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In 1981 I visited Hong Kong briefly, to introduce my boyfriend to my family and to a heritage he knew very little about. It afforded us a one-day guided visit, by train, to Shenzhen (Shum Chun), China’s first Special Economic Zone under Deng Xiao Ping, the nation’s window to the outside world. It was very different from the prosperous, bustling, hectic, commercial pace of Hong Kong, but we came away thinking it must have been what Hong Kong was like in the 1930s, pre-Second World War. Today Shenzhen is almost indistinguishable from any Westernized city, with its high-rise buildings, five-star hotels, traffic and tourism.
I have very sketchy memories of meeting a young man, introduced to me in the late 1960s, as my cousin’s betrothed. She was the eldest daughter of my Third Uncle; my Third Aunt, two daughters and two sons lived in rather squalid conditions in the Kowloon peninsula of Hong Kong whilst the rest of the family remained in China. Then, Shenzhen was a small fishing village, and the most popular escape route for refugees fleeing the poverty and starvation of rural Communist China, for a better life in the British colony. The 35-kilometer land border had been closed in 1951, patrolled by the police force and Gurkha troops on the Hong Kong side of the border in an attempt to limit the mass exodus that had begun during the Chinese Civil War (between the Communist and Nationalist Party). This reached its height in 1962, following the failure of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, which resulted in devastating famine ravishing the mainland. Nobody knew at the time exactly what triggered the exodus, but for nearly four weeks, the Chinese authorities made no attempt to try to stop it. I think it was during this time that my uncles sent some of their children to live with us, for once the exodus started many tried to escape. Many died on the way, or were caught and sent straight back. Illegal immigration was not unusual in Hong Kong, but the mass influx in 1962 was. Most were illiterate peasant farmers, the majority in their twenties and thirties. An estimated 2 million entered Hong Kong as illegal immigrants back then. Most were repatriated, transported by truck to the Lo Wu Railway Bridge where they walked back into China with no penalties; those who were accepted ended up in shanty towns and refugee camps, none of which exist today. It is now recognised that this influx provided many domestic workers and supplied the manpower which helped Hong Kong to become one of the world’s leading manufacturing centres today.
This young man I was introduced to was quiet, reserved and spoke no English. He was in his late 20s. He had abandoned his family, successfully making his escape, on his second attempt, by swimming from the Shekou area of Shenzhen to Hong Kong. The waters of Dapeng and Shenzhen Bays were deep and dirty. The four-kilometer swim was often fatal, thanks to drownings, shark attacks or shootings by the People’s Liberation Army soldiers. His first attempt failed as he tried to cross over the land border; he was deported back to China. The second time, although unable to swim, he held onto a makeshift raft for three days, kicking his legs through stretches of shark-infested waters and avoiding barbed wire fences secreted beneath the surface. Finally, arriving on one of the small outlying islands in the archipelago, he was hidden by fisher folk until it was deemed safe to cross over to Victoria Island. His two companions were not so lucky. The more popular route was to swim to Yuen Long in the northwest area of the New Territories. Details of his escape to one of the outlying islands were kept secret, but were used by others in the months that followed.
He worked hard all hours of the day and night in a small and dingy tailoring workshop, until he took up a position in a shop located in one of the backstreets of Causeway Bay. He eventually married my cousin and set up his own small tailoring business. My father commissioned his first tailor-made suits from him when in 1970 he was offered and accepted an exciting opportunity to go on a 10 -week educational visit to the United States of America, to learn about the world of libraries and museums.
Over the years, four cousins have lived with us in our little overcrowded flat in Sheung Wan. A brother and sister were sent to my grandmother by her eighth son; I regard them more as my older siblings as they lived with us from as early as I can remember. The boy went to school during the day, while the girl helped my grandmother and attended evening classes. She often walked my sister and me home from primary school until we were old enough to return unaccompanied, and would scare us with stories of a haunted public toilet we walked past every day. A few years later, my Seventh Uncle also sent his older son and daughter to live with us for a while, but they soon moved, with their mother, to a small farm in the New Territories, north of Kowloon. The New Territories was a different world, with mountain ranges, fish ponds, rice fields, water buffalo and squat toilets.
Our sleeping arrangements in the flat were more problematic when the weather was humid and the heat stifling. As we only had one ceiling fan, in the living room, there was a jostle to sleep under it in the living room if such conditions prevailed. At times there might be nine of us. We would unroll straw mats onto the wooden floor, light a slow-burning mosquito coil and find a space to settle down, careful not to sleep with our feet pointing to the door, as to the Chinese this is deemed the route one takes to one’s funeral.
Thunder broke the sky, and soon I could hear a ferocious downpour. ‘Aieeyaa! It’s falling rain. Quick, bring the washing in,’ my grandmother called.
Bamboo poles threaded with heavy wet clothing were carried through our small flat into the kitchen, where each was lifted with the aid of an iron pronged pole and hung into makeshift loops high above our heads.
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ I offered rather sheepishly, knowing I was not tall enough and would probably get in the way. Certainly the cat was nowhere to be seen. She had sensed the rude intrusion as she was curled up next to the gas hob, and immediately darted out of the way to hide under my grandmother’s bed.
‘No, it’s all right,’ my grandmother answered as the last transfer was completed. ‘One monk can carry water on a shoulder pole by himself, two monks may carry water between them on a pole, but three monks go thirsty.’
In spite of the heavy rains, the downpour afforded very little relief to an otherwise humid and sultry day. I had hoped for a typhoon. At least that would clear the weather.
