by Jason Y. Ng
“You’re worried that the same thing might happen here?”
“Wouldn’t you be? Who is to say they won’t sell the land underneath the temple to the highest bidder and relocate us to the boondocks, just like . . .”
“Just like what they did to the Star Ferry Pier!” Choi finishes her sentence. He likes a girl who has strong opinions and is a little feisty. He knows exactly what Suze is chafing against. Since the handover twenty years ago, landmark structures in Hong Kong have been dropping like flies to make way for new development. Heritage conservation is a joke.
“This neighborhood, this street, and even the subway station are all named after this place. Tin Hau wouldn’t be Tin Hau without the temple. But what can we do? We’re just taking it one day at a time.”
“How’s the temple doing these days? You said you got lots of visitors today, so you must be doing all right.”
“Most months we’re lucky to break even. The temple is busy only a few times a year—on Tin Hau’s birthday, Chinese New Year, and Yulan. Donations are way down. Ask yourself: when was the last time you visited a Taoist temple?”
“Let’s see . . . Not counting tonight, the last time was probably when my mom took me to Wong Tai Sin Temple when I was seven. Wow, that was twelve years ago!”
“You see my point? And when people do come, they donate a pittance and ask for the world: men pray for pretty wives and women pray for rich husbands. Just about everyone wants to win the lottery.”
“I guess when the government doesn’t look after its people, they have to look to something else.”
“Nowadays most of our visitors are tourists who read about us in their guidebooks. Lots of mainland Chinese and Koreans. The only regulars are old folks from the neighborhood. Some even pay for our upkeep and bring me food. They know my favorites—fuzzy peaches and steamed buns.” She flashes a smile and looks up at the soaring ceiling.
Choi looks up too. He is struck by how tall and cavernous the temple is. He glances around at his surroundings, at the dozens of lifelike sculptures and busts in every corner and recess. Many of them are glaring straight back at him, the weight of a hundred eyes producing an uneasy feeling of both protection and consternation.
“Doesn’t it creep you out being here all by yourself?”
“I thought that’s what you like—creepy places.” She winks. “I grew up here. I guess I’ve gotten used to it.”
“Speaking of creepy, have you ever seen anything unusual around here?” Choi’s eyes light up, waiting for his new friend to regale him with a ghost story or two.
There is no reply. She shifts her weight on the floor and looks straight at the Tin Hau statue as if to seek her advice.
“Come on, Suze, throw me a bone here!” He nudges her shoulder with one knee.
“I . . .” Suze bites her lip for a good five seconds before she finally says, “Let’s just say I have a talent. I see what most people don’t.”
“Wah, are you serious? You mean you have yin yang eyes?”
She nods reluctantly, already regretting saying too much.
“That’s crazy! I don’t know anybody like you. Do you see them all the time?”
“It’s not what you think. I don’t see them as much as I sense them.”
“Sense them how?”
“There are always signs: things get knocked over when nobody’s around. Dogs bark for no reason and cats hiss out of the blue, those sorts of things. Animals have good instincts—the same way rats and snakes head to high ground before a tsunami hits.”
“Do you see them right now?”
“Not right now, but who knows?” She teases him with another wink. “I’ll be sure to let you know if one shows up.”
“Hmm, how do you know I’m not one of them?” Choi winks back. He is tempted to spook her by putting on a raspy voice and making a scary face but decides against it. That’s no way to impress a girl he has just met. Instead, he asks, “More importantly, how do I know you aren’t one of them?”
“You’ll just have to take your chances, won’t you? Look over there,” she says, pointing at the wall. “Those are our shadows. Ghosts don’t have shadows. Besides, they can’t enter most homes because of Tudigong, let alone a temple with so many deities around.”
“So that thing really works, huh?” Choi’s parents have a small Tudigong shrine outside their front door, as do most traditional households in Hong Kong. The Taoist God of the Ground is supposed to protect the home and keep evil spirits away. Choi promises himself that from now on he will stop practicing soccer with the shrine and kicking garbage into it.
