House of Kwa

by Mimi Kwa

  ‘You can’t dress like that!’ Ng Yuk shrieks. ‘What will people think of us?’ She watches her two oldest girls brazenly head out the door in high heels and Western outfits, stunning young women turning heads wherever they go.

  Although Ng Yuk is cross, she knows that Theresa always holds Clara tightly under her wing. No harm will ever come to her siblings – she’ll see to that.

  Theresa’s unwavering loyalty to House of Kwa gives Ng Yuk a silvery glimmer of hope to line the cloud of smoke that hangs above her. She rests her cigarette at the edge of a speckled brown ashtray and exhales, a mother dragon releasing her fledglings.

  Today, Clara is on a date with a British policeman, so at Government House, Theresa swans through the gates alone. It’s a strictly guest-list only affair and she shows her identification to two guards at a sentry box. They check it against their list even though they remember her from last time – no one forgets Theresa.

  Her participation as a junior interlocutor under the Japanese has won her an invitation to tea from the reinstated administration. Three hundred or so guests congregate in the ballroom, all of them invited here as an acknowledgement of their various civilian efforts during the dark days of occupation. The building was significantly renovated by the Japanese into a hybrid of oriental and neoclassical design: one of many marks left by the enemy that will never be erased.

  There are speeches from dignitaries about the honour and valour of resistance but also of the need to collaborate when there is no other option.

  While the crowd applauds, Theresa turns and locks eyes with a young Englishman. He’s about twenty-five and quite handsome.

  After the formalities he walks over to greet her. ‘How do you do? Jolly terrible business you lot have been through. What brings you to Government House?’

  Theresa curtsies, and they have an animated conversation during which she mentions, ‘I am most keen to improve my English pronunciation.’

  He replies that her good looks and command of three languages should already be enough to ingratiate her to princes and paupers, but he agrees to introduce her to a man in the crowd who may be able to help: a professor of linguistics and self-proclaimed master of elocution.

  Theresa begins weekly visits to the professor’s home in the affluent Mid-Levels, located between the coveted Peak and central business district. ‘How n-ow said the br-ow-n c-ow.’ She is a good student, making steady progress.

  One day the professor holds out his hand to reveal a rather extraordinary elocution tool. In his palm are half a dozen small stones. ‘The pebbles of Demosthenes, the greatest orator in all of ancient Greece.’

  Theresa is puzzled. What is she to do with these stones? And what does the greatest orator in all of ancient Greece have to do with her?

  ‘Put them in your mouth and they will help you to prrrrrronounce yourrrr Rrrrrrs.’ The professor makes a flourish with his hand.

  Theresa is dubious. Surely he doesn’t actually expect me to put them in my mouth.

  The professor embarks on a tale. He often tells stories to illustrate a point; they are usually too long for Theresa’s liking, but she is always too polite to say so. This one is about a young man in Athens with a speech impediment who used stones to make him force out the sounds. ‘It improved his speech,’ the professor concludes.

  Theresa acquiesces and does as told. ‘Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascal rrrrrran,’ she repeats after her tutor. The stones rattle around uncomfortably against her teeth and tongue, and she has to be careful not to swallow one or choke.

  She wonders if this is such a good idea after all. The professor tells her that as well as using the pebbles, Demosthenes ran along a beach, shouting over the roar of the waves in order to improve his projection. Theresa would much prefer a beach to these stones. For all the practice she does, as soon as she removes the pebbles her Rs – or lack thereof – are back to normal. I can hardly walk about with stones in my mouth all day, she thinks. How silly.

  Theresa is determined not to allow shortcomings in the elocution department to hold her back. Grace, charm and diplomacy are her strongest personal attributes, so she embraces her beauty and hones her social smarts; she learns how to use her best qualities to ‘really go places’, as she likes to put it. The curse that relegated her to hiding for much of the occupation is fast becoming a guiding gift. The pageant of Theresa’s life is about to begin.

