Our second daughter, Hui Ying, meanwhile, suffered from nightmares. She would wake up screaming in the middle of the night. She could never tell me what her dreams were about, only that she was frightened. She slept in my bed while her grandparents were with us. After their departure, Hui Ying refused to return to the room she shared with her sisters. Ignoring her pleas, I ordered her back into her own room. One morning Hui Ying ran to me, sobbing. ‘Mama! If you die too, what happen to us then?’
My throat turned dry. I stroked my daughter’s head and put on a brave face, though my heart was breaking. ‘Don’t be silly, Hui Ying,’ I said. ‘Mama is here with you.’
She looked up, scrunching her nose. ‘How you know? Maybe you die too. Then we like the orphans outside.’
I sighed. ‘Hui Ying-ah, your kong-kong and po-po are still alive. They look after you.’
‘But they old already, maybe they die too,’ my daughter objected. I was forced to discuss our entire family, going through the relatives one by one, beginning with her kong-kong and po-po, my parents, whom I knew would care for them if need be. I reminded Hui Ying of her aunts and her uncle Chong Jin, as well as distant cousins in Penang. When my daughter finally calmed down, we went to work in the kitchen, cutting banana leaves into pieces and pounding mixtures of coriander seeds, ginger root and garlic for our daily kueh.
As I set out that morning with my baskets, my daughter’s small voice haunted me. Hui Ying’s question shook me, but I could do little except work harder for my children. It was the only way I knew how.
19
One evening three years after Peng Choon passed away, my eldest son, Weng Yu, surprised the family with a story.
Hundreds of years ago, when the Ming Dynasty ruled China, a Chinese princess was sent to marry the Sultan of Malacca. In those days China was a powerful country, its protection sought by many rulers. Fearing attacks on his kingdom by unfriendly neighbours, the Sultan of Malacca sent a representative to the Ming court to ask for help. Good relations were already established between China and Malacca, as Chinese traders had settled on these shores centuries before. Listening to the Sultan’s pleas, the Chinese emperor gave the hand of his daughter Hang Li Po in marriage to the Sultan. When Princess Hang Li Po arrived in Malacca, she brought five hundred courtiers with her, dressed in magnificent silk robes which flowed to the ground. Their jade, rubies and other precious stones glinted in the sun, blinding the people of Malacca. The princess’s courtiers were given an entire hill – Bukit China – just outside the town on which to live. Over the years they became an important part of the local community. With their thirst for adventure, famous warriors emerged from among them, and Malacca was spared from attack for many years.
Weng Yu’s story came at a time when I was already able to relax in the evenings – ‘to shake my legs’, as we like to say – because the Nyonya kueh business was thriving. The cakes had become sought-after delicacies, while the catering sideline was also growing fast. In the beginning catering augmented our income just once or twice a year, but then we received a full-moon celebration order – for two hundred angkoo and mi-koo to celebrate a baby’s first month. Thereafter, word of the Wong family kueh spread through the Kinta District. We were flooded with orders for baby celebrations, and I’d had to hire two girls permanently to help in the kitchen.
In the evenings I began to gather the children around once more, to enjoy the storytelling we’d had as a family before Peng Choon’s departure. I held my youngest son, Weng Foo, on my lap while the others sat on the floor, their eyes fixed on me as they listened to tales of fighting buffalo and holes being torn in the sky. Weng Yu had scoffed at this idea. ‘There can’t be holes in the sky!’ he exclaimed in contempt.
‘It’s a story, Weng Yu,’ I told him. ‘You don’t like to hear my stories, I no tell them.’ The threat had made my fourth son, Weng Yoon, scowl with a look that could have bored holes through his brother’s cheeks. Though only seven, Weng Yoon held his gaze, until his older brother backed down. Casually my little prince asked whether I had heard of Princess Hang Li Po.
‘No,’ I said. ‘She is who?’ With that, my eldest son commenced his tale, in the process revealing a side of his character none of us had seen till then. Not once did he pause for breath; it was as if he could imagine the princess and her entire court in front of us. I thought about the report cards my little prince brought home every term, which contained snippets that had to be read out to me by a man who used to work with Peng Choon. They confirmed what I already suspected: that my son was bright but exceptionally quiet. ‘Weng Yu is a good student. Needs to speak more’ were two sentences I knew like the palm of my hand.
