It was evening by the time his train arrived in Ipoh.
“Built by tin and the China bumpkins! Tin, opium and prostitutes!”
But Mother had her own reasons for hating the town. Father had fled there after the troubles and the death of his two grandmothers. The reason was never openly discussed. He knew it was something between Father and Uncle Boon Leong. He was twelve at the time, too young and too playful to understand everything. But he was there when the police searched their house. When Father slapped Mother. That was the night he left Penang. And stayed away for ten years.
Mother crumpled and Uncle Boon Leong had to step in. Gek Lian and Gek Kim were sent to the convent school in Light Street. He himself was taken out of St Xavier’s and put into Penang Free School so he wouldn’t have to endure the taunts of schoolmates. Making friends with Omar in the new school was a welcome relief. Being Malay, Omar had no inkling of what was happening in his Chinese world.
Mother cried every day. The whole of Penang was gossiping about Father and the closure of his shops and shipping business by the colonial government. Secret society leader! Mother was so ashamed that she shunned company and lived like a poor widow although they were not poor. Father sent them money from Ipoh.
He was fifteen when he saw his father again. That year he learned about little Kok Wah’s death and saw Second Mother shedding silent tears in front of the family altar.
Second Mother’s haunted eyes followed him during his brief stay. Half a son was better than none so she tried to befriend him. But his Cantonese was miserable and their conversations seldom went beyond the social niceties. Over the years and many visits later, when his Cantonese grew better, they were able to talk. About her sons. Her hopes. She cried each time he had to leave and looked forward to his visit each year. And each year, without fail, she cooked him his favourite food and special dishes to tease his palate. And he, in turn, tried his best to eat all that she piled into his bowl. Her maternal love had gone into the hours spent cooking for him and so his affection for her went into the eating of all that she’d cooked.
“Second Mother insisted on waiting for you. We’re having a special dinner to wash off Kok Kiong’s dust.”
“Eh?”
His father gave him a wry smile and went on, “Washing off the dust is our way of welcoming a traveller home. And Second Mother wants you to meet your brother.”
From the tone of his father’s voice, he gathered that Second Mother’s insistence on waiting for him must be of some significance and a measure of her feelings for him.
“When did Kok Kiong return?”
“Two days ago,” his father replied, lapsing into Penang Hokkien dialect as they walked out of the Ipoh railway station.
They got into the Bentley. The ride through the town was exhilarating for the car was still a novelty and many people stopped and stared. Zam tooted noisily as he manoeuvred expertly among pedestrians, rickshaws and the slow-moving bullock carts. Passersby waved. His father was pleased with the attention that the Bentley was getting. Tomorrow he would broach the subject of doing law and going to Oxford, he decided.
“Towkah! Towkah!” The servant came running to the gate. Zam stopped the car. “Master Kok Kiong has rushed to the coolie depot. Big trouble over there!”
“What trouble?”
“Coolies fighting with English foreign devils!”
“Zam, to the coolie depot!” his father shouted in Malay. Then switching back to Hokkien, he said, “Seng, you’ll have to act as interpreter.”
A large crowd was gathered inside the courtyard of the two-storey building. The police had surrounded it and an Englishman was barking orders. A young man ran up to them.
“Kiong, your brother, Seng.”
The young man looked at him and bowed. “Kor,” he addressed him formally as “Elder Brother”, but there was no time for other niceties.
“What happened?” Father asked.
“They’re holding the Englishman hostage. Our own coolies, Father.”
“Towkah Wong, do something. The White Crane’s name is blackened! The foreign devils will blame us!” Mr Kong was a fifty-year-old rice merchant and one of the White Crane elders.
“How did this happen?”
“Coolies accused labour contractor of cheating them. Refused to go back to the mines. So this Harlow from the Chinese Protectorate, he ordered them to go back. He told them, ‘You signed contracts. So must go back. That’s the law!’ He didn’t want to listen to Ah Loong. So they argued. And this Harlow slapped Ah Loong. Right in front of everyone. Now Ah Loong is the leader. How can he lose face? So Ah Loong pushed Harlow. They fight. Coolies locked the door. Ah Loong won’t let Harlow and his people leave.”
“Father,” Seng spoke for the first time. “Do you want me to find out from the Englishman over there what they’re going to do now?”
His father nodded. Seng got out of the car and pushed through the crowd.