  For Francis, the next few years are a combination of study and part-time work. He is trying to catch up on missing four years of formal education. The post-war population has more than tripled, and school places are in hot demand. Francis was expelled from St Mary’s due to poor grades; because of his age and size they made him skip the years he missed, as if war was no excuse for having fallen behind.

  ‘What is this?’ Mother waves a report card at Francis, who is now in his teens. ‘Ds and Fs. Are you trying to ruin us?!’ La Salle College only took him on after First Brother from First Mother Lotus Flower moved to Hong Kong and condensed years of academics into a few intense months of private tutoring. Theresa also wrote to the school with glowing accounts of Francis’s war effort, working for extra rations, and the family pedigree. Ng Yuk slaps his face. ‘Where’s my cane?’ she screams at a maid. ‘Get me my cane.’

  Since Ying Kam died, Ng Yuk has had to take on dishing out discipline. Francis shakes but doesn’t cry as the wooden cane cuts the palm of his hand.

  A dragon stirs within him. He has learned foreign languages, collaborated with an enemy, worked and supported his family, lived through war and deprivation – all to be humiliated with another caning from his mother for bad grades. His class is crammed with new migrants, and they sit in the seats of the dead or deported, and study in halls where atrocities occurred.

  Francis does something he has never done before. He hits his mother back, swift and sharp. It happens so fast that she topples over, her tiny feet sliding out from under her slight frame. She holds her red face in her hand, looking up at her son from the kitchen floor. In an instant he is gone, running to Whampoa Dock, to the sea, wishing himself far away.

  Back home, Francis packs his bags. Kai Tak Airport is only a few kilometres from Wu Hu Street, and he has money saved, enough for a ticket somewhere, anywhere. He doesn’t really have a plan, but he catches a rickshaw to the airport regardless.

  Clara witnessed the whole commotion – Mother at it again. But Fifth Sister has never seen Francis so upset. She follows him at a distance and takes a rickshaw of her own. Dark skin and sweat; the spin of bicycle and carriage wheels; skinny legs, sinew and muscle.

  Two siblings sit side by side on a bench, the sign ‘Kai Tak International’ behind them. They are silent for a while and, when Clara finally speaks, Francis is brought round to the impracticality of his mission. She persuades him to come home.

  The two share a rickshaw back to 183 Wu Hu Street. The driver has to get off his bicycle to push the weight of his passengers up the hills.

  Ng Yuk has been waiting anxiously and is relieved when Francis walks past her, without acknowledgement, as she sits smoking in the kitchen. They never speak of what happened, and she never hits him again.

  PLANES AND PAPARAZZI

  Candidates must be between twenty-one and twenty-seven years old, well proportioned and pleasant to the eye. Vision must not be impaired. Conversational in English. Hold a British passport. No coloured nail varnish to be worn to the interview. Hair must be natural colour. Extreme fashion should be avoided. It is regretted that no reason can be given for rejecting an application.

  Theresa finishes reading aloud the glossy three-colour leaflet, then grins and waves it excitedly at her sisters. She is twenty-one, only just able to apply. ‘Clara, Mary! This is our chance, sisters. This is our opportunity to really go places. If I can get in, when you’re old enough I can help you do it too!’

  In the golden age of flying, air hostesses have one of the most glamorous jobs in the world, in the same league as actresse
s and models – and the prestigious international airline British Overseas Airways Corporation, known as BOAC, is in town for its first Hong Kong recruitment drive. Hundreds of excited young women in the colony are busily getting ready as Theresa unfurls rollers from her hair. She sprays the curls in place and pins an unruly clump behind her ear.

  Ng Yuk scolds her as she leaves. ‘Western clothes, no good. If you wish to be respected, you should wear your cheongsam.’

  Theresa gives her mother a wistful smile; she is not going to let Ng Yuk get her down today.

  When she arrives, the queue seems endless. Young ladies of Chinese and British descent are waiting mostly in shift dresses or tailored suits, though some do wear traditional attire. Most will be scrutinised, interrogated and turned away, with only a lucky few to be corralled into a second waiting area, asked to fill in additional forms and come back in a couple of days for the next round. Theresa joins the line stretching around the block.

