Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter (25 page)

Father removed his glasses. In a hollow voice quaking with emotion, he asked whether she was choosing never to see her parents again and to be disowned by them.

’What choice do I have, Daddy? Have a heart!’

Father placed some money on the table and stood up to leave.

’Daddy! You haven’t touched your juice or eaten anything. Won’t you be hungry?’

Staring vacantly ahead, he said, ’I shall give your mother your message.’ He blinked nervously, his own spastic, winking blink which pierced Susan’s heart. As he hurried down the stairs, past the lunch crowd waiting for tables, the whiteuniformed bellboys and the captain in his peaked cap punctiliously opening the sparkling glass door, the musical group struck up a familiar Beatles’ song, ’Let it be’.

That is how my half-sister Susan was disowned in 1973.

The four of us who were living abroad at this time received the following curt announcement by registered airmail.

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Dear Gregory, Edgar, James and Adeline,-

We wish to inform all four of you that Susan is no longer part of the Yen family. You are not to speak, write or associate with her ever again. Should you disobey our instructions, you too will be disinherited.

Affectionately yours. Father and Mother

The letter did not include Lydia because she had already been disowned since 1951. James commented that it seemed to have been written by parents with ’U-frfLfa. xin ru si hut (hearts reduced to ashes), completely devoid of human feelings.

None of us replied. We dealt with the matter in our separate ways. Gregory and I continued to see Susan on our visits to Hong Kong. Edgar ignored her from then on.

When James came home from Nigeria for his annual summer leave, Susan turned to him and Louise for solace. The two women were approximately the same age and held many interests in common. James found himself in an unenviable position. He could not afford a total break with our parents. He thought Susan had been treated unjustly but confessed that he and Louise were compelled to show at least token compliance with Niang’s demands. She had categorically forbidden him and Louise to associate with Susan. Soon, all contact ceased. Even when Niang was away in Monte Carlo, Susan’s invitations were refused, her phone calls unreturned, her letters unanswered. When the couples met by chance at social functions, James and Louise practised ’selectavision’ and ’nonvisualization’, a common practice in Hong Kong’s high society. The only time they communicated with Susan was when their youngest daughter was applying for admission to Maryknoll nine years later. A recommendation was needed from Susan as trustee of the renowned convent school.

Gregory kept his meetings with Susan a secret from James. Once James spotted Gregory riding in Susan’s chauffeur—

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driven Mercedes on Queen’s Road Central. Later when he met Gregory, he asked after Susan. But Gregory denied he had been with her, no doubt fearing that James might report back to Niang.

’This hurt my feelings very much,’ James indignantly cornplained to me. ’Gregory doesn’t trust me at all! What do / care if he sees or doesn’t see Susan? That’s his own business entirely. But does he really think I’d stoop so low as to tell tales behind his back to curry favour with Niang? Is Gregory’s opinion of me really that deplorable?’

It was true that Gregory no longer trusted James. From time to time, Gregory would say to me, ’Susan and I both feel that James has changed. He is now entirely Niang’s creature.’

Instinctively, I would leap to the defence of my San ge (Third Elder Brother). ’I don’t think so, Gregory. He has such a good heart. He is just like a reincarnated Ye Ye.’

’Don’t trust him so much. Don’t trust anyone so much. You’ll get hurt.’

I would shake my head and laugh. ’One day, when Niang is gone,’ I told Gregory, ’you’ll see the real James emerge, yi chun bu ran (not contaminated by a single particle of dust). Pure as the lily’s innermost petal.’

Many of James’s contemporaries from universities in England had returned to Hong Kong. Civil engineers and architects were especially in demand as skyscrapers mushroomed across every inch of available land. Residents of older highrises on slopes above the harbour were dismayed to find their peerless view of the bay blocked by newer and taller structures lower down the hillside. Towering office complexes were constructed on land newly reclaimed from the sea. Jobs were plentiful, especially for bilingual male graduates from prestigious western universities. Hong Kong gradually burgeoned into one of the world’s major trade centres with the highest population density in the history of mankind: a whopping 165,000 people per square kilometre. Many of our fellow students in England founded companies employing hundreds, even thousands, of

