by Andrew Kwong
The Wonder River nearby winked in the winter sun as we walked back to Kwong Street, retracing the path I had taken through the narrow streets and alleyways when I’d left. We formed a large, loud party, now all wearing big glowing smiles and greeting friends and neighbours along the way, but at the same time eager to get to our destination and catch up with each other. The fifteen-minute journey was one of the most joyous walks of my life. Many a time I had to wipe my eyes.
A crowd of neighbours blocked the entrance to Kwong Street. Many children were there trying to get a glimpse of the modern sojourner – a young one, and now a doctor, from their very own street!
I saw the proud tears in Mama’s eyes, and Ying and Weng cried too. They couldn’t take their eyes off me.
‘Welcome home, Big Brother,’ Yiu-hoi finally managed to say. We embraced each other once more inside 1 Kwong Street and the warm lump in my throat broke, releasing years of choked-up tension.
His eyes still red, Yiu-hoi then sprang to his feet and grabbed his violin. Johann Strauss II’s sweet ‘Tales from the Vienna Woods’ rang out, so comforting and so cheering, filling our ageing ancestral house with melody and warmth to welcome me back.
I’m home.
Mama, now wearing the biggest smile I had ever seen on her face, rushed around pouring lychee tea for all of us. My little sister, Weng, had grown up, and how her dimples flashed that day. I held her coarse but strong hands and sobbed.
Then we all burst out laughing as I dug in my bag, pulled out the tin of arrowroot biscuits and began to distribute them to the children crowding the entrance to our home – kids of all ages whom I’d never met before. They clapped, and some even showed off their Red Scarves to me.
‘Oh Ah-mun, you’ve grown into a fine, handsome young man. You look so much like your father,’ said Sixth Aunt, wearing her faded worker’s tunic. ‘I knew you’d do good one day . . .’ She too burst into tears, and laughter, as she thanked the gods and our ancestors. Her daughter Yiu-wei was also wiping her eyes.
‘I totally agree. Hard work has paid off,’ said Eighth Uncle, patting me on my shoulder. ‘To be a good doctor is as important as being a good leader, and I’m sure our ancestors are proud of you.’ He no longer seemed so tall, and was now a rather thin man with a permanent bend in his lower back. He had been beaten down by the tough times, and only his strong voice struck a note of defiance.
‘Come, Ah-mun,’ said Mama, ‘let’s give thanks to our forebears and the gods and angels that have guided you and protected you.’ She led me and the family into the third lounge room where the large rosewood table was adorned with three bowls of rice with chopsticks, and three small cups of tea. Being the most senior male in the house, Eighth Uncle took the lead and we showed our gratitude to our ancestors, gods and other deities. Mama had become old, but the joy that day rejuvenated her.
The old houses in our street hadn’t changed much, but the former algae ponds were in ruins. Now that I was older, the levee wall looked much lower and I didn’t need to climb onto it to see into the paddies and the lotus pond and fishponds.
‘Look how those trees have grown,’ Yiu-hoi said, pointing to the line of gums we had planted. ‘Nearly twenty years old now, but there are still no trains here. And our kites get caught up in their branches.’ Pondering this, he looked tired and older than his years. ‘I’d like to go overseas one day like you, Big Brother,’ he said. ‘Things are improving here, but not fast enough. I’ve heard the authorities have allowed more people to leave town, but I’ll be too old soon. You must help me, Big Brother.’
I put my arm around his shoulder and nodded. ‘I’ll try my best, Yiu-hoi. Learn English; it’s your ticket to the world.’
He then told me that Earring had joined the PLA, and Ah-dong had gone to live in Macau around the time I’d left home.
‘How’s your baba?’ Mama asked softly. ‘I worry about him, and you and Ping too, every minute of the day.’ She released a deep sigh, a familiar sound. I nudged close to her and put my arm around her shoulders. Her tiny frame trembled.
‘Mama, I want you to come and live with me in Australia one day,’ I said, hugging her firmly to calm her rush of emotions. ‘We have a decent chance of success now that I’m a doctor, even though there’s still a lot of training ahead of me. And with me earning a good salary, I’ll be able to support you, Mama.’
