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‘Grandmother, Neil has asked me to marry him,’ I announced one evening during our medical student elective period in Hong Kong. The two months we spent in my homeland together had given Neil the opportunity to get to know my family and to be exposed to a different culture and a different way of life. The first time he visited he was not in the least impressed by our enthused excitement at eating in the night market on the waterfront. Dai pai dongs were everywhere, cooking and serving a concoction of rice, noodles, meats, fish and congee. We took our delicious bowls of steaming hot food to a makeshift table, chopsticks in hand, and proceeded to indulge in its wholesome flavours.
The air was cool with the breeze coming from the harbour, and the atmosphere was filled with the familiar noisy clatter of a popular evening haunt.
We had just arrived in the colony and it was Neil’s first experience of eating out in Hong Kong. What with jetlag and the anxiety of meeting my family, his first memories of my homeland are of eating ‘a scrappy meal on an overturned dustbin lid.’ He soon acquired a taste for proper Cantonese cuisine, no longer relying on ‘sweet and sour’ from Chinese takeaways, the only dish he knew about at the time, although he disliked it immensely. He asked me what to say to compliment my grandmother’s cooking, but Cantonese is a tonal language and he couldn’t hear the difference. He ended up saying something to the effect that he liked to drink the dish water.
It was 1982. I had sung my first solo in years, at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, high up in the rafters of the bell tower above the west door, to a congregation of almost 800 at the Cathedral; it had gone well, and I was barely aware of the delay between the sound of my voice in the tower and the organ at the other end of the nave. Neil and I then took the funicular tram to Victoria Peak for a brief evening stroll. Stars dotted the heavens, and the fairy lights of the Hong Kong skyline rolled out below us, seeping into the harbour and beyond and rising to the majestic dragon mountains of Kowloon, from which the peninsula got its name. Kowloon literally means ‘nine dragons’ in Cantonese, referring to the eight mountains which separated the colony from mainland China, the ninth dragon being the emperor himself.
There was a coolness and tranquillity in the December air, and the extravagant Christmas neon lights which dominated the panoramic skyline of this Oriental pearl in the British crown created a magical kaleidoscope of anticipation that all would be well. There he proposed marriage.
‘What is your view, grandmother? Is it good I should marry him?’ I asked her.
My grandmother was getting ready for bed, and paused momentarily to consider my question. I had great respect for her wisdom and experience, and most of all I respected her position as the oldest member of the family clan.
‘He is a good man,’ grandmother said. ‘I can see he is hardworking and careful with his money. He is also good-natured and caring. I think it is a good thing.’ My grandmother had given us her blessing.
That evening we asked her to consult her almanac and choose an auspicious day to announce our engagement. Monocle in hand, my grandmother studied her red paperback book, which lay in an old biscuit tin at the foot of her bed. A few minutes later she had chosen the day. With our engagement date officially confirmed, and time difference allowing, Neil made the expensive overseas telephone call to his family in London to tell them our news.
A junior doctor’s life is a nomadic existence. Each placement lasts for six months, and during this time one works intensely with a small group of staff, developing relationships that rarely survive. Friendships and professional alliances were quickly made and easily broken. It was during this time that my fiancé and I were planning our wedding. Whilst working busy medical and surgical jobs, we were making arrangements to fly out to Hong Kong for the occasion. I wanted my grandmother to be there.
Planning a wedding is a strange affair, as any married couple will testify. It starts off as a little gem of love between a couple, and gradually becomes a full-blown family affair, with tensions and conflicting wishes coming to the fore. We had little money, and even less time, to devote to such things. Whilst it is customary in Western cultures for the bride’s family to host the wedding, it is the reverse in Chinese culture. My parents were clear that their duty to put me through further education had been fulfilled and they would not contribute financially. For the first time, my fiancé and I got a loan from the bank. I was appalled at the idea of starting our married life in debt, but it was a necessary move if we were to be married in Hong Kong. The air fares alone ate up almost half our financial allocation; the other half went on the Chinese banquet. We hosted ten tables, each seating twelve guests. I gave my grandmother six tables, so that she could invite her friends and our extended family to the celebration.
