Hawaii

  He was about to leave the gambling shack when the old proprietor caught his arm and said, “You ought to join me. Today you made a lot of money, but I make it every day.”

  “You do?” Mun Ki asked.

  “Every day. If too many win, I cut the prize. I send hundreds of dollars back to China.”

  “Could I?” the younger gambler asked.

  “Easily. If you worked with me.”

  It was in this way that the cookhouse of the missionary home at Nuuanu and Beretania became one of the principal outposts of the chi-fa word game. Mun Ki kept on hand a supply of the gaudy posters which showed the twenty-eight parts of the human body that might be named; and for each bet he took he got six per cent from the bank and fifteen per cent of the prize money from the winner, if the ticket won; and he became one of the chi-fa’s best operators, for as he had proved by paying the brothel operator full price for Nyuk Tsin, he was meticulously honest with both his employer and his customers. His chief return, however, came from his happy idea of having the chi-fa poster printed in Hawaiian and in enlisting dozens of native gamblers. They enjoyed doing business with him, and bought so many tickets that soon there were chi-fa drawings both at eleven and at four. With the money he made, Mun Ki slipped away two or three afternoons a week for the wild fan-tan and mah-jongg games that ran uninterruptedly in Chinatown. He was a fierce competitor, and his store of dimes and reals and shillings grew steadily.

  The only disagreement the Kees had with the Whipples occurred when it became obvious that Nyuk Tsin was going to have a baby. For some months she had hidden the fact behind her loose smock, so that when Mrs. Whipple finally did discover it she said, “You must do no more housework, Mrs. Kee. Rest.” But that same afternoon she saw Nyuk Tsin trudging down Nuuanu with two huge baskets of vegetables at the ends of her bamboo pole. Amanda stopped her carriage, climbed down, and commanded her maid to drop the burden and wait till Mun Ki could be sent to pick it up; but when the cook arrived he studied the situation in astonishment and said, “Swinging the bamboo pole is the best thing a pregnant woman can do. It gets her ready.”

  That night Dr. Whipple went out to the Chinese house and said, “I’ll make arrangements to deliver the baby.” He was disturbed when Mun Ki explained in the little English he had picked up: “No need doctor. I bring baby.” It was a rather difficult point to argue, since neither man was proficient in the other’s language, but Dr. Whipple got the distinct impression that Mun Ki was arguing: “In China husbands always deliver their wives’ babies. Who else?”

  “I think I’d better get an interpreter,” the confused doctor interrupted. He went to fetch the scholarly man who served as unofficial Chinese consul, and explained: “I’m afraid my servant here is intending to deliver his wife himself.”

  “Why not?” the consul asked.

  “It’s preposterous! I’m a doctor, living right here.” Then, fearing that perhaps money might be the problem, he assured the consul: “I’ll do it without charge.”

  Patiently the consul explained this to Mun Ki, who was awed by the presence of an official and who wanted to avoid trouble. “My wife and I don’t need the doctor,” he said quietly.

  “Explain that there will be no charge,” Whipple began, but he was interrupted by the consul, who, after listening to Mun Ki, explained: “If this man were in China, and if his other wife were pregnant, he would deliver her.”

  “What other wife?” Whipple asked in bewilderment.

  “The wife here is only his number two wife. The real wife stays at home with the ancestors in China.”

  “Do you mean to say …” Whipple spluttered, but again the consul interrupted to explain: “Mun Ki says that his Uncle Chun Fat has three wives in China, two in California and one in Nevada.”

  “Does he also have children?” Whipple asked.

  There was some discussion of this, and Mun Ki reported: “Seven in China, four in California, two in Nevada.”

  “And did this uncle deliver all of his thirteen sons?” Whipple snorted. “I’m sure they must have all been sons.”

  “Of course,” the consul replied blandly.

  “Of course he delivered them, or of course they were sons?”

  This confused the consul, and he suggested: “Maybe we had better start again,” but Dr. Whipple had had enough. Pointing at Mun Ki he snapped: “Do it your uncle’s way. He seems to have had more experience than me.” And he left.