She nodded and smiled.
‘We’ll live in Sydney,’ I went on, getting excited. ‘I’ll take you to Centennial Park, and you’ll love it, with its open spaces, ancient tall trees and amazing gardens. Oh, and there are beautiful beaches not far from there. And you know what? There’s a Chinatown right in Sydney!’
‘And we’ll be the most blessed family in the whole of Shiqi,’ Mama said, fixing her gaze on me, her eyes shining with life and excitement.
The two days went too fast for all of us. When I came to leave, I hugged my family goodbye one by one and promised to return one day, soon. Mama gave me a long embrace and reminded me once more to study and work hard to be a good doctor. The warm sun glowed in our hearts, kindled by a sense of new possibilities.
Baba was much relieved when I met him on the Macau side of the border. ‘I’m so pleased you are happy now that you’ve seen Mama and the family. How’s she coping? Poor dear.’
‘Mama desperately wants to be with us one day,’ I said. ‘And I shall try applying for her to come to Australia when I go back.’
‘Yes,’ Baba nodded, then looked me in the eye and said, ‘With hard work and perseverance my son, you’ll get where you want to, one day.’
*
In mid-January 1977, soon after returning from Hong Kong, I began my internship at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. I worked the so-called one in three: a thirty-six-hour shift every three days. That meant you started work at seven in the morning and stayed on to cover wards and Casualty at night, and didn’t go home until whatever time you finished the following evening. It was challenging. ‘But that’s how you learn fast,’ the seniors said to us. So we soldiered on. I felt quite a sense of responsibility with my photo ID over my white coat, my stethoscope around my neck, pens in one chest pocket and a small therapy guide in another.
I wrote to Mama as often as I could, keeping her hopes high, while I made inquiries with the immigration authorities as to how and when I could apply for her to come to Australia. Now that I was employed at one of Sydney’s most prestigious hospitals, I had been approved for permanent residency.
‘My dearest son,’ Mama wrote on hearing about my new status. ‘You can’t imagine how relieved I am, even though it’s taken fifteen years to get to where you are today from the time you left Shiqi. The thought of being with you soon keeps my spirit up. I can see things clearer now . . . Take good care and don’t forget to take adequate rest. An intern’s job is a demanding one and I’ll pray to the gods and our ancestors for you every day. How I wish I could be with you so that I could make sure you are well fed and resting properly.’
In another aerogramme Mama expressed the hope that the District Head might be merciful enough to let her come to my graduation ceremony. She was so hopeful, but it was not to be. The world was not changing as fast as I wished, much as Great-Grandfather Fu-chiu had found on his wedding day.
Baba decided not to come either, out of respect for Mama, he said. I couldn’t help feeling somewhat deflated. But then, looking down from the podium on 8 February 1977, wearing my best suit and tie to receive my degrees in medicine and surgery, I was thrilled to see the happy faces of Ping and Grandmother Young; Uncle Chong Young, my mother’s brother, and Aunt Bertha, who had come all the way from Hawaii for the ceremony; and Howard and Mabel Lee.
My joy would have been more complete if Mama, Baba, Ying and Weng had been there, but it was still one of the proudest days of my life.
*
Sheree often brought me dinner when I was working those unsociable night shifts; sometimes it was a yummy hot meat-and-three-veg dish coo
ked by Trich, her mother, covered with tinfoil, plus a sweet! This way we continued to see each other even when I was on prolonged weekend duties.
One evening I was so moved by Sheree’s presence that I decided to test the depth of our love. ‘Sheree, what would your parents say if we were to get married?’
‘They’d be delighted. What would your parents say?’ Sheree could hardly contain her excitement and she looked at me with those irresistible blue eyes, her face beaming.
I took her into my arms and said, ‘They’d be thrilled too and so happy for us.’
This was soon confirmed when letters from both Mama and Baba arrived, conveying their best wishes. But others were not so sure our match would be a success.
