Lion Boy and Drummer Girl

by Pauline Loh

  After a while, he got up and wandered around the airport in a daze. Ying Ying had trusted him so little that she had kept her move to a country halfway across the world a secret from him! She must have been packing and making plans, which was why she had been mysteriously disappearing from the hall over the past weeks. Ricky had also tried to ask her out for a meal and she had said she “had important things to discuss with Mum over lunch, alone”.

  Had Aunt Nara and Uncle Jim left for Canada to make a cosy family unit together with Ying Ying? Ricky’s hand trembled as he dialled her number again.

  “Ricky Kang?”

  No! Not a fan, not now! Ricky turned around. It was Stellar, Boss Ang’s daughter. She was accompanied by a Hot employee who was handling her luggage.

  Stellar smiled shyly. “Do you remember me? I’m Stellar; we met at a lion dance competition a few months ago. How is everybody at Legends? Ying Ying? Uncle Lung? Ahem… Zeus?”

  “Stellar, why are you here, at the airport?”

  “I just got back. I’m on a school break and I always come home for the holidays.”

  To his horror, Ricky felt tears welling up in his eyes. He blinked them away, but not before Stellar saw them. Her smile faded in concern and she moved to block him from public view. Over her shoulder, she spoke politely to her companion, “Please bring my luggage back to Hot Plaza. I will attend the charity function and make my own way home later.” The woman nodded and left with the luggage.

  Stellar turned back to Ricky, who dashed his hands over his eyes angrily. “Is anything wrong, Ricky?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” he said over brightly. “Everything’s fine. Well, Shifu is all broken up and Ying Ying is missing, but Zeus is good. Did you hear that he won the President’s Service Scholarship? Lucky devil. I mean, good man there. He has a bright future.”

  Ricky was blabbering. Stellar looked mildly alarmed. “Ying Ying is missing? But isn’t she with Aunt Nara? They’re supposed to attend the Canadian event.”

  Ricky’s eyes widened. “How come you know about Canada but Shifu and I don’t?”

  Stellar looked apologetic. “She didn’t want to trouble Uncle Lung. Let me call Aunt Nara and find out where Ying Ying is.”

  “It’s no use,” Ricky said miserably, “They’re on the plane right now. Ying Ying’s phone has been switched off.”

  “Of course her phone is off. She has to keep out all distractions now. And what plane are you talking about?”

  “Right, I’m just a distraction. Well, if she can’t be bothered with me, she should at least think about her father. He’s worried sick about her! Doesn’t she care that she’s the only person in the world who matters to him? That without her, he would be utterly lost and life would have no meaning?”

  Ricky suddenly realised that he was talking about himself.

  Stellar was looking steadily more alarmed at his emotional tirade. Her phone call finally connected. “Hi, Aunt Nara. Yes, I am at the airport already. I was just about to grab a taxi to the event. Is Ying Ying with you? Oh, she’s getting ready? Then I won’t disturb her. Aunt Nara, I have a guest with me. Can you please reserve an extra seat? Thanks, I’ll see you soon.”

  Ricky looked puzzled, but hopeful. “You mean Ying Ying isn’t on a plane to Canada?”

  CHAPTER 59

  NO OTHER LIFE WILL DO

  Stellar pulled him gently by the arm towards the taxi queue. “I will explain everything in the taxi. And you will tell me why you think Ying Ying is flying off to Canada. What a bizarre idea! Why would she go away when everything that is most dear to her is right here in Singapore?”

  In the taxi, Stellar looked Ricky over critically and helped him to spruce up, “because you are going to be meeting a lot of women shortly”. But Ricky was more worried about Ying Ying. “Are you sure Ying Ying is still in Singapore? I thought she was moving to Canada with her mum and Uncle Jim.”

  “They must have been seeing Uncle Jim off at the airport. But no, they’re not going with him! It’s true that Aunt Nara would like Ying Ying to study abroad. She…doesn’t want her to hang out with you. It’s the same situation with me and my dad. Our parents have given their bodies, souls and spirits to lion dance—but they don’t want us to follow in their footsteps.”

