Gold Mountain Blues

by Ling Zhang

  Ah-Fat was up early on the day of their departure. He had a cloth bundle packed and ready: it held just one new suit of clothes, three pairs of cloth shoes, five pairs of thick cotton socks and a few ordinary items of clothing. He also took a few tins of salt fish to eat on the ship. His mother had spent night after night painstakingly sewing the shoes for him. By now she was almost blind and the stitching was all over the place. “Don’t waste your time,” Red Hair told her. “Cloth shoes won’t see Ah-Fat through a Gold Mountain winter, it’s far too cold. He’ll need to buy leather shoes.” But Mrs. Mak made the shoes very loose-fitting so Ah-Fat could wear three pairs of socks inside them. She could not imagine there was anywhere on earth where three pairs of thick cotton socks would not be warm enough.

  Awake before dawn, Ah-Fat kicked out at his little brother who was curled up fast asleep at his feet. Since the epilepsy, Ah-Sin slept almost round the clock. Ah-Fat kicked out again, this time with more force. Ah-Sin grunted, then turned over and went back to sleep again. His brother gave up and got quietly out of bed, pulling the thin blue-patterned quilt over the child. Ah-Fat could not know that this would be the last time he would see Ah-Sin. Even before his ship arrived in Gold Mountain, Ah-Sin was dead. As he cut grass for the pig, he was taken with a fit and fell down the grassy slope to his death. For years after, Ah-Fat regretted not having woken Ah-Sin up that morning. He would like to have said a few kind words to him.

  Ah-Fat felt at the top of the bed for the cloth bundle, then groped his way to the door. There he tripped over something soft. It stirred and he heard a snuffling sound. By the faint light of the stove, he saw it was his mother, wiping tears from her eyes. She had already heated up the green bean porridge for him to eat before he left.

  She blew her nose and, in a muffled voice, told him to light the oil lamp.

  Ah-Fat did not move. “It’s getting light, I can see without it.”

  He did not want to see his mother’s face. It was hard to believe that her eyes, reduced now to two tiny holes, had so many tears left. Sometimes he felt as though her tears were tentacles dragging him down, and that he would be devoured by her grief. But he also knew that today he had only to lift his foot over the threshold and he would be out of reach of her tears in a place where her grief could not touch him any more.

  “Ah-Fat, light the lamp.” Her voice was suddenly harsh.

  He did as he was told. His mother gripped the door jamb and pulled herself to her feet. She pointed her finger in his face and ordered him: “Kneel down. Kneel before your dad.”

  Ah-Fat knelt before his father’s portrait. The flagstones felt hard and cold through the thin cotton of his trousers. His father’s face wore a weary, even sleepy expression in the faint glow of the lamp. His father could not look after him now.

  Ah-Fat felt the tears well up. He twisted the end of his sleeve into lump and stuffed it into his mouth. By swallowing hard a few times, he got himself under control.

  “Dad, my uncle’s going to till our fields, with your blessing and protection,” he said.

  Then he went on: “Dad, I’m going to Gold Mountain. But I’ll be back, rich or poor, dead or alive. I’ll never let the incense go out at your tomb.”

  His mother knelt by his side. Her nose was stuffed up from crying and he could feel her laboured breaths fanning his cheeks. Her bound feet in their pointed slippers looked like upturned conical bamboo shoots as they trembled gently under her long loose cotton jacket.

  “Ah-Fat’s dad, please let him die rather than touch opium. If he ever gets addicted to opium, ever, he’ll be stripped of your family name, and then he’d better not think of ever crossing this threshold again.”

  By the time Ah-Fat walked out of the courtyard, the sky was turning pale. The neighbours’ chickens had been cooped up all night and now scurried impatiently along the field verges hunting for scarcely wakened worms. Two belligerent young cockerels fought over a large black worm, flapping their wings fiercely. Ah-Fat threw a clod of earth at them to break up the fight, and they flew off with loud squawks, scattering feathers in the air. In the distance he could hear the squealing of the water wheel as it began to turn. Many villagers started their work before the sun was up.

  Ah-Fat picked a stalk of bristle grass from the verge. It was heavy with dewdrops. These were God’s tears, he remembered his mother saying. He twisted the strands together and pushed it up his nose. The thunderous sneeze he gave seemed to shake every bit of his body loose—bones, muscles, veins. All the accumulated mess and muddle which had weighed on him for all of his sixteen years was sneezed out through his nostrils and he felt cleansed and fresh.

