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There was much bustle and excitement early one morning. Everyone, it seemed, was up that weekend, and the straw mats and bedding had been put away – thrown up into their storage place in a built-in cupboard above our wrought-iron door. Floorboards, shining in their splendid polished beeswax hue, smelt strong and healthy, every groove and corner cleanly swept of dust. Even finger smudges, which ordinarily graced the glass panes of our tall built-in bookcase, were wiped away the evening before. An effigy of Buddha, its delicate colours complementing his gleaming porcelain belly, sat silently in the middle of the shelf, a wide grin covering his face and earlobes hanging pendulously on either side. The rest of the furniture was dusted, and a white linen antimacassar stretched the length of the small sofa, obscuring the cat’s clawed handiwork upon our red plastic seat.
‘Come out here and sit down,’ my sister and I called out in near uncontainable excitement as we led our grandmother by the hand into the living room.
Rays of sunlight, not yet bestowed with its awesome radiance, streamed gently through the open balcony, as if unrolling a carpet of gold before a throne. A high, upright, rather austere chair, made of solid Chinese blackwood, one of two left which had survived the Japanese occupation, stood majestically at one end, its back flanked by the expanse of the room’s pale blue partition. A makeshift throne amongst the heavens. We placed a red silk cushion on the floor in front of it.
‘Come sit down here,’ we motioned as our grandmother sat, still wearing her usual black silk trousers and cotton blouse, buttoned up to the neck. ‘We all want to offer you tea.’ It was Grandmother’s seventieth birthday, a dai saan yat (big birthday), and being the family elder, each one of us was going to offer her a cup of tea, in a traditional tea ceremony; an observance of filial piety. Throughout the day, other grandchildren, family members, and even some close friends, would do the same – either in the privacy of our flat or in the public arena of the local restaurant we had booked for the day’s celebration.
I watched my mother offering tea first, and my grandmother imparting words of wisdom I did not understand. Then it was my father’s turn. His large hands gripped the small bowl of tea rather awkwardly as he knelt before her. Excitedly, I went into the kitchen and replenished the bowl of tea after my grandmother had taken a sip or two.
Carefully I carried it out with both hands, willing it not to spill, and blowing gently over its surface so that it would not be too hot to drink. Kneeling down in front of my grandmother sitting perched on her throne, I hardly noticed that her feet were not touching the floor, or that her simple pair of black slippers was dangling carefree from her feet.
I looked up at my grandmother’s wizened face; the birthmark spread across the bridge of her nose, her dancing eyes and her row of perfect, false teeth. I studied the prominent veins on the back of her hands and her nimble thin fingers, and prayed she would never leave me. Although I knew my grandmother would be angry with me if I voiced my deepest wish, I knew I could not imagine a world without her.
‘Grandmother,’ I began, offering the bowl of tea with both arms stretched out in front of me. ‘Please accept this tea. Wishing you birthday happiness. May year after year have today, and every age see this morning.’ I had learnt the traditional Chinese greeting off pat, and to my young ears it sounded just fine for the grand occasion.
She took the bowl from my hands and sipped it twice, making a great show of the pleasure it gave her. ‘You are a good girl,’ she told me gently, before continuing in a more formal Chinese verse. ‘Your grandmother knows that you are truly pious.’
I felt a warm glow flush over my face, and my young heart skipped with joy. Grandmother reached into her pocket, fumbled around a little, and fished out a thin red envelope, decorated with a gold motif of a dragon, its head raised free and its claws in majestic repose.
‘Here, a laisee for you, because you gave your grandmother a cup of tea.’
I got up from the cushion, receiving the red packet of good fortune in both hands, but I knew better than to finger it, despite my curiosity at how much money it might contain. It was the only red packet I was allowed to keep and spend; the other much bigger laisee I received later in the day would have to be deposited into my bank account. Although it was Grandmother’s birthday, she made a point of giving everyone in the flat a laisee. It was her way of sharing her happy occasion with us. For a traditional Chinese elder, the giving of such a laisee, regardless of how much money it contained, was the most delicate gesture of affection.
