Prospect for Murder (Natalie Seachrist Hawaiian Cozy Mystery 1)

by Burrows-Johnson, Jeanne; June, Yasamine;

  CHAPTER 8

  Everything must have its roots,

  and the tendrils work quietly underground.

  The Tao Te Ching [circa 500 BCE]

  “As I think about my origins, I realize that I think of myself as being more Chinese than Hawaiian. Perhaps this is understandable since I spent my earliest years in China and am three-quarters Chinese. Also, while Jade and I spent our formidable years in Honolulu, outside of school our home life was conducted under the tutelage of our amah, in the style and language of our mother.

  “When I consider the journey of my father to meet my mother, it is the life of an American immigrant in reverse. Throughout his own childhood, our father was inspired by the stories he had heard from his father’s cronies in Honolulu’s Chinatown. For, like many other immigrants, our father’s father was a member of a financial and social support group referred to as huay or gōngsī in Chinese, and hui in Hawaiian. Coming from his home province of Guǎngdōng, these men were bonded together by their common cultural history, the Yue dialect of Chinese, and often, by membership in the same family.

  “Our father was an only child. As a young man, finding success in business was very important to him. When Hiram decided to journey to Zhōngguó—or the Central Kingdom, as our mother’s homeland was known traditionally, he turned to the members of his father’s hui for advice and support.

  “I am not familiar with his initial days in China, after he worked his way to Shànghăi aboard a freighter. But I do know that his father’s friends had entrusted him with funds to invest on their behalf. These men knew that to honor his family, Hiram would be prudent in his use of their money.”

  She paused and again touched her necklace. It was a yin symbol of pearlescent white jade framed in silver. We quietly sipped our tea. I looked down at the traditional Asian teacup without a handle. It was old and valuable, with detailed paintings of flowers and vertical Chinese calligraphy in gold. Obviously, financial gain would not be a motive for a member of the Wong family to kill anyone.

  Pearl set her cup down gently before continuing. “Although it is an antique, and therefore not accurate in dimensions or current labels, the map hanging above the sofa showcases the major cities of China. Like Hiram’s family, our maternal Grandfather came from the Guǎngdōng Province. His name was Sūn Shǔguāng. He was a distant relative of the famous Nationalist and first president of the Republic of China, Sūn Yìxiān, better known in the West as Dr. Sūn Yat-Sen.

  “While our Chinese grandfather’s family controlled much agricultural land in the countryside, they also had commercial enterprises in the provincial capital of Guangzhou. Being approximately one hundred miles from the coast, it was a far different city than Shànghăi. And although it had once been the most influential metropolis in the region, Guangzhou had been eclipsed by the thriving port of Shànghăi long before World War I. Not only did Shànghăi benefit from commercial contacts throughout the seaports of the world, but it was then the most industrialized city in China.

  “By the time our father Hiram met our mother Yùyīng, Grandfather Sūn had become a business visionary and spread his investments to both Shànghăi and Hong Kong. In his daily operations, he relied greatly on his daughter. This was because he was a widower without sons.

  You see, the boy the family had picked to marry Yùyīng had died of dengue fever during the same epidemic that killed our grandmother. Alone and in sorrow, our Grandfather left his home in Guangzho to personally oversee his business interests on the coast.

  “To accomplish all that he desired, he needed someone on whom he could trust to deal with European and American clients. Being a gracious woman of good family, with language and cultural training provided by Western missionaries, our mother was a great business asset. When she was not closing deals, Yùyīng went to the horse races, attended high tea in elegant hotels and danced in nightclubs patronized by the powerful international set. While the treaty-port city had an indigenous population measured in millions, a mere sixty thousand, largely Westerners, controlled the city’s commercial and social life. With her bobbed hair and lipstick, plus fluency in English and French, Yùyīng was the quintessential modern young woman in the city that was often called the “Paris of the East.”

