by Martin Booth
Not infrequently, I was invited aboard one of these wooden leviathans. My blond hair, considered by the Chinese to be the colour of gold and therefore likely to impart wealth or good fortune, was my passport to many a nook and cranny of Chinese life. It was also the reason why, whilst walking down the street, a passer-by would often briefly stroke my head. I was a walking talking talisman.
At the stern of the junk were the living quarters for the captain or owner and his family, low-ceilinged compartments that smelt of snug humanity, soap, sandalwood incense and paraffin. Weighted oil lamps hung from hinged brass mountings; two boarded-off kangs – traditional Chinese beds – were made up with thinly padded quilts and hard headrests the size of building bricks but made of lacquered papier mâché and painted with flowers or dragons. In one bulkhead, a cubby-hole contained maps, brass and steel dividers, a navigator's ruler and a sextant. Upon a bulkhead was a small shrine to Tin Hau, the effigy seated demurely behind a tiny offertory bowl of rice wine, four kumquats arranged as a pyramid and a smouldering joss-stick.
Below the main deck was the hold which, according to the usual cargo, smelt of fish or a mixture of cloth, rice and, for a reason I never understood, dry earth. In the fo'c's'le were the crew's quarters: up to thirty men crewed the biggest junks. Every junk occupant was deeply tanned, almost the colour of the vessel's hull, and as sinewy as a rickshaw coolie but with a healthy glow to their skin. The junk children were lithe and sharp-eyed, like maritime gypsies. Even the dogs seemed to have a spring to their step, unlike those on the dock that just slept curled up in a convenient patch of shade. Other than to trade or buy supplies, the junk folk seldom stepped ashore and considered themselves a cut above land-dwellers.
Perhaps because she was lonely, perhaps because she missed our cat Gunner (so-called because he had been born in a cannon on HMS Victory) who had been left behind in England with my grandparents, or perhaps simply because her love of animals was getting the better of her, my mother decided she wanted a pet. As we lived in a hotel, a cat or a dog would be impractical and were, in any case, prohibited by the management. This did not, however, deter her.
'What animal would you like?' she asked me.
'A monkey,' I replied. It would, I considered, be like owning a little caveman whom I could teach to be civilized or, like those in Penang, criminal. The possibilities for entertainment were boundless.
'One monkey in this family's quite enough,' she retorted. 'What else?'
'A snake.'
'No!'
'Why not? They're not all poisonous.'
My mother thought and said, 'Because it would be stolen and eaten.'
It seemed a good enough reason.
'A pangolin, then,' I suggested.
I had seen one in a market a few days before, curled in a defensive ball with its scales capable of protecting it against every enemy save the butcher's knife. I had wanted to buy it then, to save it from pride of place on a menu, but the asking price was fifty-five dollars and I only had three.
'No.'
Lee Chun Kee and Company at 646, Nathan Road offered, according to their business card, to 'procure strange animals from all countries', a claim I found highly suspect. What if, I wondered aloud, I had the money and wanted a hippopotamus? An elephant? A tapir? A platypus? Best of all, a panda . . . ?
'They could probably get you one of those,' my mother remarked. 'I don't think you could keep it on the balcony, though. And every day you'd have to get several hundredweight of bamboo shoots for it to eat.'
The walls of the shop were lined with cages containing a multitude of song birds, most of them species of finch. Other cages were occupied by guinea pigs, terrapins, rabbits, white sulphur-crested cockatoos, kittens with their eyes barely open, macaws, love-birds, mynahs, mongrel puppies with eager tails, budgerigars and canaries. My mother drooled longingly over the kittens and puppies with all the emotion of a child peering in the window of a well-stocked confectioner's shop. At last, we were approached by a man we assumed was Mr Lee. He smiled ingratiatingly, displaying a solid gold canine tooth.
'You wan' baby dog, missee?' he enquired, swiftly opening a cage door and depositing a puppy in my mother's arms, from where it immediately proceeded to furiously lick her face. I could almost see her heart melting.
'Fifty dollar,' Mr Lee said, 'but for you, firs' customer today, speshul p'ice forty-fi'e dollar.'