In Chinese culture, a child’s birthday is not celebrated past its first month, when it is regarded as one year old. The next birthday would be celebrated after the completion of a whole life cycle, when the lunar cycle of twelve animals had come round five times, covering the five elements. That was the big birthday, at sixty, and each year after was considered a bonus and a long life.
This year was particularly special, as it was the first time my parents could afford to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday in style. We had made arrangements to host a dinner party at a nearby restaurant along the tramway, and many of Grandmother’s friends and relatives would be gathering for the occasion. Mum and Dad even had a surprise parcel too, wrapped in glittering red and gold paper, the auspicious colours of luck and good fortune.
I had never witnessed such a sparkle in my grandmother’s eyes, as she put her spectacles on to begin negotiating the sticky tape that held the parcel together.
‘Ah, ginseng,’ Grandmother mumbled with approval. She fingered the prized root, examining it with surprising expertise and enjoying its subtle aroma. ‘You shouldn’t have spent so much money on me,’ she said to my parents with obvious delight.
‘What’s it for?’ I asked, sniffing the dry roots packed tightly in a plastic box and expecting them to smell really exotic and expensive.
‘Oh, it’s very good for you,’ my grandmother enthused as she began to pack her gift away, for it would be improper to be too enthusiastic. ‘It’s good for general weakness, to vitalise the organs and to make one feel young and healthy. You’ve seen me chew a thin slice every now and again, haven’t you? A little helps calm the nerves and stops palpitations.’
Shortly after ten o’clock in the morning, familiar voices accompanied by plodding footsteps came to a gradual crescendo outside our front door.
‘Grandmother!’ I shouted as I peeped through the key hole. ‘I think they are here!’ I lifted the heavy bar away from its bracket and opened the door a split second before the bell rang.
‘ Jo-sun, Mrs Chow. Jo-sun, Mrs Kum. Please come in and sit down. Grandmother is in the kitchen. Lei sek-joh faan mei-a? Have you eaten rice yet?’ I knew they couldn’t possibly have had their meal so early in the morning, especially as they had travelled quite far from the Kowloon area to be with us. But the greeting is a customary one, much as one would ask ‘how are you?’ and not expect a tirade of honesty.
Mrs Chow nodded and smiled, revealing a mouth full of wired teeth. Her slim figure, very tall for a Chinese lady, was dressed in a pair of black tailored trousers and a fashionable flowered blouse. She hardly spoke, but made her way quickly to the back of our flat to greet her life-long friend.
Grandmother’s voice rose in the distance. ‘Hey, you. What is the meaning of this, arriving so late?’ she admonished playfully in a deliberately exasperated tone, which actually meant ‘you’re very welcome. You could have arrived earlier if you had wanted to; it would not have inconvenienced me, but this is fine’. ‘Had yum char before you came, did you?’ she continued.
‘Of course not,’ Mrs Kum retorted in glee. ‘We were waiting for you. Come on, are you ready to go?’ she said in pretence, knowing full well my grandmother would not have been able to accept her invitation that morning anyway, as there was much to do.
Mrs Kum was a regular visitor, but she seemed to dress in the same sam fu every time I saw her. Her husband worked on the ferry going from Hong Kong to Macau, a small Portuguese colony across the Pearl River estuary. Every year he returned from one of his trips with a bamboo basket full of large live crabs, and I remember my grandmother keeping them for a day or so before cooking them as a special treat. I watched her turn them onto their shells and use a screwdriver to pierce their underbelly. On one occasion, Mr Kum came over with two terrapins for us, and they lived for many years as pets on the kitchen floor.
Mrs Kum was much more child-friendly than Mrs Chow, and plumper. She stroked my face, muttering, ‘So big now. Your face has become more beautiful since I last saw you.’
It was no wonder I liked her. ‘There is good colour in your cheeks. I can see your grandmother looks after you well. Now, let me go and greet my big sister.’
