stone boulders with their bare hands, made me sit up straight in my chair. Even Stepmother looked up at me from her breast-feeding, as if it would be impossible, if not madness, to be other than
tong-yung
.
“Baby be Chinese, too,” she said.
“Tohng-Yahn
is best.”
I looked at her feeding Liang-Liang and reasoned that if, instead of having given me a skimpy butterfly when we first met, she had put into my palm a silver dragon with five claws, or even a tiger with fierce eyes, a great joy would now be sucking at her breast. And Father and Third Uncle would have lit firecrackers. Poh-Poh would have demanded Third Uncle pay for a first-class banquet at W.K. instead of dinner at the Pekin. From a red baby’s cap would dangle countless gold trinkets; twice the number of red-dyed eggs would sit on our best dishes, and many more pink-dotted dumplings for many more guests. My lip curled.
“Kiam-Kim?” Stepmother beckoned to me. She shifted Jook-Liang onto her knees. “Would Big Brother like to hold her?”
I quickly realized that it was useless to keep wishing the girl baby would go away. I finally got used to stroking the brown eggshell forehead and pushing the rubber pacifier between the tiny cupid lips to keep her quiet.
“Gently,” Stepmother said to me.
I tried again. Baby fingers grasped my thumb and held on tightly.
“See how she likes First Son,” Father said.
I pushed away from the cradle. With so much to discover in my own world, I did not mind sharing Poh-Poh and Stepmother with her. Father spent as much time as he could with me, and when he came home early he always gave me his hat to hang up on the small hook beside my own coat. In the beginning, the two of us would go for walks before the darkness came. But soon, as he took on more part-time work in the restaurants and warehouses of Chinatown, helped Third Uncle and other merchants with their invoices and accounts, studied English books in the Carnegie Library, and worked on his English with the minister from the United Church, Father was rarely at home when I was awake. Arrangements were made: other men and women, kindly acquaintances of Third Uncle, mostly elders, took me out for walks. Father taught me to recite their proper names while standing at attention; I mimicked appropriate greetings with a bow and learned how to accept small red-enveloped gifts of lucky money without rudely opening them to peep at the contents.
“Too generous,” Poh-Poh would protest on my behalf.
“Too kind,” Stepmother would instantly say as I held the
lei-see
in my hands for a respectful few seconds and lowered my head before another tall or squat newcomer to our house. Father was pleased to hear that I was considered polite and smart and gave others the pleasure of recalling their family life in Old China.
Poh-Poh had taught me to feel with my fingertips during the exchange of lucky money and my humble thanks, to discover whether coins or crinkly bills sat inside the red folds of the
lei-see
. She said this would help me resist tearing open the flap. It was a trick she had taught the grandchildren of Patriarch Chen himself.
“Lowly children,” Poh-Poh said. “All girls.”
I didn’t care. I wanted to know what were the consequences if my fingers felt a coin or a bill. Poh-Poh laughed at my impatience. A ten- or twenty-five-cent coin meant I might keep it in my own piggy bank. A fifty-cent coin or any folding money meant Father or Stepmother took the
lei-see
from me.
“For your education,” I would hear them say.
Of course, to open any
lei-see
in front of guests was very rude and would expose my lack of manners. Worse, Stepmother warned me, whoever gave me a coin, however generous, would feel that they had
suk-mein
, lost face, in front of anyone else who might have slipped me folding money.
“Father would lose face, too,” she said. “Guests would shake their heads and say, ‘What an impatient and greedy First Son!’ ”
“Yes, yes,”
tong-yung
.
“Baby be Chinese, too,” she said.
“Tohng-Yahn
is best.”
I looked at her feeding Liang-Liang and reasoned that if, instead of having given me a skimpy butterfly when we first met, she had put into my palm a silver dragon with five claws, or even a tiger with fierce eyes, a great joy would now be sucking at her breast. And Father and Third Uncle would have lit firecrackers. Poh-Poh would have demanded Third Uncle pay for a first-class banquet at W.K. instead of dinner at the Pekin. From a red baby’s cap would dangle countless gold trinkets; twice the number of red-dyed eggs would sit on our best dishes, and many more pink-dotted dumplings for many more guests. My lip curled.
“Kiam-Kim?” Stepmother beckoned to me. She shifted Jook-Liang onto her knees. “Would Big Brother like to hold her?”
I quickly realized that it was useless to keep wishing the girl baby would go away. I finally got used to stroking the brown eggshell forehead and pushing the rubber pacifier between the tiny cupid lips to keep her quiet.
“Gently,” Stepmother said to me.
I tried again. Baby fingers grasped my thumb and held on tightly.
“See how she likes First Son,” Father said.
I pushed away from the cradle. With so much to discover in my own world, I did not mind sharing Poh-Poh and Stepmother with her. Father spent as much time as he could with me, and when he came home early he always gave me his hat to hang up on the small hook beside my own coat. In the beginning, the two of us would go for walks before the darkness came. But soon, as he took on more part-time work in the restaurants and warehouses of Chinatown, helped Third Uncle and other merchants with their invoices and accounts, studied English books in the Carnegie Library, and worked on his English with the minister from the United Church, Father was rarely at home when I was awake. Arrangements were made: other men and women, kindly acquaintances of Third Uncle, mostly elders, took me out for walks. Father taught me to recite their proper names while standing at attention; I mimicked appropriate greetings with a bow and learned how to accept small red-enveloped gifts of lucky money without rudely opening them to peep at the contents.
“Too generous,” Poh-Poh would protest on my behalf.
“Too kind,” Stepmother would instantly say as I held the
lei-see
in my hands for a respectful few seconds and lowered my head before another tall or squat newcomer to our house. Father was pleased to hear that I was considered polite and smart and gave others the pleasure of recalling their family life in Old China.
Poh-Poh had taught me to feel with my fingertips during the exchange of lucky money and my humble thanks, to discover whether coins or crinkly bills sat inside the red folds of the
lei-see
. She said this would help me resist tearing open the flap. It was a trick she had taught the grandchildren of Patriarch Chen himself.
“Lowly children,” Poh-Poh said. “All girls.”
I didn’t care. I wanted to know what were the consequences if my fingers felt a coin or a bill. Poh-Poh laughed at my impatience. A ten- or twenty-five-cent coin meant I might keep it in my own piggy bank. A fifty-cent coin or any folding money meant Father or Stepmother took the
lei-see
from me.
“For your education,” I would hear them say.
Of course, to open any
lei-see
in front of guests was very rude and would expose my lack of manners. Worse, Stepmother warned me, whoever gave me a coin, however generous, would feel that they had
suk-mein
, lost face, in front of anyone else who might have slipped me folding money.
“Father would lose face, too,” she said. “Guests would shake their heads and say, ‘What an impatient and greedy First Son!’ ”
“Yes, yes,”
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