Gold Mountain Blues

by Ling Zhang

  In no time at all, the weather cooled down. Victoria was on the coast so the days cooled gradually, starting from either end: morning and evening. At first, the middle of the day was as warm as before, but slowly, the middle was swallowed up as the cool of morning, and evening lasted longer and longer, until the days turned really cold.

  Ah-Fat had brought only unlined trousers with him and when he went outside into the wind, they felt as thin as paper. It was only by reaching down and pinching the material that he knew he was wearing trousers at all. Red Hair hunted out a ragged cotton jacket full of holes, tore it into strips and, with a thick needle, sewed the pieces into lengths. He showed Ah-Fat how to wrap them round his legs and feet, starting from the tips of his toes right up to his knees. When he got up in the morning, he wound the cloths round and round his legs, and when he went to bed at night, he unwound them. They smelt foul, like the cloths his mother, Mrs. Mak, used to bind her feet, but at least they kept him warm.

  Although the days were unbearably cold, Ah-Fat longed for them to get even colder. During the summer, he and Red Hair, together with a score of fellow villagers, had spent a few months clearing a patch of land for the owner. It was several dozen acres of wasteland and they chopped down the trees, cleared the undergrowth and levelled it, in preparation for the following year when a factory would be built on it. There was a mountainous pile of chopped-down timber which the owner could not be bothered to move off the site. He gave it all to the labourers, who made it into charcoal, bundled it up into sacks and went door-to-door selling it. No one wanted to buy it when the weather was hot, so they waited until it grew cold and they could get a good price for it. Ah-Fat sent home every cent of his earnings from this job, keeping back only money for his rent and food. His mother was waiting for the money to redeem their home. The mortgage term was one year, and Ah-Fat’s money would have to grow legs and race back to make the deadline. Much later, when that was done, he wanted them to buy a field, but just now Ah-Fat did not dare to think of it. Just now, all he wanted was for his mother to have a roof over her head.

  By day Ah-Fat went out to sell charcoal, and in the evening he returned to sleep at the Tsun Sing General Store on Cormorant Street. The people who lived on Cormorant Street were all Chinese, and the store was owned by a man called Kwan Tsun Sing from Chek Ham. Ah-Sing, as everyone called him, had two shacks, one behind the other. In the front one, he sold general goods, and in the rear, he had erected two long bed planks which he rented out to twelve people. Each bed plank was five feet wide, and would just fit six sleepers if they pulled their legs in and slept one against the other crossways. If one slept too soundly and stretched out straight in his sleep, his feet would dangle over the edge. If two people stretched out at the same time, then all hell would break loose. One morning, Ah-Fat awoke to find himself sleeping on the floor, squeezed off the bed by the others.

  Ah-Fat and Red Hair had now been living at Ah-Sing’s store for six months. The rent, which included bed and board, was ten dollars a month. Ah-Fat only earned twenty dollars a month, and hated to spend so much. After asking around discreetly, he discovered this was the lowest rent in Chinatown, so he had to put up with it.

  That evening, Ah-Fat sold all his charcoal and limped back in through the door later than usual. The cloth shoes he had brought with him had long since worn through. He stuffed them with two layers of oilcloth and bound his feet with the strips. This made the shoes tight so that they rubbed his feet sore. Everyone had already eaten; a bowl of rice gruel, a strip of salted fish and two chicken claws were left in the pan for him. Ah-Fat pulled off his shoes, sat down on the bed plank, got the gruel and drank it down. Then he started to unwind the foot cloths, but the sores had formed scabs which stuck to them. He jerked them free and found his feet covered in blood.

  Ah-Sing came over with a basin of warm water and told Ah-Fat to wash his feet. He immersed them in the water, frowning with a sharp intake of breath as he did so. Ah-Sing said the leather shoes made by the Redskins were really good. “They’re lighter than a fart, with a helluva nice fur lining, warm as a charcoal burner, and they won’t wear out in a hundred years. You should barter a bag of charcoal for a pair. Otherwise, your feet won’t last a Gold Mountain winter.” Ah-Fat started to work out in his head how much a bag of charcoal would sell for, but did not say anything.