  “One Sunday at the Shànghăi Race Club, Yùyīng bet just enough to blend in with the ever-growing crowd of lovers of equine sport. In a sea of disappointed onlookers, she and my father seemed to be the only ones jubilant at the end of a tierce or trifecta race. With the large number of horses entered in the race, their bets on the first three winners paid out at odds of 300 to one. Walking with Hiram to the payout window, she commented that her only regret was that she had wagered so little.

  “I remember how popular horse racing was in Hong Kong, although I felt too ignorant to place any kind of a bet,” I remarked.

  Miss Wong nodded and shifted in her chair. “They congratulated each other on their good luck and parted, saying they looked forward to seeing one another the following week. Life can be so surprising. Later that night, at a dinner club owned by one of Yùyīng’s cousins, they saw each other again—across a crowded room, as the song goes. When they met at the race club the next week, neither they nor the horses they chose made as good a showing. Nevertheless, they enjoyed watching all of the day’s events together.

  “Weeks passed and Hiram and Yùyīng established a regular luncheon date following the races. They also saw each other periodically at the ever-popular polo matches, art and music events, as well as nightclubs like Ciro’s and elegant hotels like the Cathay. Even before their professional spheres of work merged, their circles of friends intermingled and their friendship had grown into love. Romance is certainly the key in many people’s lives, don’t you think?”

  I agreed heartily, warming at the thought of my own short, romance-filled marriage and that of my parents which has surely outlasted their lives on earth.

  “Our amah often said that Father referred to Yùyīng as the most delicate of flowers. Perhaps because her name translated as Jade Flower, every Friday he brought her a single blossom of exquisite color and flawless detail: rare exotic orchids from the South of China; camellias of pure red and enrapturing fragrance; roses with deepening wine in their centers—all reminders of the home of his Hawaiian relatives in upcountry Maui.

  “As Grandfather Sūn aged, he became even more reliant on his daughter for negotiations with the Westerners who wanted to buy the beauty embodied in China’s incomparable silks, jewelry and antique furnishings. While he focused on the flow of goods and currencies, she concentrated on the people who could facilitate the greatest profit. With all the connections she had made, she was able to convince our Grandfather to diversify even further.

  “Through introductions facilitated by both his father’s hui and Yùyīng, our father was invited to a meeting of our grandfather’s growing consortium of Chinese and European dealers of art and antiques. The group included Jews who had fled the Russian Revolution. While many were no longer customers for the high-end goods of the Pearl of the Orient Trading Company Limited, they often had attributes that made them important contacts. Several were jewelers or artisans whose masterpieces appealed to the elite of the growing global economy.

  Hiram’s bi-culturalism fit well with the economic climate emerging in the world. With finesse and cultural sensitivity, he proved himself invaluable in negotiating complicated multi-nation transactions. Soon he fell into partnership with Sūn Shǔguāng and, the rest, we may acknowledge, became history, as the young man from the new world joined the land of his Chinese ancestors.”

  Again Pearl Wong’s story was put on pause. We sipped our tea and daintily ate our cookies like polite ladies of any era. I wondered how I could steer her tale toward the here and now. But recognizing that this was merely the opening of our relationship, I decided to accept the pace of the exotic tale she was sharing.

  “Within a
few years, our father had amassed considerable wealth and proven his respect for Chinese culture. Consequently, our aging grandfather granted permission for our parents to marry without the customary rituals of proposal and betrothal. The marriage of these lovers in 1925 was a sign of the Shànghăi modernity in which they lived. Yùyīng may have been disappointed that she had no female relatives to prepare for her wedding. But there was joy in the young bride’s heart for not having to follow the tradition of abandoning her own family for that of her groom, since Hiram had no close relatives in China.

  Their wedding was a blending of their worlds. Our mother rode to the missionary church ceremony in a silk-draped sedan chair carried by four of their warehousemen. To clear the way through the crowded streets, she was preceded by one escort holding a ritual umbrella and another playing a gong. While she wore a traditional Chinese red silk dress, shoes, and veil, Hiram waited at the altar attired in a charcoal morning coat and pinstriped pants. Unusual for their day, they exchanged vows they had written in both Chinese and English before an audience of her family and their mutual friends. At the ten-course feast celebrating the joining of yin and yang, Grandfather Sūn gifted the couple with the family compound near the French Concession. He then announced he was immediately returning to his ancestral lands to be with his remaining brother in the latter days of his life.”