The women were not really sisters, but they had known each other for a lifetime and had lived through the Japanese Occupation together, so they felt closer than blood relations. Grandmother, being the oldest, was big sister to the other two, and the three sisters often met together. Minutes later, Third Aunt, who was married to my Third Uncle, arrived to make up the foursome that would be needed for their first game of mahjong; in Cantonese ‘da ma cheuk’, which literally means ‘playing the sparrows’. It was lucky we had managed to hire the table and a set of ivory tiles from the corner shop, and had collected it only minutes before.
Our little flat was filled from floor board to rafters with the noisy bantering of seasoned players as the hired ivory ma cheuk slabs crashed onto the square table set up in the cramped confines of grandmother’s bedroom. Everyone knew Mrs Chow meant business, for she had settled herself into the most comfortable position, a cushioned seat on the old wooden chest that held up one side of the bed. Her thin-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of her rather beaked nose, and her cigarette hung from pencilled lips. It was such a contrast to the cheerful, benign features of Mrs Kum, who beamed from ear to ear as she sat on grandmother’s bed, a bowl of tea on the dressing table beside her. Third Aunt checked her purse, counting out her change and looking around for the birthday lady to join them.
Four pairs of hands reached into the centre of the table, shuffling the thick green and white rectangular playing tiles in a furore of noise, slamming each piece down to hide the engraved surface beneath. To the unknowing child, it had an atmosphere of contained chaos and dangerousness as each player became absorbed in their ‘big business gambling’, playing fast, furiously and seriously. Exclamations of ‘Heh!’ and ‘Aieeyaa!’ would be punctuated with a deathly hush, a silent whisper, a slamming of tiles and a sudden explosion of conversation, laughter and exchange of coins. I listened out for the latter, because it was my cue to come around offering refills of tea, or bowls of monkey-nuts. They never played for big stakes, but if Grandmother won we would soon know about it, as my sister and I would each be a dollar or two richer.
My imagination ran wild. What I could do with one whole dollar! It would be worth a large bagful of small plastic Cowboys and Red Indians on horseback; I had loved playing with those ever since a friend who visited my parents from Scotland took me to the cinema to see an American Western film called ‘Broken Arrow’. Or I could buy ten notebooks with their colourful flowery covers and thick wads of drawing paper. I could easily afford ten ice-lollies from the street peddler on his bicycle, or two Mr Softy ice creams as I crossed the harbour on the Star Ferry. Or perhaps packets of sour plums, preserved lemon and ginger, tubes of Haw Haw flakes made from the fruit of the Chinese Hawthorn – the latter were thin circles of sweet and sour delight, with which I could emulate the grownups receiving Holy Communion during the Sunday church services.
Grandmother and her guests played a full four rounds of mah jong before stopping briefly for a simple lunch of steamed rice and chicken, which my mother had prepared.
It was one of the few times she turned her hand to Chinese cooking, as it was grandmother’s domain and expertise. However, she did occasionally cook Western dishes – pork chops, sausages and roast turkey with stuffing for Christmas.
We left the four to have their meal together, and I overheard them talking about long-lost friends, and members of the family who had finally managed, after waiting many years for sponsorship, to emigrate to American shores, dreaming of making their future in the land of golden opportunity. The women ate heartily, their chopsticks hardly resting as they reached for morsels of juicy meats and vegetables to accompany a shovel of steaming hot rice. When they laid their chopsticks down, it was only to slurp noisily from a bowl of soup.
Our cat came out from under Grandmother’s bed to investigate what all the noise was about. We hadn’t seen her for several days. She had disappeared under the bed, and much as we tried to entice her out of her hiding place, she refused to come. My grandmother stored a battered trunk, filled with winter clothes, under her bed, as well as Chinese quilts she had made, boxes of shoes and a bottle of baby mice wine, brought back by a relative from China and given to her as a special health tonic. All we could do was shine a torch between these bulky items, catching sight of her ear or a bit of fur and convincing ourselves that all was well.
