BEFORE DAD GETS ANY MORE WILD IDEAS, IT’S SCHOOL holidays, which almost always means a trip to Hong Kong. I don’t know what to pack as I have hardly any clothes that fit me at Dad’s, so I roll up my school uniform and push it into my suitcase. We’ll be stopping in Singapore to visit an aunt and uncle whom I’ve never met, and Dad says I must call them Uncle Number Eight and Aunty Number Ten. I’m not entirely sure about the system, but I know Uncle Number Eleven in Hong Kong so I have some experience with relatives as numbers.
‘He is my brother from Second Mother,’ Dad says. We’re in a taxi between Changi Airport and the home of Uncle Eight and Aunty Ten.
‘So what number are you, Dad?’ A row of palm trees sprints across my window.
‘So many baby die. It depend if you count all the baby or just the living one.’
It’s humid here, like in Hong Kong, but the built landscape looks modern in comparison, clean and new with none of the grubbiness that clings to Hong Kong’s old signs, shopfronts and residential highrises.
‘First Mother, she had five but then it depends if you count First Adopted Son, so she really only had four.’
The cab pulls over in front of a dress shop, a pink, sequinned, taffeta dress, made for a child, in a front window. In another window there are five less gaudy dresses on hangers, all designed for a more casual occasion; the fussy floral prints and frills on the sleeves and skirts still worry me, though.
‘But another two sons die, you see. And then Second Mother. She had more girls and only three son but three more die.’
I hope Dad’s not going to make me wear a dress to meet these relatives. I prefer to stick to my dungarees, the ones I’m wearing now, with a large embroidered apple on the bib. These or my school uniform, which looks like a netball outfit, are my clothes of choice. Everything else I have is second hand or handmade by Mum or Paw Paw – all items that other people want to see me in.
‘My elder brother from Third Mother die. But he was already grown up so he keeps his number.’ Dad reaches into a coin purse strapped to his middle and shuffles through different currencies: Australian, Hong Kong – ‘Ah!’ He pulls out Singaporean dollars, hands the driver a note and waits for change, but the driver places his hands on the steering wheel.
‘Okee, lah.’ Singlish makes English singsong-y.
‘Hey, hey, hey.’ Dad is not standing for this. ‘You Singaporeans are supposed to be well behave. Where’s my change?’
I open my door to get out.
‘Mister, the tax, see?’ The driver points to a sign above his mileage machine, explaining that taxing tolls are added to the final fare.
Dad does a calculation in his head. ‘You still owe me ten cents.’
We stand outside the dress shop after the driver has handed Dad the change.
‘Always trying to ripping you off. Buddy taxi driver.’ Dad unzips his pouch, puts in the ten cents and zips it back up. ‘Maybe you can bow when you meet Uncle and Aunty. And then I get you to tell them your school mark.’
He opens the door of the shop which, it turns out, belongs to Uncle Eight and Aunty Ten. It would have been easier if each child had a number rather than numbering boys and girls separately, I think; that way the new aunt or uncle by marriage could just assume the same number as their spouse. Being Chinese is so complicated.
‘Mimi!’ Dad shoves my arm – I’ve been daydreaming and forgotten to bow. They are not royalty, mind you, they are dressmakers, and I’m not sure where Dad picked up the idea I should bow to them. ‘They are senior. You must bow.’
Instead, as a joke, I pull on the sides of my dungarees and curtsy. The couple clap and laugh and look happy to meet me, although because I don’t speak Chinese I cannot communicate with them very well. Their Singlish is limited too.
Dad speaks to them in Cantonese, but when they don’t understand – either they speak Mandarin or Dad’s Cantonese is too poor these days – he reverts to English. He asks them if they’re acquainted with the engineers responsible for the new Changi Airport terminal; he would like to meet them because he has some things to say about the structure. ‘I am an engineer,’ he says in a tone that suggests they might be deaf. ‘I’m very big engineer in Australia.’ He puts his hand above him to suggest he is indicating the height of someone taller than himself. ‘Very big.’ They don’t seem to personally know the engineers behind the airport renovation, but they do know a good noodle place for dinner.
‘They’re not very clever,’ Dad says afterwards, folding a suit bag over his arm. He convinced them to give me a dress that I will never wear, and he didn’t offer to pay. ‘They owe me, you see. I am the baby brother. Youngest brother of thirty-two!’ (Technically he’s the last boy if you count brothers by numbers according to their mother number.)
We’re walking towards the noodle restaurant, but Dad decides on something from a street-food vendor instead.