  Working by himself, Mun Ki produced a fine boy, but everyone in the white community was outraged to think that the barbarous Chinese would follow such a custom. “And to think,” one of the Hewlett girls cried, “all the time not fifty feet away there was one of the best doctors in Hawaii! Really, the Chinese are scarcely human.” And it was generally agreed that for a stubborn man to insist upon delivering his own wife when practical, proved assistance from a real doctor was available, was proof that the Chinese were not civilized.

  The Whipples got another shock when they asked what the chubby, healthy little boy was to be called. “We haven’t been told yet,” Mun Ki replied.

  “How’s that?” Whipple asked.

  Mun Ki said something about not yet having taken the poem to the store to find out what the child’s name would be. Dr. Whipple started to ask, “What poem?” but he felt he’d better not, and said no more about the name, but some days later Mun Ki asked Mrs. Whipple if he and his wife could be absent for a few hours, and when Amanda asked why, he explained: “We must take the poem to the store to find out what the baby’s name is.” Mrs. Whipple called her husband and said, “You were right, John. The Kees are taking a poem to the store so as to get a name for their baby.”

  “I’d like to see this,” Dr. Whipple said, for such things were of concern to him, and Mun Ki said he would be honored to have such a distinguished man assisting at the naming of his first son, but before they started to the store Whipple asked, “Could I see the poem?” And from the precious genealogical book Mun Ki produced a card containing the poem from which all names in the great Kee family were derived. It was an expensive, marbled, parchment-like cardboard bearing in bold poetic script fourteen Chinese characters arranged vertically in two columns. “What is it?” Whipple asked, his scientific curiosity aroused, but Mun Ki could not explain.

  The Chinese store to which the trio headed stood at the corner of Nuuanu and Merchant streets and was known simply as the Punti store, for here that language was spoken and certain delicacies favored by the Punti were kept in stock. The storekeeper, an important man in Honolulu, recognized Dr. Whipple as a fellow tradesman and ceremoniously offered him a chair. “What’s this poem my cook is talking about?” Whipple asked, whereupon the Punti said, “Not speak me. Him. Him.”

  And he pointed to a scholar who maintained a rude office in the corner of the store, where he wrote letters in Chinese and English for his Punti clients. Gravely the letter-writer picked up the poem and said, “This belongs to the Kee family. From it they get their names.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “That’s not important. This one happens to read: ‘Spring pervades the continents; earth’s blessings arrive at your door. The heavens increase another year; and man acquires more age.’ ”

  “What’s it got to do with names?” Whipple asked.

  “The answer is very complicated, and very Chinese,” the scholar replied. “But we are very proud of our system. It is probably the sanest in the world.”

  “Can you explain it?” Whipple asked, leaning forward in his chair.

  “In China we have only a few family names. In my area less than a hundred. All one syllable. All easy to remember. Lum, Chung, Yip, Wong. But we have no given names like Tom or Bob.”

  “No names?” Whipple asked.

  “None at all. What we do is take the family name, Kee, and add to it two ordinary words. They can be anything, but taken together they must mean something. Suppose my father were a Kee and believed that I would be the beginning of a long line o
f scholars. He might name me Kee Chun Fei, Kee Spring Glorious. That’s the kind of name we seek for your cook’s boy.”

  “Where does the poem come in?” Whipple pressed.

  “From the poem we receive the mandatory second name. All men in the first generation had to be named Chun, Spring, from the first word in the poem. All their offspring in the second generation had to be named Mun, Pervades. And all in the third generation, like the boy we are considering today, must be named from the third word in the poem, Chow, Continent. There is no escaping this rule and the benefit is this. If your cook Kee Mun Ki meets a stranger named Kee Mun Tong, they know instantly that they are of the same generation and are probably cousins.”

  “Sounds sensible,” Whipple admitted.

  “So the naming of this man’s son has got to start Kee Chow, because that’s what the poem says.”

