Journey across the Four Seas: A Chinese Woman's Search for Home

by Li, Veronica

  The next day, after Sam-Koo had left, Mother took me to a mahjong party at the baker’s house. I loved going there because this was no ordinary house, and the owner was no ordinary baker. From listening to the mahjong table chatter, I’d learned that he was the supplier of bread to the British garrisons. Feeding the large number of hungry men earned him such a good income that he could afford eight wives and countless children. His house had three stories, which were sectioned into many units, each one the private domain of a wife. Treading a few steps down here and a few steps up there, I would enter what seemed like different apartments. The privileged class was the sons, and to them the entire second floor belonged. The girls slept with their mothers.

  While Mother played mahjong with the baker’s wives, I played with one of his daughters, Yung-Jen, who was my age. We spent hours mothering her doll. It was made of cloth and had a white porcelain face with large round eyes and long eyelashes. Such a doll was called a yeung wah wah, which means foreign baby.

  When dinner was announced, Yung-Jen and I tucked our baby into bed and went down. The house was strangely quiet without the clatter of mahjong tiles. In the dining room, I could see that the mahjong players were already seated at one of the three round tables. My instinct was to go to Mother, but a loud voice called out, "Pretty girl, come and sit next to me." A hand dragged me to the other side of the table. I looked up and shivered at the sight of the baker’s Second Wife. Her head was huge and her hair unruly, reminding me of a lion I’d seen in a picture book. Mother had told me to beware of this Number Two wife. This woman had nothing good to say about anyone, nor did anyone have anything good to say about her. She was also the most powerful, being the controller of the family’s purse strings.

  The Lioness bared her crooked teeth and drew me close to her. For some reason this much-hated woman had taken a shine to me. She was always threatening to adopt me as a godchild. As the servant placed a steaming dish on the table, the Lioness roared, "Oh good! We’re having bitter squash tonight. My mouth waters when I see bitter squash. Don’t you like it too?" I looked up to find her large wet mouth gaping down at me. Before I knew what to say, she’d spooned a dollop of the bitter squash in my bowl. Having been trained to eat whatever was served me, I shoved it into my mouth. The bitterness almost knocked me off my chair. I wanted to spit it out, but one look from Mother stopped me cold. I shut my eyes and swallowed.

  "She loves it!" the Lioness bellowed. She raised her fat arms and plopped another serving of bitter squash in my bowl. I gulped it down as eagerly as I did the first helping.

  "I just love to look at your thousand gold," she yelled across to my mother.

  "Don’t call my daughter thousand gold," Mother shouted back. "A girl is a money-losing merchandise. When her father died, I should have sold her to a rich family. But she was an obedient girl and no bother to me. That was why I kept her by my side."

  "I should call her not only thousand gold but ten thousand gold!" the Lioness roared. Cocking her head back for a better look at me, she added, "She has such a pretty face. She’ll have no problem finding a rich husband."

  "What’s the use of a husband, rich or poor?" Mother said. "Look at what happened to mine. That’s why I always say, a girl should have an education. It’s the best security she can have."

  I looked at Mother with astonishment. The voice was Mother’s, but the words were Sam-Koo’s.

  While the aunties nodded agreement, Mother went on: "I just got my girl enrolled in Yeuk Chi. The problem is that it’s so far away. I don’t know how I’m going to get her there every morning."

  Without hesitation the Lioness said, "I don’t see any problem at all. Yung-Jen and her sister go to the same school. We hire a rickshaw to send them every morning. The driver can go by your place and pick up your thousand gold." Turning to her co-wife Number Seven, Yung-Jen’s mother, the Lioness demanded, "Isn’t this a good solution?" Number Seven bowed and replied that it was indeed a good solution.

  So that was how my formal education began. I joined the baker’s children’s rickshaw pool. As there was seating for only two, the driver put me on a footstool and pulled us three girls up the hill.

