A Time of Ghosts. Hok-Pang Tang
tea and a chat with their cronies.
At lunchtime, my mid-day school break, I was often taken to a lovely and far more elegant place called the “Western Garden.” The sides of the restaurant were open to the outdoors – a lovely landscape of rocks rising like hills, cooling fountains, and a serene fishpond. That was my father’s place of choice for relaxation, and he usually limited his contacts there to personal friends.
I recall one of those companions appearing suddenly in a state of excitement. He had acquired a rather remarkable Western teapot, and was anxious to show off his find. I watched closely as he lifted off the lid and told my father to peer inside. “What do you see?” he asked.
“Nothing,” my father replied, wondering what the point of all this was.
Then the proud owner of the teapot called for cool water. With a great show he poured it into the teapot and replaced the lid. Then he handed it to my father again.
“Try now,” he said.
My father took the lid off and once more peeked inside. His friend smiled in anticipation. Suddenly my father burst into laughter, and his friend could not help but join him.
I wondered what it was all about. “Let me see!” I demanded, but they would not. I was used to having my way, however, and when their laughter subsided and their conversation drifted deeply into other topics, I surreptitiously lifted the teapot off the table and peeked inside. There I saw the nude body of a woman, its form inexplicably revealed by the cool water, without which the inside of the pot was simply blank.
As in that instance, I always got the best of my father, which lessened my respect for him even more – so much that I would frequently argue with him, which was considered very unfilial. He just put up with it. He was a firm believer in the I Ching, and seemed determined to accept his fate rather than struggle against it. Consequently he did not force me to do anything that did not appeal to me. The only thing upon which he insisted was that I attend school.
His attitude troubled me. Though I felt superior to him, his actions raised doubts in my mind about my beliefs concerning the world and my relation to it. He frequently posed odd and disturbing questions: “When you go to hire a rickshaw,” he once asked, “would you hire an old rickshaw puller or a young rickshaw man?” He then proceeded to detail the problem: “If you hire the old man he will be out of breath going uphill. He will be slow. You will be angry with him, or perhaps pity him, and so you will want to hire the strong young man instead. But if you do not hire the old man, how can he live?”
He was always raising such questions that demanded an answer, yet the answer was frequently not entirely satisfying. In many cases it seemed that no matter what one’s decision, the outcome was both good and bad. In that way, slowly and subtly, my father planted seeds in my mind by example and through his odd questions that seemed designed to erode my self-satisfied view of my position in the world and my belief that all things must somehow work constantly for my gratification.
At that time I first began to notice foreigners. They were hard to miss, because whenever one appeared in the streets he was accompanied by a crowd of some thirty curious onlookers anxious to see first-hand how a “foreign ghost” appeared and behaved. So every passing American or European seemed to me like a sort of traveling magic show. Our attitude toward Westerners was one of mixed amazement, scorn, and admiration.
I knew, of course, that they saw everything much differently than we. That was because they had green eyes, not the normal black. And they had “eagle” noses and curly hair, both, according to fortune-telling by facial features, signs that they were hard to deal with. That was obvious to anyone, because foreigners were not even subject to Chinese law. If a Western sailor raped or stole he was just returned to his ship, and sailed happily away!
We also suspected that Westerners had not quite made it to the status of real humans – they tended to be hairy, some had an odd smell, and they possessed the astonishing habit of eating meat that was still bloody and vegetables that were raw – as though they had either not discovered cooking or were not yet civilized enough to take full advantage of it! They seemed to have no genuine emotions, but would send their children off at about the age of eighteen to make their own way in the world, instead of continuing to care for them at home as a loving family would do.
Western women were nonetheless admired for their pale complexions. In China only females of the highest class, who always shielded their bodies from sun and wind, could have such skin – and yet these odd Westerners were born with it! My mother was quite taken with the physical build of Western men. They walked with their chests out and shoulders back, stood straight and strong, and had big noses, which in China meant good fortune. We admired their discoveries and inventions, but could not fathom their haphazard attitude toward social relationships. Even stranger, it seemed they did everything the opposite from us. In a contest they would list the losers – number three, number two – before the winner!
I felt a strange kinship with them. I loved Western movies, and my family nicknamed me “Foreign Ghost Son,” because I seemed just as unreasonable and mystifying in my thoughts and actions as Westerners.
In spite of the occasional passing spectacle of a Caucasian, my life was lived as though within an enclosed garden. Protected and sheltered to a great extent from the realities of life, I thought that suffering and hunger were things that happened only to others born to a lesser station, those outside the fortunate domain of my grandfather’s house. I was supremely self-confident and self-satisfied. Who could challenge me? My only possible threat was from my father, who posed his peculiar questions and sometimes decided to punish me when my actions exceeded even his wide boundaries. But when threatened with punishment I had only to scream for Granny, and she would come ranting and fuming like a vengeful demon. “Who dares to strike my grandson?” she would scream – and my father would fall before her intimidating authority like a mud wall before a flood.
The great events of the world outside our walls had small effect on my protected world. The coming of the Japanese meant little more to me than some added excitement. While the citizens of Canton were being herded into caves in the nearby hills during bombing raids, our family was kept together at home by my grandmother, who simply refused to go. Many of those who went died horribly when the supposed shelter of the caves collapsed. But we felt safe and secure. As the bombs fell on Canton we were all before our household altar, following Granny as she prayed to the Compassionate One Who Hears the Cries of the World. “Save from bitterness, save from disaster, Bodhisattva Kuan Yin!” And though explosions destroyed houses near us, ours was never touched.
And so the turmoil and tragedy of the Japanese invasion and the following Second World War disturbed me no more than dark clouds passing far overhead. Then, at the joyous New Year Celebration that marked the coming of the year 1948 to our house, a maid was carrying in our rice-filled bowls from the kitchen. She had stacked them high, one upon the other, for convenience. When she reached the dining room, they slipped and fell to the floor, shattering and scattering rice everywhere.
My grandmother, in mixed horror and anger, raved at the servant. “What have you done! What have you done! You have ruined our luck! This will be a year of bad fortune! Bad fortune!” My mother tried to calm her, to point out that it was just an accident, but Granny was not mollified.
The celebration had been spoiled for her, and as the rest of us continued with food and laughter, I saw that from time to time she would look down, shake her head from side to side, and mutter blackly to herself, “Bad fortune! Bad fortune!”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE GARDEN WITHERS
I was seven years old. It was the year 1948. Early autumn. Our family was seated about the dinner table. Without warning there was a tremendous explosion that shattered the windows and so shook the house that the soup sloshed out of our bowls, spreading in puddles and rivulets on the table.
I ran out into the street. Looking south, I saw a great mass of black smoke rising into the sky.