Hawaii (75 page)

She therefore worked her life away in the near-starving village. She had two items of clothing: a dark-blue cotton smock and a pair of dirty cotton trousers to match. She also had a conical wicker

hat, which she tied under her chin with a length of blue cord, and big strong feet for climbing down to the valley with huge burdens of wood; as far as she could see into the future, this was going to be her life. And then, on the festive night before the holiday of Ching Ming, when the Low Village required extra firewood for the great celebrations that were in progress, Nyuk Tsin left the High Village at dusk and started down the steep trail. She had barely reached the plain when a group of four men sprang at her from behind rocks, scattered the wood, slipped a gag into her mouth, jammed a bag over her head, and kidnaped her. When day broke, and her uncle found that she had not returned, he uttered a brief prayer that something permanent had happened to her, and it had. She was never again seen in the High Village.

It must not be assumed that during these troubled times the Punti fared any better than the Hakka. In fact, since the traitorous troops of General Wang disliked climbing mountains, there was a good deal more raping and kidnaping in the Low Village than in the High; but this was halted whenever the wild river went into its periodic flood and starvation threatened to wipe out the village completely.

These were bad years, but they were terminated in early 1865 by the arrival in the Low Village of a man reputed to be fantastically rich, and within six weeks this amazing Punti had broken open the floodgates so that the river was diverted and the village spared, had bought off the traitor General Wang and then betrayed him to government forces, and had made the village not only secure but happy. The man who accomplished these miracles was a wiry, clever Punti, Kee Chun Fat, whose name meant Spring Prosperity and who had been born fifty-two years earlier right there in the Low Village. In 1846 he had emigrated to California, where he had worked in the gold fields, acquiring the eleven thousand dollars which made him, according to Low Village standards, one of the richest men in the world.

As he moved about the village, making many decisions regarding the extensive Kee family of which he was now the effective if not titular head, he wore a long pigtail, a black skullcap edged in blue satin, a gray silken coatlike garment that fell to his ankles and was tightly buttoned at the neck and heavy brocaded shoes. His lean frame kept him from making an imposing, patriarchal figure, but his evocation of energy made him the unquestioned dictator of the village. In California he had learned to read English but not Chinese, and he could figure percentages, so that as soon as he unpacked he started lending money to his relatives at forty per cent interest per year.

When the Kee family asked admiringly, "How could a man like you, who is not a soldier at all, be so brave as to argue with General Wang?" he laughed slyly and explained, "When you've had to live by outsmarting Americans, it's very easy to manage a fool

FROM THE STARVING VILLAGE 377

like General Wang." Of course, this answer was meaningless to the Punti, so they said, "We still don't understand how you did it."

Kee Chun Fat had an explanation for everything, so he replied, "In Peking a man is emperor, but I have found that in the world money is emperor."

"Did you give General Wang money?" the villagers pressed.

"I gave him enough to keep him hanging around," Uncle Chun Fat explained. "Then I told the government troops where he was, and promised them money if they would hang him, and they did."

There was much discussion among the Kee family as to how Uncle Chun Fat had made his great fortune in America, and one had only to pose the question for the head of the family to explain: "America has gold fields where money is easily made. There are gangs of men laying telegraph wires, and money is easy there, too. But where do you suppose the money is easiest of all? Where they're building railroads. Tell me, do you think that I brought home with me only the money you have seen here in the Low Village? Oh no, my good friends! I made that much in the gold fields in one year. Washing for the miners. Cooking food. My real money is in an English bank in Hong Kong." And he produced a book to prove it but only he could read the writing.

