The Flower Drum Song, page 16
“What do you think of her?”
“I like the face,” Madam Tang said. “How about her limbs and weight? Do you have a complete physical description of her?”
“No physical defects,” Wang Chi-yang said. “That is guaranteed. She is slightly plump, as indicated by her face. That is desirable since plumpness is a sign of fertility.”
Madam Tang looked at the picture for another moment and she smiled. “I like the girl. She has level eyes and thick lips, an indication of honesty. How is her background?”
“She is the daughter of a schoolteacher who died in the Hong Kong fire three years ago.”
Madam Tang nodded her head. “I shall keep the picture and ask a noted physiognomist to give it a careful analysis. If she becomes Wang Ta’s wife, she will one day share my properties, and I must be assured of her virtues.”
“You are right, my wife’s sister,” Wang Chi-yang said. “But right now we have a problem. If the girl is as good as the go-between has guaranteed, how shall we get her over to this country? The herb doctor says if Wang Ta is not a citizen of this country, it poses a great problem.”
“I shall talk to Miss Shaw about it,” Madam Tang said. “Miss Shaw is my citizenship teacher. We shall have her advice. You will meet her tonight. I have invited her to my New Year dinner.”
She looked at the picture again, then with a nod of her head she quickly put it into her handbag. “I like the girl,” she added casually, trying to hide her excitement. “I hope the picture is a recent one. A restaurant owner in Chinatown got a picture bride from Hong Kong who cheated by fifteen years.”
“I do not believe this one will cheat,” Wang Chi-yang said. “The picture looks new, and the go-between is reputable, recommended by an herb doctor who has become my close friend.”
“I would like to meet this herb doctor,” Madam Tang said. “Let us invite him to my New Year banquet. Please write an invitation and tell Liu Lung to deliver it. As your close friend, he might drop in for a cup of wine even if he has other engagements.”
Wang Chi-yang agreed with her. He hurried to his room to write the invitation, while Madam Tang walked around in the middle hall, fanning herself with her handkerchief. She was getting more excited as she saw the possibility of Wang Ta’s marriage to a girl whose innocent looks had met her approval. Being childless herself, she was anxious to see her sister’s family grow. And since her money was eventually going to fertilize this family tree, she felt it was part of her responsibility to see that no undesirable weeds and creepers become entangled with the tree and absorb its fertilizer. When she thought of it she suddenly became very busy and important. “Liu Lung, Liu Ma,” she called. “Come here, all of you, and tell the cook to come, too!”
When the servants gathered in the middle hall, she fished out a twenty-dollar bill from her purse and handed it to Liu Ma. “Today I am giving a banquet at a restaurant. There will be no more work for you today. You three can also eat at a restaurant and then go watch the parade. Here is some money for you to spend.”
Liu Ma took the money with a broad smile. She thanked Madam Tang and ordered her husband and the cook to extend their thanks too.
“My sister’s husband, have you finished writing the invitation?”
Old Master Wang hurried out of his room with the invitation, which Madam Tang took and hastily handed to Liu Lung. “Deliver this immediately. Tell the herb doctor to be sure to honor us with his presence.”
“Enh?”
“Oh, I am busy,” she said, snatching the invitation from the deaf servant’s hand and handing it to the cook.
“Lao Fong, you go and deliver it. The address is on the envelope. My sister’s husband, I shall see you at Hung Wa Low at six.”
“Are you going so soon?” Wang Chi-yang asked.
Madam Tang wanted to see the physiognomist and have the girl’s face analyzed immediately, but she didn’t want to look too anxious.
“Yes,” she said. “I am going home to take a nap.”
Old Master Wang smiled. He sat down on the kang and enjoyed another spasm of coughing.
3
The ear-rending firecrackers exploded throughout Chinatown, which has an unofficial boundary starting from Kearny at the east to Larkin, nine blocks to the west, and from Bush at the south to Broadway, with “colonies” extended to North Beach, the Italian section. But it was on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street, the business center of Chinatown, that the firecrackers really roared on New Year’s day.