“It works except for today,” Suze says. “On Yulan, the gates of the underworld are flung open and even Tudigong will look the other way.”
“I wish I had yin yang eyes too. It’s like having a superpower!”
“Be careful what you wish for, Choi. Occasionally, even people without my sight can see things they don’t normally see—if they are mentally vulnerable, like after a traumatic experience or when they hit a low point in life. If you actively seek them out, you make yourself vulnerable too.”
“Really?” The adrenaline junkie is excited again. “When they show up, do they try to talk to you? And do you talk back?”
“That depends on them. But sure, we have conversations just like what you and I are doing now. People think I’m crazy when they see me talking to myself. My family knows about my abilities and they’re used to it.”
“What do they want from you?” Choi is completely intrigued. This Yulan is shaping up to be one hell of a night.
“Frankly, they’re a lot like people: they just want to be heard. Some of them have been wronged or betrayed by a friend, a spouse, or a family member. But most of them linger around because they have unfinished business to take care of. I listen to their stories and tell them what I think.”
“But aren’t you afraid? Don’t they scare you?”
“What about you? You seek out haunted places. Aren’t you afraid?”
“I dig the rush. It makes me feel alive. I guess it’s the same reason people go on a roller coaster or bungee jump. Besides, it takes my mind off all the depressing stuff happening in Hong Kong. But I don’t want to bore you with that; most people get bored when I talk about politics.” He heaves a sigh. “You still haven’t answered my question. Aren’t you—”
“Hush!” Suze’s face stiffens, suddenly on guard.
“What? What’s going—”
“Sssh!” Suze turns her head to the arched doorway that opens to a dark den. “You’re back, Mrs. Ling.”
Every muscle in Choi’s body tenses up. He is in shock and can’t even turn his head to see whom Suze is conversing with.
“Yes, Mrs. Ling,” Suze speaks, her voice much deeper than before. “I’ll tell your husband to bring extra white lilies to your grave on Valentine’s Day. I promise.”
A stream of cold sweat runs down Choi’s back. His face is as white as a sheet of joss paper.
Just then, a loud bang pierces the silence and sends Choi jumping from his chair and screeching three octaves higher than his talking voice. It was his flashlight—it had slipped from his hands and hit the ground.
Suze picks it up and hands it back to its owner, before bursting into a thunderous laugh.
Choi is confused. “Is she . . . is she still there?”
“Aiya, I was just messing with you. You’re too easy!” She is now rolling on the floor, laughing herself to tears. “So much for digging the rush!”
“Oh, that was very mature . . .” Choi is more embarrassed than angry, his face turning from paper white to a bright lobster red. But he has to hand it to Suze—she got him good and it was pretty funny. He starts to laugh with her, at the same time regretting not spooking her a few minutes ago when he had the chance.
“Awww, you’re a good sport.” Suze slaps his leg playfully while wiping tears from her eyes. “Consider that a test, my friend. How else would I know if you could handle the r
eal deal? But seriously, you should’ve seen the look on your face!”
“I’m glad one of us is amused,” Choi pouts, certain that any girl would find his mock anger endearing. He absently straightens his T-shirt, which now has wet patches around the underarms, and gingerly checks the doorway to make sure nothing is lurking there. “What were we even talking about before your third grade prank?”
“All right, I’m sorry. Before I nearly scared you to death, you were asking me if I was afraid of them. Believe me, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” She looks Choi in the eye and says, “Sometimes I find people much more frightening.”
He stares back at her, bewildered and wanting to understand more. His embarrassment has melted away, forgotten and forgiven.
“You don’t know the half of it. As soon as people find out about my abilities, they flock to me asking for help. Sometimes the line stretches outside the temple.”
“They want you to help them communicate with loved ones who have passed away?”