  Periodically I nodded or mumbled “Mmhm,” to let Pearl know I was following her story. I was fascinated, but feeling the pressure of time at my back.

  “Yùyīng and Hiram had decided to delay taking a honeymoon trip until there was an opportunity to visit Hawai`i. After partying with their friends, they returned home to find that the family’s servants had followed traditional customs in preparing for the arrival of the newly-weds. In the wee hours of the morning, our parents found the new spring bed in their candle-lit sleeping chamber strewn with red dates, lotus seeds, and pomegranates—all classic Chinese symbols of fertility.

  “The marriage of our parents began in a golden age that seemed without end. Despite the turmoil of building a new nation, the Great World War that had ended before the onset of the nineteen twenties was believed to herald an end to all wars. As the Roaring Twenties heated up, the vibrant economy seemed to benefit people of every class and background, especially women, traditionally repressed in much of the world. Flappers, in short hair and skirts, openly used tobacco and liquor, and wildly gyrated in song and dance―proclaiming a freedom for women previously unknown. Even demure women like our mother could enjoy exciting professional, as well as personal, lives.”

  The diminutive woman then looked directly in my eyes. “I trust you don’t mind this old woman’s wandering memories and dreams.”

  While I did want her to bring her story into the present, I was thrilled to learn anything I could about the family that owns the apartment complex. “Oh, no. Being a writer, I’ve collected stories my whole life. And what is more romantic than a story of both Hawai`i and China.”

  She smiled. “I have some of our mother’s belongings in the china cabinet. For many years we did not know we had them. But one day my sister Jade and I discovered some old crates in our attic. Among expected household items, we discovered that Chú Huā had carefully wrapped Yùyīng’s silver cigarette holder, an art deco jeweled garter and a beaded headdress. Sometimes, when I feel the absence of our parents, it has been comforting to picture her using them during an exciting night out in the Shànghăi of the Roaring Twenties.

  “Of course, I do not mean to infer that our parents merely lived lives of privilege and pleasure. Our Grandfather Sūn had trusted our parents to run the family’s day-to-day business and they did not disappoint him. The Pearl of the Orient soon grew to be known in Hawai`i and across the Pacific to the West Coast of America, as well as in the capitals of Europe that hungered for our unique wares. Beyond the usual carpets, chinaware and rosewood furnishings, the firm offered vintage carvings made of cinnabar from the land of the Mongols in the north and ivory from the southern islands. For their most discerning clients, they also offered an assortment of exquisite jewelry finely crafted in the finest pearls, jade and diamonds.”

  Perhaps feeling the pulsating excitement of her parents’ romantic lives, Miss Wong looked into the distance. Uncertain of her direction, I sat quietly to avoid interrupting her reminiscing.

  “Modernization for China was a mixture of progress and challenges. Foreign control of the land through continuance of “unequal” international treaties was still abhorred by Chinese at every economic level. And yet our people had eagerly accepted the paved streets, running water and contemporary plumbing brought by the Westerners. Our own family’s burgeoning wealth allowed them to have almost anything they desired. Soon the traditional compound of our home was modernized to afford a quality of life that matched that of the foreign “land renters.”

  “Around all of this, the changing tides of the young nation swirled. As I have mentioned, there are many links between Hawai`i and China. Dr. Sūn Yat-Sen had attended Honolulu’s Iolani and Punahou Schools as a youth. After travelling the world as a young man, he returned to China and joined with other Asian anti-imperialists. From a base of power in Guǎngdōng, he rose with many others overturn the Qing Dynasty in 1912. He then co-founded the Chinese Nationalist Party, the Guómíndăng, which was once known in the West as the KMT. He then helped establish the democratic Republic of China and became known as the father of the modern Chinese nation.”