  “Then why doesn’t he just add any third name he likes?”

  “Ah!” pounced the letter-writer. “There’s the problem! Only a scholar can be trusted to pick that third name, for on it depends the child’s entire good fortune. I’ll ask Mun Ki who gave him his third name.” There was a furious exchange of Chinese, after which the letter-writer reported triumphantly: “His parents summoned a learned priest from Canton. The man spent three days pondering his name. He consulted oracles and horoscopes, and finally the right name was selected. You see, a man’s name can influence his entire life.”

  “So the Chinese in Hawaii consult with you because you are a scholar?” Whipple asked.

  “Alas, there are some who are so ignorant they do not even know their family poems, and such people don’t care what they name their sons. But Mun Ki comes from a strong family. They saw to it that he carried his family poem with him.”

  The scholar now ignored Whipple and began a long conversation with Mun Ki, and after fifteen or twenty minutes he returned to Whipple and explained: “I have been inquiring of Mun Ki what his hopes are for his son, for this is important in choosing a name.”

  The discussion continued for some time, and gradually the scholar began getting some paper in place and a Chinese brush, and after about an hour of speculation on the name, he reported to Whipple: “We are beginning to narrow it down. We are trying to find a word which will harmonize with Kee and Chow but at the same time add dignity and meaning. It must be a word that sounds well, looks well when written, has its own peculiar meaning, and combines well with the second word in the name. It must also express the father’s hopes for his son, so you will excuse me if I concentrate on this and propose several possibilities.”

  With his brush he began drafting a variety of Chinese characters, and some he rejected as too feminine for a strong son like Mun Ki’s, and others because they had alternative readings that might offend. Sometimes Mun Ki refused a name, and gradually the scholar began to confine the possibilities to a few choices. At last, in triumph, he announced the boy’s name: “Kee Chow Chuk, the Kee who Controls the Center of the Continent.”

  He asked, “Isn’t that a splendid name?” and Dr. Whipple nodded, whereupon the scholar took Mun Ki’s genealogical book and on the appropriate page wrote down the bright new name, filled with parental hope. The scholar studied the handsome characters with obvious pleasure and told Whipple, “There’s a name that looks good from any angle. It’s what we call auspicious.” He then took a sheet of writing paper and asked Mun Ki, “What’s your village?” and when the cook replied, the letter-writer made a few swift strokes addressing the letter to that village, advising the elders that Kee Mun Ki was dutifully reporting the fact that he had a son whose name was Kee Chow Chuk, and in the ancestral clan book that name should be recorded. The family was going on. In remote Hawaii there was now a Kee who paid respect to his ancestors, who would in due time start sending money home, and who finally would return to the village, for to live elsewhere was unthinkable.

  And then, as Kee Mun Ki and Nyuk Tsin were leaving the Punti store, the scholar made a dramatic gesture which changed the entire history of the Kees in Hawaii. As if a vision had possessed him, the name-giver cried, “Halt!” And with slow, stately gestures he tore up the letter to the Low Village, scattering its shreds upon the floor. Trancelike he approached Mun Ki, took away the genealogical book and splashed black ink across the propitious name he had just composed. Then, in a low voice, he explained: “Sometimes it comes like a flash of lightning on a hot night. After you have pondered a name for many hours you catch a vision of what this child can be, and all the old names you have been considering vanish, for a new name has been written across your mind in flame.”

  “Have you such a name for Mun Ki’s boy?” Whipple asked respectfully.

  “I have!” the scholar replied, and with bold strokes of his brush he put down the fiery name: Kee Ah Chow. He repeated it aloud, awed by its splendor.

  “I thought it had to be Kee Chow Ah,” Dr. Whipple suggested.

  “It does!” the scholar agreed. “But sometimes rules must be broken, and this child’s name is surely Kee Ah Chow.”

