by Andrew Kwong
Manila? The Philippines? Oh yes, we need to refuel. We’ve a long way to go yet. No worries.
I sat up in my seat, and stretched towards the window by the seat in front of me. Outside it was blacker than the predawn darkness with which I’d grown so familiar while sitting on the levee wall. Where are the lights?
Pop, pop, pop. Da-da-da-da-da . . . As the Seven-O-Seven proceeded in the dark, I heard rapid repeating noises like gunshots in movies, interspersed with explosions like thunder. The commotion gradually became louder. It was obvious that something wasn’t right outside.
The plane slowed to make a left-hand turn. But then it moved off faster than when taxiing, as if trying to get away from something dangerous. The glow beyond the window came into view. The main airport building was in ruins, and on fire. Explosions sent fireballs in all directions. A burning smell permeated the cabin. Some passengers screamed, others cried; all were in shock. In the background, the silhouette of the city of Manila was repeatedly lit up by projectiles flying back and forth. The blasts and bangs were getting louder. Inside the plane everyone was petrified.
‘This is the captain speaking.’ The calm voice came at just the right moment. ‘Please leave all hand luggage on board and follow the instructions of the staff. Don’t be afraid: the soldiers are here to protect us and will take us into a hangar ahead. As soon as we have refuelled, we will take off again for Sydney. God bless.’
The pungent smell of smoke and explosives seemed to suck air from our lungs. The deafening blasts and volleys of shots continued to ring out in the pitch-black night, their bright flashes lighting our way towards waiting buses.
Once on board, we were instructed to sit in seats just vacated by soldiers, who now stood with their rifles pointing at the darkness outside. Other soldiers occupied every second window seat. ‘Keep your heads down,’ they said to us.
Our small convoy of buses then set off. I could hear other vehicles around us as we moved forward and away from the sounds of calamity behind us. I raised my head cautiously to peep through the window.
‘Yukon!’ Head down. A rough Filipino hand pressed my head so hard from behind I nearly dislocated my neck. The quick glance I’d stolen revealed that other vehicles were moving alongside us, wrapping around us like the layers of a lotus blossom to protect us. They were lit up only by occasional distant explosions, which were bright enough for me to see trucks and jeeps with big machine guns around us.
I prayed to General Guan Gong, Buddha and my ancestors, as well as my new-found Christian God and all the saints I had learnt about at La Salle College.
At last the bus stopped and we were ushered into not a hangar, as the captain had said, but the foyer of the Miramar Hotel. The staff served us cool drinks and refreshments. Soldiers were everywhere, both inside and out, weapons at the ready. After an hour or so, the soldiers guided us back to the waiting plane. It took off into the darkness without delay, and soon rose to a safe altitude, far away from the guns and explosions in Manila. I sat back, closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep again. I later learnt that we had arrived in the middle of a communist rebellion that had nearly toppled the Marcos government.
I wasn’t sure how long it was before I was woken by the soothing voice of the captain announcing that we had reached our destination.
My heart leapt with a peculiar joy. When I leant forward to peep through the window, the expansive grounds of the airport came into view. Beyond lay a large, tranquil bay, glinting in the early morning sun.
Relief spread across the faces around me. We even smiled at each other.
*
Stopping at the open rear door, I took in a greedy gulp of sweet, cool morning air. Fresh and relaxing, it instantly relieved my exhausted mind.
‘So, are you going to Holy Cross College?’
I turned to the person behind me: the young man who had been sitting in front of me next to the little window.
‘Yes,’ I said, half-curious. ‘How do you know?’
‘Your navy blue suit and light blue shirt,’ he replied, laughing. ‘I was there for a few years, but now I’m going to Waverley College for Form VI. You’ll be fine at Holy Cross. There are quite a number of Hong Kong boys there.’ As we headed towards Immigration and Customs, he turned to me again and said, ‘I’m Richard. Were you scared last night?’
‘A bit, but I was too tired to worry much about it,’ I said, trying to downplay my fears. ‘My name is Andrew.’ I’d found out that my new name meant ‘strong and fearless’, which seemed appropriate for a new beginning in a new country.