  He found Red Hair’s family and the porter he had hired waiting outside their house. Red Hair was a man of the world, and his baggage was different from Ah-Fat’s small bundle. At each end of the carrying pole hung a brightly gleaming rattan box. Red Hair’s mother shielded her eyes and peered at the sun to reckon the time. It was a month since Red Hair’s wife had given birth and she was no longer confined to the house. With her forehead wrapped in a scarf against the morning chill, she stood cradling her infant and holding Six Fingers by the hand. She talked to Red Hair in low tones. Then she placed the baby’s palms together. “Daddy’s going to Gold Mountain. Say a nice bye-bye to Daddy,” she said, her voice breaking before she had finished the sentence. The baby stared fixedly at his father and suddenly began to bawl so loudly the veins stood out purple on his forehead. Red Hair’s wife rocked him and shushed him, and finally pacified him by letting him suck on her finger.

  Then she used her leg to give Six Fingers a hard shove forwards. “What did I teach you last night? What do you say?” Even though she had grown a lot this year, Six Fingers was a skinny child with sticklike arms and legs, who looked as if a gust of wind would blow her over. After a good many pushes of encouragement, she finally bowed her head and whispered: “My two elder brothers are off to Gold Mountain. Come back soon and send us lots of money.”

  Those standing around her burst out laughing. “You’re letting that kid Ah-Fat off too lightly. He’s not your elder brother! He may be a big lad, but he’s still your nephew!” Overcome with shyness, Six Fingers fled into the house, refusing to come out again.

  The three men set off.

  The porter was heavily laden but he still set a good pace and left Ah-Fat and Red Hair far behind. The sun gradually rose high into the sky, the dew dried up and fine dust covered the road. Sharp-pointed lotus buds stuck up from the pond surface. At some point, the water wheel had stopped turning and the cicadas had not yet started chirping. Apart from the sound of their footsteps, all was quiet around them.

  “Uncle Red Hair,” began Ah-Fat, “is there really gold everywhere in Gold Mountain?”

  2

  Gold Mountain Perils

  Years five to seven of the reign of Guangxu (1879–1881)

  Province of British Columbia, Canada

  Yesterday afternoon, citizens of Victoria, gathered at the docks, enjoyed an extraordinary spectacle: the steamship Madeley put into port at approximately 3:15 p.m., with three hundred and seventy-eight people from the Empire of the Great Qing on board. The steamship had started her journey in Hong Kong, but because cases of smallpox were suspected, she was run aground in Honolulu for more than a month before finally making her way to Victoria. This is the biggest ever wave of Chinese to arrive on these shores. The provincial legislature has on several occasions proposed levying a head tax on Chinese workers and placing restrictions on the places which employ them, and yet an ever-increasing tide of Yellow labourers continues to pour in. The journey has lasted many months for these coolies (known as “piglets” in their language). In a ship which has been described as a floating hell, they have had to endure the torments of fetid air, appalling food and storms at sea, and appear anaemic, filthy and ragged to a man. There is not a single woman or child to be seen within their ranks. However, although they are uniformly male, they have very long pigtails, some hanging strai
ght down their backs, others worn coiled up on their heads. They all carry a flat shoulder pole made of bamboo with a basket hung from each end, into which are packed all their bundles. They look apathetic, walk unsteadily and have none of the noble bearing of “celestials.” Indeed, their weird garb is in forceful contrast to their surroundings. Amongst the crowds who came to watch the goings on, there were some children who threw stones at them, but law enforcement officers quickly put a stop to that.

  Victoria Colonial News, 5 July 1879

  When Fong Tak Fat emerged from the hold, a dazzling whiteness met his eyes. He had never experienced sunshine like this, sharp as a newly ground knife and stabbing him right in the eyes. Even when he closed them, he could still feel the sun’s keen edge against his eyelids. He and Red Hair had both made do with steerage tickets on the steamship. Steerage was below the water line, and day and night had been the same for a very long time. Now the sun seemed like a bullying stranger to him.