‘I am very important, your father. Everybody like to give thing to me.’
The smells wafting into my nose are exciting and delicious. The bustle of people at Newton Circus, the traffic sounds and exotic voices of people ordering food, speaking up to be heard over sizzling woks and rotating skewers, the humid night air – it’s all wonderful. Naked bulbs are strung between metal posts, tables and benches cemented to the ground.
Dad butts in. ‘Waste of time to come here. They don’t introduce me to anyone important.’ He hands me a few coins, and I skip off to buy fried banana on a stick.
The next day we’re on a plane to Hong Kong, and the comforting familiarity of a routine I look forward to every time: Aunty Theresa at the gate with a big embrace, squeezing my cheeks, always with something kind to say. ‘Oh my, so beautiful. Haven’t you grown.’
If she is appalled by my bowl cut and shabby clothes, she never tells me. But she shakes her head as I show her the dress our Singapore relatives gave me. ‘Tut-tut. Not your style. Not your style at all.’ She zips up the suit bag so I never need to see the bejewelled taffeta and frills again. ‘I know just the girl I can send this to. She will love it. And you, my girl, are old enough now – you are six years old. I will take you to do . . . The Shopping!’ She says this as though it’s some wondrous and powerful rite of passage to conquer; as though she should be putting her closed hand to her chest and pointing her chin valiantly skywards. ‘Your choice. You want shorts. You have shorts. T-shirt. Jacket. Whatever you want.’ She smacks her knee with her hand and brings it up into a bent elbow and fist, like a running arm. ‘Shall we go?’
We’re sitting on her bed, angled towards each other with the suit bag in between. In the corner of her room is my favourite piece of furniture in the whole world.
‘Yes, Aunty, I would love that, thank you.’ I smile broadly. I can never quite believe that I am here; it just makes me so happy. ‘But first, Aunty, may I please use your massage chair?’
She stands up and wraps a Gucci scarf theatrically around her neck, bends to inspect herself in her dresser mirror and whisks round to face me. ‘Of course, madam, please be my guest. Be my guest. It’s the first electric massage chair in the world, you know?’ She says this snootily, for fun. ‘The baron’s company was trying them out, and he gave me one. I use it every day.’ She wiggles her hips as if to say the chair is responsible for her good figure. I giggle and pull myself onto the seat, leaning back on the rollers. ‘The control, madam. You know what to do.’
‘Yes, thank you, madam. I did visit this establishment not long ago, and I did so enjoy this chair.’
We laugh, and she hands me the plastic control on a cord. My favourite piece of furniture in the world! The rollers travel up my spine with reassuring pressure.
Aunty goes to tell Brigit what we’ll have for dinner and to call a driver to fetch us for ‘The Shopping!’
‘Today we go to Lantau to see Aunty Mary. Tomorrow Mama for mahjong.’ Aunty ties a red YSL scarf to the strap of her alligator-skin handbag. She’s wearing all white: long pants with a T-shirt tucked into an elastic waistband. I have on denim shorts and a red T-shirt. We tie up our canvas sneakers before heading out the door.
‘Ma’am, ma’am!’ Brigit calls frantically – it sounds like an emergency. She appears from the stairwell as Aunty and I step out of the elevator. Brigit puffs and wipes sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief she takes from a yellow pocket on her pale-blue apron. She holds out a lunchbox. ‘Snacks, Mimi. Snacks.’ She squeezes my left cheek. ‘Ma’am, I must scold you. She is a growing girl!’ Aunty does a little stomping tantrum impersonation of Brigit, who just smiles and takes the lift back up.
Aunty has borrowed a driver from a friend in her building, just to take us down to the pier in Central. It’s opposite the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, where her shop is; we stop in there on our way. Two familiar turbaned Sikh men bow and greet us as they swing open two heavy glass doors. ‘Miss Kwa.’ Aunty beams at them and nods. ‘And little Miss Kwa.’ I smile and nod too. It’s like a scene from Annie.
We pass under a ceiling of sparkling chandeliers arranged in square sections boxed in gold, then visit Aunty’s shop, Swatow Lace, to check on her workers, Christina and Amy. I am greeted by the familiar smell of wood polish and wall to wall pigeon holes stuffed with silk garments in crisp plastic sleeves and two glass display cases with a village of carved stone and ivory characters trapped inside: fishermen, Buddhas and celestial gods, as well as the most fascinating of all to my young eyes – the erotic figures.
‘Hungry Jack today?’ the shop girls tease me in broken English, because our routine is going for a burger and vanilla milkshake when I’m left with them in Aunty’s store.
