Working for a Better World. Dr. Carolyn Y. Woo
the war, my parents returned to Hong Kong. It was supposed to be only temporary. They were planning to resettle in China. But a trip back to Fujien, their home province, sensitized them to another looming event: the onset of the Communist revolution. If my parents thought that their lives would return to normal after World War II, their plans were crushed.
In China, leaving one’s home meant leaving one’s assets and security, as land was the primary currency of wealth. Land was not just a financial holding, it was also part of one’s birthright, identity, and ancestry. Giving it up means an abrupt severing of the bond to one’s past.
I got some idea of what this meant when, in the 1990s, I brought my mother back to her childhood home in Xiamen, a large city in Fujien. The few remaining carved wood panels in the courtyard bore some indications of the home’s former elegance, but different sections and gardens of the home had been destroyed, torn down to make room for a factory, or carved up into one-room apartments. She tried to picture for me not only what the house once looked like, but also the warm glow of family and festivities that took place in that estate.
I also recall the night in the 1960s when my father received a telegram from China informing him of the removal of the ancestral graves from his home. He put down the letter, took off his spectacles, wiped away his tears, and could not speak.
The experiences of displacement by war and revolutions — starting all over again, figuring out how to make a living, finding one’s place in a new society — are very much the story of the immigrants, like my parents, who populated Hong Kong while I was growing up. Some would find their footing and make meaningful progress along a steady track. But others never adjusted to their new position, never found their place in their world’s new order.
Displacement was a common theme of my formative years. My mother, in a society with a new language and new technologies, was like an orchid that lost the protection of the greenhouse. Relatives from China took up temporary residence on our couches on their way to new lives. In the years of the Cultural Revolution in China, some told stories of the brutality of the Red Guards.
And of course, we were all keenly aware that Hong Kong’s status under the British would come to an end in 1997, when the colony would revert to Communist rule. What my parents had faced, political turmoil and regime change, would also be the defining reality for my generation. The hidden gift in this situation for my peers and me was that we seldom wasted time or resisted change. Everyone was focused on creating options and opportunities. Change would come, and it was just a matter of how we would prepare for it. In light of this background, it’s not surprising that leading organizations through change would eventually be my profession.
Given my father’s disappointment at not getting a son when I was born, one would imagine that we would not be close. It was the opposite. I credit this to the ingenuity of my nanny, whom we called Gaga long before there was Lady Gaga. My care was entrusted to her. Every morning I would join my father for breakfast. I was seated at a little table at his side — as children, we did not ascend to the “big” table until we learned our manners. My father would share his eggs and sausage with me. We had a chauffeur who drove my dad to work, and after breakfast my nanny would pack me up to go on the ride with him.
Schools in Hong Kong were so crowded with the swell of immigrant children that grades one, three, and five would get the afternoon shift, while two, four, and six went in the morning. So when I was in first and third grade, I got to ride with my father on his way to work. Even then, he was very proud of my good grades and showered me with admiration for my excellence in work and studies. I remember vividly that in third grade, during one of our rides, I told him that one day I would be a professor with a doctorate. I have no idea where that came from. Perhaps my father was reading one of his favorite magazines and mentioned with admiration some accomplished scholar with a Ph.D. I just automatically declared that, of course, this is what I would become.
My academic drive also provided me with a sense of belonging and worth. As the fifth child — and especially the fourth daughter with a younger brother — I was sort of lost in the shuffle. My two older sisters Irene and Maureen were pretty, while I was a chubby child. Friends of the family would affectionately describe me as “taking after my dad,” when everyone noted that my sisters resembled my mom, a lovely woman. Academic achievement became a safe haven for me, a place where nothing could go wrong, a solution to every challenge and worry. My drive was intense; it came from a place of insecurity and was a way to earn my worth. I was also compensating for my sister and brother who would upset my father with their terrible grades and embarrass my mother at teachers’ conferences.
Ah Gaga, My Nanny
My nanny did more than solidify my relationship with my father — she basically took care of me, becoming one of the most important people in my life. Though the arrival of my younger brother precluded my father’s taking another wife, my parents’ marriage was still difficult for my mother. In a traditional Chinese marriage, wives are completely dependent on their husbands. They were given an allowance and not much decision-making power. Men were not always faithful to their wives. And, of course, polygamy was still legal and an acceptable cultural practice. Women were talked down to and seldom treated as equals. Most Chinese mothers passed this attitude on: sons were the sun and moon, the hope and anchor for their old age. Daughters, not so much.
While there were moments of tenderness in my parents’ marriage, it also had its share of quarrels. My father tended to leave home after dinner and return in the wee hours of the morning. My mother took to staying up late and seldom went to bed before 2 a.m. Her nocturnal routine left little time for us to interact. Sometimes when I was in high school, when I pulled all-nighters for exams, we would share her midnight snacks of soup and noodles. But when I was young, I felt that my mother only managed to give me her leftover energy. Years later, I would understand that my mother was in a hard place herself; that it was difficult coping with all the changes she had faced in her life. My father’s behavior also created many deep hurts.
My nanny’s full name is Fung Yau (馮友), with 馮 “Fung” as the family name and 友 “Yau” as the given name meaning “friend.” While it is pronounced the same as the “Yau” in my name, they represent different Chinese characters. She joined our family eight years before I was born and still lives in Hong Kong today. For some reason, one of my sisters called her Gaga, or Ah Gaga because in the Cantonese dialect a reference to someone is often preceded with “ah.” Gaga has been part of our family for four generations, from my grandparents to our children.
Gaga was the eldest daughter of four children born to a farmer-scholar in the Kwongtung province around 1918. When her father died of tuberculosis, which was not unusual in those days, Gaga became a servant girl. She was eleven years old, making fifty Chinese cents a month. The entire sum was given to her mother for raising her younger siblings. As the maid for the young children of her employer, she carried their bags when they went to the village school. Gaga learned how to read by standing outside the classroom and listening to the lessons, gaining sufficient mastery to read the newspaper, although she never had the opportunity to learn to write.
The family that employed her was kind to her and taught her great manners. When World War II broke out in China, the family moved to Saigon and took her with them. In that French colony, she developed a love for French amenities and Shirley Temple movies. One of her treats was the French perfume Night of Paris. She never wore it herself, but she would put a dab into my hair after she finished braiding it. Gaga was known for her beauty accentuated by a poise that was almost regal.
Several times, her employers wanted to arrange a marriage for her. The intended grooms were other house servants or heavy laborers. My nanny turned down every attempt. In those days, it was unthinkable for a Chinese woman to reject marriage, but Gaga felt that her first duty was to her mother and siblings, who counted on her wages. Marriage would jeopardize her ability to continue working and directing all her resources to her family. Her independence was important to her, and she would rather work hard on her own terms than enter into a marriage where she would completely depend on the whims, kindness, generosity, or small-mindedness of a husband. After the war, she decided to move from Saigon to Hong Kong, where opportunities would be more plentiful and she would be closer