As it was mid-afternoon, I found his salesman's pitch to be dubious in the extreme, but said nothing. Reluctantly, my mother returned the dog and, after much soul-searching, she purchased a budgerigar, a bamboo cage, a porcelain water bowl, a tin seed bowl, a mirror, a bell and two pieces of cuttlefish. These accoutrements cost over three times as much as the bird despite my mother beating Mr Lee down by fifteen dollars.
'What shall we call him?' my mother suggested as we retraced our steps through the back streets. 'How about Sat Juk?'
As this translated as Little Bird, I was not impressed. My mother's desire, which lasted the rest of her life, to give everything – dogs, cats, cars – a Cantonese name did not always show imagination or an extensive vocabulary.
In the end, we settled for Joey. He was happy in his cage, trilling to the wild birds outside, kissing his image in the mirror, ringing his bell, hopping from perch to perch and nibbling at his cuttlefish to keep his beak sharp. This, my mother deemed, was insufficient exercise, so every afternoon she switched off the fan, closed all the windows, locked the doors and gave Joey the freedom of her hotel room. With a flutter of wings, he darted about the room depositing birdshit wherever he went. This continued for two months until the day my mother omitted to close the fanlight window. Joey hopped out of his cage, chirped once and was out the window like a ballistic missile. My mother was devastated and we returned to Mr Lee bereft of a budgie but the proud owners of a miniature aviary with all mod. cons, except running water.
Despite being fully equipped, my mother decided not to get another bird because, she declared, 'You can't cuddle a bird or talk to it like you can a cat or dog. And it's cruel to keep them in cages.'
So she bought a terrapin, a glass tank to keep it in and a stone for it to sit on out of the water.
About two inches in diameter, its carapace was grey on top with a yellowish-green underside. Its head was yellow and black striped with bright red flashes by the ears. My mother, being new to terrapin ownership, asked Mr Lee what it ate.
'He eat w'ice, missee.'
'Rice?'
'Yes, missee. Plenty w'ice. An' dis one.' He reached under the counter to bring out a container of writhing bloodworms.
My mother recoiled but it was too late. She had paid for the terrapin.
On the walk back, we determined to call it Timmy, my mother not knowing the Cantonese for terrapin.
'It's a shame we couldn't have a puppy,' she mused. 'I don't like to dwell on their fate . . .'
'They'll be all right,' I said to placate her. 'The Chinese only eat black dogs.'
My mother stared at me. 'How do you know that?'
'I just heard it. One of the room boys . . .' I replied innocently. 'Besides, it's against the law in Hong Kong to eat dogs.'
My mother looked relieved. I did not admit to having seen the black chow.
Timmy and his tank were delivered an hour later. Convinced that terrapins did not exist on a diet of rice and bloodworms, my mother telephoned the University of Hong Kong Biology Department to get the truth, which was that red-eared terrapins were carnivorous and ate fish. They could also grow to twelve inches in length. Our tank was about fifteen inches by ten. My mother hung up with a thoughtful look on her face. Luckily for us, but unluckily for Timmy, he was dead in three months despite a diet of fresh boiled fish which stank out my mother's room, even when the tank was placed on the balcony so, as my mother put it, he could feel the warmth of the sun on his back. Her reptilian consideration may have been what put paid to him. In the wild, terrapins avoided the sun and took to deep water. Timmy's tan
k water was barely an inch deep and contained pieces of uneaten fish and terrapin droppings.
Timmy's death did not, however, occur before my father's first return from Japan and his presence, when discovered, caused ructions.
On the second morning of his shore leave, my father stepped out on to the balcony of my mother's room to be confronted by Timmy the terrapin.
'Martin!'
I came running.
'What, for Pete's sake, is this ruddy thing?' He pointed at the noxious tank in which Timmy was perching on his rock.
'It's Timmy,' I replied.
'I didn't ask what its bloody name was. Get rid of it.'
'He's Mum's,' I said defensively.
'What?' my father replied.
'He's Mum's,' I repeated. 'She bought him in a pet shop in Nathan Road.'
At that moment, my mother entered the room.