  Ah-Fat guessed it must be summer by now. When he left home, the sun had still been soft and gentle—not nearly as powerful as the sun here. He was not sure how many days he’d spent at sea. Without an almanac, the only way he could mark the days was to make a scratch on his shoulder pole every night before going to sleep. As the ship came in to dock, he carefully counted the scratches. There were ninety-seven altogether. But it had actually been between one hundred and one hundred and two days since he left home. The ship had no sooner put to sea than he grew seasick. He lay prone on the cabin floor, feeling as weak as a soft-shelled crab and unable to stir. Then he was struck down with malaria which burned and chilled him by turns, and he lay comatose for days. None of the passengers reckoned he would live. Red Hair even dressed him in his new clothes to “send him on his way.” The rule on ship was that anyone who died on board had to be buried at sea. But against all odds, he pulled through. After he woke, he asked how many days he had been asleep; some said three days, some four and some five. The exact length of his passage to Gold Mountain would always be a matter of conjecture.

  Before he went on shore, Ah-Fat donned the clean suit of clothes that Red Hair had dressed him in when he was so ill with malaria. His mother had got Fatty the tailor at the entrance to the village to make them for him before he left. The tailor had used homespun blue cloth with five or six layers of patches sewn into the wristbands and knees, all ready for when he needed them. Mrs. Mak was preparing clothes that he could wear for long time, right up to the day he came home. The patches were stiff and heavy, so that the clothes banged against him when he wore them, rather like a suit of armour. He cursed Fatty for wasting cloth and making the trouser legs so wide and long, but Red Hair patted him on the shoulder: “You’ve just been to the gates of hell and back, so don’t blame the tailor.” It was only then that Ah-Fat realized how thin he had become.

  The ship had been docked for hours, but still they could not disembark. A rumour circulated that they were waiting for someone. Eventually, three people turned up. They were dressed in white garments, with white gloves, and wore squares of white cloth over their mouths. The masks covered more than half of their faces. Only their eyes were visible, sunk deeply into their sockets. Ah-Fat had seen Christian missionaries with eyes like these men in his hometown so their appearance did not strike him as particularly strange.

  The three men divided up the crowd on the deck into two rows and ordered them all to stand straight, side by side, with their hands palm up, face to face and eye to eye with the man opposite. Red Hair shot meaningful glance at Ah-Fat, which he knew meant that he must remember to say he was eighteen years old to anyone who asked him a question. But no one asked him any questions. Instead, the shortest of the three made straight for Ah-Fat and, opening a small leather bag, took out a variety of shiny bright metal objects. His eyes were of an intense grey-blue, like “goose egg” pebble on a stream bed worn smooth over time by the waters. Shorty gripped Ah-Fat’s ear and thrust a long, icy-cold implement into it. He twizzled it around a few times as if he was stirring up night soil, then took it out. It tickled and shivers ran through Ah-Fat. Then the man pulled his eyelids up and leaned in close to peer into his eyes. They were eye to eye, and Ah-Fat could see his irises glimmering blue like two will-o’-thewisps. He finally let go but forgot to pull the lids down, and Ah-Fat had to force himself to blink a few times. They still prickled, as if a grain of sand had stuck inside, and the tears began to run.

  Shorty pried open his mouth, and pressed down on the root of his tongue with a stick. Ah-Fat retched and his mouth flooded with brownish saliva. He spat it out, but his mouth still tasted foul.

  The man pulled out a piece of cotton cloth and rubbed at the droplets of saliva which flecked his sleeve. Then he pulled off Ah-Fat’s jacket and pinched and tapped his chest and stomach. Ah-Fat had always been ticklish. When he was little and fought with Ah-Sin, his younger brother only had to get up close and puff a few breaths at him to reduce Ah-Fat to weak, helpless laughter. This time, of course, Ah-Fat did not dare to laugh; he just kept shrinking backward, until he had gone as stiff as a turtle. The man put his snowy-white head right in the middle of Ah-Fat’s chest. His hair was very sparse and he had a pink bald patch on the crown of his head with a black mole in the middle of it, like a woman’s nipple. Ah-Fat tried so hard not to laugh that he began to quiver violently all over.

  When Shorty had finished tapping his belly, he turned Ah-Fat around, made him stand against the wall and undid Ah-Fat’s trouser string. Ah-Fat did not resist and his trousers slipped down onto the deck, revealing bare legs as skinny as sticks. Shorty pulled his buttocks apart and peered between them, and then he loosely pulled the trousers up and gave them back. Before Ah-Fat could tighten his belt, the man turned him around to face him and, reaching inside, fished out the wrinkly thing which hung between his legs. He laid it in the palm of his hand and turned it this way and that, inspecting it. The skin of Shorty’s hand was silky smooth and Ah-Fat felt his thing gradually swell like a toad, until it hardened into an iron cudgel. Ah-Fat had never seen it grow so big; he felt everyone’s eyes riveted on him until his whole body seemed to burn painfully. He was so mortified he felt close to tears.

