I looked over at Niang. She nodded. ‘Always listen to your father, Adeline,’ she said. ‘He knows all of you like the back of his hand.’
I took Father’s advice and did not answer Edgar’s letter. I certainly wasn’t going to disobey my father just to please Edgar. My silence was interpreted as a deliberate insult and he never forgave me.
He underwent further training in St Louis, Missouri, where he married an American girl of German descent who was twenty years younger. He moved from city to city in California searching for an ideal location to establish his practice. For a while, they settled in a small town in the San Joaquin Valley. Most of the population were born and bred in the immediate vicinity. They found life there unbearable. After a few years Edgar sold his practice and moved to Hong Kong while his wife attended college in America. They had no children and the marriage was an unhappy one.
In Hong Kong, Edgar worked at a private, missionary hospital. Though he was hard-working and conscientious, he had neither the talent nor the panache to join the ranks of the ‘society surgeons’. He also didn’t speak Cantonese. His fluency in both Mandarin and English proved to be no asset in Hong Kong. Behind his back the nurses whispered that Edgar was really a dai luk yee san (doctor from mainland China). It was also difficult to break into the tightly knit circle of local physicians, most of whom had graduated from Hong Kong University with referral patterns entrenched since medical school. Outside doctors were seen as unwanted competition.
After two years he returned to the US and bought a practice in another small town in the San Joaquin Valley. His young wife graduated from college and they divorced. In 1986 Edgar married his office nurse, a white divorcée with two sons. They had three daughters and appeared to be well suited.
In 1964 Susan graduated from college in America and returned to Hong Kong. She worked as a schoolteacher at Maryknoll Convent School and lived at home with our parents. Pressure was soon brought upon her to marry. Susan was very beautiful and had a string of admirers. Niang questioned her every move, every letter, every phone call. There was a dentist whom Susan had been seeing for three months. Niang kept asking if he had proposed. Susan resented her interference and would say nothing. This infuriated Niang. She decided to find out for herself.
The next time the dentist telephoned, Niang intercepted the call. After reminding him that he had now been taking Susan out for three months, Niang curtly asked what his intentions were. When told he was not sure, Niang haughtily replied that Susan had many suitors and could not ‘waste any more time’ seeing him while he sat on the fence. In short, he should not call again until his mind clarified. With that, she hung up. Faced with such a formidable potential mother-in-law, the dentist never called again.
Susan, who had overheard the conversation, was livid. Mother and daughter had a horrendous argument. Susan packed her bags and threatened to move out. Niang took to her bed, while Father scurried from one to the other, attempting to placate them both. One night two weeks later, the sound of Father sleeplessly pacing the living-room awoke Susan. Next morning, the sight of Father’s anxiety-ridden features finally broke Susan’s resistance and she apologized to Niang.
The rapprochement was temporary. Both knew that it was only a matter of time before a new conflict erupted. Soon afterwards, Susan was introduced by Gregory to Tony Liang, graduate of Massachussetts Institute of Technology and son of a prominent Shanghai businessman who had prospered in Hong Kong. They decided to get married.
At Niang’s insistence, the wedding was held in Honolulu and was small and private. Neither Father nor Niang attended and the rest of us weren’t even informed. Susan received no dowry. She became Mrs Tony Liang and brought to her marriage precisely two suitcases of old clothes. Nor was she given any jewellery. Tony’s mother, a kindly, old-fashioned woman, was astonished when she saw Susan’s scant belongings. Placing her arms around Susan, Mrs Liang asked sympathetically, ‘Are you sure you are Mrs Joseph Yen’s real daughter and not her stepdaughter?’ With that, old Mrs Liang took off her rings, bracelets and necklace and gave them to Susan.
Tony inherited his father’s businesses and business acumen. The young Liangs rose to prominence among Hong Kong’s high society. Susan’s name and photograph were often in the South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Standard. In public, Niang was being constantly upstaged by her daughter.
She became very critical of Susan. Her jewellery was too gaudy, her gowns too revealing, her make-up vulgar, her taste atrocious. Susan was a selfish show-off and lacked filial piety. For Mother’s Day, Susan bought her a box of chocolates. The box was too small and the chocolates too cheap.