  The scholar handed the new name to Mun Ki and explained in Punti: “As you were leaving the store I had a sudden vision of your life. Your family is bold and you will venture far. You will have many sons and great courage. The world is yours, Mun Ki, and your first-born must have a name that signifies that fact. So we shall call him Kee Ah Chow, the Kee who Controls the Continent of Asia. And your next sons shall be Europe and Africa and America and Australia. For you are the father of continents.”

  Mun Ki smiled deprecatingly, for the words were sweet. He had always imagined himself as rather special, a man nominated by the gods, and it was good to hear a scholar confirming the fact. Giving Nyuk Tsin an imperative shove, he started to leave the store, but again the scholar stopped them, pointing imperatively at Nyuk Tsin and crying, “And her name shall be Wu Chow’s Mother, for she is to be the mother of continents.”

  This prophetic announcement caused embarrassment, and Mun Ki had to explain in Punti: “She is not my wife. My real wife is a Kung girl in China. This one is merely …”

  The scholar folded his hands, studied Nyuk Tsin, and replied in Punti, “Well, that’s the way of China. Maybe it’s better, seeing that she’s a Hakka.” He shrugged his shoulders and turned to go, then paused and added, “Let her be known as Wu Chow’s Auntie.” Mun Ki nodded and told his wife her new name.

  Dr. Whipple was perplexed by this exchange of words he could not understand, but he judged the matter under discussion was one of importance, and from the manner in which Nyuk Tsin stood, the blood of shame rising to her ears, he guessed that they were talking about her, but no one explained what was being said. Finally Mun Ki bowed. Wu Chow’s Auntie bowed. Together they recovered the poem and the name book, and when Mun Ki handed them to Nyuk Tsin to carry he touched her hand and said proudly, “We are going to have many sons.”

  The scholar, for his important role in naming the Kee’s first-born, received a fee of sixty cents, and Mun Ki considered the money well spent, for he was certain that his child was properly launched; but Dr. Whipple, who was then much concerned with the manner in which his own children and grandchildren were occupying themselves in Hawaii, was even more deeply impressed by the incident. He recognized it as symbolizing one of the strengths of the Chinese: “They exist within a hierarchy of generations. Their names tell where they belong, and remind them of their parents’ hopes for them. A Chinese lives within a defined system, and it’s a good one. No matter where he goes, his name is listed in a village, and that’s home. We Americans drift where we will. We have no name, no home, no secure address. I’d like to know more about the Chinese.”

  So although he was then sixty-seven years old and preoccupied with important matters, John Whipple began his last scientific work: a study of the Chinese whom he had brought to Hawaii, and much of what we know today about those early Orientals—those strange, secret people imported to work the sugar—we know from what he wrote. It was Whipple who cast
a shadow of fear across the other sugar planters by publishing an article in the Honolulu Mail: “We are deluding ourselves if we persist in the belief that these intelligent, thrifty and hard-working people will long be content to stay upon the plantations. Their natural destiny is to work as accountants and mechanics in our cities. They will be excellent schoolteachers and I suppose some will become bankers and enterprisers of great force. As soon as their indentures are discharged, they are flocking to our cities to open stores. More and more, the commerce of our countryside will fall into their industrious hands. Therefore, it behooves us to look about and find other workmen to take care of our cane fields for us; for the Chinese are not going to persist in a condition of servitude. They will learn to read and write, and when they have done this, they will demand a share in the government of these islands.

  “There may be some who decry this development, but I for one applaud it. Hawaii will be a stronger community when we use our Chinese to their fullest advantage, and just as I would never have been content to be merely a field hand, doing the same chore over and over again, so I am gratified when I see another man who, like me, is determined to better himself. At one point, when I was engaged in the business of bringing Chinese to these islands, I believed that when their indentures were discharged they would return to China. Now I am convinced that they will not do so. They have become part of Hawaii and we should encourage them to follow in our footsteps. Let them become educated. Let them initiate new industries. Let them become fellow citizens. For through them the dying Hawaiian race will be regenerated.”

  Honolulu’s reaction was simple and dramatic: “The sonofabitch ought to be horsewhipped!”