As white is the colour of mourning I chose instead to wear a Chinese cheong sam. Initially, I was going to have the dress tailored in Hong Kong, and my mother sent me copious samples of silk brocade embroidered with the emblems of luck and marriage: a phoenix, a peony and a chrysanthemum. But everything got too complicated, and I was worried there would be no time to have a fitting before the big day. In order to simplify matters, I ended up buying a red cheong sam from a shop in London’s China Town. It cost me thirty-two pounds.
On the eve of our wedding, at the Cathedral Church where I had sung every week, we were required to take an oath at the registry offices at the City Hall. We had only arrived in Hong Kong the day before, and were jetlagged, exhausted and disorientated. In the evening, after a simple dinner, when my fiancé had been safely returned to his hotel room, my grandmother combed my hair. I always wore my hair short, so there was not much to comb. But with each comb she muttered a blessing of good luck, and then she placed a flower in my hair – and gave me a sprig from our evergreen growing in a pot on the balcony, to symbolise fertility. My parents presented me with gifts; a pair of traditional gold bracelets and a white old -jade pendant. They presented us with an original Chinese painting scroll which now hangs in our dining room in London.
‘Look!’ I whispered aghast as we walked past a traditional Chinese herbalist and medicinal store. ‘Who would eat cockroaches? Or are they water beetles?’
In the showcase in front of us were large jars filled with a range of roots, bark, shoots, shells, nuts, herbs, horns and antlers, animal organs and genitalia. Perhaps it was a reflection of the famines and floods in China’s long history, but the Chinese seemed to find a use for almost anything – either as a medicine, food or aphrodisiac. It is said that the only thing one would not eat, is an animal that lived with its back to the sun, so we humans were safe, at least outside of the Japanese Occupation.
‘You don’t have to make a face like that!’ my grandmother exclaimed as she saw my grimace. ‘You’ve eaten them, only you just didn’t know it at the time.’
‘What! Me! I’ve eaten those things? Yuk! When?’ I uttered in alarm and disbelief, thinking back to the many soups and bitter brews my grandmother made from time to time, to harmonise our chi, or when I was ill. Sometimes the brews were so bitter I had to pinch my nose in order to swallow them. But there was often a sweet treat afterwards to help the medicine go down – a delicious individually-wrapped triplet of preserved plums, or a packet of the very best juicy raisins. I rarely went to the doctor when I was a child, apart from the pre-requisite inoculations. My grandmother treated all my ailments with traditional herbal remedies, Chinese medicines and ‘a proper balanced diet’.
‘When you didn’t ask so many questions, that’s when. They can be very good for you. Very good for a sore throat. Better than those pills and drugs you get from Western doctors.’ And with that she stepped into the store with the agility and purpose of an experienced shopper.
The shop assistant greeted us with a smile as she worked her nimble fingers over a black abacus lying on the counter. As there were no other customers around, she was probably checking the shop’s accounts. The clacking of the abacus tablets sounded a bit like a loud typewriter, with regular pauses to punctuate the rhythmic beat. Although my grandmother had never had any schooling, she had taught herself to read and write basic Chinese, and learnt to use an abacus with astonishing speed. All a necessary part of owning a business, I suspect, but how challenging and forward-thinking that must have been in her day.
The shop assistant put her abacus aside and began filling out a prescription written in large black Chinese script. She let us browse in an unhurried manner as she began opening a series of small drawers from one of the large cabinets behind her. A handful of red berries, a fistful of roots, petals, dried leaves and shredded bark. Everything was weighed on a tiny tin dish, attached to a long rod, marked with short lines and dots along its length. I watched as she balanced the pair of scales in her left hand whilst quickly moving the small weight along the rod with her right; exactly what my grandmother did every time she returned from market. She always checked the measure of everything she bought, on her own set of scales, and if the measure was not quite right she would return the item to the store at the next opportunity. I do not recall there ever being an argument when we went back the following day. Proprietors admitted to mistakes made by their employees and rectified them with profuse apologies, so as not to lose face. Perhaps it was just good business, or perhaps it was because my grandmother had lived amongst them for many years.