  2

  There are many benefits to being a daughter. Even in a society where men were supreme, the advantages of being a girl, especially the only girl, outweighed the disadvantages. For one, Mother loved me the most. No matter how much she grumbled about girls being money-losers, she lavished whatever she could afford on me rather than my brothers. How could she not? I was closest to her. Sleeping in her bed every night, I could feel her every breath, every heartbeat. I turned when she turned, sighed when she sighed, and opened my eyes when she got up. We were one in our dreams, and she could trust me to know what she wanted of me.

  A daughter has another advantage—access to information. While my brothers walked around in a fog, I always had an older woman to light my way. Sometimes she was Mother, other times she was Sam-Koo or some other mahjong auntie. One of them would warn me of the hazards ahead. My brothers, however, had no idea of the disasters that hit them, either before or after. The unique position I had as the only daughter would greatly influence the next stage of my life.

  Toward the end of my first school year, Mother took a trip back to Swatow. She said she would be gone at least one week, at most two. Sam-Koo was to stay with us, and we were to mind her. When Brother Kin asked Mother why she had to go, her reply was, "Children shouldn’t ask about grown-up matters."

  Well, I found out without asking. That evening, Sam-Koo took me to a Cantonese opera. She was an avid fan and would never miss a performance by her favorite singer. Normally, Mother wouldn’t allow me to go to the theater on a school night, but now that she was gone, Sam-Koo and I took full advantage. While walking to the theater, she said to me, "You know what your mother is doing in Swatow? She’s trying to collect the money she loaned to your Fifteenth Uncle. Several months ago, your uncle came down from Swatow. He told your Mother that a creditor was after him, and if he didn’t pay, the police would put him in jail. He wept like a child, and begged your mother to save him. You know, your mother may be hard on you, but she has a soft heart. Not only did she loan him a big chunk of the money your father left, she also asked me for some more. I gave it to her because I felt sorry for the poor man. Heaven has dealt him the worst punishment a man can get. His whole family is gone: his wife and four children, all gone."

  Sam-Koo thumped her chest as if her heart were hurting. Tears filled my eyes. Although I wasn’t really sad, I’d learned when crying would earn me praises and when a thrashing. Tears for the dead were good tears.

  "But now, people say your Fifteenth Uncle has changed," Sam-Koo went on. "Since he lost his family, he’s lost his conscience as well. Maybe he thinks he can’t be punished more than he has been already. Murder, arson, robbery—there’s nothing he’s not capable of. But of all the shameful things a man can do, he did the worst." Lowering her voice, Sam-Koo said, "He hooked up with your father’s first wife. They’re now living in the same pigsty!"

  I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it sounded filthy to me. A peasant woman came by once in a while to collect leftovers to feed her pigs. The smell rising out of her slop bucket always made me sick.

  "Your Fifteenth Uncle also bribed officials to transfer the family farm title to his name," Sam-Koo said. "He sold off the land and pocketed all the money. If he doesn’t repay your mother now, he never will. I’m not worried about myself. I have only one mouth to feed, but your Mother has all four of you. Without that money, your life will be bitterer than bitter squash."

  The mention of the dreaded squash got my attention. I began to realize how serious this "grown-up matter" was. I wished Mother would come home quickly.

  As the week went by, I began to miss my mother more and more. This was the first time she’d left us for so long. In spite of the beatings and tongue-lashings, she was still Mother. Nobody, not even Sam-Koo, would do the things that Mother did for
us. Every morning Mother got up before any of us to cook breakfast. By the time we were ready, steaming rice, pickled vegetables, and salted fish would be waiting at the table. For lunch and dinner she made dishes with vegetables and fish, and it was always the fish with the biggest eyes. According to Mother, small, shrunken eyes meant that the fish had been caught several days ago; she would never let us eat such stale food. Sometimes she steamed the fish with ginger and scallions. Other times she cooked it in an earthen pot with fermented black beans. Nobody could cook like her, and I was getting anxious that the waves of Swatow had swallowed her.

