Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter Read online

  ‘I’ve never been a beauty,’ I stammered, feeling defensive. ‘Besides, I just got off the plane.’

  ‘She looks all right to me,’ James said gallantly with a warm smile, while putting his arm around my shoulder. ‘I don’t know anyone who can look like a fashion plate after being cooped up in a plane for hours and hours.’

  ‘What’s their present apartment like?’ I asked, steering the conversation away from myself. After Franklin died in 1953, Father became convinced that the feng shui (wind and water, or geomancy) of the villa on Stubbs Road was nefarious. He then recalled that Ye Ye had passed away in 1952 while living in the same house. They terminated their lease and rented an apartment on the Peak.

  ‘It’s a nice, luxury two-bedroom unit,’ Gregory replied. ‘They’ve lived there for ten years now.’

  ‘At 115 Plunkett Road, the Peak,’ I said. ‘Nowadays, is there any discrimination against Chinese living on the Peak?’

  ‘During the nineteenth century, Chinese weren’t allowed to live there. I think that ended in 1904.’ Gregory went on to explain that these days cash was king and we Chinese could live anywhere provided we had money. However, there was still a disproportionately larger number of whites living in the Peak area. He added that Father had recently bought a new flat at Mid-levels called Magnolia Mansions, overlooking the harbour. It had four bedrooms and Father had mentioned there would be plenty of room for me to stay.

  ‘How nice of them!’ I exclaimed, glowing with happiness.

  ‘Don’t celebrate too soon!’ James said darkly. ‘The Old Lady objected. She kept saying the flat is just not big enough. I think the Old Man’s idea has been shelved for the time being.’

  Meanwhile, our car was climbing up steeply winding roads to the top of Hong Kong Island, where the view was spectacular and the air fresh and smog-free. My ears ached from the altitude and my stomach felt queasy from fatigue and the serpentine bends. As we waited for the lift inside the lobby paved with marble and granite, I was filled with the same sense of trepidation which overwhelmed me whenever I was about to face my parents. Though I had been in England for eleven years and was now a physician, at that moment I felt no different from the schoolgirl who left in 1952.

  I was greeted formally with smiles and handshakes. Father looked much the same but Niang’s lissome figure had thickened and her features had coarsened. Their flat was elegantly but impersonally furnished with stiff, wooden, antique Chinese chairs, western-style sofas sprouting antimacassars and a Tianjin carpet. Below was a panoramic view of Hong Kong city and Victoria Harbour.

  We sat rather tensely around a rosewood dining-table eating noodles brought in by a maid I did not recognize. For some reason, conversation was in English. They never spoke to me in Chinese again after my return from London. It enhanced my feeling of exclusion, as if I was an employee justifying my salary. I told them that Professor McFadden had offered me a position as assistant lecturer in his Department of Internal Medicine.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about this,’ Father started, slowly and deliberately as if he had rehearsed the speech. ‘That’s not a good move. You should consider obstetrics and gynaecology instead. Remember Dr Mary Ting who delivered all of you? She is one of the greatest doctors I know. Internal medicine is not a good field for a woman. Male doctors won’t refer patients to you.’

  I had completely forgotten that Father had already sketched out my career eleven years ago before my departure for England. I could not speak. This was a serious decision involving my future but, as far as Father was concerned, that decision was his, not mine. He added that Professor Daphne Chun, a friend of his in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Hong Kong University, was willing to give me a position as a special intern. The salary he quoted was insultingly low. The job was offered only because I was his daughter. Professor Chun had given him ‘a lot of face’.

  I knew it was a fait accompli. Father would lose face if I failed to accept this ‘favour’. Even so, I tried to protest, reminding him that I had already completed an internship in London two years ago. Professor McFadden’s offer of an assistant lectureship meant that I would have an unusually senior position for a young doctor of twenty-six. Father totally ignored my explanations.

  ‘Why don’t you try the job offered by Professor Chun? If you don’t like it you can always switch later. You’ll not regret it. Besides, you haven’t made a commitment to Professor McFadden, have you? So you’re under no obligation there.