Uncle Chun Fat's stories of America were tantalizing. Once he said, "The best part of California is not the money but the women. A man can have three Indian wives and any number of Mexicans. But not at the same time." Young men with their lips watering asked more about this, but Uncle Chun Fat has already passed on to other matters. "What I would like to do," he explained to his assembled family, "is to restore the ancestral hall until it is known as the finest in China. We will do honor to our great ancestor, Prince Kee Tse of the Hsiang Dynasty, from whom we are sprung." As he said these words he recalled the illustrious prince who had invaded Korea nearly three thousand years before, and he told his clan, "It is strange to live in America, where most men do not even know who their grandfathers were. We shall make the name of Prince Kee renowned once more thoughout China." Chun Fat had an older brother who had never amounted to much; nevertheless this Kee Chun Kong was still nominal head of the family, and Chun Fat was careful not to usurp any of his moral prerogatives. But time was short, and in practical matters the energetic Califomian had to make one swift decision after another, for which he was forgiven in view of the fact that he was paying for everything. Therefore, as the yearly festival of Ching Ming approached, when honorable-men pay obeisance to their ancestors, he dispatched runners with this command: "All members of the Kee family shall return to the ancestral hall to celebrate Ching Ming." He then spent nearly a thousand dollars beautifying the low tile-roofed building which was the spiritual focus of the Kee ckn.

One of his messengers traveled as far south as the evil little Portuguese city of Macao, across the bay from Hong Kong, and there

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in the Brothel of Spring Nights he delivered his command to a handsome, sharp-eyed young man who cooked for the hrothel and helped in other ways. Kee Mun Ki was twenty-two at the time, a clever opportunist, with a brisk pigtail, quick gambler's hands and an ingratiating smile. His father, hoping that his son would mature into a solid, gifted scholar, had named him Pervading Foundation, but he had wandered from academic pursuits, finding himself skilled at luring young girls into the brothel and hi gambling with European sailors who frequented Macao. When the messenger from the Low Village arrived, young Mun Ki was in the midst of an impressive winning streak and showed no intention of leaving the Portuguese city. "Tell my father," he explained, "that this year I must miss the feast of Ching Ming. Ask him to offer prayers to our ancestors on my behalf."

"It was not your father who sent for you," the runner explained.

"Is he dead?" the young gambler asked in apprehension.

"No, he's well."

Relieved, Mun Ki asked, "Then who presumes to send for me?"

"Your uncle, Chun Fat," the messenger explained.

The young brothel assistant could not remember his uncle, who had left the Punti village when Mun Ki was only three, so again he dismissed the command. "I can't return this year," he explained. "Business is good here in Macao." He pointed to the freshly painted brothel and to the red dragons on the gambling hall nearby.

Then the messenger delivered the striking news that was to modify the young pimp's fife. He said, "Uncle Chun Fat has come back to our village with several million American dollars."

"He's rich?" the adroit young nephew asked.

"He's very rich!" the messenger replied in an awe-filled voice.

"We'd better leave at once," Mun Ki said forcefully. He went in to see the brothel keeper and reported, "My father summons me home to the Low Village." That sounded impressive.

"Then you must go," piously replied the Punti who ran the house. 'Children must honor their parents. But if you find any extra girls in the village, bring them back. We can always use extra Punti.

As Mun Ki and the messenger hiked along the river bank to their village, the soft airs of spring brushed over them, and they were deeply moved by the sight of rice fields just bursting into a limpid green; but when they came within sight of home, they saw the bright red paint that had been lavished on the ancestral hall, and Mun Ki whistled: "Oooooh, he must be very rich," and he hurried home to report to his uncle on the Eve of Ching Ming.

Uncle Chun Fat was thoroughly impressed by his nephew, for he recognized in Mun Ki his own quick shrewdness. "How is work in the brothel?" he inquired.

"Good," his nephew dutifully replied. "You can always steal a little something from the Europeans. But I make most of my money gambling with the sailors."

FROM THE STARVING VILLAGE 379

Uncle Chun Fat studied the boy's hands and said, "You ought to go to America."

"Could I prosper there?"

"Prosper! My dear nephew, any Punti who cannot make his way in America must be very stupid indeed." Encouraged by the boy's attentiveness, Chun Fat expatiated upon his favorite theme: "Ifs ridiculously easy to make a fortune in America if you remember two things. Americans understand absolutely nothing about Chinese, yet they have remarkably firm convictions about us, and to prosper you must never disappoint them. Unfortunately, their convictions are contrary, so that it is not always easy to be a Chinese."