  A dark mass of men were crammed onto the bed planks, some picking their teeth, some rubbing at the skin of their feet, others smoking. Only Red Hair lay in a corner, head pillowed on a broken Chinese fiddle, gazing vacantly at the ceiling. In the summer, after their arrival in port, Red Hair had been to the North to find out about gold panning. He was told that even in the North, the gold was exhausted. The sandy debris had been panned two or three times too. In the end, he turned round and returned to Victoria. On the way, he found the Chinese fiddle, which became a treasured possession. Every now and then he would pick out some Cantonese melodies to relieve the boredom.

  The men began to tease him: “You know they say you were gold panning with a man in Cariboo when you found a gold nugget as big as a man’s fist. You hid it in the crotch of your trousers, and made off with it the same night. Is that true?” “Motherfuckers!” Red Hair swore at them. “Do you think I’d still be living in this damned room of Ah-Sing’s if I had nugget as big as a fist?” “Then how did you pay for such a fancy wedding feast?” they asked him. “You had over a hundred chickens slaughtered, and that was just for starters, so we heard.” “I scrimped and saved for ten years and more,” said Red Hair. “Why shouldn’t I kill a few chickens?” But no one believed him. They crowded around and tried to pull his trousers off, shouting: “Lets see if there’s a gold nugget in your crotch!” Red Hair flailed and shoved until he finally fought his way out. He stood up, holding his trousers up and said: “Ah-Fat, write a letter for me to my old woman. She’ll run off with another man if I don’t write.”

  The oil lamp was hurriedly twiddled so it gave more light. Someone ground ink in the ink stone, spread out the paper, chose a quill and handed it to Ah-Fat. Of all the men in the room, only Ah-Fat had done a year or two in a tutor school and could write a few characters, so writing everyone’s letters home fell to him. Ah-Fat took the pen, smoothed the tip to a point on the ink stone and waited for Red Hair to speak. Red Hair clutched his head and scratched his cheeks for a long time, and finally said: “Are Mum and young Loon both well?” There was an uproar in the room, and shouts of “Rubbish! You should ask your old lady if she’s all right! We all know she’s the one you miss.” But Red Hair just told Ah-Fat to get on and write, and ignored them.

  “Did you get the bank draft for twenty dollars I sent with Uncle Kwan Kow from Bak Chuen village?” he continued. But before Ah-Fat had put pen to paper, Red Hair started to swear: “Fuck it, you received it and you didn’t write me a word in reply. You’re so lazy, you’ve got maggots growing under your feet.” “Is that what you want me to write?” asked Ah-Fat. “Yes! That’s what I want you to write!” Ah-Fat smiled: “You finish talking, and then I’ll write it all down at once, so you don’t change it later.”

  Red Hair thought a bit more and finally continued: “‘I’m still living at Ah-Sing’s house, and I haven’t been ill. Next time I send a dollar draft back to you, look after it carefully. The streets of Gold Mountain are full of “piglets.” There are too many people and too little work, and when the winter snows come, there’s fuck-all to do. You look after Mum and young Loon at home. And don’t let your sister Six Fingers slack off. Send her out to do lots of work.’”

  Ah-Fat laughed at this. “How big’s Six Fingers then? You’re not telling me a child of three can do real work!” “Pah!” Red Hair snorted: “When I was three, I used to go with my dad to catch loaches. Write this for me too, ‘Before I left, Wet Eyes from Bak Chuen village came and borrowed three measures of rice grain. Get a move on and press him to repay it. But he’s a loser with fuck-all to his name, so if you really press him and he doesn’t repay,
then wait a bit. That way he won’t go throwing himself in the river or hanging himself. And for Mum’s back pain, there’s a good decoction that’s made in Gold Mountain. Next time someone goes home, they can take some. Brew it up for Mum.’”