  ‘I have your welfare at heart,’ he continued. ‘Would your father lead you wrong? Remember, you’re still very young, fresh out of university. Take the wrong turn now and you will regret it ten years later. By then it will be too late’. He reminded me of Lydia and Samuel thirteen years ago, insisting on going back to Tianjin against his well-meaning advice. ‘Look what a mess they’re in now. It is entirely their own doing. They will rot there for the rest of their lives!’ He said this with relish, sounding almost glad that his prophecies of doom had been fulfilled with a vengeance.

  As I listened, my former resolutions disintegrated. All I knew was that I wished above all else to please my father. Oh, so very much! To gain his acceptance. To be loved. To have him say to me, just once in my life, ‘Well done, Adeline! We’re proud of you!’

  It obviously meant a lot to him to have me working under his friend. To turn down Professor McFadden’s offer of an assistant lectureship (with housing) for Dr Chun’s promise of an internship, I was giving Father an enormous dose of face. Surely, that would give me some brownie points in his eyes?

  Once again I betrayed myself and went along with Father’s wishes. By the time we retired I was practically thanking them for all the trouble they had undertaken on my behalf.

  On the fourth day of my return to Hong Kong, Niang told me to pack my bags. Father was away that day playing golf with a business associate.

  It was a brilliantly sunny Sunday afternoon when Ah Mo, the chauffeur, drove Niang and me to Dr Chun’s Tsan Yuk Hospital. The place seemed deserted. We stood awkwardly in the entrance hall talking to the busy hospital operator who was manning the switchboard and acting as receptionist. She eventually understood that I was the new extra intern from London University hired by Professor Chun to start work on Monday. She told us that since neither Professor Chun nor any of the attending physicians were there to show us around, we were to return on Monday morning.

  But Niang was not to be thwarted. She ordered that the intern on call be paged. When a young woman doctor arrived, Niang demanded, in English, that I be shown my sleeping quarters. Though I was now a grown woman and a physician, Niang ignored me as if I was still a child. She was told there was no accommodation for interns.

  ‘Where do you sleep then?’ Niang asked imperiously while I cringed with embarrassment.

  ‘I sleep in the on-call room,’ the woman intern, Dr Chow, replied, glancing briefly at me and quickly looking away as she sensed my uneasiness.

  ‘How many beds are there and how many are occupied?’ Niang persisted.

  ‘There are four beds and two are occupied today. One by me and one by the pediatric intern on duty.’

  ‘I see,’ Niang said, her mind turning. ‘So there are two unoccupied beds in that room.’

  ‘Yes, but they are only unoccupied until tomorrow when the new on-call weekly rotation schedule is posted.’

  ‘That will be fine,’ Niang said, with her most charming smile. ‘Will you please take us to the on-call room?’

  Her tone was authoritative and her presence commanding. When Dr Chow hesitated at this unusual request, Niang twisted the six-carat diamond ring on her finger. The gaudy jewel caught the sunlight, sending a message of money and power. Then Niang added, ‘Professor Chun is a very good friend of mine.’

  By now thoroughly intimidated, Dr Chow dutifully led the way, followed by Niang, me and Ah Mo carrying my two suitcases containing all my possessions. We entered a large bare room with four cots, one in each corner. There wer
e no wardrobes. The only furniture was a small night table by each berth, on which perched a telephone. The street clothes of the on-call doctors were hung on wall-hooks next to their stations.

  Niang walked over to the curtainless window, the panes of which were grimy with dirt. She looked out and there, below us, was Victoria Harbour in all her splendour. The sun was shining, the air was clear, the sea was a sparkling blue and the boats were colourful. She ordered Ah Mo to place my suitcases by one of the unoccupied beds. She turned to me and smiled. ‘Oh, Adeline!’ she exclaimed, ‘What a wonderful view you have from your bedroom! How lucky you are!’ As I stared at her, dumb with dismay and embarrassment, she added, ‘Unfortunately, Father and I will be busy all next week. But maybe we could have dinner together next Sunday. Phone me on Thursday to confirm, why don’t you?’ With that she turned to Ah Mo. ‘Take me to Mrs Nin’s now!’ she commanded. ‘I am late for her tea party.’