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workers. It was exhilarating to see the rapid expansion of their enterprises. Manufactured goods stamped ’Made in Hong Kong’ were exported to every corner of the world. While all this was happening it seemed incredible that James, the brilliant Cambridge-trained civil engineer, could remain a puppet blindly carrying out his parents’ orders. ’

Niang interfered in every facet of their lives. She objected to the children’s piano lessons, ordered Louise to quit painting,, and take up cooking, criticized her clothing and even scolded her for spending too much time visiting her own mother. Since ’ Louise dared not stand up to Niang, all she could do was to ’ practise little deceptions, sometimes with the connivance of her children. ’

Niang was often annoyed at Louise and would ignore her , for months on end. At Sunday evening dinners, she would belittle her to James, who remained seemingly unperturbed while l his wife was being systematically insulted. Father usually kept , quiet, offering no opinion except on financial matters. ’

James never refused food proffered by Niang, no matter how much he had already eaten or how little he liked the dish. It became a symbol of his subservience. He was the garbage can, accepting all that Niang discarded. All she had to do was glance at the leftovers on his children’s plates, and James would lean over and plop them in his mouth.

The children, normally vivacious and highspirited, were cowed into timid silence. Niang hated noisy children. They loathed going to ’Grandma’s’ where they were not allowed to be themselves.

When Father first became ill in 1976, James, then forty-two years old, was finally permitted by Niang to leave Nigeria and make Hong Kong his year-round residence. However, every major decision had to be approved by Niang, who took credit for every success and blamed James for each failure.

On my frequent visits back to Hong Kong, James and Louise filled me with tales of their unhappy lives. Louise confided that she found Niang’s insults and constant meddling insufferable.

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Meanwhile, Niang complained bitterly about Louise, ending invariably with the lament that, regrettably, she was the one responsible for their union.

Repeatedly over the years, I advised James to take his family to the US and make their own way there. It was clear to me that their only chance of happiness was to escape from Niang’s clutches. ’Come to Huntington Beach and live with us,’ I would urge. ’You are so smart, James. Probably the smartest member of our entire family. You can do anything. We could all go into business together and have some fun. Share and share alike. It’s not so bad out there. Nothing is as bad as life under Niang’s thumb. Surely you know that, James!’

’We’re like prisoners over here,’ Louise would lament. ’I feel as if I am in a straitjacket! I can’t breathe! Let’s get away from her, James. I am willing to do anything, live anywhere. I don’t need very much.’

’I know,’ James would reply, hanging his head and pouring himself another generous helping of whisky, ’but not yet.’

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Scales and Shells in the Belly

In Shanghai, Aunt Baba continued working at the Women’s Bank. She stayed on in the Avenue Joffre house with Miss Chien and two maids. Miss Chien, Franklin’s nanny, was fearful of dismissal and did everything to please my aunt. She rose at dawn to wax the parquet floors and brush the carpets. She persuaded my aunt to dispense with one of the maids and undertook the most unpleasant tasks such as scouring the toiif lets and scrubbing the stove. She washed and ironed all of my? aunt’s clothes and laundered the drapes. Every evening, my aunt came home to -a sparkling house and a tasty meal, prepared personally by Miss Chien. As winter approached, she knitted thick and colourful cardigans for my aunt.

After Father sold his Buick in 1948, the garage was converted into a storage room. Because times were uncertain, my aunt kept a supply of basic commodities on hand: sacks off rice, jars of oil, dried vegetables, salted fish, soya sauce. Besides! food, the garage contained many cartons of silk cotton and] Australian wool. Decades ago, Ye Ye had purchased somil shares in a Shanghai silk factory. Over the years, this firm prospered, exporting silk cotton and importing Australian wool. Instead of paying dividends in cash, they paid their shareholders surplus bolts of silk cotton and skeins of wool. The cotton was of the finest quality, very light and fluffy, and

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was used as padding in quilts, comforters, gowns and jackets. However, towards the end of 1951, the factory owner was targeted during the JLSL3LSL San fan - wu fan (Three Antis Five Antis) campaigns. His factory was undergoing reorganization and no more dividends were issued. Silk cotton became scarce and valuable.

San fan wu fan (Three Antis - Five Antis) were two overlapping sister movements launched by the cornmunist government in 1951. The three antis were against waste, corruption and bureaucracy carried out by Communist Party members. The five antis were aimed at their counterparts outside the party who had profited through bribery, fraud, theft, tax evasion and inside information. The two groups were frequently linked.