Marmalade stretched her feline body under the mahjong table and peeped out between the women’s legs. She licked her lips and went into the kitchen in search of her food bowl. She was well fed, and at times we feared she might end up as dinner. Cantonese people in Hong Kong were partial to cat and dog meat; the latter was even to be found on the menu on the slow boat to China. One time, Marmalade went missing for days. She never responded when my grandmother cooked her food, placed it in her bowl and hit the side with a pair of chopsticks, calling ‘miew miew’. Ordinarily she would have raced into the kitchen almost immediately, but on this occasion there was no response. We feared the worst, until about a week later when we heard a faint meow from outside the flat. We found her hurt, frightened and rather scrawny, under the floorboards. and had to prise her out with a crowbar. How she ended up trapped there we did not know. There was no way we could afford to have her checked out by a vet; in fact, the thought never even entered our minds. She made a quick recovery once home.
I followed her into the kitchen. Our terrapin was scratching inside her food bowl, gnawing on the fish that had been left out for the cat, her streamlined nostrils poking out from above the rim. Marmalade strode up to her shiny metal bowl and peered inside, seemingly unimpressed by the antics of the reptile, which could hardly negotiate its way around such a confined space. She sniffed the hard shell, and decided instead to have a drink. I ran to the fridge and got out a carton of milk, hoping it would be received as a special treat after her days away. Marmalade meowed, and raised her tail.
‘You’ve had enough, Mr Terrapin,’ I said as I lifted him out of the bowl, put him into the stone sink and let the tap drip slowly. ‘It’s Marmalade’s turn now.’
I turned back into the passageway, just in time to see three blind kittens stumble out from under the bed. No wonder she was so fat! I hoped that this time we would be able to keep at least one of the kittens instead of giving them all away.
After resuming a few more rounds of ma cheuk, the foursome agreed it was time to move onto the restaurant for a more serious game. It was already three o’clock, and other guests would be arriving and setting up mah jong tables of their own before the evening meal. Almost as quickly as they had arrived, the three women departed, leaving Grandmother to put away her long pink envelops – each containing a banker’s cheque from her friends. She unwrapped the parcels of oranges and mangoes, a tin of All-Butter Cookies and a tin of Fry’s Golden Cups chocolates, extolling the generosity of her friends and remarking on how much money they had unnecessarily lavished upon her.
In the relative silence that followed, our doorbell rang unexpectedly. It was Third Aunt’s son-in-law. He had closed his tailoring business early that day to join in the celebrations, and to try his luck at mah jong. It was serious business, especially as the game was banned in China when the Communists first came to power. I always thought he was very shabbily dressed, especially for a tailor. His trousers never seemed to be pressed, his shirt never quite matched, and his sandals always seemed a little too big for him as if he thought he might grow into them. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for him, as he arrived in Hong Kong unnoticed and undetected by officials. I remember the first time I saw him a few years earlier. I liked his young features, his rather shy manner, his downcast eyes and the strange way he puckered his lips.
‘Ah, Ah Pui! Lek sek-joh faan mei-a? Have you eaten yet?’ my grandmother enquired as she sauntered towards the kitchen.
‘Yes, thank you, grandmother,’ Ah Pui answered with his usual shyness.
‘Oh, you don’t need to stand on ceremony here, you know,’ grandmother continued, hanging a plastic basin back behind the door. ‘We are all the same family now. Come, have something to eat. I can always reheat it in the rice cooker.’
Ah Pui declined politely, and offered his birthday gift with both hands and a little bow.
‘Heh! There’s no need,’ grandmother exclaimed, in her usual tone of ‘I knew you would, but I was not really expecting anything’. ‘How is your wife? Where is she? Is she coming? How’s the pregnancy going?’
‘She’s fine. She’ll be here later,’ Ah Pui assured her. By now Grandmother had returned to her bedroom and was sorting through a pile of red packets, bunching them together in elastic bands in preparation for the evening.
‘Here,’ she said, pressing a laisee into her grandson-in-law’s hand. It was customary for the host to return a little of the good fortune a guest had brought in with him. ‘In return for buying me something,’ she said.