“Stop!” A Malay policeman barred his way. But before he could explain, something else happened.
“Open the door if you don’t want to die!” a man acting as interpreter for the Englishman was shouting in the yard.
A coolie came out to the balcony.
“We’d rather die than go back to Three Miles!”
“Let Mr Harlow go or the police will shoot!”
“Shoot, lor! Never fear die!”
The chief police officer raised his hand. His men fired. The coolie pitched forward and fell headlong into the street below. A gasp rose from the crowd. The police stormed the building. Five shots were fired. Minutes later, thirty-two coolies emerged with their hands on their heads.
“Move along! Go home!”
The crowd scattered. By the time Seng reached the car, the sky was dark.
“One dead, three wounded. Thirty-two taken to the police station,” he reported in halting Cantonese so that Kok Kiong and his father’s friends could understand.
“Towkah Wong, you and your sons go home. Lam and I will find out what’s going to happen to our coolies,” Mr Kong said.
“After that, please, you and Lam come for dinner. Simple meal only. Washing the dust from Kiong.”
“We’ll certainly come.”
In the car, Seng shook his half-brother’s hand.
“Welcome home, Kiong,” he said in simple Cantonese.
“Thank you, Kor.”
Silence after that. He couldn’t think of what else to say. Many questions crossed his mind—questions phrased in English, which he could hardly express in Cantonese, but which he would’ve liked to ask Kiong. Brotherly things like: how was college? Did you make any good friends? Girls? What’re the girls like in Kwangtung? But he didn’t have the words.
During the entire ride home, no one spoke. Father was seated between them, staring straight ahead, looking as if he was thinking of something else. Did Father realise that he had to act as their interpreter? Or perhaps Father didn’t care. How could he get to know Kiong who spoke only Cantonese and Mandarin?
He observed his half-brother closely that night. Kiong came down to dinner dressed in the dark tunic and trousers of his college in Kwangtung. The quintessential Chinese student. Courteous. Deferential. Bowing with hands clasped before him when he was introduced to the family’s friends and relations. During dinner, Kiong’s face glowed. From the occasional translations from his father, he gathered that Kiong was telling the family and guests about the momentous events sweeping across China. Especially in the colleges and universities. He was almost envious as he watched his half-brother. Kiong was not more than twenty, yet he spoke with confidence and conviction.
“We the youth of China will fight the Empress Dowager. She’s a puppet of the Western powers.”
Kiong looked round the dining table and gave each elder a respectful nod.
“Father, Mother! Uncles, Aunties! We the youth not only have to fight against the West. But also old thoughts, old ideas and old ways of doing things. We must free our minds.”
“Well said, well said,” Mr Lam murmured. “If we want to be a modern nation, we must fight against the old thinking.”
The servants brought in a large platter of sweetmeats. His father, beaming with pride and brandy, invited everyone to eat.
“My friends! My future son-in-law and his honourable parents—our respected Towkah Chang and Mrs Chang. Uncle Big Tree and Aunt Yee-ma! Mr Kong and Mr Lam! Thank you for coming to this small meal. Tonight we welcome home my son, Kok Kiong. He has returned from his studies in Kwangtung College! My elder son, Kok Seng from Penang, is also here to welcome home his brother.”
“Congratulations, Towkah Wong! Congratulations, Mrs Wong!”
They raised their cups and drank a toast.
“You’ve been blessed with filial sons, Mrs Wong.”
“And we thank the gods and our ancestors for their blessings.” Lai Fong wiped away a happy tear. In a few months’ time, her elder daughter, Yoke Foong, would marry Mr Chang’s eldest son. And if all went well, Yoke Lan would go to the women’s college in Shanghai next year. She’d see to it that her daughter would not be deprived of a chance to study. No illiterate herself, she’d been following the new thinking and philosophy in China.
“Kok Seng! Kok Kiong! Your granduncle toasts you both!” Big Tree, seventy years old, raised his glass of brandy. The men joined him.
“What are your plans for them, Towkah Wong?” Mr Chang asked.
“Naturally I hope the two of them will enter the family business. These past few years, the gods in heaven have tested us sorely. Three years I was hiding in Singapore. Fong had to manage the medical hall almost single-handed. Then I had to travel to raise funds for the war back home.”