I was glad to make a friend on arrival. With the Pan Am bag on my shoulder and my Olympia typewriter in one hand, I followed Richard to the baggage claim area and we chatted while waiting to be picked up.
He told me a lot about Holy Cross College, the Patrician Brothers who ran it, and some of the students from Hong Kong and Asia. It was all reassuring.
As we chatted and the sun got hotter, we kept retreating into the receding shade on the footpath outside the Kingsford Smith International Airport terminal. Richard was tall, handsome and solidly built, partly, he told me, the result of playing Rugby League football at school. ‘Holy Cross has won the New South Wales Schoolboys Rugby League several times,’ he proudly informed me, ‘but Waverley offered me a part scholarship, which is why I’m moving there now.’
It was almost midday by then and there were only a few people about at the airport. A big car pulled up. Out jumped a thin young man in white riding gear like the clothes worn by Hong Kong jockeys. He greeted Richard like a brother and apologised for being late. He then turned to me. ‘I’m Victor. Welcome to Sydney.’ He was friendly and cheerful.
‘Nice to meet you,’ I said as I shook his sweaty hand.
‘Are you being picked up?’ Victor looked at me, then his watch. ‘It’s well past noon. Oh no, it’s more than four hours since you guys arrived!’
‘My friends Mr and Mrs Lee will be picking me up,’ I said to him. ‘I sent them a telegram a few days ago.’
‘They may not have received it. Telegrams are often late here,’ Victor said as he turned to Richard, who nodded.
‘Come to my place and take a rest before ringing them. Have you got their phone number?’
‘Yes,’ I said without a second thought. These young men seemed genuine and friendly enough. Besides, my stomach had begun to ache with a hunger I hadn’t felt for several years – not since I was in Shiqi.
Richard had already thrown my bag into the boot of the car, which was as roomy as the back seat I hopped into. My head was still spinning and my eyes were heavy. I couldn’t keep up with the conversation, but I remember there was a discussion about how, if you couldn’t make it academically, you had to become an Australian-trained jockey and go back to Hong Kong, where fortunes awaited at the weekly horse races.
Before long we arrived in a place they said was called Edgecliff. Victor got out and I watched him as he held a lit cigarette between his fingers. He looked about nineteen or twenty, and wore John Lennon–style glasses, and his body seemed to be constantly jerking to inaudible music, perhaps Beatles beats, or maybe the songs of Elvis Presley.
‘Come up and ring your friend,’ he said to me, pointing to a three-storey terrace house towards which Richard was already heading with his luggage. The coin-operated phone at the boarding house worked beautifully. I called Mabel Lee and she told me her husband, Howard, and her father, Mr Hunt (originally Chan Hun), would come and get me in the evening. Fortunately, Victor and Richard didn’t have much planned for the day other than relaxing and chatting, and they were happy for me to stay with them as long as I needed to. It was just as well, as it was nearly midnight when Howard and Mr Hunt picked me up and took me to Hunts’ Motel in Liverpool.
Mabel Lee was a softly spoken, petite woman of around thirty years of age. (I later found out that she was a lecturer at Sydney University and that she was on summer vacation at the time and helping her brother run the family-
owned motel.) On our arrival, she cooked me a big T-bone steak that hung over the edge of the plate, glistening under hot potato chips. By then it was well past two in the morning, and I devoured the first proper meal I’d had in more than twenty-four hours.
The following day Mabel drove me to Holy Cross College in her small red Fiat. We spoke in the same dialect of Zhongshan, where her mother came from.
The car stopped outside a graceful three-storey sandstone building with a bell tower. A flight of steps led up to a double front door. There was no one in sight. I got out of the car with my Pan Am bag over my shoulder, my suitcase in one hand and the typewriter in the other, thanked Mabel and waved goodbye. I watched her car re-join the traffic and then promptly vanish down the gentle hill.
Suddenly I felt all alone for the first time since leaving Shiqi. Half-panicking, and not knowing what to expect, I began to mount the steps. In my fragile state, I started to wonder why I was there at all. There was no going back.
At the top of the steps, I opened the door and stepped into my future.