  My fears were put to rest several days later. The door opened and Mother walked in, her chest heaving from the climb up four flights of stairs. Sam-Koo, Ngai, and I were the only ones home. Ngai ran up to her and threw himself into her arms. I was eight, too old for such childish behavior. Instead, I greeted her with a smile that showed the sun shining in my heart. Mother nodded at me, still trying to catch her breath. Her face was red and appeared even rounder and larger than when she left. This was bad, I thought, because Sam-Koo had said that unhappiness gave Mother a good appetite.

  I could see that the grown-ups were anxious to talk. I led Ngai by the hand to his bed. The best way of making him sit still was to tell him the story of Yueh Fei, the Sung dynasty general who defeated the barbarians. As I’d repeated the story many times before, I could tell it with my mind on the other end of the room.

  "Fifteenth Uncle didn’t even come out to see me," Mother said. "That turtle egg! Every time I went to his home, a maid came out to tell me nobody was home. I went in the morning, the afternoon, and at night. How could he be away all the time? I spent all my money staying at an inn. I think I’m going to hang myself right now!"

  Sam-Koo tried to calm her down, saying things like, "It’s just money." I carried on about the Sung general, skipping the less interesting parts to get to the battle scenes. If Ngai were to fuss now, Mother would scale him as she would a fish. I’d learned to stay clear of Mother when she was in this state, but my little brother was a slow learner.

  Sam-Koo left after a while. I’d gone on to another story, one on the Monkey King. My back faced Mother, but I was aware of her every move—the plop of Mother’s weight as she sat down to take off her shoes, the ruffle of her clothes as she changed into her samfoo. Then there was another sound—the scuffle of approaching footsteps. I wanted to run out to warn my elder brothers, but it was too late. They were already in the room.

  Brother Kin beamed his dimpled smile at Mother. Brother Yung greeted her with his usual pout. No two brothers could be more different. Brother Kin had a broad and sunny face that made you want to smile. Brother Yung’s face was long and narrow, and made you want to copy the pucker on his lips.

  Mother acknowledged her sons with a toss of her head. I was desperately sending my brothers eye signals, when Mother spotted something on the altar. "Who put that book on the altar?" she said.

  Brother Yung picked it up, looked at it, and put it back. "It’s not mine," he said.

  "I told you never to put things on the altar. Take the book away!"

  "Oh, I think it’s mine," Brother Kin confessed. "I’ll get it."

  "You stay where you are. Let Yung pick it up. He’s the eldest. He should be setting a good example for all of you. If a younger brother or sister did something wrong, that’s because the eldest has neglected his duty! Yung, are you going to pick it up or not?"

  "But it’s not mine," my brother whined. I wanted to shout at him, "Do as Mother says!" My poor brother was a bookworm. He could score the highest grades in mathematics, history, and English, but when it came to reading people’s moods, he was illiterate.

  Mother wielded the duster as if she were slashing at the devil. Ngai and I hid behind the bed, our ears plugged and eyes open with fear. We couldn’t bear to watch, yet neither could we bear not to. Mother threw all of her weight on Brother Yung, pinning him to the floor. Straddling him like a horse, she whipped him front and back. Despite the hands clamped on my ears, Brother Yung’s cries pierced through. Brother Kin tried to reason with Mother, but he might as well have been talking to a wild animal. The two teenagers together could have overcome Mother, but they wouldn’t dare even think of it. If a child were to damage a hair on his parent’s head, his crime would be unforgivable. On the other hand, a child’s life is the parent’s to give or take.

  Mother stopped only when her energy was spent. She hauled herself up and staggered into the kitchen. Nobody ate much that night. Brother Yung’s face and hands were crisscrossed with welts. There must have been plenty more under his clothes. He winced with every move; sitting, standing, even lifting his chopsticks seemed painful. Two huge tears clung to his eyes, and they made me extremely nervous. If any of that water leaked out, only the heavens knew what Mother would do this time.