Afterwards Weng Yu asked whether I liked the story. ‘Very much,’ I replied. I had heard of Malacca, where many Nyonyas and Babas lived, but the story of Princess Hang Li Po was new to me. ‘You learn in school-ah?’ I asked, to which my son proudly nodded.
I was pleased to discover yet another side of my little prince, but I thought it a pity he would never make money as a singer or a storyteller. Not in Ipoh at least.
In those years the town continued to grow. New brick buildings shot up, English was heard more often and local men started putting on Western clothes for daily wear – not many, but enough to be noticeable. I accepted these creeping changes without thinking about them; I had too much else to do building my livelihood.
One Monday morning Siew Lan arrived at our house with her son, Don – ‘Tong’ to me – in tow. I was in a good mood. I had been reflecting on our labours and was pleased with what we had achieved. I sat brimming with ideas too; a new mechanism for delivering kueh had just occurred to me when I caught sight of Siew Lan.
She came trotting in holding Don’s hand. He was the same age as my fifth son, Weng Choon, but because of his European father, Don stood much taller. With thick pouting lips like his mother’s and skin as tanned as a coconut husk, I would have thought him completely Chinese if it hadn’t been for the incongruous tuft of brown hair on his head. Don’s hair always made me look twice. I could not imagine what would become of him when he grew up, how such wispily thin hair the wrong colour could fit on such a face. Siew Lan and I sent him off to play with my boys before sitting cross-legged on the barlay, with our customary coffee pot and betel-chewing tray laid down before us.
The look of steely determination in Siew Lan’s eyes told me she had come on a mission. I wondered what it was. She had chosen her time well; Monday was my day off, which meant I had both the freedom and the energy to listen.
‘Your boys, how many now in school?’ Siew Lan asked, evidently about to get straight to the point.
‘Four,’ I replied, dragging out the answer as I wondered where the conversation was heading. ‘Why?’
‘I think they should go to English school.’
The scrape of my guillotine knife against the husk of a betel nut could be heard; in one swift move I sliced neatly into its core. ‘English school?’ I repeated mechanically, not quite able to take in my friend’s question.
Siew Lan’s large brown eyes looked straight into mine. With both hands she raised a bright porcelain cup etched with Nyonya motifs in flamboyant greens and pinks. ‘Yes-lah!’ she said emphatically. ‘I hear people say . . . the one down the road is good.’
Siew Lan watched as I spread white lime over a large betel leaf. ‘You know the world now change,’ she prodded. ‘You want them have the best opportunities, isn’t it?’
Wrapping the leaf around my chopped-up betel nut, I placed the fat bundle on to my tongue. I didn’t like the idea of an English school; I couldn’t have said why – I just didn’t like it – but I could see that my friend wasn’t going to be put off. She and I behaved similarly when we believed in something. I chewed on Siew Lan’s question until the juice made my brain drowsy and I had to spit out a mouthful of blood-red liquid.
‘Siew Lan-ah, I really not know,’ I said cautiously. ‘I no want them to forget their roots.’ I recounted ho
w Weng Yu had surprised me with his story of Princess Hang Li Po. ‘I happy they learn their own history. In English school they teach what sort of history?’
‘Ai-yahh, Chye Hoon,’ Siew Lan said with a deadly serious expression. She had her own juicy bundle inside her mouth and was moving the cud around. In between sucking she spoke. ‘Those stories not important,’ she mumbled, exposing red-black teeth. ‘You work so hard for your children. But some things we cannot control.’ With those words Siew Lan swept her arms up in a dramatic gesture to indicate the world beyond our windows. ‘Learn about China, what for? China is going down. We not like, but true.’