‘One and twenty’, the shop assistant called to the young man who had come in to pick up his prescription. ‘This packet will be enough for two brews. Once in the morning, and once before retiring to bed.’
‘Good. If I need more I will come back tomorrow,’ the man said as he handed her two dollar coins. ‘Do I boil this with two bowls of water?’
‘Half a packet, three bowls of water, reduced down to one,’ the assistant advised. My grandmother would have known that; she knew her herbs and medicines, and her advice was often sought by the younger generation, especially when they were away from home.
Reaching up above her head, the shop assistant pulled down a small straw basket hanging above, and a bell rang gently in response. From across the shop, the owner, a middle -aged man in a traditional dark-coloured silk suit, peered over the rim of his spectacles. He was seated in a square kiosk jutting out from the centre of the back wall. Scribbling what must have been the invoice, the assistant clipped it onto a metal peg, and sent it overhead to her boss via a contraption of wire pulleys.
We made our way along Queen’s Road, heading towards Central Market. It was an unusual route, as my grandmother often preferred the openness of the street market and the intimate atmosphere of Sheung Wan market. Central market was enclosed in an ugly building, where the pushing and shoving and general bustle of the maids and the occasional ‘gweilo’, gave little opportunity to compare and haggle for the best buy. Immediately to our left were two dark alleyways, illuminated on either side by a row of bare light bulbs, their street stalls piled high with eggs; chicken eggs, duck eggs, quail eggs, salty eggs covered in thick black wet mud and the tantalising ‘hundred-year-old’ eggs enveloped in their husks of grain. I adored them.
At the mouth of the alleyway was a compact cigarette stall, literally the size of a crate. A woman who looked like she was well into her eighties managed it. Her kyphotic posture added to her diminutive stature as she sat on a low stool, dressed all in black. I passed her every day on my way back from school, and I would often pay the ten cents and choose a bag of preserved plums or crystalline ginger which hung from the wire strung across her cabinet of cigarette packets. My grandmother was of her generation, and they would exchange words whenever they saw one another. When time allowed, my grandmother would sit herself down beside the woman, and spend a few minutes with her exchanging reminiscences and listening to her various domestic crises or physical ailments.
The adjacent alleyway was renowned for its colourful feather dusters and fans, and it was featured on many tourist guides and routes. However, its colourful exterior hid a macabre and grotesque trade, for it was common knowledge amongst the locals who lived there that it was the place for the supply of fresh monkey brains. My grandmother never ate monkey brains, but she did occasionally cook pig brains to ensure a healthy memory, and at other times she would stew pig trotters with sweet ginger, whole eggs and fresh root ginger, a real delicacy and a treat both she and my mother enjoyed. We children were told we were too young to be in need of such things, as it was believed to restore chi and strength after the strains of childbirth.
‘Grandfather must have been very pleased you gave him so many sons,’ I said one day as my grandmother and I were preparing for the Maiden Festival.
‘Of course he was. But he already had two living sons, by his first wife. One died. One was three and the other was about seven when I married your grandfather. But you know, he loved me even more when I had given him four or five more male children.’
‘It was very important, having sons in those days, wasn’t it, grandmother?’ I asked.
She quickly confirmed my statement with a slight nod.
‘Now, I think it doesn’t really matter. These days, boy or girl, it’s all the same, they’re still your children. As long as they are good and respectful, that is all that matters. But in my day, women were discriminated against. Treated more like slaves. Kept at home, no schooling, and then under the rule of their mother-in-law. We had no rights, we always belonged to someone, and had nothing. But everything changes when you are lucky enough to produce a male heir. Somehow, after that, she is treated differently; she can take her place beside her husband, in every way, even in the Ancestral Hall.’