  “Are you planning to work in lion dance after you graduate?”

  “I don’t know any other life! Instead of playing with dolls when we were young, Ying Ying and I played the drum and cymbals. While other girls wore jeans and let their hair down, we wore qipao and bunned up our hair. Other kids only had to do well in school, but us Legends kids had to juggle practices and make sure we kept our grades up or Shifu would be disappointed. And although I study Western music, my dream is to write a full-length Chinese opera for a lion dance performance, with original music and lyrics.”

  Ricky chuckled, “You sound a lot like Zeus when you talk like that.”

  “He and I are kindred spirits. I always feel so lucky that, out of all the people in the world, I got to know a guy who shares my passion.”

  Ricky said, “You should just be with him if you like him. Never mind what your dad says.”

  “I obey Dad because I love him. But if Zeus and I are very serious about each other, I know Dad will support my decision,” she replied.

  Ricky saw that there was steel beneath Stellar’s softness. “It may be sooner than you think. Boss Ang wants to have tea with the two of you.”

  Stellar glanced out the window. The taxi had stopped in front of a country club. “We’re here! Ricky, turn on your best charm. Aunt Nara may yet change her mind.”

  “Really?! Well then, I’ll be dazzling!”

  Ricky wished he had his beloved doll head with him. When he was young and still shy in front of crowds, he used to imagine pulling on a doll head and being transformed instantly into the most charismatic and funny entertainer. Sliding on his imaginary doll head now, Ricky puffed out his chest and hooked his thumbs into his waistband. His walk became more of a strut and swagger. His eyes twinkled and his lips lifted up in an infectious grin.

  A sign outside the club ballroom read “General Liang Hongyu—a drum recital and fundraiser for the Shelter for Unwed Mothers”. Stellar whispered that Uncle Jim had played a big part in getting top Canadian corporations to sponsor the fundraising event. They walked into a roomful of women. Ricky was the only man in the entire place.

  Nara bustled up to them. She was dressed in a turquoise chiffon dress accessorised by a strand of pearls. A button on her lapel identified her as one of the organisers. She hissed at Stellar, “This is your guest?! He’d better make himself useful.”

  Many of the charity recipients were there—most of the unwed mothers were in their teens; some were pregnant and others had young babies on their hips. They were dressed simply and quite a few wore identical tee-shirts that indicated that they were from a girls’ reformatory home. Also present were middle-aged Canadian and local patronesses—influential women who were expensively dressed, accessorised with jewels and designer purses. The two groups of women made odd partners but they clustered around Ricky like sisters.

  Ricky kicked into high gear. He complimented the décor of the room, which made several important-looking Caucasians flush with pride. He spoke on the importance of social consciousness and thanked the patronesses politely for making society a better place. He shook hands with every teenage girl around him and obligingly signed autographs. He even autographed a baby’s onesie and the young mother gushed that she’d “never wash it”.

  Ricky had a way even with the toddlers, who stuck to him like magnets. Ricky winked at them and made funny faces that amused them. They clustered around him and planted wet kisses on his cheeks. It was a priceless moment that had all the women in the room cooing and clicking their cameras furiously.

  When the drum recital was about to start, a few facilitators led the children out of the hall to another room where children’s programmes had been prepared for them. The audience fi
nally tore themselves away from Ricky and found their seats, and the room quietened down. The lights dimmed and everyone’s attention focused on the heavily curtained stage.

  Ricky sat in the front row, flanked by Aunt Nara and Stellar. “Where’s Ying Ying?” Ricky asked Stellar in an agitated whisper.

  “Ssh!” Nara hissed from his other side.

  CHAPTER 60

  THE BEGINNING OF ALL LIFE

  Sighing, Ricky told himself to be patient. A muted drumbeat started up behind the stage curtain, at first so soft that it played on the edges of the audience’s hearing. The curtain opened with a quiet swish. The stage was dark and he could just make out eight bulky shadows of differing sizes, stacked on three sides around a slim figure who had her arms upraised.

  The floodlights slowly brightened. There were eight flower drums on stage. Ying Ying stood in the centre, dressed in a sleeveless qipao. Her hair was gathered up and out of the way in a simple chignon fastened by twin hairpins with lotus designs. She held a pair of long, thin drumsticks.

