channel his energy into ambitious goals or decadent desires. He’d always been fond of women, but in recent years he’d allowed them to cloud his judgment. On one of his visits, he was reckless enough to bring a call girl to stay at my home. She was Shanghainese, quite pretty, and had a thick, wild mane of hair. Judging from her stylish cheongsams and the diamond rings on her fingers, Uncle Ben must have raided the company’s coffers for her. Number Five came out of cleaning their bedroom shaking her head with disgust. Instead of sleeping on the twin beds on each side of the guestroom, the two had crammed into one bed. The blankets and sheets were scrambled into a big bundle. It had taken Number Five some doing to disentangle the mess. In all her life she’d never witnessed such a shameful act. I thought it was funny that she should be so incensed, yet at the same time I too was offended that my uncle should entertain a woman of ill repute in my home.