by Andrew Kwong
I don’t know how long we were inside that confined space. All was quiet except for the sounds of our breathing, of the sea and of the lonely motor. I tried cheering myself up with the thought that a better life was ahead, one worth the danger and distress, and I had to be patient. The occasional splash of waves against the boat helped to break the monotony in that suffocating space. My mouth was dry. Soon I had no more saliva left, and my tongue had turned into rough cardboard. I longed for a bottle of Sunkist Orange like the one given to me at the Macau border. Then I recalled the delicious fragrance of the cookie shop, trying to bring water to my mouth. When that failed, I started counting the many colourful cookie jars, tins and boxes I could picture in the shop. That made me salivate a little, so I continued counting them, floating between the shapes and colours, in and out of some mystifying contentment. If not for the chug of the motor reminding me that I was still in the land of the living, I would have believed I was buried alive in a coffin at sea, drifting off to die. At least it seemed a lot more pleasant than being eaten, or shot at Pig Head Hill.
Much later, the motor slowed to an idling mode. By then my senses had all but dissipated. Now I could hardly think, or react to the outside world. The rocking of the boat indicated we had stopped. I heard another motor approaching. Then, suddenly, came the unmistakeable sound of heavy boots hitting the deck.
Two, perhaps three strangers were now on board. I woke from my stupor. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but it sounded like negotiations were taking place.
Something was about to happen, but no one inside the crawl space seemed to care. My breathing was laboured. My heart was pounding so loud that I was sure those next to me could hear it. My mouth had cracked like the clay in the drought-stricken paddies. The dread of the unknown became worse by the minute, and it kindled my curiosity, perhaps for the last time. Something was happening on deck. But I couldn’t stay conscious for long enough to know what eventuated.
The crawl space had turned into an oven, and we were being baked alive, slowly. The air seemed to have disappeared. The blessings of my ancestors were all that I had. I trusted them and those on board to deliver me to safety, as I drifted off into muddled visions. I saw Mama and my sisters tremble below a concrete stage where I was kneeling next to Baba before the whole town. My friends stared at me blank-faced; their mouths opened but there was no sound. All I could hear was the District Head and his committee members shouting slogans, denouncing Baba and me.
‘No,’ I cried, ‘we’re not counter-revolutionaries!’ But no one seemed to hear. I wanted to cry. But no tears came. The slogans grew louder. A ring of regimental khaki and revolutionary red had seized all of us in an inescapable grip. The might of the people’s justice was descending upon us, the deserters, the nonbelievers, the unwanted.
The grip of a rope tightened around my neck. I shook in great panic as I felt the cold barrel of a gun pressed hard against the back of my skull. I raised my head to take one last look at my family and friends. I choked. The more I struggled, the more the rope tightened, until I didn’t care anymore. Giving up, I found myself floating in a strange but irresistible quiet and peace, drifting towards a distant light.
*
A loud bang brought me crashing down. In front of me, a kaleidoscope of colours exploded. Is this paradise bursting open? Greedily I gulped in the sweet cool air before I could make sense of anything. I could hear people talking, but that meant little to me.
Only later did I find out that someone had pulled me from the crawl space, delirious and limp. The smugglers had dodged the Royal Hong Kong Marine Police by whatever means, and now we had safely reached our destination. Three new incense sticks were burning in jubilation in front of General Guan Gong. Ahead was the amazing glow of a million lights in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour.
At the dark end of a small bay, they lowered the sampan from the junk, the one that had brought us on board in Macau. Three at a time, they ferried us to the sandy beach. By then the night breeze had restored my senses. Each cool breath I took cleared my head more. The sampan’s quiet squeak from its lone oar was the only sound that mattered.
The thought of my new life ahead made me excited. Then an image flashed through my mind of the young woman I’d met. I hadn’t seen her on board, and could only wish her well as I scrambled ashore.
I began to recall the snake head’s instructions, in case I had to prove my authenticity. My few weeks in Macau had converted me into a local Cantonese-speaking boy without any trace of a Shiqi accent. My self-confidence returned before the last passenger got ashore.