  Ah Mo hurried after her, followed by Dr Chow muttering something about having to see a patient. I was left alone.

  I stood by the dirty window looking out at the ‘wonderful view’ for a long time. My whole being was suffused with loneliness and that familiar feeling of total rejection. I wondered why I had bothered to return home.

  Hong Kong in the early 1960s was an extraordinary place. Poised on the cusp of a glittering destiny, it had replaced Shanghai as the gateway to the West. Everything was in flux. Life revolved around passports and money. People were moving in or getting out.

  Ninety-nine per cent of the population were Chinese. Most of them were from the neighbouring province of Guangdong (Canton). After 1949, large numbers poured in from Shanghai and other parts of China. As time went on, it became increasingly hazardous to reach Hong Kong across the stretch of water separating it from the mainland. Later, the British army erected a twenty-four-mile steel wire fence along the Chinese border, patrolled by platoons of Gurkhas (mercenary Nepalese soldiers) and dogs, to keep out those who wished to enter illegally into the overcrowded colony. Those who made it were filled with a fierce determination to make a better life for themselves and their children.

  I encountered citizens in all walks of life working fourteen to sixteen hours a day for meagre wages: taxi-drivers, hairdressers, waitresses, nurses, telephone operators. Compared to London, everything was cheap except for housing. This was the period when Hong Kong developed its reputation as the bargain basement and shopping mecca of the world. Talent and opportunism were the keystones of the economy. Hong Kong became a brave new world to the downtrodden of China.

  Stories abounded about ordinary wage earners, some even illiterate, who, by persistent hard work and saving every penny, were able to buy a small flat and even send their children abroad to study. Maids and chauffeurs began to invest in property and speculate on the Hong Kong stock market.

  My work at Tsan Yuk was physically demanding but not intellectually challenging. No medical research of any kind was performed while I was there. Sexual discrimination was rampant and blatant. Male doctors earned 25 per cent more than female doctors of the same rank, although we did identical work and took equal numbers of night calls.

  I was not at all popular. My fellow interns were piqued that I was permanently installed in the on-call room. Eventually, I was assigned a private room at the hospital for which I paid a very high rent. The hospital administrator congratulated me on my good luck in getting the room. She had been told by Professor Chun that my family was enormously rich and I was independently wealthy.

  There was nowhere for me to go in the evenings and weekends. I ate most of my meals at the hospital. I spent most of my meagre salary on rent, food, books and (in a misguided effort to gain their affection) expensive presents for my parents such as silver boxes and cashmere sweaters.

  My colleagues resented me because I was not Cantonese, and my degree was from London, not Hong Kong. My two advanced diplomas in internal medicine did not belong in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The way I spoke English was considered un-Chinese, different, unintelligible, and irritating. They nicknamed me Loy Lu Foh, ‘imported merchandise’.

  When I eventually contacted Professor McFadden, he confirmed the offer of a position as assistant lecturer in the Department of Internal Medicine, with free housing. I was sorely tempted to accept, but I simply could not let Father lose face. Later on, I found out that interdepartmental rivalry was rife, and it was a minor feather in Professor Chun’s cap for me to have chosen her offer of an internship over Professor McFadden’s promise of an assistant lectureship, especially when I already possessed my MRCP from London and Edinburgh. There was another reason for not accepting: by then I already knew that I had to get away from Hong Kong and make my life somewhere else. The position with Professor McFadden would have been permanent. He had been more than generous towards me because he had left the job offer open for one year.

  Every Sunday night, we were expected to dine at Father’s and Niang’s newly purchased flat at Mid-levels. Those dinners were ordeals. We had to be on guard the whole time. Niang seemed to know everything, especially those matters we did not want her to know: Gregory’s chronically overdrawn bank account and abundant parking tickets all over Kowloon and Hong Kong (‘worthy of The Guinness Book of Records,’ according to Father); James’s consumption of whisky; my attempts to rent a larger flat for my two brothers and me so that we could have some semblance of a home life; Susan’s correspondence with a male American friend.