From six o’clock on in the morning Grant Avenue smelled of powder, food, and wine. Many shops were closed, but there were music and laughter floating on the gentle breeze from San Francisco Bay. The Stars and Stripes, the red and blue and bright sun flag of Nationalist China, fluttered among colorful banners and lanterns. The sidewalks became a flower mart; pink and white azaleas, camellias, narcissus, orchid plants, water lilies, plum and peach blossoms were everywhere, their earthen pots wrapped up in lucky red and gold.
Old Man Li and his nineteen-year-old daughter, May Li, walked on Grant Avenue with their meager luggage carried on their backs, their faces turning in all directions, fascinated. They had just arrived in San Francisco from Los Angeles by Greyhound bus. Old Man Li carried in his bosom two important items: a letter of introduction, and his great ambition to open the only Peking restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown. He and his daughter had been in this country for three months: they had come with General White, a retired army general who had lived in China for more than twenty years, and would have died there, as he had hoped, if the Communists had not driven him out. Li had followed the general from China to Formosa, and eventually to Los Angeles, where the general had established his new home. When the general had died at the venerable age of seventy-eight, Li was so broken-hearted that for three weeks he fought the desire to follow him further.
Li had regarded the general more as a lifelong friend than a benefactor. The general had employed him fifteen years ago when Li was singing flower songs with his wife at the famed Heavenly Bridge in Peking and running a small restaurant at night. The general had frequented the open-air market shopping antiques and eating Li’s hot bread with sesame oil and eggs fried with black fungus; he liked the dish so much that he finally hired Li to cook for him at an eye-popping salary of ten U.S. dollars a month, almost three times as much as the monthly profit of the small restaurant. During his fifteen years’ association with General White, Li had enjoyed a comfortable life, although his wife, always uncomfortable if not working, had died of hard work. Now he was in the largest Chinatown in America, tired but excited, ready to go back to his old business.
He halted at the corner of Grant and Pine and wiped the perspiration on his forehead with a forefinger.
“Shew, we have walked a distance of five li from the bus station,” he said in Mandarin. “Are you tired, May Li?”
“A little,” the girl said. She was dressed in a Chinese gown of light blue and wearing a pigtail wound round her head, her pretty face without make-up glowing with health.
“Shall we go visit Mr. Poon now, father?”
“Oh, do not be foolish. Nobody visits people so early. This is New Year’s day, people sleep in the morning with a full stomach of food and wine and do not wish to be disturbed. We shall have our breakfast and rest our legs for a while.” He wiped his forehead once more and looked around.
“Here is a teahouse, father,” May Li said, pointing at a red signboard saying “Lotus Room.”
“Good,” Old Man Li said. When he looked at the stairway he frowned. “No, May Li, I shall not climb this with my luggage on my back.”
“Let me carry it up for you, father,” May Li said.
“No, you are carrying enough of your own.”
“I can carry a lot more.” She held her father’s canvas bag until Li finally yielded it to her, shaking his head. “You are just like your mother, May Li. Forty years ago when she was your age she could carry a hundred catties of flour and walk seventy li a day. She was strong as a cow, and just as amiable . . .”
“What shall we eat, father?” May Li asked.
“We shall see,” Old Man Li said, trudging up the stairway. “We shall have some New Year dishes. But we must be careful in our selection. The owner of this place might be greedy, otherwise he would not have built a restaurant upstairs. He knows that people will eat more after this climbing, shew!”
When he reached the top of the stairs he promptly changed his opinion of the owner. The spacious dining hall with red-lacquered lattice windows was clean and impressive, almost filled with customers. Only a reputable place could be so prosperous, he thought. The smiling manager greeted them and directed them to a vacant table near one of the windows and handed them two copies of the menu with special New Year dishes attached to them. Old Man Li held the menu tensely, swallowing and resisting, his eyes roving among the expensive items. He wanted to eat everything, but he felt his economical nature held him back like an iron chain restraining a dog. He quickly closed the menu and rubbed his neck. “May Li, I shall let you order.”