The foyer was large with high ceilings and offices on either side behind closed doors. At the end of the hall was a large stairway with a carved wooden balustrade, similar to the staircase at La Salle. This helped me relax a little.
I knocked on an office door and waited.
The door clicked open and a portly woman appeared.
‘My name is Andrew Kwong,’ I said. ‘I am a boarder here.’
‘Welcome, Andrew, we’ve been expecting you,’ the lady said with a smile. ‘I’m Mrs Pinch, school secretary. Welcome to Holy Cross.’
Mrs Pinch had short auburn hair and a kind face. I felt comfortable around her. She gave me an introduction to the college and very soon I began to feel at home. She showed me to my place in a dormitory. There were four rows of single beds, with five beds in each row, and all were neatly covered with gold bedspreads. A small table stood next to each bed. There were no screens or partitions; everything was open, even the four large windows. My bed was in a corner.
‘You’ll love it here, Andrew,’ Mrs Pinch reassured me before disappearing downstairs.
She was right. Before the light went out that night in the large airy room, I had already made several friends. It was easy to feel at home, it seemed, in Australia.
CHAPTER 32
David Crowley was a tall and gentle boy with thick fair hair that made him look angelic when he sang as an altar boy at mass. We were in the same class and soon became good friends. When he realised I had nowhere to go at the end of my first term, he invited me to spend my holiday at his home in Coonabarabran in central western New South Wales.
The overnight journey was the first train trip of my life. Seeing those amazing long trains at Sydney’s Central Station made me think of growing eucalyptus trees back in Shiqi, and hoping and dreaming that trains would come to our town.
We shared an eight-person cabin with several other passengers. It had two long benches facing each other, which seemed to be heated. Each time the train stopped at a station, the staff would open a trapdoor outside the window, pull out a large metal container from under the bench and exchange it for another much hotter one. I certainly welcomed the warmth that radiated from under my seat, as day turned to night and it got steadily colder. Even inside the cabin, the chilly autumn air bit at my face, hands and feet.
Some passengers snored on into the early morning, but I was already awake before the dawn glow seeped in through the rattling windows. Despite the occasional smell of burnt diesel, the air was cold yet fresh, pure as crystal, invigorating and sweet, and I breathed it in with great pleasure. Outside, a clear sky ushered in a beautiful day. There wasn’t a cloud in sight and the moon hung high, perfectly round and glowing with gentle warmth. I thought about what Mama had always told us: how we had to wait patiently through hard times till the clouds dispersed and a bright new moon appeared.
Gradually the shadows of mountains gave way to true Australian outback: open plains and red earth aplenty, kangaroos and rabbits grazing on grasses. It was exactly as I had imagined it, and the vista uplifted me and a rhapsody of music rang in my ears. It was unforgettable. What more do I want? How fortunate I am! Now my heart was singing loudly and my mind was dancing to every unfolding scene as the train crawled across the landscape like a giant dragon making its own unhurried way.
The Crowleys lived in a modest home on the outskirts of Coonabarabran and had been there for a long time. In the small front foyer of their home a huge, ancient Bible sat on a tall rosewood stand, its yellow and worn but dignified pages open at the Gospel According to Matthew.
As well as his mum and dad, David had two brothers, Paul and Timothy, and a sister, Margaret. I can’t remember what David’s father did for a living, but he had an old utility truck. The first thing we did was pile into this truck and drive down the road to his friend’s farm, where he bought a lamb. On our return, he slaughtered and dressed it, before hanging it. ‘It’ll be our dinner for the week,’ he said.
At dinner Mr Crowley read, ‘“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline.” II Timothy 1:7.’ He then gave thanks to God for our safe journey and welcomed me to his home and country.
‘The eternal problem confronting us here is drought,’ he said to me. ‘So we have to be careful with our water. We don’t take showers but share the bath, so please do not pull the plug after your bath tonight. Andrew, as our guest, you can take the first bath; then it’ll be David’s turn for the first bath tomorrow night, and so on.’
I’d been hoping for more than the three-minute showers we were allowed to have at Holy Cross College every day. But at least the weather was cooler and I didn’t need to bathe daily. I imagined the colour of the bath water by the end of each day – it would be murky brown like the Wonder River in low tide.