  I nodded my awareness of this part of the Chinese historical timeline.

  “Dr. Sūn died in 1925. Leadership of the Guómíndăng then passed to Generalissimo Jiǎng Jièshí, or Chiang Kai-Shek as you may know him. He soon married a sister of Dr. Sūn’s widow.”

  “How interesting. As a child, I remember the Soong sisters touring America to plea for support of the Republic of China.”

  Pearl Wong nodded and continued her story. “While uninvolved politically, our father supported Jiǎng’s efforts to unify our country under a modern system of government equal to the burgeoning commercial landscape. Of course, business was not the only focus of our parents’ lives. Our amah often told stories of our father showing our mother off to the moguls of politics as well as commerce. In elegant dining rooms they partook of rice wine or champagne in the thinnest of jade bowls and plates of the smallest and most tantalizing oysters from the waters off Shànghăi. Afterward, they danced for hours to the pulsating rhythms of the hybrid form of Shànghăi jazz that raged in places like the Yangtze River Hotel Dance Hall.

  “Within a year of their marriage, my elder sister was born. To Father she represented the dawning of a new age. As plum blossoms were one of our mother’s favorite flowers, they named their daughter Méilingyù, meaning Plum Jade Dawn of the Universe. She was the crowning jewel of this vibrant family in the expanding twentieth century with the delicate skin of our mother and the dancing eyes of our father.

  “Our parents then spent most evenings with their treasured daughter and their Sundays shifted from the racetrack to the Nanking Theater, where they watched silent movies from across the globe. One of my favorite pieces of art is the promotional poster in the dining room of one of our father’s cherished Chinese movies, Lustrous Pearls. It was a slightly risqué romance of 1927, accented with Art Nouveau title cards featuring drawings of semi-nudes. Like the plot of an action film today, clever strategies and daring feats over land and sea highlighted strong women, who save two glorious pearls and a weak hero,” she chuckled.

  “It’s all so exciting, like a mental movie,” I said honestly. I only wished there was no need to leave the land of make believe.

  “That is how it seems to me—a movie far removed from Jade and me.”

  Changing tone, she said, “The next part of our story is complex, as familial and global circumstances collided to prevent our parents from living out their lives in China.”

  Finally, it looked like this
tale might be moving closer to the here and now.

  “Not all aspects to life in Shànghăi during the late 1920s were glamorous. Not even the elite could ignore the Green Gang and other criminals who ran opium, heroin, cocaine and salt in and out of China through the city’s port. Accordingly, my parents’ lifestyle came at a price, as their home was modified with high walls and manned gates. Worst of all, they were always accompanied by bodyguards to protect them from thieves and kidnappers seeking young women to put into prostitution and children for the slave labor market.”

  I shook my head at the thought of such turbulence in any child’s life.

  “From the ease and comfort of today, there is no way I can fully describe the growing turmoil in the land of my birth. My few words are a gross oversimplification of the complex political, social and economic issues involved in the high stake chess game in which Jiǎng Jièshí tried to unite the country. When the Generalissimo embarked on his Great Northern Expedition in 1926, our parents avidly followed the National Revolutionary Army’s efforts to eradicate warlords backed by the encroaching Japanese Army.

  “This was but one aspect of the confusing milieu. Sadly, in 1927, the same year as the release of Lustrous Pearls, our city became the springboard for the Generalissimo’s purge of communists from the Nationalist Party and all of the government. Known as the Massacre of Shànghăi, the war between these factions continued until 1949 when the government of the Republic of China was forced to retreat fully to the island of Taiwan.

  “As I have said, Generalissimo Jiǎng Jièshí faced many challenges in the years before then. Making the most of his preoccupation with warlords, communists and other internal problems, the Japanese Imperial Army successfully spread their sphere of influence forcing the Nationalist Army to withdraw from Jǐnán in the Shāndōng Province in 1928.