The bus terminal was only a short walk away. I was to pretend to be the kid brother of a young woman meeting her boyfriend there – a chaperone. I walked by her side as the couple strolled along hand in hand. We passed many lovers locked in embraces on the dark slope of Lychee Point as we headed towards the bus station. A few police were on patrol but showed no interest in us; they always seemed to look the other way in Macau and Hong Kong.
It became brighter as we reached the end of the rough road cut out by bulldozers in a land reclamation project next to the bus station. Swarms of beetles danced around the streetlights, buzzing and humming as if joining us in our quiet celebration. Nearby, the amusement park was closed for the night. We parted at the bus terminal. A middle-aged woman took my hand, and murmured, ‘It’s time to go home,’ a signal that I was to go with her. I followed like a dutiful son, and we hopped onto a red double-decker bus to town.
My clothes had dried in the warm breeze. I was happy the ordeal was now over.
The bus took off into the wide and almost deserted streets. The woman smiled at me as if saying, Welcome to Hong Kong. She didn’t talk until it was time to get off at the Yuen Chow Street stop, and I led the way from there. I could still remember that my grandmother’s apartment was just around the corner, above a tiny store. Sanitary workers were collecting garbage and cleaning the streets. I ran and skipped over little heaps of rubbish as the woman hurried behind me. The smells of diesel and the nearby bakery hadn’t changed since I’d left seven years earlier, and I breathed them in with a smile.
Grandmother Young was waiting for me to arrive. She still had her hair in a neat bun behind her head. A large smile spread across her face and she looked endearing and sweet. She paid the woman who had accompanied me to her. A large hot cup of Ovaltine and a baguette with gleaming golden butter were on the table for me – she hadn’t forgotten my favourites. She kept smiling as she patted my crew cut.
Ping was still up. She danced around, bubbling with excitement, and couldn’t wait to show me around Hong Kong. But after my hot drink and food, I just wanted to go to bed.
Ping also had news from home. ‘Ying wrote and said Mama was in big trouble with the District Head, who shouted at her for not reporting Baba’s escape. He told her to attend evening self-criticism meetings every night. But Mama doesn’t care; she’s just so relieved that Baba made it to Macau.’ I was troubled by the thought of Mama’s continuing torment, but, exhausted from the trip, I soon fell asleep.
My bed was a foldaway camping cot in the foyer. Mrs Ho, the good landlady, had agreed to let me sleep there as long as the cot was packed away early each morning. Grandmother Young and Ping shared the small room, while Grandmother Lee had moved into a nearby apartment by herself after Ping’s arrival.
It was wonderful to sleep in a bed again. I didn’t wake up until late into the next day.
PART III
Over the Carp Gate
CHAPTER 24
I levered myself up from the camp bed in the foyer of the apartment. I couldn’t believe how long I’d been asleep. Ping was already home from school and had changed into her bright floral skirt with a crisp, light blue blouse. Her well-permed shoulder-length hair shone; so did her smiling face. In fact she looked a lot like Mama in her rare happier times. She had my mother’s gentleness as well as her big eyes and fair complexion. Each time she had brought food to us in Shiqi, she h
ad only stayed overnight and we had hardly had time to get to know each other. The years she had lived with Grandmother Young in Hong Kong had turned her into not just a smart teenager, but also a pretty city girl. In an instant, I felt I finally knew her.
‘Baba rang when I got home. He was relieved that you had made it. He told me to get you into a school and said he would be coming to Hong Kong soon. Are you rested? Grandmother didn’t want to wake you for lunch. You must be hungry now.’ Ping chattered on with excitement as she helped me pack away the camping bed.
‘I want to talk to you about school after dinner,’ Ping continued. ‘The brief English course you did in Macau isn’t going to be good enough for any decent school in Hong Kong. The standard here is a lot higher.’ I was proud that I could read picture books after only a few weeks learning English. But now Ping was stirring a little panic inside me. So I diverted my attention elsewhere by opening the window and looking down at the street.