  Although she holds herself with a confidence and poise beyond her years, today Theresa is anxious. This could be her big break, and she doesn’t want to blow it. She has prepared written references from a few friends in high places, the professor for one. Oh, how she wishes she had practised her Rs more. What will the panel think of her speech?

  The queue moves as one by one candidates reach a registration desk, handing over their applications to an officious and immaculate woman in a BOAC uniform. She is wearing glasses – so she mustn’t be an air hostess, thinks Theresa, as the pamphlet stipulates ‘perfect vision’.

  Nervous girls file into the first room to wait for their names to be called. There aren’t enough chairs for everyone, so most of the hopefuls stand, speaking in low voices, trying to pass the time and muster their courage. Everyone weighs up the competition. A couple of older blonde candidates snicker under their breath at the other contenders. ‘Just look at her nose. She’ll never get in.’ They are striking and overly confident they’ll take home the prize. It is very much like being behind the scenes of a beauty pageant: an intimidating environment for the uninitiated.

  ‘Theresa Kwa.’ A uniformed woman emerges with a clipboard. ‘Theresa Kwa,’ she repeats, looking around at the assembled women.

  Soon Theresa is standing at the centre of a carpeted room before three adjudicators seated in gilt armchairs behind a long table. It’s like an audition but no singing or dancing is required. The two men and one woman are in their forties. They are not in uniform, instead elegantly suited, their expressions giving little away. They assess Theresa’s every move and take notes as she answers their questions. She has no idea how she is going.

  ‘A very impressive list of references, Miss Kwa,’ one panellist says.

  ‘Yes, I love meeting new people. I find it easy to make conversation with strangers. We have an expression in Chinese: Chen mo shi jin. It’s a bit like your own King James Bible expression: “a fool’s voice is known by a multitude of words”. Meaning that it is better to be a good listener than a good talker.’ Theresa pauses. ‘Although I’m also a good talker,’ she quickly adds. Keep smiling, keep smiling, she thinks.

  The panellists smile back.

  Theresa runs in through the front door. A maid is cooking rice on the stove, Ng Yuk is reading a Chinese newspaper, and Francis is studying at the dining table.

  ‘They want to see me again! Mary, Clara, come, come.’ The girls come out to greet their elder sister, their eyes wide with excitement.

  Ng Yuk goes back to her paper, pretending to read. ‘What will they pay you?’ It’s the first sign of interest she’s shown for the idea.

  ‘Mama! It will pay to support you and the family. It is more than enough. We need to pray they will choose me. They have selected forty of us to go back again, but they will only choose six from that group.’

  The family gets out the joss sticks and gives them a workout. Kwa ancestors and gods look up from their mahjong games, listening intently.

  The BOAC board agrees unanimously on hiring Theresa. She will be the world’s first Chinese BOAC hostess. Having been born in a British colony, she has the same advantage of a homeland passport as the other five successful candidates, all from English expat families. The new recruits look forward to becoming firm friends while they crew long-haul flights together for the rich, powerful and famous. ‘It’s not all glamour, you know,’ they are informed. ‘There will be British boarding-school students returning home between terms, as well as household servants following their employers.’ But to the inductees, those things are hardly a downside. There is no downside! They are going to be air hostesses, which is more than most mid-twentieth-century girls could ever dare to dream.

  There are endless safety and security drills to learn, along with ranks and titles, and what one may and may not say or suggest. Finally, the day arrives for the most important training component of all: hair and make-up! The women cheer. It’s time for Elizabeth Arden. A crack team of professionals give step-by-step instructions on how to achieve an approved list of styles – well, not just achieve them, own them. The young women savour every moment. When Theresa has her first high-end haircut, she’s on cloud nine and may never come down.

  Not long into the job, Theresa becomes BOAC’s Hong Kong pin-up girl. She poses holding a basket of fruit, looking like a movie star on billboards and buses. She feels like one.