Early the next morning after a simple breakfast, we all went out to help Mr Crowley with one of his jobs, delivering the local newspaper. Dust flew in every direction as cars went by. It was a brown town with brown vegetation all around, from cracked lawns to exhausted gum trees. People looked to the sky, searching for clouds that might bring them rain, their eyes showing hope, but were usually disappointed at the end of the day. Ever since my Coonabarabran holiday, I have always felt for and admired such brave and resilient country folks.
At the Friday night youth dance, I had my first lesson in barn dancing and loved it. Two girls, twins aged thirteen or maybe fourteen, were particularly interested in where I came from; they knew little about China, let alone colonies like Hong Kong and Macau. The night was too short and by nine o’clock the dance was over. The next morning an envelope addressed to me arrived. Inside was a photograph of one of the twins, Cheryl.
By the end of my Coonabarabran vacation, I felt I’d learnt a lot about Australia and about Australians, and I tried to emulate their pioneering spirit.
Before I left the Crowleys’ house, I copied a verse from their Bible to take with me: ‘“For I know the plans for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”’ A future and a hope, what more did I want?
CHAPTER 33
Every Friday at tea – which I now understood meant dinner – when Brother Benedict was in charge, he would walk around the dining hall with his long pointer, checking the boys’ hair. A double tap on your shoulder meant it was time to visit the barber who dutifully came to the college every Friday afternoon. While we boys were at sport or mass, he would cut the brothers’ hair, and then after school it was the boys’ turn. Each haircut cost fifty cents – the cost of ten Wagon Wheel chocolate biscuits. Boys grumbled about losing their snack money for ten days, but we had to comply with the order or Brother Benedict would send us to the cowshed to take care of the cows. I’d already spent more time than I wanted to talking to the cows.
After paying my second-term tuition and boarding fees, I had only ten dollars, or twenty h
aircuts’ worth, left in my Commonwealth Bank student account until Baba sent money for the third term. Even if I avoided going into town in order to save paying the five-cent bus fare, or managed to dodge double taps on my shoulder, the money was not going to go far. I knew how hard Baba and Ping were working to pay my school fees, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask for pocket money.
By chance one afternoon I was in town with one of the boys who had offered to pay for my bus fare to accompany him to shop at David Jones, the department store. I borrowed seven dollars from him and bought a haircutting kit consisting of cutting and thinning scissors, a comb and a manual barber’s hair trimmer. Then I offered to cut primary school boarders’ hair for five cents and high school boys’ hair for ten cents. Boys put up with the ugliest haircuts on earth to save their money for Wagon Wheels. As my skills increased, so did my fees. By the end of my schooling, I would be charging ten and twenty cents, respectively. Sometimes the day boys lined up for my haircuts. Eventually, the barber came only once a month. I decided not to offer my service to the brothers.
Although my side business at boarding school flourished, I never forgot what I really wanted in life: to be a doctor. The one thing I had carried with me from China was the idea that I should try to reduce the suffering of others. I wanted to see all people happy, and free of pain and misery, just as I wanted that deeply for Mama, Baba and the rest of my family. I couldn’t stand watching people endure hunger, being ostracised or shamed in public, especially when it was at the hands of their own family, neighbours, friends, workmates or fellow students. Ever since I’d got into school in Hong Kong, I knew I had a chance of achieving my goal, but I also knew I would have to work extremely hard.
By the time I finished the Higher School Certificate, I’d decided I wanted to call Australia home one day. Even though the White Australia policy was still in place, it had been significantly modified by the Harold Holt government: now non-European visitors were allowed to apply for residency if they possessed qualifications that were in demand in Australia. Furthermore, I had witnessed firsthand in Coonabarabran and at Holy Cross how friendly and welcoming Australians could be. Plus people like Victor, Richard, Howard the sojourner and his Australian-born Chinese wife, Mabel Lee, had all shown me that it was possible for a foreigner to be successful in Australia. But first I had to become a person worthy of that privilege, and in my mind qualifying as a doctor seemed the best way to achieve that.