That set us on a long discussion about matters we did not normally touch. Our lives revolved around marketing and children; we busied ourselves with the supervision of servants, with the childhood illnesses, which seemed to come without pause, with schools, and for me, with my kueh business. In the midst of such unceasing activity, I had stopped following developments in China. I knew only about major events – the fall of the Ching dynasty, for instance; also that a state without an emperor had been declared. Other than that I paid little attention, not least because any news I caught about China always involved disturbance, either fighting or an assassination or an uprising, as if China were a country in which only chaos existed.
Siew Lan latched on to this, contrasting the picture of the China we held in our heads with what she had heard about England from her husband. ‘England is very peaceful type of country – also powerful. That’s why here got English rule. Your boys speak English language, sure to have more opportunities. Remember your husband even he speak English.’
It was true. Peng Choon did speak English. He had worked hard to learn it too, reading every book he could get his hands on. Yet curiously my husband had also wanted to send our boys to a Chinese school. Perhaps he had intended for them to learn English outside; who was to know? Without him around it was impossible for me to teach my sons, and I felt certain that Peng Choon would have wanted them to learn a language – any language – that would give them brighter chances in the future.
I thought about all this but couldn’t shake off a nagging feeling. ‘What about religion? I want my children pray to Lord Buddha, Kuan Yin.’
‘No problem. My Flora now at the English school for girls. She no change religion.’
I sighed, spitting out another mouthful of betel nut juice. Siew Lan always came with an answer to every question. Though my sons’ futures could not wait forever, I wasn’t yet ready to make such a bold move. ‘I have to think,’ I told my friend.
With education on our minds, I forgot about my idea for delivering kueh. It soon came back, though, and the more I mulled it over, the more excited I became.
By the time I saw my friend a few days later, I could barely contain myself. I stopped her before she could enquire about the school. ‘Later,’ I said, gesticulating with my hands. ‘First I have something to ask you.’ My eyes must have shone, because Siew Lan peered at me with a questioning stare.
‘I listen,’ she said cautiously.
‘I want to use a bicycle to carry kueh. What you think?’
‘A bicycle?’ There was silence as Siew Lan digested this. ‘Who ride it?’
‘Me of course,’ I replied without hesitation. ‘Who else?’
Further silence, before Siew Lan piped up, ‘You?’ The incredulity was apparent in her voice.
Upset by her reaction, I retorted, ‘What? You think I no can-ah?’
I was used to the sight of those two-wheeled vehicles by then. Although they were not as commonplace as now, I had spied my first bicycle shortly after our arrival in town. But they remained expensive and were beyond the reach of most locals. For years, as I watched riders glide down our hill on the Lahat Road, I had envied them; they fanned me with a breeze as they flew by, and I imagined how much cooler they must have felt as they whizzed along, so much faster than my legs could carry me. When I thought of my daily kueh route, the idea of transferring the burden to a machine made my heart beat faster.
‘You think I no can learn?’ I repeated, a touch wounded.
For once my friend fumbled for words. ‘I think . . . hmm . . . maybe-lah,’ she conceded uncertainly. ‘But who can teach you?’
‘Ai-yahh! How can be that difficult? I just get on bicycle and ride,’ I said with a confidence I was to regret.
‘Hmm . . .’ I remember the strange look Siew Lan gave me, a combination of grave encouragement infused with undisguised doubt. ‘Maybe . . . not so easy, Chye Hoon.’
To lighten the air, Siew Lan suggested we pay a visit to the English school, which happened to be on our way. ‘We can look at bicycles after that,’ she added helpfully.
I was impressed by the Anglo-Chinese School even on that first visit. This was before the main building was completed; it was under construction then, but the foundation stone had already been laid. In its absence, all I could see was a series of double-storey buildings with elaborately tiled roofs that housed classroom after classroom crammed full of boys. Not all the boys wore shirts and trousers; there were Malay boys in sarongs with songkoks on their heads, while some Chinese boys had jackets with Mandarin collars. There must have been hundreds of boys, because the rooms were so full that four attap sheds adjoining the brick buildings were also used for teaching. This worried me, but I was put at ease by the obvious enthusiasm of the teachers, especially the white devil whom we were told was the headmaster.
