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When the Hakka Chinese immigrated to
Calcutta, many of them settled into the shoe-making and leather tanning
businesses. As did my father. I remember him as a big person with a
loud, belly-quivering laugh, and hair cut close to his scalp so that he
looked as though he were wearing a black brush, and he seemed to be
always surrounded by his friends, always cracking jokes, always
chortling, always drinking chai with friends.
Mother was as different from Father as
black is from white. She spent most of her time in the kitchen, cooking
for Father and any of his friends who happened to drop by. Mother’s thin
shoulders hunched over her round stomach, expanded by constant
childbirths. I don’t remember her ever raising her voice. She seemed to
be always looking at somewhere we could not see, and listening to
something we could not hear.
A year after he stepped off the ship at Kidderpore, Father opened his first shoe shop, John Hing, at 75,
Bentinck Street. Two years later, he opened his second shop at 86, Bow
Bazaar Street. Three years after that, he opened his third in shop 26,
New Market.
The summer of 1942 was hot and dry, the monsoon late
in coming. Calcuttans chose between sleepless nights indoors, drenched
in sweat, or sleepless nights on rooftops and verandahs, bothered by
mosquitoes and flies.
Mother sat outside John Hing, with a glass
of lassi and a palm leaf fan. She waved her fan at Mrs. Wong. Mrs. Wong
sat in front of her shoe shop, Yun Fa, with her five daughters. Mrs.
Wong waved back.
Bentinck Street, a narrow cobbled road,
linked the business district of Bow Bazaar with the shopping district of
Chowringhee. That afternoon, cars, trucks, rickshaws, and trams jammed
Bentinck Street. Vendors wandered beside cars selling sugarcane juice,
boiled potatoes, cucumber in masala, roasted peanuts. Beggars wandered
between the cars, stopping to beg for coins and food.
Mother waved the fan in front of her face.
A mosquito darted in and bit her behind her ear. A this point Mrs. Wong
called out, “Come over to this side of the street. It’s cooler.”
Mother meandered between two honking cars,
behind a rickshaw and in front of the Park Street tram. One of Mrs.
Wong’s daughters got up, moved her stool closer to Mrs. Wong and said,
“Aunty Li, please take a seat.”
“I wish the rain would come,” Mrs. Wong
said. “The news on the radio this morning said that two rickshaw-wallas
died of heat stroke yesterday.”
“Well, it would be cooler. But think of all the
washing that will rot on the clothes lines.”
“Yes. There is that.”
Mother looked at the five Wong daughters.
“Hey, you know what?” She said. “One of your daughters would be perfect
for my son. Panda is eight years old. I should really find a wife for
him.”
“Your oldest is such a good-looking boy.
Hmm. I would like that.” Mrs. Wong nodded. “Why not? Which of my
daughters would you like?”
The five Wong daughters sat in a row,
fanning themselves. They giggled when Mother walked over to where they
sat. Mother looked at each girl and thought aloud. “I would like my
grandchildren to have nice noses. I want them to have bridges between
their eyes.” She touched her nose. “ Not flat like mine. Your daughters
have nice, fair skin. Good, good. My grandchildren will be fair also.”
Mother examined the five noses again and
pointed to the third daughter, six-year-old Yun, who had given up her
seat for Mother. “I want her.”
Mrs. Wong nodded. “All right. She is
yours. I will speak to my husband tonight.”
Mother spoke to Father. Mrs. Wong spoke to Mr. Wong.
Father and Mr. Wong spoke over cups of tea and plates of beef curry and
chapattis at Nizam’s.
Mother and Mrs. Wong made offerings at the
Ti Hu Mu (Earth Mother Goddess) temple to ask for her blessing so that
Panda and Yun, when they married, would have many sons. Mother and Mrs.
Wong also went to the Moi Kong, the Buddhist temple near New Market and
made offerings to the Buddha, Amitabha, the Bodhisatva of the Western
Heaven, and Kwan-yin, the Goddess of Mercy.
The resident monk at Moi Kong looked up
the Chinese almanac and chose a date for the adoption. Father paid
for a Saturday and Sunday announcement in the Chinese Daily:
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Mr. and Mrs.