“Some do, like parents who have lost their young children and can’t let go. It’s tragic and I do what I can to help them. But those cases are few and far between. Oftentimes, family members are quite happy to see their aging parents and grandparents go, to be finally rid of the financial burden. This is Hong Kong, after all—people are too busy to be sentimental.” She shakes her head. “But still they come to me, not to talk to the departed but to look for things.”
“What things?”
“Money, of course. They want to know where the dead husband has stashed his secret wealth, or why the rich grandmother has written them out of her will. The worst are people who treat dead relatives like fortune-tellers and ask them for lottery numbers. I don’t understand what’s with Hong Kong people and their obsession with the lottery! It’s ridiculous.”
“And incredibly sad.”
“People fear ghosts because they’re afraid of what they can’t see and don’t understand. But if you want to know what I really think? I think they’re afraid of seeing their own ugly selves. The dead merely hold up a mirror on the living and reveal their greed and bad hearts. On the other hand,” she continues, “most of them are harmless and good-natured. I see sadness on their faces, especially the ones who died young. There’s so much they haven’t experienced: falling in love, seeing the world, making a difference in the city they love. The life that’s not yet lived and never will . . .”
The conversation is getting a little depressing and Choi tries to lighten the mood: “You mentioned an older sister? Does she work here too?”
“Not anymore.”
“She’s a journalism major at HKU? How is she liking it?”
“You might have read about her in the news.” She bunches up her sweatshirt. “My sister is in jail. She was sentenced to two years for unlawful assembly. Her picture was all over the papers.”
“For Occupy?” Choi’s interest is piqued again. He was sixteen years old when the Umbrella Movement erupted, when student protesters occupied large swaths of the city for nearly three months to demand universal suffrage. He wanted to join the protests but his parents wouldn’t let him, for fear that their only son would be injured or arrested. To Choi, the movement was a culmination of everything that had gone wrong since the handover: a widening income gap, sky-high property prices, a tone-deaf government that citizens had no part in choosing, and, above all, the gradual disappearance of Hong Kong’s unique character, epitomized by the demolition of heritage sites and other collective memories. He is now writing a research paper on the movement for one of his poli-sci classes.
“My sister and I both camped out in Admiralty and fought the police on the frontlines. I’ll never forget the sting of tear gas and pepper spray. But that’s not what got her into trouble. She was arrested last year during a protest against the government’s rural redevelopment plan. She was upset about the land grab and threw paper effigies at the police. They got it all on video and she was convicted and thrown into prison.”
“That’s terrible. I’m sorry to hear that,” says Choi with genuine empathy. He lives in Tai Po with his parents, not far from the villages that were facing forced resettlement. “How’s she holding up?”
“Better than I thought. I bet it’s boring as hell being locked up, given how hyperactive she always is.” Suze glances at the wall calendar. “In fact, I just saw her today. That’s why I need to stick around—someone needs to watch over her.”
“Stick around? Were you thinking about leaving Hong Kong? So many of my friends have already left because they don’t see a way out. Anyway, I’m glad you decided to stay.”
“We can’t all leave, can we?” She smiles, before getting serious again. “We need to stay here and guard this place—we need to be our own Tudigong. I complain about Hong Kong a lot, but the truth is, I love this place. It is my home.”
Choi is touched by Suze’s earnestness and her feelings for Hong Kong. It’s not every day that he finds a kindred spirit. Even at HKU, he has a hard time meeting people who are as passionate about political issues as he is. He recently set up an online group to monitor free speech on campus, but friends think he is becoming “politicized” and “radicalized.” Most of his classmates care only about grades and summer internships and job offers, oblivious to the slow death that his city is suffering. But not Suze—she is different from the rest of them. Stumbling into Tin Hau Temple is the best thing that has happened to him since he got admitted to college. Thank you, Tai Hang Nullah!