“Shall we eat some New Year dishes?” she asked.
Old Man Li swallowed. “Sure, sure. But it is close to lunch time now. We shall not eat too much.”
May Li ordered a dollar’s worth of chow mein and a New Year dish—the taro pudding. When the food came, Old Man Li picked one of the three puddings with his fingers and shoved the rest toward May Li. “It is all yours, May Li.”
“No, you eat, too, father,” May Li said, shoving the dish back.
“You eat it,” Old Man Li said, trying to keep his eyes off the pudding. “My stomach is getting withered; it does not need much food now. A few mouthfuls of social drinks will satisfy it.” He fished out a flask from a pocket and took a drink from it. “Shew, it is good. Eat your pudding, May Li. Don’t wait until it is cold.”
While May Li was eating the taro pudding sparingly, Old Man Li poured tea and served the chow mein. “Are you happy in America, May Li?” he asked.
“Yes, father.”
“That is good, that is good. Do you know what I am going to do in America besides opening the best Peking restaurant? I am going to find a fashionable man for you. He will be a scholar and have the ambition to be an ambassador.”
He took another drink from his flask and sighed. “May Li, if I had married another woman, I would have learned how to read and write, and I might have become a scholar or a government official myself. But I married the wrong woman.”
“What had my mother to do with all your ill luck, father?”
“Plenty. You know, if your mother had nagged me a little, I would have gone to a school. But she was too nice, too nice. Killed herself with hard work, poor woman.”
“Oh, you always think of mother and feel sad.”
“Good people always die first,” Old Man Li said, shaking his head. “General White was a good man. Now he has also left us and gone to heaven.”
“We shall make friends, father,” May Li said. “We shall meet new people in San Francisco.”
“I hope Mr. Poon is a good man.”
“He must be, otherwise the consul general would not recommend him to help us.”
“I wonder what the consul general said of us in his letter of introduction,” Old Man Li said, bringing out a letter from his breast pocket. He turned the letter in his hands and said, “We are not supposed to read people’s letters, May Li. It is a sin to read people’s letters.”
“You are not going to read this one, are you, father?”
“Of course not . . . but, but you know I don’t read much . . . perhaps it is harmless for me to take a glance at it. It is just like a blind man walking into a bathroom while a woman is taking a bath. He cannot see, so no harm is done.”
“There is no harm, I guess,” May Li said.
Old Man Li blew the envelope open and peered into it. Then he gingerly fished the letter out and turned it in his hands for a moment. “Oh, you take a glance at it, May Li,” he said, handing the letter to May Li. “Since it is not sealed, perhaps Mr. Poon does not mind people glancing at it.”
“I guess not,” May Li said. She unfolded the letter and her eyebrows knitted. “It is written in foreign language, father.”
“Shew, give it back to me. It is a sin to read people’s letters.” He quickly took the letter, folded it, replaced it in the envelope and pocketed it. “Finish your chow mein, May Li. We shall walk around in Chinatown and get acquainted with the place first.”
“I like Grant Avenue,” May Li said, “Shall we open our restaurant on Grant Avenue?”
“Yes, if there is a place big enough. We shall open the largest restaurant in Chinatown, serving Northern food and wine. Maybe we have some entertainment, too. Do you remember what General White said about your flower drum songs?”
“He never talked to me about my singing,” May Li said.
“You sing just like your mother. That is why the general did not tell you; he did not want you to become conceited. Do you know what he said before he died? He winked at me and said, ‘Li, that daughter of yours will fly high if she is discovered. Her flower drum songs will make people eat off her little hands one of these days.’ That is what General White said, and it gave me the idea of opening a restaurant. When we have the restaurant, May Li, you will do nothing but sing and dance for the customers.”
“And make them eat off my hands?” May Li asked, laughing.