He was a large man, not fat but lumbering, with arms dangling down his sides like a friendly orangutan’s. When he greeted me in Hokkien, I nearly tumbled over. ‘Chiak pa boey?’ he said cheerfully. Craning my neck to look into his face, I felt a new respect for this giant of a devil, who had taken the trouble to learn our languages.
The headmaster introduced himself as Mr Ho-Lee and told us he loved our part of the world. He wanted to know how many boys I had, how old they were and whether they already attended school. Mr Ho-Lee’s friendliness won me over; it was my first encounter with a white man who didn’t look down on us. I knew Siew Lan disagreed, but that was how I felt; the others, including her husband, were politely condescending. The headmaster, on the other hand, conversed easily and freely, frequently flashing his teeth. Whether standing up or sitting down, Mr Ho-Lee conveyed the impression of hearty happiness. He did not laugh; he roared, throwing his head back with gusto. Whenever he did, his bushy moustache – two tufts of hair which hovered above his lips and joined in the middle like a roof – curved upwards like a cat’s whiskers. Even his ears looked cheerful, turning pink when he laughed. When I asked about the attap sheds, he assured me they were temporary; the new buildings had already been paid for – by the Chinese community, he stressed – and would be ready soon.
After we left Mr Ho-Lee, Siew Lan and I walked on our own, surveying the other rooms. The headmaster had given us permission to go anywhere we wished and we poked our heads into all sorts of places. We went from a room full of white devils – the teachers apparently – to an enormous hall lined with books from floor to ceiling. There were also rooms in which funny-looking glass tubes hung on metallic clamps. ‘This is where they learn science,’ Siew Lan whispered reverently. ‘Se-Too-Wat tell me this the future.’
As we walked, Siew Lan told me Mr Ho-Lee’s story, how he was sent from Singapore to Ipoh to start this school. When he arrived, there had been nothing; Mr Ho-Lee even had to hire coolies to clear trees. Before we left the school grounds, I cast an admiring glance at what this white man had achieved nearly twenty years later. That was when I made up my mind.
It was a decision which would change our lives more than I could have suspected at the time. Early in 1913 I had our four eldest boys transferred to the Anglo-Chinese School, while the younger ones started there when they came of age.
20
Moving the boys to an English school made me wonder what to do about the girls. It was a matter my husband and I had failed to resolve: we had searched for a Chinese sc
hool for them at a time when the options were few. Instruction in English, on the other hand, would make finding a school easier, thanks to the missionaries. The same Mr Ho-Lee, when I met him, had asked whether I had daughters. He told me he had taught the first set of girls two weeks after reaching Ipoh – inside his own house. The class of girls grew in number, as did the class of boys, and the girls had finally been moved to separate premises not far away, just off Chamberlain Road.
That was where Siew Lan’s daughter, Flora, went for lessons, and my friend did her utmost to persuade me to send my girls too.
‘Better for them,’ she told me as we rode a rickshaw into town when we had finally set up a time to look at bicycles.
Feeling a thrill as we turned the corner into Brewster Road, I clasped Siew Lan’s arm, murmuring, ‘We later only talk-lah!’ My friend said nothing in reply, but I could hear her thoughts ticking away in the silence. The question was certain to come up again.
Meanwhile the Cycle & Carriage store gleamed in the bright sunlight. Siew Lan’s husband called it the only place for bicycles, and there was such an array of vehicles that their glare hurt my eyes. In the initial moments, I had to place my hands over both eyebrows. Squinting in the sun, I saw rows of ugly motor cars, their huge lights and cold bonnets staring straight at me.
A Chinese man came out to greet us. On hearing of my search for a bicycle, he led us inside into the bowels of the shop, where brand-new bicycles were displayed. There were simple black bikes with nothing other than seats and handlebars, bikes with bells, different shapes of seats, fancy handlebars, even tricycles with a smaller front wheel and two large rear wheels. They were all newly imported from Britain – and expensive.
I gasped when I heard the prices. ‘What? One hundred dollars?’ That was enough to see my four boys through for eight months, even on the increased fees in their new school. ‘You no have something cheaper-ah?’
The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds Page 17