‘Andrew,’ advised one of my Chinese friends on the eve of the wedding, ‘you know that gweilo marriages don’t last. I give you five years. It won’t be like the marriages in our culture, which endure forever.’
I was shocked and found it hard to believe what he had said, so I dismissed it as a joke. Yet I knew that many of my fellow Asian students had been warned by their parents not to get involved with gweilos, and some were even told it was a condition of their ongoing financial support.
But Sheree and I were confident about our future, and determined to share a loving life, and a family, in Australia.
Much to my delight, Baba came to our wedding, and so did Ping, who had recently married Randall Kawamura, a specialist dentist, and moved to Washington DC. But once again, Mama was disappointed: the District Head wouldn’t allow her to leave to attend our happy occasion. Ying suspected he did it to get back at Baba; the thorn still hurt in his side. The Camel cigarettes hadn’t worked, nor had the many other presents. All we could do was write to Mama to console her, and send her photos of the wedding, as well as a big wedge of the wedding cake, smuggled to her by a friend of Baba’s who was visiting Shiqi. Ying wrote to tell me that Mama had shed copious tears, but was also happy for us and held a dinner party at her home in Shiqi to bless our union.
PART IV
Moonrise
CHAPTER 36
It was three o’clock in the morning, New Year’s Day 1978. I’d been called to the phone at the then Rachel Forster Hospital in Redfern, where I had been on duty since the day before. Oh, not another drunkard, I thought, in my drowsy state.
‘Sheree’s having contractions. I think she’s in labour,’ shouted her mother on the other end of the line. I woke up in an instant.
‘I can’t leave until seven. Call for an ambulance,’ I said. My heart was racing and tears began to stream down my face as I experienced a huge range of emotions.
I rushed around the wards to announce my wonderful New Year’s news. Patients cheered and handed me flowers from their vases. ‘No florists are open now, so make sure you take these to your dear wife and baby,’ they said.
At the Waverley Maternity Hospital I ran past the ward where Sheree was, and went straight to the nursery to see my baby, a little girl. I held the small bundle close then took her to the ward and placed her gently in Sheree’s arms. Before long she took to the breast and suckled away. What a perfect picture of mother and child: so peaceful, so poignant. That’s what the world should be, I thought: peace, love and compassion. It had made all the hard work worth it now that my own world had begun to change, to bear fruit. Through my misty eyes, I saw Sheree’s tears of joy.
We named our daughter Serena Patricia. I could hardly wait to tell my family back home, so I went to Sheree’s family home in Kensington, where they now had an international line, and called Baba. He was thrilled. The news soon travelled to Shiqi and within a week or so I received an aerogramme from Mama with her best wishes for the next generation of the family. Her disappointment and the torment caused by being separated from her family were obvious.
It was now several months since I had submitted an application for a visa for Mama to come to Australia. Aside from a short letter of acknowledgement, the information from the Immigration Department in Sydney was scanty. Nearly eighteen months went by, and we heard nothing from the department. When I inquired about the processing of Mama’s application, the officer simply advised patience. To keep her spirits up, I wrote to Mama about all the little things Serena was doing.
Mama told us that the District Head had said on many occasions that she would never be allowed to go to Hong Kong to be with Baba – ‘Over my dead body. Maybe when the sun rises from the west,’ he often said – but apparently he had a more positive attitude towards Australia. ‘Going to the New Gold Mountain is all right. Australia is now our friend.’ Baba said it was because Australia could supply the minerals that China so desperately needed.
I arrived home one evening and stood there at the door, tired after prolonged weekend duties.
There was a subdued expression on Sheree’s face.
‘What’s wrong? Is Serena all right?’ I shook off my sleepiness and charged past her, heading to the baby’s room. How relieved I was to find her sleeping peacefully in her cot, so tender, so sweet.
I returned to the kitchen, poured a glass of water and slumped into a chair. Sheree definitely wasn’t her usual bright self.
She regarded me with sympathy. ‘You look so tired,’ she managed to say. ‘And you have smears of blood on your glasses and shirt sleeves. It must have been a very busy weekend.’