Ah Pui didn’t stay long when he realised that the action was to be found in the restaurant. He stopped just long enough to offer tea to his grandmother before heading off to join the others. An hour or so later, Grandmother was dressed in a simple but newly-tailored cheong sam she had made for herself for the occasion. She searched her wardrobe for a suitable cardigan.
‘Must take this with me,’ she explained. ‘There’s going to be air conditioning in the restaurant, you know. Oh, and I mustn’t forget my supply of money,’ she chuckled.
I laughed, knowing what she meant. We both reached out for a wad of pink tissue paper. I helped my grandmother fold them up and stuffed them into her beaded purse. Minutes later, she left for the restaurant with my mother at her side; the only two who knew how to play mah jong were going to join the other guests.
‘Don’t forget to buy some more monkey nuts,’ my mother called as she disappeared around the corner of the staircase and away from view. ‘And the bottles of brandy are in the plastic carrier by the fridge. I’ll buy the oranges on the way.’ It was seven o’clock when my father, my sister and I made our way to the restaurant. My cousin had already gone on ahead, and the other was making his own way there after a football match. I acknowledged the familiar faces along the journey as we walked through the dark alleyway, lined on either side by tin shacks. Some were still open, with plastic bags of colourful sponges selling at ten cents for two. Printing machines were still working overtime, pressing business cards in a rhythmic piston action which never failed to fascinate me. I was mesmerised by its ingenuity. With a natural, unobtrusive sense of timing, the middle-aged proprietor collected the printed cards without even looking, fingertips stained with tobacco and permanent dry-fast ink. Seemingly unaware of the approaching dusk, he fitted the cards into a small plastic box, gave it a quick polish and started collecting once again. Next door, another, older man was hand-engraving pictures and characters onto ivory or bone ma cheuk tiles: green bamboo, circles, red and black characters, flowers, girls, dragons and sparrows.
We turned left onto the tramway, stopping at the stationers to buy a packet of playing cards so we could kill the two hours before dinner. After all, there would be little for children to do. The grownups would be engrossed in their ma cheuk games, and those who were not would be chatting away about grownup matters, drinking tea and cracking open monkey nuts with their teeth.
Green and white trams chugged their way along the tramline beside us, their windows wide open and their sides displaying advertisements for Marlboro and Salem cigarettes, or VSOP cognac. They afforded a wonderful view of the busy streets during the day, and magical night markets at dusk. Although high up, they never quite reached the fresh flower-edged placards that hung in perfumed splendour overhead. I wondered if Grandmother’s name would be up there, indicating that a party was being held in her honour. And then I saw it, my grandmother’s name inscribed in beautiful black calligraphy, as we approached the restaurant. It would be very special indeed.
The cool air-conditioning was luxurious in the sultry August evening. Almost half the restaurant floor had been set aside for the celebration, but I never really noticed the rest as it was well partitioned. Attentive waiters greeted guests as they stepped out of the lift, offering steaming hot flannels, individually wrapped in clear plastic, and glasses of refreshing soft drinks or cups of Chinese tea. They piled all the gifts onto one sideboard, cleared away plates of monkey nut shells, refilled drinks and set up additional ma cheuk tables as required. An atmosphere of chatter and party noise filled the air; a sign that everyone was busily enjoying themselves. Young children were running around, hiding behind chairs and between tables, stuffing their pockets with handfuls of nuts and sweets. Sweets and chocolates were a luxury for us, only to be bought for special occasions. The colourful, individually foil-wrapped chocolates from the cake shop in the ground floor arcade of Gloucester Building near the Mandarin Hotel, were very special treats at Christmas, but we always shared them with our neighbours. I remember what a coup it was when my sister won a jar of sweets in a competition run by a children’s television programme. It was the size one might find on a shelf in a sweet shop. She was invited on set to collect her prize, and I remember standing in the wings. We never got to see it on screen when it was aired, as I have vague memories that it was a live programme, but in any case we did not have a television set able to receive the transmission.