  “Finished?” asked Ah-Fat. “Yes, yes, I’ve finished!” So Ah-Fat wrote out the letter:

  Dear Suk Dak:

  I hope that you have no worries at home, and that all the family are at peace. I think of you a great deal. I assume you received the twenty silver dollars which Uncle Kwan Kow from Bak Chuen village took with him for you the last time he returned. I am still living at the same address as before, at ease in body and soul, so do not worry about me. The weather is gradually getting colder and it is not easy to find work, so I hope you are making careful plans for the dollars I send and spending as little as possible. Please take all possible care to look after Mum, our son Loon and Six Fingers. You do not need to press for repayment of the three measures of rice grain owed by Wet Eyes’ family in Bak Chuen village. I have found an excellent prescription for Mum’s back pain and will send some with someone in a few days. I send you my best wishes for a peaceful winter,

  Your husband, Red Hair, the nineteenth day of the first month, 1880, Victoria, Canada

  Ah-Fat finished writing, sealed the letter and threw down the pen. He put his hand to his mouth and gave an enormous yawn. The storekeeper, Ah-Sing, brought him some tea. “Drink a nice bowl of tea, Ah-Fat,” he said. “And use the rest of the ink to write a letter for me too. It’s been two months since I got my old mum’s letter, and I haven’t replied.” But Ah-Fat flung himself dejectedly down on the bed board without taking off his clothes. “Ask me another day,” he said. “I’m sleepy.” Red Hair swore at the boy as he gathered up the ink stone, quill and paper. “You think you can put on airs just because you know a few characters!” But before the words were out of his mouth, Ah-Fat was asleep and snoring. They all sighed. They were not surprised he was tired: he had left at five o’clock in the morning and had only just got back. He had not yet bought a pair of shoes and the sores on his feet were so deep, you could see the bone through them.

  The oil lamp was extinguished and the men lay down. But they could not sleep, and a desultory conversation started up. Someone said that a few days ago a kwai mui, a young White woman, had gone into the opium den at one end of Fan Tan Alley, the street of gambling dens. She was dressed in black, with a black hat and black skirt, and was such a fine-looking woman that she gave the owner a real scare. He had no idea how to address her and could scarcely get a word out. To his surprise, she knew exactly what she was doing. She lay down on the smokers’ couch and, without waiting for anyone to attend her, faced the opium lamp, held the pipe in the palm of one hand and the bodkin in the other, let the opium bubble up, scooped it into a wad, plunged it into the eyehole in the pipe bowl and, when she had finished smoking, rose and left. She came again the next day too. It went on day after day: she came at the same time, smoked a pipe and left. Apparently, a reporter went with her and wrote an article as big as a window and published it in a Gold Mountain English-language newspaper. The men tutted in astonishment: “Find out what time she goes and we’ll go and watch how this kwai mui does it.” Then someone else said Ah-Chow from the lodging house had told him that young Chung’s case had come to court. He had been sentenced to a month in jail and fined thirty dollars. Any Chinese who went to jail had their pigtails cut off but Chung had clung to the pillars outside the courtroom and refused to go at any price. One of his teeth had even been knocked out. Young Chung was from San Wui, and sold tobacco, candies and melon seeds in front of the tea house in Fan Tan Alley. One day, he let off a firecracker and a horse belonging to a yeung fan reared and went down in the street. Chung was taken to court.

  They all sighed. “Does the Emperor of China know how badly we’re being treated?” said one. “What the hell use would it be if he did know?” someone else responded. “Chinese law has nothing to do with Gold Mountain law. Besides, even if he did know, and leapt on his horse and took a ship, it would take him months to get to Gold Mountain. And young Chung will have had his pigtails cut off long before that. He can’t wait till the Emperor arrives, can he?” “I heard from Ah-Chow,” said Red Hair, “that Imperial Minister Li Hongzhang asked some smartass to make something called a telegram, which only took a few hours to get from the Empire of China to Gold Mountain.” “Did it have long legs or long wings? How did it fly faster than a bird?” they asked. “You dickheads,” said Red Hair. “A telegram goes faster than dozens of birds added together.” There was a chuckle from Ah-Fat in the darkness. “Hey, Ah-Fat, weren’t you asleep?” the men shouted. “What are you laughing at?” Ah-Fat fell silent.