Then she handed me a letter. ‘It’s from the Immigration Department.’
‘Dear Mr Kwong,’ I read,
We regret to inform you that your application for your mother Wai-syn Kwong has not fulfilled the Australian Immigration Rules on two counts:
She has failed to pass the mandatory English test.
You are the only one of her four children presently residing in Australia, hence she does not meet the requirement of having the majority of her children living in Australia . . .
I couldn’t carry on.
‘What an insult,’ Sheree said. ‘After nearly two years of waiting for the government’s decision, that’s all we get. At the interview we told them your sisters weren’t living in Australia and they said that was okay as long as we could support your mother financially. They didn’t tell us about those rules, or that she’d have to do an English test. Poor Mama: they gave her only five per cent in the test – for attending. It’s all so unfair.’
I was too upset to work out what our next step should be. I felt sick thinking about how Mama would take the bad news.
‘There must be a way,’ Sheree said. ‘Let’s go and see our local member of parliament.’
Our member of parliament was well known for his approachability and was highly regarded in the Opposition party at the time. After hearing our story, he said he was happy to assist by appealing to the minister for immigration. So we decided to wait and not give Mama the disappointing news yet.
‘I pray it’ll work,’ Sheree said, trying to reassure me. ‘Now that I’m a mother I understand exactly how Mama would feel, and how she’d love to be with us. Let’s not give up. Not ever.’
*
Several more months passed. During that time we moved to the Central Coast and in 1979 I set up as a general practitioner while studying for a fellowship in the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. We converted a run-down, flea-infested little cottage into a small medical practice, and I operated it seven days a week with Sheree’s assistance, looking after a growing number of young families, many of whom had been drawn to the area by its cheap land and open spaces, not to mention its many glorious beaches.
Then one day a letter from our former local MP finally arrived, expressing his regret for not being able to secure a positive outcome for Mama’s application.
‘I thought the White Australia Policy had died years ago,’ I grumbled to Sheree. The next day, I presented myself at the MP’s office to seek further advice, and to explain to him the persecution and torment Mama was enduring.
After listening to my appeal for help, he looked up at me and said, ‘Andre
w, it’s not going to be easy. We’ve accepted more refugees this year, and the family reunion quota has had to be cut. But how about this,’ he said, nodding his head and tapping his fingers as he deliberated further. ‘You leave it with me and I’ll see what more I can do.’
I walked out of his office with a spring in my step. No wonder he was so popular with his constituents. It seemed there was still hope, and Sheree had been right not to trouble Mama with the bad news so soon.
Sheree listened patiently to my plan as she fed Serena, stroking the baby’s chubby cheeks to encourage her to suckle. Then after tucking Serena into her cot, she said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. Imagine how awful it would be for Mama if she had to return to China after her visit. And if we try to keep her here illegally, it could be even worse if we’re found out. We’d have a black mark on our records forever.’
I admired Sheree’s clear thinking, but it didn’t relieve the dread rising inside me. How was I going to tell Mama? How would she take it?
I eventually wrote to her, trying hard to explain all the options while keeping her hopes up. In reality, some of the alternatives had little chance of success: for example, the Hong Kong government had tightened up its border security and cracked down on people smugglers, and had adopted a policy of immediately repatriating all captured illegal immigrants.
After what seemed like a long time, an aerogramme arrived from Ying. ‘Your news has devastated Mama,’ she wrote. ‘Poor Mama, after all these years of suffering persecution, enduring hardship, longing for the family to be reunited, and praying to the gods . . .’ Ying described the appalling situation Mama had fallen into: not eating, not sleeping, sighing all day and rocking herself back and forth as if in a spell. ‘She cries a lot and won’t talk to or see anyone, not even my young son or Aunt Wai-hung. She has become so thin that a breeze can blow her over. Please, Ah-mun, what can I do? Can you do anything to help? All these years Mama has been longing to leave Shiqi and Australia seemed like her only hope before now. I fear this is the last straw and it will break her. I don’t like the blank look on her face, and the way she keeps looking at the old lychee tree.’