Euphoric, Choi suddenly realizes it’s getting quite late and he hasn’t had dinner. He musters his courage and asks, “Do you want to close up and grab a bite with me around here?” Not to appear too forward, he adds, “I mean, I haven’t eaten and I assume you haven’t either. There’re tons of places in Tai Hang that are open even at this hour. They’re mostly really overpriced, except for this chicken hot pot joint tucked behind Wun Sha Street. It’s a bit of a hole-in-the-wall but it’s definitely worth trying if you’ve never—” He realizes he is rambling and cuts himself off, blushing.
Suze gives the invitation a thought and says, “You’re sweet. But look, I don’t eat much these days. Besides, I have all that to finish.” She points to the plates of fuzzy peaches and steamed buns next to the incense burners on the altar, the food rotting and covered in a heavy layer of dust.
Choi doesn’t know what to make of this. For a second, he thinks Suze is messing with him again, except this time she looks dead serious. She gets up from the floor and signals to walk him to the door. He is too confused not to comply.
“Thank you for the chat,” Suze says with tenderness in her voice, “but you should go now. If fate will have it, we’ll see each other next year.”
As they walk, Choi notices his shadow on the wall moving with him, but not Suze’s. It stays where it is. In that instant he realizes the shadow isn’t hers—it belongs to the Guan Gong statue she was leaning against.
Just then a dog barks loudly from the courtyard outside. “Keep your eyes on the road when you cross,” she says. “Drivers can’t see you when they make the sharp curve. I found out the hard way.”
Choi starts to hyperventilate. It all adds up: the shadow, the dusty offerings, and the unfinished business to look after—a sister in need of protection. Or is it a cherished neighborhood under threat?
Suze gives her ashen friend a knowing nod, as if to remind him of everything she has said about her kind. Believe me, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Sometimes I find people much more frightening . . .
Choi is back at the granite threshold by the faded red door. The midnight moon has turned the peeling stucco of the temple a shade bluer. He wants to run but his knees have betrayed him. There is too much to process and his head is drawing a blank. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He knows Suze is right: there is nothing to be afraid of, and he knows exactly where he will be on the next Yulan.
TST
by Xu Xi 許素細
Tsim S
ha Tsui
Listen to me, it’s not too late. On quiet nights, you will hear us speak. At the end of the last water snake year, the year that autre calendar brackets between February 10, 2013, and January 30, 2014, our storytelling began. During that lunar year, the Seven Sisters Club vanished for good. Once upon a time, a perfect geometry of white smoke against dark pistachio and rust that was almost vermilion graced its facade. Remnant tiles, like torn evening wear, barely cover the gunmetal wall now, but under streetlight, the colors still glow. I watched the building disappear. Each year, a little more deterioration—a sign gone, a door off its hinges, a windowpane shattered—until finally the wreckers appeared, and now we might never have existed at all.
The girls, they were all there, most idling in doorways along Minden Row, others squatting along the uphill path toward what had been the Royal Observatory, some loitering at the crest of the hump toward Middle Road. They all came to tell their stories to anyone who would listen, and once they started, they wouldn’t shut up.
But the first time they came it was because I called. Our home was gone and we needed a way to come together. We were like that, you see, undeniably sisters in eternity’s muddle. The Milky Way swirled through our story every 乞巧節, that Chinese heavenly Romeo and Juliet story for thwarted lovers all girls adore. Occasionally, we gathered in the forgotten village in North Point, along the shoreline where bathing pavilions later stood, although even those are gone now, remembered only by a street named 七姊妹道, meaning Seven Sisters, which correctly transliterates into English as Tsat Tsz Mui Road. Unlike our own mistranslated Minden, named after a Royal Navy ship to recall the 1759 Battle of Minden, our street’s name in Cantonese is Myanmar, formerly Burma. Our club on Minden Row, we have nothing to do with Burma. Even if it is possible to cross over a hump to get here, this isn’t the “over-the-hump” air route of that long-vanished airline, the one that ferried legal and not-so-legal cargo to and from Burma during and after the second war.
Our only crime was being bar girls at Seven Sisters.