A Time of Ghosts. Hok-Pang Tang
She lived on the second floor.
I knocked, and a middle-aged man – my cousin’s husband – opened the door. “Ah! Finally you have arrived! We worried you had gotten lost!”
I went inside and greeted my cousin. We all sat down, and a servant brought us tea, and my cousin brought food – pork chops and eggs – a “Western” dinner. As I ate hungrily, she looked at my shabby clothes. “We shall have to go shopping after you eat,” she declared.
My cousin was in her early thirties, and a little chubby. She seemed always to have a happy expression on her face. As soon as I finished, she hurried me out the door and off to a department store.
I looked up and down and drank in the luxury of the place. So many clothes – suits, coats, pants, shirts – anything one could want, in colors and styles not seen in China.
A salesgirl quickly appeared. She was very pretty, wearing deep red lipstick. She helped me try on a shirt. I was in heaven. Of course it was ordinary service, but for me having a lovely woman help me try on clothes was a sybaritic experience. With her makeup and glossy, curly hair, she looked nothing like women in China, and when I inhaled, I found even her clothes were fragrant with perfume.
Once I was in new clothes, she dumped the old ones unceremoniously in a waste can. I was too embarrassed to ask for them back. Then we hurried off to a shoe store.
I woke up the next day refreshed and ready for more. My cousin asked whether we should go sightseeing or to a movie, where we should go to eat, but I interrupted. “I have something to do,” I said simply. I was too ashamed to say that I had to go see other relatives and friends of my father to get an allowance to spend.
They were puzzled by my refusal, knowing how dismal life in China was for young people.
I put the letters from Father in my pocket and set off. The moment I stepped out the door, everything was exciting, full of energy, jumping. People hurried about in nice clothing. Young men in neat school uniforms passed by, tidily groomed, shoes shining.
I peeked in shops that were filled with food, department stores packed with remarkable products of all kinds, restaurants brimming with adults and children eating a great variety of foods. Some establishments were pricey, with expensive dim sum, others cheap and serving simple but delicious food. There was something for everyone. I even saw people walking along with bird cages in their hands, on their way to restaurants to relax, just as in my childhood.
I passed major commercial streets where the heavy traffic frightened me. I saw not a single bicycle on them, just cars and big trucks with noisy horns tooting constantly. Instead of a man with a wooden stick regulating traffic, there was a mechanical light. Pedestrians did not struggle with cars for the road as in China, where people all walked in the road until a car came up and honked at them to move aside, and where every day, people on bicycles were struck by cars.
I saw police but steered clear of them, thinking they might be very mean like those in China, where police always meant trouble, and where we usually only saw armed policemen when an execution was imminent. Then too, I had been taught in school that all Capitalist police were rotten.
There were newspapers and many different magazines laid out on sidewalks and display racks. Some had half-nude women on the covers, the kind that meant certain expulsion in my school. Just selling such a magazine in China could get one a jail term. I tried hard to control myself, not to look at such dirty Capitalist magazines, but could not resist a quick look as I passed by. When I stopped before some newspapers, I was surprised to see an article referring to Communists as robbers and thieves! Nearby were other papers from China with quotes from Chairman Mao in headlines, and articles glorifying him. It was very confusing.
I looked up and was shocked to see a Kuomintang flag flying on a building. In China one could be executed just for having one. But the block beyond had another building with a six-starred Chinese Communist flag. It all seemed bizarre – surreal.
Later, people explained to me that I was in a colony of Britain, that there everyone had freedom of speech. Under Britain, the Kuomintang and Communism could live peacefully side by side. What a concept! Those two life-and-death enemies living side by side in Hong Kong! It was astounding.
I held out an address and asked strangers how to get there. It proved just as easy as the first time, and soon I was at the home of friends of my father. They greeted me warmly, gave me some 200 Hong Kong dollars, and invited me to eat with them. I filled my stomach, then went on to the next address, then to another.
After several such visits, I had accumulated over 1,000 Hong Kong dollars.
The following day I went to see a childhood friend of my father known to me as “Number Eight Auntie.” She was wealthy and had a chauffeur. I was in my new clothes, but she looked me over critically, clucking “How can you wear such clothes?” Then she swept me off in her private car to an incredibly high-class place where they cut my hair. Then we went shopping, and a whole group of salesgirls measured me and helped me find garments, assisted me in donning pants, shirt, and tie, and special-ordered things to be delivered later. Their attentive bustle made me a little uncomfortable. Fortunately they asked if I wanted to keep my “old” clothes, and I hurriedly said “Yes!” They put them in a beautiful plastic bag.
Number Eight Auntie bought me three suits and two pairs of shoes. Then she hurried me off to the Peninsula Hotel for lunch.
A man there opened the car door for me, another took my coat, and yet another readied my chair. I was uncomfortable, feeling like a decadent Capitalist stepping on the heads of the proletariat. On the other hand, it brought back pleasant memories, and as the day wore on, I could feel my Communist reservations slipping into the background. Slowly I began to actually enjoy life again.
My new attitude was helped along by Number Eight Auntie, who, though in her late thirties, was still charming and beautiful. She seemed born to enjoy life. Her mannerisms, attitude, choice of words, even tone of voice seemed to evoke long-forgotten episodes from my childhood.
She introduced me to her closest friend with a wave of the hand and the words, “This wild child was educated under the barbarian Communists.” As the hours with her passed, my mannerisms from the old days began to return. I noticed a change in my speech, my gestures, my rediscovered deference toward elders.
When she returned me in her luxurious car to my temporary residence, my cousin was surprised and charmed by her, addressing her humbly and making every effort to please. I had mixed feelings about that. It seemed that in Hong Kong they first noticed the clothes, then the person. Those with money were respected automatically. Even well dressed prostitutes had respect. Only the poor were looked down upon.
As soon as Number Eight Auntie left, I noticed a sudden and remarkable change of attitude toward me from my cousin’s husband. Where first they were the givers and I the receiver, now, having seen me with my elegant auntie and my new expensive finery, they decided I might lend them some status as well.
My cousin was not oblivious of the fact that my new, auntie-bought clothes were better than those of her own children. And she noticed that other friends and relatives gave me expensive gifts, Parker pens and a Bulova watch.
One day I came back with some brand-name beach sandals. My cousin’s brother, staying in the same house, took one glance, gave me a dirty look, and seemed very angry, through he would not say why. He treated me so rudely that even my cousin and her husband noticed, and asked him what the problem was. “Nothing,” he replied sullenly.
I noticed that he was always looking at my new sandals and something seemed to be eating him. Finally he came up to me when I was alone and said, “You give my sandals back!” I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly, and looked blank. “You give my sandals back!” he repeated very angrily. Suddenly it dawned on me that he thought I was wearing his sandals!
I tried carefully to explain to him that they were mine, not his, and that apparently we had the same brand and size. He did not believe me.
“How could you afford to buy these? They are very expensive! I saved money for six months! They cost