One morning in late August, the crackling of my parents’ pocket transistor radio woke me from my sleep. A special weather bulletin was being broadcast in the melodic intonations of the Cantonese presenter. A typhoon which had been hovering over the South China Sea had moved quickly overnight, and was heading towards Hong Kong. The number five tropical storm signal had been hoisted in the early hours of the morning, whilst we were all asleep, and only minutes before the bulletin, it had been upgraded to number eight. I knew that meant everything in the colony would come to a complete standstill. No work. No transport. Shops closed. What a pity schools were still out on their summer break. It would have been an extra day off, had the number three signal been hoisted during term time.
‘Mother!’ my mother called out. ‘Number eight typhoon signal. No need to go to work today. We do not have to get up so early now!’
Ironic really. It was welcome news to the adults in one respect, but it also meant a lot of anxious waiting around, listening out for weather bulletins all day long in case the typhoon changed course and the normal working day resumed. Luckily, my parents were both working on the island at the time. Had the typhoon signal been hoisted whilst they were at work on Kowloon-side, they would have been stranded on the other side of the harbour, unable to get home. Lower typhoon signals allowed plenty of time to prepare for the storm; hundreds of sampans would make their way into the safety of the harbour from the open waters. Those who lived in shanty towns and tin shacks on the mountainsides would find refuge in a temporary government site, fearful of the ubiquitous landslides and torrential floods.
‘Come on!’ my father called, suddenly wide awake. ‘Let’s make sure everything’s secured.’
The household was galvanised into action. Unlocking the iron gate, we gathered what was left of the previous day’s laundry from the poles hanging outside the balcony. Then we quickly tied together the six bamboo poles and secured them to the iron railings.
My mother cast a critical eye on our work. ‘Tie them properly. We don’t want anything to get blown away,’ she warned. ‘And we had better bring those flower pots indoors – and this tangerine peel,’ she said, taking hold of the dried remnants threaded on a length of cord. My grandmother had kept them to flavour the delicious hot breakfast of congee (rice gruel) she sometimes treated us to, accompanied by fried dough sticks freshly purchased from the local market.
The street below was unusually deserted, even for so early in the morning. Neighbours were securing their own property and taking precautionary measures for the potential calamity ahead. The sky loomed menacingly above, dark and grey, as if clamping down on the world. So deadly and still; all so calm.
I wondered how many signboards in our neighbourhood would survive the high winds, and whether or not there would be a direct hit on Hong Kong. Typhoons are severe tropical cyclones from the West Pacific Ocean or South China Seas. The islands of the Philippines often bore the brunt of them, and some of the deadliest have struck Southern China. I have vague recollections of the violence of Typhoon Wanda. She was the most intense tropical cyclone on record in Hong Kong, and made a direct hit on 2nd September 1962. The devastation she caused was intensified because she moved ashore during the daily high tide, causing storm surges 5 meters high and massive flooding. Sustained winds of 90 miles per hour and gusts of up to 160 miles per hour whipped up signboards, scaffolding and trees and blew fishing vessels from the water into the streets. Thousands of squatter huts were destroyed, tens of thousands were left homeless, hundreds were killed, and there was severe damage. When it rained, it rained. Really wet rain, that would drench your whole being. During typhoons, it rained in biblical proportions.
We worked hard, slotting wooden shutters into place and battening them down to protect our exposed windows and balcony door from the battering we would undoubtedly receive. When they were in place, our little flat was engulfed in darkness, with barely a glimmer of daylight coming through the cracks.
Grandmother mentally checked the supplies we had in store. There would be enough food for a while, she convinced herself, even though she often went out to the market twice a day. Preparing fresh food for her family was her number one priority, and the cuisine she produced with her wok and a handful of ingredients never passed unappreciated. Indeed, the Chinese pride themselves in their gourmand tastes and skills; food is not just for eating, there is a whole ritual and conversation about food, from its price in the market stall to its freshness and flavour, right through to the way it is prepared, cooked and digested. It wasn’t so much Shakespeare’s music being the food of love, but food being the music of love.
I saw my grandmother check the small jar of pickled bean curd we had in the larder and the tin of preserved lettuce we had in the refrigerator, sitting rather obtrusively in our living room next to the torn plastic sofa. She checked behind the kitchen door; we still had the flat duck (larp arp), salty fish and Chinese dried pork sausages (larp cheung), all available to be steamed over rice. Our earthen rice pot under the stone sink was three quarters full, so there would be plenty for a few meals, to say the least. She decided to use to a sliver of pork belly from the fridge. She could steam it, minced and mixed with salty egg. That was always one of my favourite dishes.
By the time we sat down to lunch, the typhoon had made her way closer to the little archipelago of islands, once the haunt of marauding pirates and bandits. Any glimmer of daylight quickly vanished. The calm before the storm broke with torrential rain beating upon the wooden shutters, rudely demanding to be let in. Harsh, incessant demands. The raindrops rapped ceaselessly, growing in strength and anger with each deluge. Ferocious winds howled round the tenement block, wiping up litter off the streets and plastering them wildly against the closed shop fronts. I could hear the sound of signboards creaking at their hinges. Something crashed only a few feet away. The smashing of glass. Water began seeping into our flat from the shuttered balcony.
‘Quick! Get the floor cloths!’ my mother shouted as the tide of dirty rainwater spread across our polished wooden floor. Within seconds we were all on our hands and knees, mopping as fast as we could, wringing rags into plastic buckets, unable to keep pace with the world outside rushing in. An hour later, the rains had subsided and we waited with bated breath for the next onslaught. For the moment, we were keen to just take things a little slower. My parents settled down into their bed for a short afternoon siesta. My sister and I joined them, but we had no intention of going to sleep. The bed was our raft, drifting aimlessly in a vast ocean of dangerous and shark-infested waters. Pirates sailed the South China Seas, and we had two adults to look after, collapsed from severe dehydration and sunstroke. Driftwood from our shipwreck floated around us, but we knew that if we looked hard enough, we would see land on the horizon.