  It’s the era of aviation glamour and sophistication, and Theresa Kwa is at the centre of it. She struts through airports in capitals around the world, she and her gang of crew members walking behind their captain. People stare at the immaculate group as Theresa holds her head high, her smile dazzling, broad and deeply satisfied. The world is her oyster, and she is bringing home more money than she could ever have hoped for. It covers her siblings’ schooling and her mother’s cigarettes. It pays for the maids. Theresa buys a car and adds a driver, and Ng Yuk stops selling off her jewellery.

  Theresa crews flights of fifteen passengers at full capacity, bringing them drinks and engaging in polite conversation. During the many hours spent confined with them, she befriends some of the world’s most powerful and interesting people.

  Her sincerity wins over even the most austere guests. Across miles and miles, Theresa smiles and smiles. Her travellers cannot help but be intrigued by her beauty and gentle, familiar manner that puts everyone at ease. She is both diplomat and counsellor to her frequent flyers: lords and ladies, prime ministers and their wives. Queen Elizabeth II invites Theresa to a garden party at Buckingham Palace.

  One passenger, Hilton, is a blue-blooded aristocrat and the first of Theresa’s many suitors. He falls for her at first sight, mesmerised by her casual charm and impressed with her worldly knowledge. He wants to make her his bride. They attend fabulous events in London, and she meets his family, who immediately disapprove of him courting a foreign ‘chink’. They not-so-secretly hope it will come to nothing and that Hilton will meet a local – white, blue-blooded – girl. He ignores them and continues to write to Theresa when they are apart, hanging on to the happy memories they have created. He is chivalrous and wouldn’t dream of overstepping the mark with his oriental sweetheart, but he is growing impatient, hoping that she might reciprocate his love with the same level of intensity.

  Theresa, on the other hand, is relishing her unprecedented access to the world and enjoying her global citizenship. Moreover, she is acutely aware of BOAC’s requirement that its air hostesses remain unmarried: to wed would be to give up her coveted position with the carrier, and she is not about to do that. She has seen death and destruction firsthand – freedom and family are her number one priorities.

  My dear Hilton, she writes. If only our worlds aligned. I am deeply sorry, I am not ready for a life of marriage. Besides, there are far more worthy contenders than me for your hand. With much love, Theresa xxx

  Hilton is the first in a string of broken-hearted eligible bachelors who vie for Theresa’s affections. By now she has moved from Hung Hom to the Island side of Hon
g Kong, purchasing her own apartment at Peace Mansion on Tai Hang Road, just above Causeway Bay.

  One day a German magnate pays a visit, accompanied by his security detail in a convoy of vehicles winding its way up Theresa’s narrow street. Her cook just about has a heart attack when she pulls the curtain aside to see the visitors. Paparazzi follow the train of cars up the hill. Once the cook realises they are not all coming in for tea, she heaves a sigh of relief.

  The German gentleman, Jacobsmuhlen, is good company, and Theresa is flattered by his attention and fond of him. A photo of them together on his yacht appears in newspapers around the world, as he is a well-known eligible bachelor. ‘Who is that girl?’ the press wonder, but they don’t get another opportunity to find out. Theresa is not interested in living through a European winter. Her answer to Jacobsmuhlen is a tactful no.

  Theresa throws everything into her career, graciously declining multiple proposals of marriage. Clara has been in a courtship with a British police chief in Hong Kong ever since Theresa introduced them. Mary has no interest in having a boyfriend just yet and longs to follow in Theresa’s footsteps in the air one day.

  When Theresa is home in Hong Kong, she keeps a watchful eye on Francis. She is as invested in his future as she is in her sisters’, and scolds him if he fails an exam. Despite her misgivings, she will keep paying for his education. She will never give up on him, for he is Kwa.

  SHIP AND SHOES

  THERESA HUMS THE DORIS DAY SONG ‘QUE SERA, SERA’ TO Francis as she drives him in stifling heat to the dock amid Hong Kong’s famous sensory assault of crowds, signage, buses, trams and beggars. The usual peacetime streetscape scene, with its tapestry of activity, is a welcome sight. Bleak years are far behind them, and an optimistic hustle and bustle has replaced hunched shoulders and emaciated faces. How far the Kwas have come.