  Everyone went to bed early. I crept into the far side of the bed, as far as possible from Mother. I was furious at her, and the thought of her flesh against mine was offensive. I didn’t know how long I’d been sleeping when a noise woke me. Mother was sitting on the edge of the bed, poring over something in her hands. She was making soft choking sounds in her throat. Her shoulders trembled, then her whole body shook, and the bed vibrated under me. In the dark I couldn’t see what she was holding, but my eyes knew where to search. On the altar where Father’s picture stood was a blank space. Mother had taken him in her arms. A warm trickle rolled into my ear. I dared not wipe it, for fear that Mother would know that I was awake. A pot of emotions boiled in me—yearning for my father and love for my mother. At that point, I forgave her everything.

  *

  As you can see, I was much better informed than my brothers. But information isn’t always an advantage; it can be a burden too. While my brothers thoughtlessly gobbled Mother’s wonderful cooking, I looked at the food and thought of what Mother had to do to feed us. After all, I was the one who accompanied Mother to the pawnshop and watched her exchange a gold chain, medallion, or ring for money. On each trip, Mother would instill in me the idea that a woman should buy jewelry in good times, as she had done, to protect against the bad.

  I’ll always remember the first time I went begging with Mother. Although it took place seventy-some years ago, the details are fresher in my mind than what I just had for lunch. Shortly after Mother’s wretched trip to Swatow, she took me to visit Grandmother. Before we set out, she told me to put on the cheongsam she’d just finished sewing. I slipped into my new dress obediently, though with much dread. To save money, Mother made most of my clothes. However, she always made them to fit somebody else. They were either too long or too short, and without fail, too wide. It was becoming increasingly embarrassing to be seen in one of them.

  Grandmother’s place, which was on the western end of the island, was a good distance away from ours. It was a hot day, but a gentle sea breeze on our back pushed us along. While Mother carried her feet like stones, I skipped and hopped around her. I looked forward to visiting Grandmother. In my mind, her home was full of cakes and candies. Mother usually took me to call on her during Chinese New Year, when I would be offered a tray of twelve different kinds of sweets from which to choose.

  Mother and I arrived at a row of buildings. They were four stories high and had lacy railings on the balconies. One of the buildings belonged to Grandmother. Although she lived in only one flat, Mother said Grandmother owned the entire building.

  A girl about my age opened the door for us. She must have been a newly bought mui tsai, for I didn’t remember seeing her before. Grandmother was lying on her side in the living room, cradling a long pipe. A coil of smoke snaked out of her thin lips. Mother called this kind of smoking "chasing the dragon." Four girls hovered over her. These were the "opium girls," whose only duty was to fill Grandmother’s pipe. She had other mui tsais in the back, and they did other chores, such as cooking and washing the laundry.

  Mother and I stood aside while the girls helped Grandmother up. She
looked like a skeleton propped against the pile of cushions. I went up and greeted her with the cheerful voice Mother had trained me to use. Grandmother stared at me with mostly the whites of her eyes. I wasn’t sure if she’d seen me.

  While the grown-ups talked, I was told to sit in a corner. The sweets were absent, which was disappointing. But to my delight, the chair I was assigned was next to the shelves of antiques. Of course I knew better than to touch them. From the time of my first visit, Mother had made me understand that the punishment for breaking any of them was too horrible for my ears. Clasping my hands to avoid temptation, I examined the plates and vases that belonged to the various dynasties. Ming, Ching, and Tang might sound remote to other eight-year-olds, but to a history buff like myself, they were as familiar as nursery rhymes. Historical novels had been my passion ever since I read my first book, the Biography of Yueh Fei. He was our national hero, the Sung dynasty general who drove back the barbarian hordes a thousand years ago. I’d found the book among the messy stack on Sam-Koo’s desk. Whenever I stayed at her place, I would fish it out and lose myself in the fantastic world of heroes and villains. My second book was Romance of the Three Kingdoms, also among the pile on Sam-Koo’s desk. The plots of the kings and their advisors were too complicated for me, but every time I read it I understood a little more. Looking at the ancient treasures on Grandmother’s shelves, I felt connected to the characters that had kept me company for many hours.