'Joyce, what is this benighted thing?'
'That's Timmy.'
'Dad doesn't want to know his name,' I said.
'Timmy the terrapin.'
'Get rid of it. It smells to high heaven.'
'That's only because his tank needs cleaning. I'm doing it later. He doesn't smell at all.'
She reached into the tank, picked Timmy up and held him level to her face. His head came out from under his shell, his legs treading air.
'Get rid of it,' my father again commanded.
My mother looked from him to the terrapin, as if she were a young girl deciding which suitor to date.
'He means no harm,' she remarked and tickled his throat with her fingernail. 'Do you, Timmy ?'
'I'm going back on board,' my father declared, bringing the argument to an abrupt conclusion. 'You've got the ship-to-shore number.'
With that, he left, not to return until nightfall.
'We could sell Timmy back to the pet shop,' I suggested.
'I don't think we would make much of a profit on a second-hand terrapin,' my mother said. 'Besides, he isn't going anywhere and your father sails back to Japan in a week.' She paused. 'Maybe I should've listened to you and bought a snake. On the other hand, one poisonous viper in this family is, I think, sufficient. Don't you?'
Despite the escape of Joey and the demise of Timmy, fortuitously before my father's next return, my mother had still not learnt her lesson. On another trip to Mr Lee, she purchased a cute lop-eared rabbit, naming it To Jai which, entirely predictably, meant Rabbit. It too succumbed in a matter of months. By then, my mother had made a number of new friends amongst the members of the United Services Recreation Club and no longer felt lonely. The cavalcade of pets mercifully ceased.
I had only been at school a matter of weeks when the summer holidays began, which posed my mother a problem. She was loathe to take me everywhere with her but, on the other hand, she was just as loathe to leave me to my own devices. Consequently, a compromise was reached. I was given a crossing-the-road examination and restricted to the areas bounded by Nathan Road in Mong Kok to the west, Prince Edward Road to the north and the far side of the hill opposite the hotel to the south. To the east, where there was no obvious boundary, I was told to use my discretion. From my mother's viewpoint, there was little risk involved – except from the traffic – for Hong Kong was famously street-safe. Muggings were unheard of, child molesters non-existent and street violence usually restricted to a territorial fight amongst hawkers and stallholders. The nearest a European was likely to come to crime was when he had his pocket picked.
In exchange for this liberty, I was to accompany my mother at any time she requested without 'whining, whingeing, binding or generally being a little bugger'. I consented with alacrity. The restriction cut off Yau Ma Tei but I felt I had seen all there was on offer there: and there were dai pai dongs in Mong Kok.
A day or two into the holidays, my mother tested my submissiveness. She was going to Tsim Sha Tsui that afternoon and I was going with her.
'Are we going to tea at the Pen?' I asked hopefully as we waited for a number 7 bus at the stop opposite the hotel.
'No,' she replied. 'Somewhere far better.'
The Pen, I considered, would take a bit of bettering.
The bus pulled up, the gate of silver-painted bars slid open and we boarded. The conductor rang the bell twice by pulling on a cord running the length of the roof and we set off. We disembarked in Tsim Sha Tsui, an area at the tip of the Kowloon peninsula filled with watch and camera shops, restaurants and tailors who would make a three-piece suit in twelve hours. This was where the tourists from the big liners or staying in the better hotels unwittingly mingled with touts, pickpockets and other ne'er-do-wells.
When we alighted, it was to head through the streets behind the Pen and into a small baker's shop with a display bow window such as one might have found on any Edwardian street that had survived the Second World War. The window glass was flawed, the frame darkly varnished. Above was the establishment's name – Tkachenko's. Inside were a number of rattan chairs and tables, also darkly stained. Along one wall ran a glass-fronted cool cabinet which contained a cornucopia of cakes and pastries the likes – and sumptuousness – of which I had never seen: gateaux covered in flaked dark chocolate, puff pastry slices filled with fresh cream and cherries, white chocolate-coated éclairs with segments of glace fruit and angelica embedded in them and tortes containing fresh fruit slices.
My mother and I sat opposite each other at a table. The rattan scratched the backs of my legs. She ordered a pot of Assam tea, a tumbler of cold milk and four cakes.