“You’ve certainly devoted a lot of time and money to this worthy cause, Towkah, and we all respect you for this. Our best respects to Towkah!” Mr Kong raised his glass.
“Our best respects!”
“To Dr Sun and his revolutionary brotherhood! May the Kuomintang defeat the Manchus!” Kok Kiong raised his glass.
His elders looked at him. They had not expected him to propose a toast as if he were on an equal footing with them.
“To Dr Sun and his brotherhood!” his father said hastily. Everyone drained their glasses.
“To think that the Manchu devils nearly kidnapped Dr Sun while he was in London!” Mr Lam chuckled as he picked at his fish with his chopsticks.
“Ha! The English did something good for once. If they hadn’t rescued Dr Sun, no Kuomintang today, lor!”
“Thanks to the English devils, our Dr Sun is famous now!”
Peals of laughter round the table. Even Second Mother was giggling.
“And to think that the English authorities here say he’s a criminal! Now that even London has recognised Dr Sun as a respectable leader, the governor must be feeling like a donkey.”
“But Dr Sun was a secret society leader,” Granduncle Big Tree chuckled.
“Tell us about it,” Kok Kiong urged him.
“Dr Sun’s brotherhood started as a secret society before he formed the Kuomintang! If it hadn’t been secret, the Manchus would’ve killed everyone. In 1906, the brotherhood was still illegal. And the government here banned it. All those who opposed the Manchus were regarded as shit stirrers. And it’s easy to be branded a troublemaker! You’re one if the English devils didn’t like your face. Luckily they liked mine.”
“Our respects to you, Uncle Big Tree! To your health and long life!” Everyone laughed.
“Yam seng!”
“To Dr Sun’s Three Principles!” Kok Kiong raised his glass again.
His elders looked at him again. No one said a word. Then Mr Chang scratched his head.
“To this day, I’ve never quite understood the Three Principles. How can we have a China without an emperor?”
“Min yu—the people’s right to have! Min chih—the people’s right to govern! And Min hsiang— the people’s right to happiness! These are Dr Sun’s Three Principles. Same as Lincoln’s, the American president. Government of the people, by the people, for the people,” Kok Kiong rattled off.
“Right! Sons of China have the mandate of heaven!”
Father thumped his fist upon the table, his face flushed with brandy and heady talk. “Our homeland will be free!
“We drink to that!”
Kok Kiong recounted the struggle to free China from Manchu rule and foreign domination. His voice was strong and powerful like one used to speaking to large audiences.
“China does not need an emperor to be a great nation. We’re weak at this point in our history. So the foreigners bully us. Look at how the English treat us in this country. A few hours ago, the chief police officer ordered his men to shoot Ah Loong because he had hit an Englishman. The English don’t want Chinese people who can stand up to them. They want submissive buffaloes to work the mines. If our homeland is strong today, no English foreigners will treat us like this.”
“Right, ah! Right, ah!”
More dishes were brought in. More glasses of brandy were drunk.
“Please help yourself to the food,” Second Mother urged.
Uncle Boon Leong’s calm voice floated into his head like a counterpoint to Kok Kiong’s stridency. Years of after-dinner chat over coffee and cigars in his uncle’s study had attuned him to the principles of English law. He could see things clearly from the colonial administrator’s point of view.
“Father, the coolies broke their contract and took the law into their own hands. The chief police officer had no choice but to uphold the law. Otherwise Chinese, Indian and Malay coolies will just do what they like. We’re living under the English flag so we must respect English law.”
He was sticking out like a nail on the table. But he had to speak out as a British subject and a native son of the Straits Settlements.
His father’s wry smile as he translated his words for the rest of the company told him that he was with the wrong crowd.
“Please understand. Kok Seng has studied in an English school. He’s lived with Englishmen all his life,” his father said.
“We understand, Towkah. It’s unfortunate but we understand.”
Damn it! What’s so unfortunate about his education, he wanted to ask. But he held his tongue. Not out of fear but out of a lack of words. A lack of Cantonese to say what he wanted.
Dinner went on, but he’d lost his appetite. Second Mother filled his bowl with the choicest meat. He left them untouched. She was too taken up with Kok Kiong, however, to notice.
A warm night breeze blew through the house, fluttering the curtains and bringing the muezzin’s call to Isyak prayers, the last prayers of the day for the Muslims. He thought of Omar and wondered if his hockey vice-captain would ever write to him.