Wong Po Chu
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wish to
announce to the community
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that from the
16th day of the fifth Lunar Month of 1942,
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my third
daughter, Si Yun, will reside
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with Mr. and
Mrs. Li Sak Lin.
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When Si Yun
comes of age,
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she will
marry their eldest son, Li Ping Yuen.
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Mrs. Wong and
I will not interfere with Si Yun’s upbringing,
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nor will we
be responsible for her upkeep.
Mother cut out the newspaper announcement,
wrapped it in oiled paper, and stored the paper in the safe together
with passports, birth certificates, immigration papers and the lease
agreements of the shops. She pasted another cutting on a piece of
cardboard and displayed it under the family altar.
A month later, Father and Mother reserved
the second floor banquet room of the Au Chu Restaurant. They invited one
hundred and fifty guests, mostly the Li uncles and aunts who came from
the same village as Father in China, and the Wongs, who came from the
same village as Mr. Wong. Mother planned the menu with Mr. Chen, the
owner of Au Chu Restaurant.
Father borrowed money from Tai Qui,
Mother’s brother, to pay for the banquet. “Panda is our eldest. We can’t
appear to be stingy,” he said and patted his stomach. “We must have
whole roasted pig, we must have ducks, we must have fish and shrimps,
and don’t forget the beer. Get some whisky, too. I want everyone to be
happy for us. It’s not every day that I acquire a daughter-in-law.”
Mother sighed. She spoke to Mr. Chen and
expanded the menu from eight to ten courses. Mother ordered five cases
of beer from Chandra’s Trading Company and five bottles of firewater
from Mrs. Liu, who brewed moonshine at the Moonshine Pond in Tangra.
The banquet started at noon. Mr. Chen set
eight women’s and children’s tables near the kitchen and five tables for
men near the windows. Children ran around the women’s tables. They
munched on shrimps and dumplings and spilled coke and root beer on the
floor.
Yun sat with Mother, Mrs. Wong, three Li
aunties, Grandmothers Liu and Li, and two Wong aunties.
At the men’s tables, glasses clinked. Beer
and moonshine flowed. The Li and Wong uncles toasted Father and Mr.
Wong. The men yelled out dirty jokes. The women gathered up the children
and confined them to the women’s side of the room.
Four hours later, Mr. Chen and his two
servants carried Father, Mr. Wong and six other men onto the couches in
the back room of the restaurant. Mother paid extra for Mr. Chen’s
servants to clean up all the vomit from around the men’s tables.
Mother, Mrs. Wong, Aunty Yee, and Aunty Ai
packed the left-over food into aluminum canteen boxes. The Li and Wong
children carried the canteen boxes to John Hing. Mother invited
neighbours for dinner.
When Father and Mr. Wong staggered back to Bentinck Street later that evening, Yun had moved across the street
with her belongings and had settled into the bedroom with my sister,
Nuen.
Yun went to the same school as my eldest
brother, Panda, my second brother, Chien and my sister Nuen.
As Yun grew, Mother taught her to sew and
to cook Panda’s favourite dishes.
When Yun was eighteen years old, Mother talked to
Father. “It is time for Yun and Panda to get married. We are lucky to
have such a pretty and docile daughter-in-law.”
“Yes. Your are right.” Father sighed.
“Pity she is so short. My boy is so tall and handsome.”
Yun married twenty-year-old Panda that
year. They had five children. All the children have fair skin and dainty
noses, and none of them grew above five feet tall.
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The Palm Leaf Fan and
Other Stories
(short stories)
Kwai-Yun Li
From
crumbling shops in Chinatown to decaying tanneries in Tangra, Kwai-yun
Li's collection of linked short stories expose us to the life of a marginalized community in postcolonial Calcutta.
We meander into Wong's Shoe Shop, where a mother arranges a marriage for
her six-year-old daughter. We stop at a school for girls, where the
principal singles out students who have large breasts for punishment. We
pause by a temple guarded by a billy goat where family drama rages. We
rally with politicians while the monsoon rain drenches us. We relax
under waving palms while the setting sun shimmers over the surface of
the Tangra fish ponds.
Kwai-yun Li's sensitivity and quirky sense of humour will keep us
wanting to return to the ghetto again and again.
ISBN:
9781894770316
Price:
$18.95
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