  The murmur of the drums was a thin cry, like the mew of a small kitten or a helpless infant. Ricky remembered something that Ying Ying had once told him: “Everybody responds to drums. The first sound that a child hears is the drumbeat of his mother’s heart.”

  The child’s voice on the drum called again. The bigger drums answered back lovingly and reassuringly. Then an excitement, a flurry of beats; the child, now grown into a young woman, had found love. The sweetness of young love swirled and danced in a crescendo of trills and quavers.

  Suddenly, the loud bass drum interjected with a jangling roar like the crass growl of a man destroying a young woman’s dreams. The bass roars grew more discordant and frequent.

  The light flower drums were quashed into submissive murmurs and finally, silence. The audience waited in suspense. Suddenly, the bass drum exploded into a cascade of violence. The whole world seemed to be in uproar. The fragile figure in front of the ominous bulk of the alpha male flailed and thrashed, trying to subdue the drum that could not be subjugated. Ying Ying’s strength was flagging. Her drooping shoulders and the minute shifting of her feet showed that she was exhausted. The petite drums echoed her exhaustion—a young woman’s faltering faith in life and love.

  Ying Ying pirouetted away from the epicentre of the drums, but her spins brought her back to them. Once again, she attempted to move away, her drumsticks clattering lightly on the stage floor as she struggled to escape, but it seemed that she could not avoid the malevolent alpha male calling to her from the centre of the stage.

  As if dragged by invisible silken skeins, she shuffled in defeat backwards towards the drum tower. Suddenly, the young woman reared tall, her eyes flashed defiantly at the audience, and she turned around again to attack the bully with the full force of her rage.

  Ying Ying’s chignon came undone and her hairpins skittered across the stage. She hurled first her sticks, her fists and then her entire body at the bass drum. The small drums resounded, rallying around her as she commanded five or six of them at a time. Her arms were a blur, yet each beat was clear and defined. Her power, by then, had escaped the confines of the human body and summoned all nature—wind, fire, the waters and the earth—to come to her aid. It had seemed impossible, but she defeated the massive drum. With her remaining energy, the bereaved widow, now old and drained, threw herself at it before collapsing in death throes.

  The curtains closed. Then the audience was on its feet, clapping wildly. Ying Ying strode out, panting from her demanding performance and wiping the sweat from her brow. Her eyes widened with surprise when she noticed Ricky in the front row. She turned to the audience and bowed from the waist.

  Mustering her breath, she said, “Thank you for having me here. I’m a drummer from Lion Legends. My performance was based on the true tale of Liang Hongyu, who was sold into slavery in the eleventh century in China. As a slave girl, Hongyu was trained to perform on the drums. She remained resilient through all her suffering and later, she became the wife of an army general. She fought alongside him in wars, winning many battles. I hope my humble performance will encourage all the women in this room to summon their inner strength to overcome adversities. I wish you all a strong and victorious future.” As she gracefully took her bow again, the hall once again echoed with loud applause.

  After the guests had left, Ricky finally had a chance to talk with Ying Ying. “That was a fantastic performance. Have you been disappearing from work the past few days because you were rehearsing? Why didn’t you tell the Legends? We could’ve all come to support you!”

  Ying Ying shook her head. “It’s a charity function to raise funds for women, not a lion dance event.”

  Ricky pouted. “You should at least have told Shifu. He was worried sick about you. He sent me out on my bike…” He clapped a hand to his brow. “My bike! It’s still at the airport!”

  Ying Ying looked confused.

  Stellar giggled, “I found him at the airport, crying because he thought you’d left for Canada.”

  “I did not cry!” Ricky protested. “Shifu said Uncle Jim was bringing you to Canada. I went to the airport to stop you.”

  Ying Ying was astonished. “Whatever gave him that idea? How would I have been able to fly to Canada, with this week’s accounts still not recorded and all the performances we have scheduled for next week?”