  I came to loathe their views expressed at those Sunday night dinners where I invariably remained silent, like a fu zhong you yu (fish swimming in a cauldron) and seething with frustrated discontent.

  My parents regularly decried and condemned the Hong Kong Cantonese for their avarice, blatant materialism and ostentatious vulgarity. Yet I could not help but notice their own obsession with money. Their prejudices were broad and catholic. Besides the Cantonese, they criticized the Jews, the Indians and the Japanese. As for their potential Nigerian business partners, Niang considered them subhuman and beneath contempt.

  By 1963 a whole generation of bilingual young Chinese were part of Hong Kong’s work force. Already some of the very rich in Hong Kong were wealthy beyond belief. Their sons and daughters returned from the best universities in England and America, impeccably turned out in dark designer suits tailored in London and Paris, even in the height of summer. They spoke flawless English. The sons sometimes had fan gui nui (foreign female devils) on their arms. The best and most élite clubs in Hong Kong no longer excluded Chinese members. The new divider was not race, but money. In this new Hong Kong of the 1960s, there were many Cantonese millionaires far richer than Father and Niang. Since my parents were convinced of their innate superiority over the Cantonese, this state of affairs was difficult for them to digest. Their only defence was to dismiss all Cantonese as uncouth, though inwardly they were envious of those who were making their way even faster in this new society. With exquisite irony Niang occasionally deplored inter-racial marriages, predicting that their offspring would be ‘neither fish nor fowl’.

  CHAPTER 16

  Pi Ma Dan Qiang

  One Horse, Single Spear

  Seven months into my internship, a twenty-five-year-old Chinese-American medical student arrived. Martin Ching was an exchange scholar from New York University medical school for the month of July. He was the only son of working-class parents who had emigrated from Guangdong to America in the 1930s. His industrious laundry worker father and waitress mother placed all their hopes in Martin, saving every cent to send him to medical school and buying a house in Queens so that Martin could live away from New York’s Chinatown ghetto when he entered college. They continued to reside above their shop while Martin rented out rooms to other students to help pay the mortgage. He was a good boy, studious and responsible.

  A couple of times in the evenings after work, Martin and I sat around talking. We were both at loose ends and had nowhere to go. He could barely speak Cantonese. The
doctors and nurses found it inconvenient to translate everything into English when he was around. Besides, Martin was ‘only’ a medical student.

  ‘I have never met such discrimination as that which I’m encountering in Hong Kong,’ Martin told me. ‘The people here keep their distance. They are wary and regard me with contempt because I look Chinese but cannot speak or write Chinese fluently. They think I’m dumb.’

  That summer of 1964, the weather was unbelievably bad. It seemed as if the rains would never end. And then one day, typhoon warnings were posted by the weather bureau. All employees except those on emergency call were told to stay at home. Elective clinics were cancelled. Martin and I remained at the hospital because we had nowhere else to go.

  Outside, the rain cascaded down in sheets, whipped by a ferocious wind swirling the blue ocean waters into choppy, angry, white waves. Services were suspended at the Star Ferry: no more harbour crossings between Hong Kong and Kowloon until further notice. Traffic disappeared from the roads. We were stranded inside Tsan Yuk Hospital, surrounded by thunder, lightning, torrential rains and gusts of typhoon. Protective wooden shutters were put up in front of plate-glass windows. For those less affluent, long strips of paper tape were stuck across the panes against the wind. Hong Kong was a city under siege from the elemental forces of nature.

  Martin and I sat at one end of a long rectangular conference table in the library and watched the fury of the storm outside. The violence of the deluge created an enclave of comfort and safety within.

  ‘You’re wasting your time and talents here,’ Martin told me. ‘You can do the work here with your eyes closed, but you still have to put in the hours and get up at night. Why don’t you go to Professor McFadden and accept the job he offered you?’

  ‘I can’t go to Lo Mac!’ I replied. ‘I’ve got to get out of Hong Kong.’