  Finally it was over, but Shorty did not tell Ah-Fat he could get dressed; he simply nodded towards a tall man at the stern of the ship. The tall man picked up a long snakelike thing from the deck and came over to Ah-Fat. Before Ah-Fat could get out of the way, a jet of icy-cold water hit him right in the middle of his torso, numbing him to the core. Ah-Fat had seen water in rivers, ponds and wells but he had certainly never seen a snake that could hold so much water in its belly. He was so astonished it did not occur to him to be afraid. Then Red Hair shouted over to him: “It’s disinfectant, to kill the bugs on you!” Ah-Fat picked up his clothes, damp as they were, and put them back on. He must remember to ask Red Hair what “disinfectant” actually meant.

  A wave of passengers flowed ashore and, led by those who had come to meet them, gradually dispersed into the nearby streets and alleyways. The onlookers dispersed too. Only a few children were left, and these followed behind the new arrivals, keeping a cautious distance, with shouts of “Chink, chink, China monkey.” Ah-Fat did not understand the foreign words, but he guessed that they were rude. He staggered along at Red Hair’s heels, baskets balanced on his shoulder pole, concentrating on the road and looking straight ahead. After months at sea, he felt like he was still on the ocean waves, and he was unable to walk steadily.

  The sun gradually sank and clouds like splotches of blood flecked the sky. The evening wind got up and there were hints of a chill in the air. Ah-Fat crouched down and bound the cuffs of his trousers tightly. The wind back home was not like this. The wind back home was rounded and soft, brushing gently and leaving no trace. The Gold Mountain wind had edges and corners, and if you were not careful it would take a layer of skin off as it passed.

  Suddenly, a bell clanged. Ah-Fat looked up, to see a horse-drawn carriage coming towards them. The horse
was a great big animal with gleaming jet-black coat and big, sturdy hooves clopping along the road. Its saddle was dark red and embroidered with gold flowers. An old man wearing a black suit with a black top hat on his head drove the carriage, and two young women sat inside. Their gowns—one was red, the other, blue— were tight-fitting and pinched in at their slender waists; the skirts were so long and wide they looked like two half-opened umbrellas. The women wore hats, with a few feathers stuck into the brims of each. Ah-Fat could not help turning back to stare after the carriage. The plumes looked like pheasants’ tail feathers, he thought to himself. Back home, if people killed a pheasant, they did not bother to keep the feathers after plucking it. Only Mr. Auyung, his teacher, would collect them and put them in a pen pot as a decoration. Actually, the feathers stuck in the Gold Mountain ladies’ hats looked quite pretty.

  He turned back again, saw Red Hair in the far distance waiting for him at the roadside, and hurried to catch up. Red Hair glanced at him. “Pretty, aren’t they, Gold Mountain ladies?” But Ah-Fat was still angry because of Shorty on the boat, and refused to answer. Red Hair laughed and said: “You just get an eyeful of all the marvellous things in this town. In a couple of days’ time you might be up the mountain working, and then there’ll be fuck-all to see.”

  Red Hair referred to the place where they got off the ship as “the town,” and Ah-Fat did the same. It was only a long time afterwards that he learned its proper name, which was almost unpronounceable: Victoria, named for the Queen of England.

  That day, Ah-Fat, Red Hair and a dozen other men from neighbouring villages headed off to a lodging house run by a man from Hoi Ping. The Chinese in Gold Mountain went to such lodgings to relax, eat, and exchange news. Red Hair went there to find out about earning money in town or in the mountains. But that was not why Ah-Fat was going. Finding a way of earning money was Red Hair’s business, and all Ah-Fat needed to do was just stick close behind him. Ah-Fat was going for a very simple reason: he wanted to drink hot water, eat his fill, and then find someone to shave the whiskers on his face. He had spent three months on board ship; when he went on board, he was just a smooth-cheeked kid. But by the time he disembarked, he had become a man, with a face covered in black whiskers. He had missed out on a whole season, the one in which the gradual, orderly process of becoming an adult should have happened.