The sounds and smells of the city had not changed over the years; even the odour of decaying rubbish in the street was the same. It all reassured me that I was now really in Hong Kong. But I still couldn’t suppress my anxiety about school.
‘Where will the money come from to pay for my school fees?’ I asked Ping later.
‘Don’t you worry,’ said Ping. ‘I’ll write to Grandfather Young in Hawaii. We’ll start some lessons tomorrow. I’ll find out from my school when they’re having the entrance examination. Now let’s see what Grandmother has cooked for you.’
I could hear Grandmother Young’s loud voice echoing down the long hallway from the kitchen, where she was talking to another tenant. I still felt ashamed that I had got scared seven years earlier and made her take me home to Shiqi. Oh my poor grandmother, who loved me so much, she must have been most disappointed with me. Had I not been such a brat, I’d now be in Form I, perhaps even Form II at a high school, instead of trying to get into Sixth Class.
As much as Grandmother was always pleasant and kind to me, it was clear as the days went on that she was worried about her finances. Grandfather Young was no longer so healthy and would be under greater pressure to provide for us. And with an extra mouth to feed, Grandmother would have less money to send to Mama and the girls in China and to Aunt Wai-hung and Young-syn in Macau. One day, she muttered to me at dinner, ‘You should get a job like my friends’ grandchildren, pushing trolleys in restaurants as dim-sum boys and girls.’
Ping was upset by the suggestion. She knew well that, in this status-conscious city, people tended to regard dim-sum boys and girls with disdain; indeed they occupied the lowest rung of society, even lower than street-cleaners and prostitutes. And the stigma would stick: once they had done that job they would always be referred to as dim-sum boys or girls, said Ping. Grandmother Young hadn’t had an education, and could be forgiven for not understanding its importance. But Ping was determined her little brother would avoid this fate.
‘I’ll stop going to school so my brother can go to school,’ she said to Grandmother Young the next day.
‘No, no, no, you can’t do that,’ said Grandmother Young. ‘You’ve almost finished high school.’
‘But I want Ah-mun to have an education,’ Ping said without giving it a second thought. ‘He needs to go to school.’
Grandmother Young frowned. ‘But how will we afford it?’
Grandmother Young had come to rely on Ping to help her negotiate the complexities of everyday life in fast-paced British Hong Kong, and needed her support just to venture out of her rented room in Sham-shui-po. Ping was so clever and able, and her impeccable Cantonese was the envy of Grandmother’s many friends from home who were also in Hong Kong to receive foreign living allowances from their sojourner husbands. Resourceful Ping had helped many relatives settle in the colony.
So, after some discussion, Grandmother agreed to let Ping write to Grandfather Young again, as well as our uncles in Hawaii, to ask for more financial assistance.
*
Two weeks after my arrival, early one morning, my father made it to Hong Kong, in the same fishing junk, captained by the same snake head who had brought me.
On hearing his voice in the apartment, I was at once stirred from my slumber and rushed to hug him. I was ecstatic to see him. His arrival boosted my sagging confidence: I always felt secure with Baba around, and now I might have a better chance of going to school.
It was wonderful to be reunited with him, but I immediately felt worried for Mama and my sisters who were still in Shiqi. How were they, I asked.
‘Ying wrote and told me Mama has been sent to a re-education camp just out of town for not reporting me or stopping me from escaping Shiqi,’ Baba said after some food and drink. I could sense his restrained agitation, if not embarrassment, in front of Grandmother, who was silent in her own thoughts. She was so worried about her younger daughter and granddaughters left behind, and she well knew the torments the Party could put you through, having suffered herself after being condemned as a landlord.
‘And Ying now has to attend evening political meetings for families of “black elements”.’ He looked worried. He couldn’t smoke, as Grandmother would not allow it, so he sat sipping tea instead.
‘How cruel and unfair,’ Grandmother said. ‘Why do they hurt us so much? They took our land, our home, every valuable thing we had. And now they’ve put my dear daughter Wai-syn in prison. And Wai-hung’s two boys are still in Shenmingting, starving, with no hope. Oh please, Goddess of Mercy, take pity on us.’