Susan began to dread seeing Niang. She had a happy marriage and her in-laws were proud of her. Her home visits became more and more infrequent, reduced eventually to the obligatory Sunday night dinners. With Edgar and me in America, Gregory in Canada and James in Nigeria, Susan had become Niang’s sole scapegoat.
Shirley Gam, a close childhood friend of Susan’s, came to Hong Kong from New York for a whirlwind visit. The only convenient time for the two to get together was Sunday. Susan called Niang to excuse herself from Sunday night dinner. The conversation did not go well. Susan changed her plans and gave a Sunday luncheon instead for Shirley and their classmates. That evening, promptly at seven, she appeared as usual at Magnolia Mansions.
Niang was cold and abusive all through dinner, calling Susan ungrateful, unfilial and untrustworthy, and bringing up a litany of Susan’s every transgression since early childhood. She accused Susan of conceit and shallowness. She started to cry over Franklin’s death and said she wished it had been Susan instead. This was more than Susan could endure. She exploded, ‘Franklin was a sadistic monster and I’m glad he’s dead! Even though you’re my mother, I think you are vicious and vindictive. You love no one but yourself. You certainly don’t care for me, and you never have.’
Niang was completely taken aback. White with anger, she slapped Susan across her face. ‘How dare you speak to me this way! I’ve spent so much money on you, sending you to the best schools and even to the United States! You are nothing, Susan! Nothing except for me! And to think you dare say such awful things when you owe me everything!’ She slapped Susan again, this time with all her strength.
Susan calmly picked up her purse and took out her cheque-book. ‘How much do I owe you?’ she asked. ‘Whatever you think the sum is, let me write you a cheque for it. Remember, I am now a married woman, with a daughter of my own. Treat me as an adult, not your slave who owes you everything.’
Niang screamed, ‘Get out! Get out now! Don’t ever come back! As far as I am concerned, you are dead! Dead!’
Father rushed out of the front door after Susan. He looked shrunken and tired. As they waited for the lift in the hall he said sadly, ‘You didn’t have to make such a scene, Susan. Your mother was just offended that you didn’t invite her to Shirley’s luncheon. Why didn’t you include her? She felt left out.’
Tears ran down Susan’s swollen face. ‘Daddy, you don’t understand. You’re too good for her.’ As the lift door was closing, she added, ‘Daddy, I’ll phone you for lunch next week.’
They met for lunch at the main dining-room of the elegant Hong Kong Club, a short walk from Father’s office at Swire House (then called Union House). They were given a quiet corner table, away from a musical group playing Beatles’ tunes. They sat in low armchairs across from each other and ordered drinks.
Father looked terrible. His features sagged as he gazed vacantly past Susan. One side of his face drooped slightly from an old bout with Bell’s palsy, always more noticeable when he was under stress. When he blinked, only the eye on the healthy side would close, giving the appearance of a roguish wink.
‘Has it been bad, Daddy?’ Susan asked. ‘Has Niang taken to her bed again?’
It was as if he had not heard. Robot-like, he reached into his inside pocket and took out a thin sheet of paper. Susan could see Niang’s distinctive handwriting, almost identical to her
own, through the transparent, pink, airmail stationery. Father put on his glasses and read off a list of rules and conditions to which Susan had to adhere if she wished to remain a member of the Yen family. Slowly, she shook her head.
Father removed his glasses. In a hollow voice quaking with emotion, he asked whether she was choosing never to see her parents again and to be disowned by them.
‘What choice do I have, Daddy? Have a heart!’
Father placed some money on the table and stood up to leave.
‘Daddy! You haven’t touched your juice or eaten anything. Won’t you be hungry?’
Staring vacantly ahead, he said, ‘I shall give your mother your message.’ He blinked nervously, his own spastic, winking blink which pierced Susan’s heart. As he hurried down the stairs, past the lunch crowd waiting for tables, the white-uniformed bellboys and the captain in his peaked cap punctiliously opening the sparkling glass door, the musical group struck up a familiar Beatles’ song, ‘Let it be’.
That is how my half-sister Susan was disowned in 1973.