"I don't understand what you are saying," Kee Mun Ki interrupted.

"You will in a moment," his uncle replied. "First, the Americans are convinced that all Chinese are very stupid, so you must seem to be stupid. Second, they are also convinced that we are very clever. So you must seem to be clever."

"How can a man be stupid and clever at the same time?" the young pimp pleaded.

"I didn't say you were to be stupid and clever. I said you had to seem to be."

"How is that possible?" the handsome young gambler inquired.

"I left America with forty-one thousand dollars in gold because I discovered the answer," Uncle Chun Fat gloated.

"For example?" the student pressed.

"Take the gold fields," the Californian began. "For two years they watched me travel from camp to camp, observing everything. But they thought: 'He's a stupid Chinaman and he don't see anything.' And I will confess I did my best to look stupid. When I had learned as much as possible, I went into San Francisco . . . Mun Ki, when you do go to America, be sure to go to San Francisco. What a marvelous city! So much happening!"

"Where did the clever part come, Uncle? the young man interrupted.

Chun Fat liked the boy's attention to detail, and continued: "In San Francisco I went to all the newcomers and told them, 'I can tell you which land to buy,' and they always said to one another, "These Chinese are very clever. If anybody knows where the good land is, they do.' And I got rich."

"Stupid and clever," the young man mused. "That's difficult."

"Not necessarily," his uncle corrected. "You see, the Americans want to believe, so you don't have to work too hard. It's difficult only when you want to convince the same man, on the same day or even at the same instant, that you are both stupid and clever. Like on the railroad gang."

"What happened there?" Mun Ki inquired.

His uncle began to laugh heartily and said, "There was this big American boss. When you go to America, Mun Ki, never try to

be the boss, not even if they ask you to, which they won't, because you can always make more money by not being the boss. Well, anyway, if I wanted to run the restaurant for the gang, at my own prices, I had to get permission from this big American, and I simply could do nothing with him until on a certain day when he cried in desperation, 'You stupid goddamned Chinaman!' And then I knew things would pretty soon be going my way, because if you can get the boss to yell at you, 'You stupid goddamned Chinaman,' everything is going to be all right."

Uncle Chun Fat never finished this particular narrative because he was reminded that the household must rise next morning at cockcrow in order to pay proper respect to the dead; and as the village lay sleeping beside the river, with the ghosts of its ancestors ready to assume their positions for the day of celebration, an old watchman who had long performed this ceremony gathered his gong and beater and waited till the third hour of the night. Then, as the first cock crowed, the old man went out into the dark streets and began beating his gong.

"Ching Ming!" he called to the living and the dead alike. Walking down the winding road that led to the ancestral hall, he continued to beat his gong, and he saw with pleasure lights coming on in the low houses; a young attendant hastened to light torches at the hall, and before the first shimmering darts of sunrise began to sweep in from the east, the Low Village was awake, and Mun Ki's ineffective father took his position of superiority at the ancestral hall, but it was brash Uncle Chun Fat who hurried busily about, telling the Kees what he wanted them to do.

Kee Mun Ki, from the brothel in Macao, left his home and walked solemnly to the hall, where a flight of nine scrubbed steps led to the pavilion in which the ancestral tablets were kept. Here he deposited his gifts and made obseisance to those from whom his family honor had descended. He then left the pavilion and joined the members of his family, standing at attention while his father prayed and while his uncle began a bombastic speech: "I am going to buy land on this side, and some more on this side, and what you have seen so far is really nothing. There will be a spacious hall, and where our tablets now stand, we will have not wood but the finest stone. The Kees will be known for their magnificence." And then his crafty eyes fell upon the extensive family gathered before him and he sighed to himself: "All those poor idiots starving here year after year when they could be making their fortunes in America." But he knew from experience that the Kees were not the kind of people who would venture forth to unknown lands, and he became lost in admiration of himself for having had the courage to do so.