“Well, you can make suggestions if the customers ask for your opinion of the food. It is much better than building a restaurant upstairs and make them eat more that way. Have you finished?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Let us go and acquaint ourselves with the place first.”
They left the teahouse and walked northward on Grant. “Shew, the luggage is heavy,” Old Man Li said. “Let us find a hotel first.”
“Maybe we should visit Mr. Poon first, father,” May Li said.
“No. We are strangers. We should not visit him on New Year’s day. We shall go to see him tomorrow afternoon. Let us go to a hotel.”
“Let me carry your bag.”
“No, I am not that old.”
“I can save energy for both of us if I carry your bag, father.”
“How?”
“Put your bag down.”
Old Man Li put his bag down. May Li tied it with hers and slung it over her left shoulder. “You see? I even have my hands free now.”
“Just like your mother,” Old Man Li said, shaking his head. “Balancing a hundred catties of flour on her shoulder she climbed the West Mountain. Well, I guess I still could carry my own luggage and walk fifty li without rest if General White did not spoil me. For fifteen years I was the laziest cook in China . . .”
“Here is a hotel, father,” May Li said, halting in front of a hotel beside a large restaurant, with a wide marble doorway leading to the second floor. Old Man Li looked at the impressive doorway and hesitated.
“This is a first-class hotel, May Li,” he said. “Before we open our restaurant, maybe we should stay in a second-rate hotel. You know some Cantonese talk, maybe you should ask a passer-by to direct us to an inexpensive hotel nearby.”
“All right, father.”
They walked another block north. At the intersection of Grant and Sacramento, May Li stopped an old man and asked him in Cantonese where the cheap hotels were. The old man sized them up and jerked his head toward the east. “All on Kearny Street. A block from here. Hotel rooms a dollar a day if you do not mind bedbugs.”
Old Man Li understood a little Cantonese. He quickly turned east on Sacramento and motioned May Li to follow.
“A dollar a day is good enough,” he said. “In China hotel rooms cost only three dollars a month. Times have changed. We can be a little luxurious these days.”
As they walked toward Kearny firecrackers began to explode everywhere. Old Man Li straightened up and sighed. “Just like the old days in China, May Li. General White would enjoy this if he had not died.” He stopped under a long string of exploding firecrackers hung from the balcony of a two-story building, and inhaled deeply the powder smell. He stood there with his eyes closed and a smile on his face as though enjoying a cold shower on a hot day, whereas the tourists shunned the explosion, and a few ladies ran past him with fingers stuffed in their ears, screaming and laughing.
After the last firecracker had exploded Old Man Li opened his eyes, squared his shoulders and said, “Now, all my ill luck of the past year is blasted away. Our restaurant will be a great success in the Year of the Horse.” He dusted some firecracker fragments off his shoulders and picked his ears with his forefingers. “Shew, it was noisy! Let us go find a hotel.”
They found a small hotel on Kearny and climbed the rickety stairway to the clerk’s desk on the second floor. A Cantonese showed them two dark rooms smelling of stale tobacco. Old Man Li tested the squealing double bed in each room and nodded his head. “Good, they are soft. We shall take these two rooms. May Li, let us take a nap first. The beds are good, and they cost a dollar a day, we must not waste them.”
After a nap they had a light lunch of pork noodles at a small restaurant next door. Then they wandered around getting acquainted with the topography of Chinatown. The firecrackers were still exploding away; people roamed on the streets, wishing each other “kung he fa choy”; housewives went from one food store to another, selecting the choicest fowl, the freshest fish and fruit and the tenderest vegetables, for the feasting was to last two weeks; children, dressed in their best, searched for unexploded firecrackers and flocked to the stalls that sold sweetmeats and New Year candies; merchants decorated their stores with new couplet scrolls and potted flowers wound about with red ribbons on which joyful greetings gleamed in gold characters; music was everywhere—Cantonese opera, the eerie folk songs of the South, the modern Chinese music of tango and rumba.