The four of us who were living abroad at this time received the following curt announcement by registered airmail.
Dear Gregory, Edgar, James and Adeline,
We wish to inform all four of you that Susan is no longer part of the Yen family. You are not to speak, write or associate with her ever again. Should you disobey our instructions, you too will be disinherited.
Affectionately yours.
Father and Mother
The letter did not include Lydia because she had already been disowned since 1951. James commented that it seemed to have been written by parents with xin ru si hui (hearts reduced to ashes), completely devoid of human feelings.
None of us replied. We dealt with the matter in our separate ways. Gregory and I continued to see Susan on our visits to Hong Kong. Edgar ignored her from then on.
When James came home from Nigeria for his annual summer leave, Susan turned to him and Louise for solace. The two women were approximately the same age and held many interests in common. James found himself in an unenviable position. He could not afford a total break with our parents. He thought Susan had been treated unjustly but confessed that he and Louise were compelled to show at least token compliance with Niang’s demands. She had categorically forbidden him and Louise to associate with Susan. Soon, all contact ceased. Even when Niang was away in Monte Carlo, Susan’s invitations were refused, her phone calls unreturned, her letters unanswered. When the couples met by chance at social functions, James and Louise practised ‘selectavision’ and ‘non-visualization’, a common practice in Hong Kong’s high society. The only time they communicated with Susan was when their youngest daughter was applying for admission to Maryknoll nine years later. A recommendation was needed from Susan as trustee of the renowned convent school.
Gregory kept his meetings with Susan a secret from James. Once James spotted Gregory riding in Susan’s chauffeur-driven Mercedes on Queen’s Road Central. Later when he met Gregory, he asked after Susan. But Gregory denied he had been with her, no doubt fearing that James might report back to Niang.
‘This hurt my feelings very much,’ James indignantly complained to me. ‘Gregory doesn’t trust me at all! What do I care if he sees or doesn’t see Susan? That’s his own business entirely. But does he really think I’d stoop so low as to tell tales behind his back to curry favour with Niang? Is Gregory’s opinion of me really that deplorable?’
It was true that Gregory no longer trusted James. From time to time, Gregory would say to me, ‘Susan and I both feel that James has changed. He is now entirely Niang’s creature.’
Instinctively, I would leap to the defence of my San ge (Third Elder Brother). ‘I don’t think so, Gregory. He has such a good heart. He is just like a reincarnated Ye Ye.’
‘Don’t trust him so much. Don’t trust anyone so much. You’ll get hurt.’
I would shake my head and laugh. ‘One day, when Niang is gone,’ I told Gregory, ‘you’ll see the real James emerge, yi chun bu ran (not contaminated by a single particle of dust). Pure as the lily’s innermost petal.’
Many of James’s contemporaries from universities in England had returned to Hong Kong. Civil engineers and architects were especially in demand as skyscrapers mushroomed across every inch of available land. Residents of older high-rises on slopes above the harbour were dismayed to find their peerless view of the bay blocked by newer and taller structures lower down the hillside. Towering office complexes were constructed on land newly reclaimed from the sea. Jobs were plentiful, especially for bilingual male graduates from prestigious western universities. Hong Kong gradually burgeoned into one of the world’s major trade centres with the highest population density in the history of mankind: a whopping 165,000 people per square kilometre. Many of our fellow students in England founded companies employing hundreds, even thousands, of workers. It was exhilarating to see the rapid expansion of their enterprises. Manufactured goods stamped ‘Made in Hong Kong’ were exported to every corner of the world. While all this was happening it seemed incredible that James, the brilliant Cambridge-trained civil engineer, could remain a puppet blindly carrying out his parents’ orders.
Niang interfered in every facet of their lives. She objected to the children’s piano lessons, ordered Louise to quit painting and take up cooking, criticized her clothing and even scolded her for spending too much time visiting her own mother. Since Louise dared not stand up to Niang, all she could do was to practise little deceptions, sometimes with the connivance of her children.
Niang was often annoyed at Louise and would ignore her for months on end. At Sunday evening dinners, she would belittle her to James, who remained seemingly unperturbed while his wife was being systematically insulted. Father usually kept quiet, offering no opinion except on financial matters.