  She turned to glower at her mother. Aunt Nara had been looking at Ricky with new appreciation when she heard that he had wept for Ying Ying. Now, she flushed guiltily as her daughter glared at her accusingly.

  “What did you tell Dad?”

  “Only the truth! I told him that Jim has offered to sponsor your university education in Canada. But your father was being stubborn, so I got angry and told him that Jim bought plane tickets for the three of us, and we were leaving!”

  “Oh, Mum! You know you could never leave Dad!”

  Aunt Nara sniffed. She pulled Ying Ying into a hug and whispered, “I finally saw it, Ying Ying, when you were wrestling with the drum just now. I understand now why you could never leave Lion Legends. Performing is in your blood, just like it’s in your father’s. So you have my blessing to continue with Legends. But please, get a degree!”

  “Don’t worry, Mum! I plan to. I’ve been saving up for my tuition fees. I will study Business Administration so that I can manage Lion Legends better.”

  Aunt Nara slid her eyes to Ricky. “And I hope you won’t just settle for a pretty face. The guy who finally wins your heart must be educated and have a decent job.”

  Ricky held up his hand. “I was told that Aunt Nara wants a man who’s blind, deaf and dumb to every woman except her daughter. I’m all prepared to gouge out my eyes and cut off my ears and tongue, but I’m not sure if I will be able get a decent job after that…”

  Ying Ying swatted him on the back of his head. “Don’t be rude to my mum.”

  CHAPTER 61

  THE MOST DANGEROUS LION

  Ricky revved his bike halfheartedly and headed towards Legends Hall. He had been hoping for some time alone with Ying Ying after the charity function, but she, Nara and Stellar had said they wanted to catch up and that he should leave first.

  He had bussed back to the airport to collect his bike. All the way home, he pondered how to win Aunt Nara over. If she would only set him a heroic assignment like hunting down a golden fleece, he would do it immediately. But he suspected that the only thing that could sway Aunt Nara was his demonstrating that his love for her daughter was eternal and true. Sighing, he rode into the Legends’ bike lot and kicked down his stand.

  “Ahem.”

  Ricky looked around and saw Ying Ying standing behind him, a helmet tucked under her arm. She had washed up and changed into a dress. She had never worn a dress in all the time that Ricky had known her. She met Ricky’s eyes squarely, as if daring him to comment on her appearance.

  “I need to deliver a gift to an old lady who donated to the charity but could not at
tend the event because of her ill health. Can you give me a lift?”

  Ricky’s face split into a grin. “Sure!” he said, gunning his bike to life enthusiastically.

  She put on her helmet and mounted the bike behind Ricky. They rode to an old house by the sea and took tea with the old lady. And as the sun was just setting, Ricky suggested a walk along the beach behind the house. He was delighted when Ying Ying agreed.

  While wriggling their bare feet in the deliciously warm sand, Ricky fretted to Ying Ying about Aunt Nara.

  “Maybe I’ll write a letter of resignation and show it to her!”

  “You think she’ll be impressed by an unemployed bum?”

  “Okay, okay, I will get a job before I resign from Legends. She likes accountants, right? I could get a job at a bank!”

  “And your qualifications are…?” Ying Ying sighed. “Can we just enjoy the sunset? You’re ruining it.”

  “How can you think about sunsets when this might be our first and last date?!”

  She said, “You know what Mum said? She said that there is somebody far more dangerous than a handsome, charismatic lion dancer. And that’s a lion dancer on a motorbike. That was how Dad stole her heart.”

  Ricky bounced with excitement. He pulled up the hem of his tee-shirt and showed her his bare chest. “You can have my heart right now!”

  He saw Ying Ying’s eyes riveted on his tattoo of her lotus hairpin on his chest. It was the first time she was seeing it in person. “Do you like it?” he asked.

  She looked away. With a pink tinge on her cheeks, she said defiantly, “I think I prefer the bike. Riding is more fun!”

  “What?!”

  Smiling, she pulled his shirt down and pulled him towards her.

  Acknowledgements

  Heartfelt thanks to the team at Epigram—publisher Edmund Wee, designer Eng Chun Pang, illustrator Chee Jia Yi and my kind editor Sheri Goh.