'What is this place?' I asked in tones of wonderment.
'A long time ago,' my mother began obtusely, 'there was an uprising in Russia called the Bolshevik Revolution. Many people were killed. Others lost their homes and businesses and had to flee.'
'Like Ching?' I suggested. My mother glanced at me, surprised I knew of his past.
'Yes, much like that,' she confirmed. 'Some fled to France, a few to London even, but most came east, through Siberia to Manchuria and on to Shanghai, always being forced to move along by war. Finally, they settled here in Hong Kong. And where they went, they took their skills with them. And the Russians are famous for their cakes and pastries.'
An elderly European woman, her grey hair in a dishevelled and disintegrating bun at the back of her neck, approached our table with a tray.
'Herrre iss your orderrr, madame,' she announced in a thick accent, sliding the tray between us.
The milk was fresh, chilled and tasted quite unlike that served in the Fourseas. The cakes were summed up by my mother, her upper lip moustachioed with cream.
'If God was a baker,' she said, 'this is what he'd bake.'
When the bill came, she ordered a box of cakes to go and paid with ease.
As we walked to the bus terminus at the Star Ferry, I felt somehow uneasy. It was not that I had over-indulged at Tkachenko's but more a feeling of unaccountable foreboding, as if something was not quite right, not just with me but with the whole world. The air seemed heavy, more humid than usual. Blustery breezes blew along the street, peppering my legs with fine gravel. An old man who usually made lucky grasshoppers out of woven bamboo strips by the fire station had packed up his pitch and gone. Glancing down Salisbury Road towards Signal Hill, I could see the observatory tower on its hill. From the signal mast hung a black symbol like an inverted T. In the harbour, the sea was choppy. The sampans and walla-wallas were conspicuous by their absence and the ferries were having difficulty coming alongside their pier.
In fifteen minutes, we were back in the Fourseas. Even in that short time, the sky had darkened. When we arrived, the room boys were busy in the first-floor lounge, fitting strips of towelling into the french window frames whilst the gardener was occupied removing the pots of flowers from the lounge balcony and the sides of the driveway.
'There's a typhoon coming,' my mother told me.
'What's a typhoon?' I asked.
'The word is English but it comes from the Cantonese, tai fung, which means a
big wind. It's the Chinese equivalent of a hurricane.'
Throughout the evening, the wind increased. When I went to bed, it whistled through the window frame. Ching came in just before I fell asleep and stopped it with lengths of rag. At intervals during the night, I woke to the sound of the wind but fell asleep again. Just before dawn, the pelt of rain on the windows finally woke me. I got out of bed and raised the Venetian blinds. The street lights were still on, the thirty-foot-high concrete lampposts swaying like saplings. The rain came by in sheets. Under an overhang in the wall separating the Fourseas from the next building was gathered a crush of small birds, different breeds all huddled together. The bushes lining the hotel drive thrashed and shed leaves as if an invisible hand was stripping them. Across Waterloo Road, a waterfall was roaring down the fissure in the hillside, gushing on to the road in a torrent of orange, muddy water. No traffic drove by, no pedestrians were about. I wondered where Ah Sam and the other rickshaw coolies might be sheltering.
By noon the rain had abated somewhat, so I sneaked out of the hotel rear gate and made my way to Soares Avenue. The streets were strewn with paper, twigs, leaves and a sheet of galvanized steel. The shops were all boarded up. Pressed against them were the rickshaws in a line, their awnings raised, the shafts of one fitted under the rear of the next. The coolies were hunched up inside, with the tarpaulin covering that protected the passengers' legs pulled tight. Only the drift of smoke eking out from under the tarpaulins alerted me to their presence. By mid-afternoon, the sun began to break through, the wind dropped and life slowly returned to normal. The flowerpots reappeared, the waterfall ceased and the buses started running. So did the rickshaws.
'It didn't last long,' I observed to my mother.
'That wasn't a direct hit,' she replied laconically. 'The centre passed over seventy miles away. All we had was a tropical storm. You don't want to see a direct hit.'
But I did.