My grandmother paused, as though she were deep in thought, and sipped her bowl of Bo Lai tea. I could smell the analgesic Tokuhon medicinal plaster she had applied to her lower back that afternoon; a subtle blend of menthol, camphor and peppermint oils. I raised my eyes to the heavens, and wondered if the night sky would bring the two lovers together. Being the seventh day of the seventh lunar moon (Double Seven) we were preparing to celebrate Maiden Festival. The legend has been traced back to the Chou Dynasty (1122-222BC) and was my favourite story. It involves the stars, Vega (in the constellation Lyra) and Altair (in the constellation, Aquila.) It is about Ch’ien Niu, the cowherd (Altair) who fell in love with the Kitchen God’s youngest daughter, Chih Nu (Vega), the spinning maid to the Queen of Heaven. She was the youngest of seven sisters. They were married on earth, and upon their return to heaven, they became so engrossed with one another that they abandoned their work. As a punishment, the Queen of Heaven drew a line across the heavens, forming a Celestial River separating the two lovers. The King, seeing their despair, granted them a meeting once a year. However, no ordinary bridge could be built. Fortunately, all the magpies in the sky were moved with compassion for the couple, and formed a Great Bird Bridge with their wings, otherwise known as the Milky Way. Should the sky be overcast, the bridge cannot be thrown, and the rain, in the shape of the lovers’ tears, bears witness to the fact that they must endure another year of separation.
Not only was grandmother preparing a special meal for dinner, she had also purchased the customary biscuits and cakes which were needed for the evening’s dedication to the Seven Sisters. Our trip to Central market that afternoon was in order to stop by a large department store for a new jar of Ponds’ Cold Cream, which was also offered together with a selection of the freshest fruits and fragrant flowers.
Our meal was cooked slightly in advance, and offered on a tray to our family ancestors. They were invited to join the festivities with us; to enjoy the food and drink before the rest of the family sat down together to eat. My grandmother laid three pairs of chopsticks, three cups of tea, three cups of white rice wine, three bowls of rice and our spread of celebratory food. Earlier that morning, she had offered incense and kowtowed, banging her head against the hard stone floor three times, in front of our small shrine with her husband’s ancestral tablet.
That evening, after dinner, we all sat up waiting until nearly midnight before setting up the square table. We didn’t have enough room on our small balcony to stand the whole table under the open sky, so part of it remained in the living room. But it was a cool and peaceful night, and the heavens were littered with stars. Grandmother wiped the table clean with a kitchen rag and brought out a vase of fresh flowers; a sweet gingery scent rose above the fragrance of the other more colourful blooms. Everyone who lived in the flat joined in the preparations, apart from the men (my father and a cousin) who were not permitted to worship the Seven Sisters, but who could nevertheless join in the edible feast afterwards.
The girls (my sister, our cousin and I) set out a flask of tea, a green plant wrapped with a red ribbon and a brass incense burner. Across the table we laid out seven porcelain teacups as my grandmother placed the rest of the offerings on display. It was an exciting spread, the same excitement you feel on Christmas Day at the sight and smell of roast turkey with all the trimmings, or a Christmas pudding aflame in brandy.
Grandmother then lit twenty-one incense sticks and placed them in clusters of three in the burner whilst muttering prayers and blessings to the gods.
‘Come now,’ she called to us. ‘Come and offer prayers to the Seven Sisters, and ask for the day when you will wed a good husband and be blessed with marital happiness.’
We took it in turns to kneel before the table, kowtowing three times and hitting our heads on the concrete balcony floor. With both hands placed carefully over each small cup we poured a little tea from each, onto the floor, as though the sisters had accepted our offering and drunk from the cup. My mother was a little unsure whether or not to join in as she was already married, but my grandmother’s reply was the same every year: ‘There’s no harm in praying for continued marital happiness.’
The clock ticked away as we sat around the table, incense filling our eyes and nostrils and embers falling into the teacups that had been replenished after each offering. We children tried not to be too obvious as we glanced at the clock, wondering when my grandmother would give the go-ahead and allow us to start eating. I squeezed past the chairs and table and stepped out onto the balcony. The sky’s darkness was speckled with a host of mysterious stars. I convinced myself I could see the Milky Way, and fantasised about a happy reunion for the legendary lovers.
Midnight struck. My grandmother got up from her squeaking rattan armchair, and offered a cup of tea, sprinkled with incense ash, to each maiden in the household, bestowing upon us good luck and blessings. When that had been done, she drank the rest of the cold dregs, saying it was no longer just ordinary tea, but tea touched by the spirits.