‘I’ll find a job tomorrow,’ Baba said, ‘any job. We’ll be all right. Our new life has begun. It can’t be any worse than Shiqi.’
Judging from the huge number of healthy-looking people in Hong Kong, no one seemed to be starving. So it seemed likely we’d be able to get by now that Baba was with us. But the worry and sadness I felt about Mama and my other sisters weighed heavily on my mind. Fearful of retribution, Ping and Grandmother felt they could no longer make the trip to Shiqi, though Grandmother continued to send as much money as she could. We’d just have to hope Mama and the girls would survive by using it to buy extra food on the burgeoning black market.
*
Baba was up early the next day, ready to go job-seeking.
‘Hong Kong is a very different place from Shiqi,’ he said to me. ‘Everything depends on your credentials or experiences. Good references also help, but I’ve none of those now. So I’ll just have to see how I go.’
‘What’s a credential?’ I asked. It sounded a bit alarming, like the constant noises of the city, buzzing non-stop, droning all day long, and into the night.
‘A certificate from a reputable organisation like a school, university or business, saying that you are a hard worker and qualified to do particular jobs.’ He paused on his way out of the apartment. ‘From today, we’ve got to start all over again to build ourselves a new place to call home. So let’s work hard together. You learn your English well so that you can get into a good school in September. And I’ll go and visit my cousin to see if he can give me a job. I’ll also go to the Education Department to see if they still have my teaching record there. Our education is our best hope for a bright future.’ And with that he opened the door and walked out into the busy city.
Yes, the door is now open to us, I thought for a brief moment. Then I picked up my English reader and began preparing for the entrance examination to the Tsung Tsin Grammar School in Sham-shui-po. It was the obvious choice given its modest fees and a good academic reputation; it was also where Ping went and was only a few blocks away from home.
After six weeks, I sat the entrance examination, which involved questions on Maths, English and Chinese. My schooling in China had consisted mainly of brainwashing political studies, slogan-shouting and propaganda, collecting firewood and waste metal, and killing pests, so it was no surprise when I was told I had been accepted into the school but would have to repeat Sixth Class.
I wrote to Mama, Ying and Weng often to try to br
ighten their days. I imagined Mama’s happy face when she opened my letters and read about the things I was doing at school and at home with Grandmother and Ping. I was careful not to mention anything the District Head might consider inappropriate.
From their replies, we were very glad to learn that food rationing was being eased and that once a month people were permitted to sell their goods in one designated street in Shiqi. All kinds of farm produce was on sale there, as well as clothing, second-hand furniture, antiques, puppies, chickens and ducklings – even single imported cigarettes could be bought! And bartering was allowed. For us, knowing the family was no longer at risk of starving in Shiqi was a great relief.
Baba settled for a job as a bookkeeper at his cousin’s poultry store in Hong Kong’s Central Market. He and a few workers slept in the store, as renting an apartment was beyond their means. Baba didn’t mind. On his day off, once a week, he would come to visit us in Sham-shui-po. He was fairly happy with his progress in re-establishing his life in the capitalist world. He was undertaking a postgraduate course at night school in teaching. In the meantime he was biding his time at the Central Market while patiently waiting for a teaching job to come up.
It was a wonderful feeling to go to school every day. I didn’t have to smash rocks, break up tiles and bricks to make gravel, search for waste metal, stamp out pests, or hunt for food to ease my hunger. There were no political studies to attend, no slogans to shout, no comrades to impress. I wasn’t made to suffer the indignity of being regularly criticised as the son of a counter-revolutionary and grandson of a bankrupted capitalist. And I wasn’t forced to watch public sentencings and horrifying executions. At last, I could leave all my nightmares behind and concentrate on my studies and my future. Now that my dream was coming true, I vowed to work hard. Fortunately, Grandfather Young and my uncles in Hawaii had agreed to pay for my schooling. I was overjoyed. But I still couldn’t forget my desperate family back in Shiqi, and their struggles.