About this time, my aunt was transferred to work at a branch near the Cathay Cinema, two tram stops away from home. Many customers were locals known personally to her and one of them was a tailor named Yeh. Tailor Yeh owned a small shop next to the bank and often dropped in for a chat when business was slow. One day he asked Aunt Baba to deliver a padded jacket he had just finished for someone living in the same lane. His customer was Miss Chien.

The moment my aunt saw the jacket, she knew that Miss Chien was dishonest and had fl!4’3|1f fu zhong lin jia (scales and shells in her belly). As was customary, Tailor Yeh had placed all the unused cotton with other leftover material in a paper bag with the jacket. Silk cotton of such superior quality was unavailable anywhere in Shanghai. Miss Chien had been stealing from the garage.

That evening, Aunt Baba asked her to return the household keys and discovered that the former nanny had been pilfering food and wool as well. She reported the theft to Father and asked him to dismiss her, adding that she could no longer share the house with someone so untrustworthy.

Father’s reply made her cringe. His orders were that Miss Chien was not to be dismissed, not ever. She was to go on living

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in the house with my aunt and continue drawing her salary as well as a bonus at Chinese New Year. My aunt need not be concerned with the ’missing’ items. The Yen family could well afford to absorb the loss. Clearly Father had his own secret agenda.

Aunt Baba and Miss Chien stopped speaking to each other. Miss Chien continued to knit with the wool she had squirrelled away, shamelessly selling the sweaters and even taking orders. Her abundant supply of imported wool was the envy of the neighbourhood. During endless evening meetings held to discuss the Three Antis - Five Antis campaigns, many eyes in their hu kou (residence unit) were focused on the busy knitting needles of Miss Chien while party hopefuls babbled away about corruption and bribery.

She no longer addressed my aunt as Miss Yen, but referred to her as that ’upstairs character’. She started entertaining her own family members in the parlour downstairs, conferring with the maid, Ah Song, about the menu. She gossiped with the neighbours and whispered that her Hong Kong employers had instructed her to ’guard and write reports on’ my aunt, intimating mental imbalance, amoral dalliance or worse.

The atmosphere at home became intolerable to Aunt Baba. Ah Song began to adopt shades of Miss Chien’s airy attitude. One morning, when Ah Song was being particularly impertinent, Aunt Baba fired her on the spot in a fit of anger. The maid went crying to Miss Chien but there was nothing they could do.

Aunt Baba engaged a new maid, Ah Yee, who worked only for her. She installed cooking facilities in the spare room on the second floor, eating her meals there privately. The dismissal of Ah Song seemed to deflate Miss Chien’s arrogance somewhat. An unspoken semi-truce followed. Miss Chien’s previous overt hostility was replaced by an icy politeness. She continued to file her weekly ’secret progress reports’ to Father.

In the winter of 1951, during a routine audit of Grand Aunt’s Women’s Bank, an inventory was taken of all the

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commodities stored at the bank’s giant depository. In the process, Aunt Baba received a letter from the Bank Auditing Authority addressed to Wang Jie-xiang, my grandmother, who had died in Tianjin in 1943.

For various reasons in the 19405, Father often purchased commodities and property in the maiden name of his deceased mother, Wang Jie-xiang. Initially, it may have suited his purpose to use her name because the Japanese were after him. Father soon discovered that there were advantages in having a ’ghost’ as the registered owner of tangible assets. It was impossible to sue, contact, threaten, blackmail or kidnap a ghost. This was common practice during the lawless days of the

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Third Uncle, the third and youngest brother of my own dead mother, had been apprenticed to my father as a teenager. Father gave him the English name Frederick and left him in charge in Shanghai after his own departure for Hong Kong.

At first, it was business as usual after the Communist takeover. Some time in 1949, probably under orders from Father, who was anticipating a price rise in certain commodities, Uncle Frederick purchased a few hundred cases of white beeswax in the name of Wang Jie-xiang and stored it in the depository of Grand Aunt’s bank. The price of beeswax continued to fall. Reluctant to sell on the downward spiral, he decided to wait. Two years later, as the political climate worsened, my uncle accompanied my brother James to Hong Kong with the beeswax still unsold.