They’re a bit like older cousins: Amy entertains me with a game of noughts and crosses on a scrap of paper, while Aunty instructs Christina about a big potential sale with a hotel guest. ‘Room 329. Veeeery large lady. I suggest the man robe with the blue flower. I do not tell her it’s the man robe but the lady robe is too small.’
Aunty clacks away at a slim wooden abacas on the glass counter. ‘Second thought, steer her to the scarves instead. And this is the discount if she goes ahead with the jade man who holds the fishing rod.’ She slips into Cantonese to wrap up the conversation and slides the abacus towards Christina.
The girls wave us off. ‘Have fun in Lantau, Miss Kwas!’
We catch a ferry from pier six. ‘Slow or fast?’ Aunty asks me. The slow ferry is more scenic and cheaper, but the fast ferry gets there in half the time.
‘Fast!’ I do a running move with my arms. ‘I can’t wait to see Benji.’ I love Aunty Mary and Uncle Tony’s dog. ‘And Aunty, of course,’ I add with a grin.
I don’t really know Uncle Tony that well. When Aunty Mary has visited me in Perth, it’s been because she’s flown over on Qantas after requesting a long-haul shift to Sydney – she has taken time off to do this at least twice – and I only ever see Tony in Hong Kong. He’s still working as a judge, so he’s very busy and doesn’t always make it to family gatherings when my dad and I are here. But I remember going to Tony’s office once; he let me climb onto a cabinet to look at the leather spines of all his law books, then he let me wear his wig and cloak. He and Mary aren’t married, and Dad has told me it’s so she can keep her job at the airline. I can see how much they adore each other – I have never seen that in my parents.
Aunty Theresa and I get onto the ferry and go up to the top deck. I open the snack box as we watch the view of Hong Kong Island disappear. Brigit has packed me some fruit and, in a separate compartment, a cheese sandwich with Bovril, the closest thing she can find to Vegemite for me.
I am living in a different world when I come here. Tomorrow I’ll be visiting Mama, Ng Yuk, in her musty North Point apartment that Aunty Theresa pays for along with two maids. I’ll sit holding her hand and we’ll be like a chicken speaking to a duck. She’ll shuffle around the flat pulling me along, opening drawers and telling me in Cantonese about the treasures within them. Then she’ll squeeze my fingers with hers and utter in English, ‘Good boy.’ She’ll give me a sniff kiss, which is when she breathes in hard through her nose against my cheek, inhaling me, and then she’ll say, ‘Daddy, bad boy.’ She is sad that he left her I suppose. Theresa makes up for her sibling’s absence by visiting frequently and paying people to let Mama win at mahjong. Whenever I say goodbye to Mama she sends me off with a soft toy from an old collection she keeps behind a glass cabinet.
As our vessel approaches land, Aunty faces the wind. She’s wearing enormous Chanel sunglasses, and her YSL scarf flaps behind her. Aunty has a way of making even the most ordinary transportation look glamorous.
We catch a blue taxi from the edge of the island and take it inland to Cheung Sha, where Aunty Mary will meet us. She comes careering down a concrete slope in a white golf buggy – most local expats get about in them here – a resort-style blue-and-white canopy shading her from the scorching sun. Benji is under her arm. Her smile is so big it could swallow the sky. Her sunglasses are big too. The sisters resemble strange, beautiful insects in their oversized accessories.
I hug Aunty Mary tight and dash out onto the beach with Benji. My two beloved aunties are already immersed in chat. As I get close to the water, I remember I have my bathers on under my clothes, so I race up the sand to strip down then sprint back to the invitingly cool sea. Benji shakes water from his coat, spraying smiling passers-by.
At Aunty Mary’s place the floors are tiled, giving it a much more beachy feel than Aunty Theresa’s formal home. I rinse the sand off my feet before we get into the lift, and there’s a stone bowl of water outside the front door, just to be sure. A maid brings us freshly squeezed orange juice on ice, and I sit on a balcony in front of a fan, drinking through a bendy plastic straw. Benji is on my lap. We look out over the tropical scene, palm trees giving way to dense jungle on one side, and on the other an endless stretch of sand and sea.
‘Can you see my giant gecko?’ Aunty Mary asks, coming out to join me. She is wearing shorts and a bather top, standard Lantau uniform. It’s so casual here, yet infinitely more refined than Scarborough Beach. ‘Look, look,’ she squeals. A long, fat lizard is plodding its way through the garden. A butterfly flutters onto Aunty Mary’s shoulder. It’s as if I’m living in a dream.