James never refused food proffered by Niang, no matter how much he had already eaten or how little he liked the dish. It became a symbol of his subservience. He was the garbage can, accepting all that Niang discarded. All she had to do was glance at the leftovers on his children’s plates, and James would lean over and plop them in his mouth.
The children, normally vivacious and high-spirited, were cowed into timid silence. Niang hated noisy children. They loathed going to ‘Grandma’s’ where they were not allowed to be themselves.
When Father first became ill in 1976, James, then forty-two years old, was finally permitted by Niang to leave Nigeria and make Hong Kong his year-round residence. However, every major decision had to be approved by Niang, who took credit for every success and blamed James for each failure.
On my frequent visits back to Hong Kong, James and Louise filled me with tales of their unhappy lives. Louise confided that she found Niang’s insults and constant meddling insufferable. Meanwhile, Niang complained bitterly about Louise, ending invariably with the lament that, regrettably, she was the one responsible for their union.
Repeatedly over the years, I advised James to take his family to the US and make their own way there. It was clear to me that their only chance of happiness was to escape from Niang’s clutches. ‘Come to Huntington Beach and live with us,’ I would urge. ‘You are so smart, James. Probably the smartest member of our entire family. You can do anything. We could all go into business together and have some fun. Share and share alike. It’s not so bad out there. Nothing is as bad as life under Niang’s thumb. Surely you know that, James!’
‘We’re like prisoners over here,’ Louise would lament. ‘I feel as if I am in a straitjacket! I can’t breathe! Let’s get away from her, James. I am willing to do anything, live anywhere. I don’t need very much.’
‘I know,’ James would reply, hanging his head and pouring himself another generous helping of whisky, ‘but not yet.’
CHAPTER 20
Fu Zhong Lin Jia
Scales and Shells in the Belly
In Shanghai, Aunt Baba continued working at the Women’s Bank. She stayed on in th
e Avenue Joffre house with Miss Chien and two maids. Miss Chien, Franklin’s nanny, was fearful of dismissal and did everything to please my aunt. She rose at dawn to wax the parquet floors and brush the carpets. She persuaded my aunt to dispense with one of the maids and undertook the most unpleasant tasks such as scouring the toilets and scrubbing the stove. She washed and ironed all of my aunt’s clothes and laundered the drapes. Every evening, my aunt came home to a sparkling house and a tasty meal, prepared personally by Miss Chien. As winter approached, she knitted thick and colourful cardigans for my aunt.
After Father sold his Buick in 1948, the garage was converted into a storage room. Because times were uncertain, my aunt kept a supply of basic commodities on hand: sacks of rice, jars of oil, dried vegetables, salted fish, soya sauce. Besides food, the garage contained many cartons of silk cotton and Australian wool. Decades ago, Ye Ye had purchased some shares in a Shanghai silk factory. Over the years, this well-run firm prospered, exporting silk cotton and importing Australian wool. Instead of paying dividends in cash, they paid their shareholders surplus bolts of silk cotton and skeins of wool. The cotton was of the finest quality, very light and fluffy, and was used as padding in quilts, comforters, gowns and jackets. However, towards the end of 1951, the factory owner was targeted during the San fan – wu fan (Three Antis – Five Antis) campaigns. His factory was undergoing reorganization and no more dividends were issued. Silk cotton became scarce and valuable.
San fan – wu fan (Three Antis – Five Antis) were two overlapping sister movements launched by the Communist government in 1951. The three antis were against waste, corruption and bureaucracy carried out by Communist Party members. The five antis were aimed at their counterparts outside the party who had profited through bribery, fraud, theft, tax evasion and inside information. The two groups were frequently linked.
About this time, my aunt was transferred to work at a branch near the Cathay Cinema, two tram stops away from home. Many customers were locals known personally to her and one of them was a tailor named Yeh. Tailor Yeh owned a small shop next to the bank and often dropped in for a chat when business was slow. One day he asked Aunt Baba to deliver a padded jacket he had just finished for someone living in the same lane. His customer was Miss Chien.