A few guests pressed a bundle of fifty-dollar bills into grandmother’s hands as they greeted her, their faces full of smiles and birthday blessings. Others came with tins of biscuits, chocolates and candy – very handy for keeping knick-knacks and bits of haberdashery when emptied. Grandmother’s ma cheuk game would be interrupted, as she received each new arrival and sipped on numerous cups of tea.
I looked at my watch as I heard my tummy rumbling again. It was almost nine o’clock. The waiters swiftly and expertly cleared the ma cheuk tables away. The guests did not seem to mind at all. They all got up, instinctively standing together in groupings of twelve, ready to sit at one of the three round dining tables already set out with silver chopstick rests, spoons, bowls and glasses. The head table was placed between two red pillars, the enormous golden figures of a dragon on one side and the phoenix on the other, both breathing down upon the hostess and her honoured guests. Everyone knew their place in the hierarchy of family kinship. Immediate family members sat together, extended family at the second table and friends at the third.
We had a saucer of boiled peanuts and a dish of preserved duck eggs (known as 100-year -old eggs), served with pickled sliced root ginger. Everyone agreed how fresh the eggs were, even though they had been preserved in lime, salt and ground charcoal for 100 days, the egg white being black jelly and the yolk greyish green when cut open. Then the serious business of eating began, washed down with tumblers of diluted cognac. It was time for the first of twelve pre-selected dishes to arrive, including the obligatory melon soup with lotus seeds (the emblem of redemption), shark’s fin soup, fish and chicken. There was much excitement as each platter was brought out in turn, its delicate aromas filling eager nostrils and tantalising every primed palate. Guests spoke like connoisseurs, marvelling at the succulence of the meats and the harmonious balance of all the well-chosen ingredients, not only for the eye and stomach, but for their symbolic meaning. It was a fine art, to be enjoyed and savoured, in splendid poetic order.
I loved watching the excitement and the waves of enthusiasm that caught each table infectiously. When the garoupa (sea bass fish) was brought out, I wondered which guest would have the honour of eating its head, or sucking on its eyeballs. For the Cantonese word for fish (yu) is a pun on the word meaning plenty, or surplus. The fish also signifies freedom from restraint, and hence of high symbolic importance. The decibels increased when the chicken made its appearance, and I laughed as I watched the waiter rotating the silver platter above his head. I wasn’t sure why I was laughing so much; was it because of the comical antics or was it because of nervousness that I might be chosen to eat the chicken’s head? Spurred on by the happy guests, the waiter turned the platter a further three hundred and sixty degrees, and brought the chicken’s head down to Ah Pui. At birthdays and opening festivals, the chicken’s beak pointed to the luckiest person, but on Chinese New Year’s Eve, it pointed to the person who was to lose his job.
During the meal, guests would come up to Grandmother, toasting and drinking her health, and she reciprocated in kind with her glass of tea. At designated intervals, the entire table of guests appeared at the head table, and everyone rose to their feet, cheering everyone else on and thanking each other for coming. It was the part of the traditional dinners I loved the best. It was such a tangibly joyous atmosphere; everyone standing, honouring one another, and most of all, paying respect and giving face to my beloved grandmother.
Dishes of fried rice and noodles were brought out at the end of the meal, for anyone who had not yet had their fill. In spite of all the eating that had gone on in the two hours since we had come round the table, there was always a little room left to sample a new dish. By the time the red bean soup and lotus paste buns arrived, the table cloth was splattered with soups and sauces; a good sign that the meal had been most appetising. Grandmother did not have time to enjoy the desserts though, or the juicy orange segments and cups of tea that arrived to refresh the palate. It was time to bid farewell to her guests. One by one, they said their thanks and farewell and left; and suddenly the whole restaurant felt strangely empty.
At last Grandmother was able to sit down, in a little peace and quiet, to reflect on her special celebration. It was the waiters’ turn to approach her. They offered her more tea before presenting her with a hefty bill for the evening. After my parents had settled everything, the team of waiters wished her a happy birthday, and presented my grandmother with a glass-covered box. Cushioned in red satin were a rice bowl, a soup spoon and a pair of ivory chopsticks.