  Red Hair sighed: “If only my old lady could ride over on a telegram.” Of all the men in the room, only Red Hair was newly married. The men began to tease him. “So you’re thinking about that, are you? Last time you went home, how many times a day did you do it with your old lady?” Red Hair just laughed loudly. When they pressed him, he said he never counted, he just did it when he felt like it. “I go all these years without it, why shouldn’t I make up for it?” The men grew more interested. “Is she bony or plump and fleshy?” they asked. “Fuck,” said Red Hair, “she doesn’t have much bone or flesh, but there’s plenty of juice!” There were shouts of laughter. Suddenly, Ah-Lam, who was lying next to Ah-Fat, shouted: “Hey, Ah-Fat, you little shit! You’re sticking me so hard up the back, it hurts!” There was more uproarious laughter.

  Red Hair banged the bed plank and shouted, “Go to sleep! It looks like there’ll be snow tomorrow morning. If we get up early, we can sell a lot of charcoal.” The men gradually grew quiet. Some time later, Red Hair could be heard turning over. “We’ll all contribute to one bag of charcoal,” he said, “and exchange it with the Redskins for a pair of shoes for Ah-Fat. We always used to give eggs and sesame pancakes to the man who taught our kids and wrote the Chinese New Year couplets for us, didn’t we?”

  There was silent agreement.

  Ah-Fat opened his eyes wide and stared into the darkness. After a long time, he could make out breaks in the gloom. Actually, he already knew these breaks well. For instance, in one corner there was a yellow glow, where a rat had gnawed its way in to steal rice. The pale area at the window was where there was a hole in the sheet which they used to block out the light. From the cracks of light he guessed there must be a full moon and he had a good idea just how cold it was too. It was his first winter in Gold Mountain and he did not know how long it would last. He only knew that the river had frozen over and the road to the mountains was impassable. There was no fishing to be done, crops to be planted or goods to be carried. That mountainous pile of charcoal had gone down considerably and if the weather went on like this for another couple of weeks, it would all be sold. How would they get work after that?

  He had asked Red Hair. “You young devil, you’re a worrywart. All you have to do is tag along with me. There’s always a way to make a living.” But Ah-Fat knew that this time even Red Hair was stumped. That morning he had seen him take something out of the bottom of his shoe. It was a fifteendollar draft that he was about to send home, but then he put it back again. Red Hair was leaving himself a way out.

  Ah-Fat had no way out. Behind Ah-Fat stood his mother, with her swollen, inflamed eyes. Those eyes gnawed away, wolf-like, at Ah-Fat’s calves. Ah-Fat just had to shut his eyes, gather his strength and run forward.

  Ah-Fat was running for his life.

  Gradually, over recent years, Vancouver’s Chinatown had shown signs of growing, across Cormorant Street, and over Douglas Street and Store Street. These were now lined with Chinese-owned stores and lodgings. There was even a scattering of Chinese living in Fisgard Street, a little to the north. Streets only in name, they were actually dirt roads with no sidewalks or gutters. In fact, even calling them dirt roads was doing them a favour because they were very narrow. In the narrowest places, the storekeepers displaye
d their goods in baskets which they pushed six inches or a foot into the street. Then they sat on a stool at the front of their stall. If someone living on the other side of the street happened to come out of their house, the storekeeper could stretch out an arm and grasp a cigarette passed to him by the other. They could exchange all the gossip of Chinatown across the “street” without ever needing to raise their voices.

  Chinatown was in the lowlying part of Victoria. If you thought of the city as a giant bowl, then Chinatown was the hollow at the bottom. Whenever it rained, all of the city’s water collected and ran into it. Even clean water went black as it swept down into the muddy bottom.

  The dirt roads were flanked by densely packed houses made of thin boards nailed together. Most were of one storey, although here and there were two-storey buildings, but they all looked like workmen’s huts, with gaps of varying widths between the wooden boards. The muddy rainwater leaked in through the doors and wall cracks, adding a layer of black grime to the inner walls and the bed legs, so the men inside had to take off their shoes, roll up their trousers and go barefoot. In just a few steps their legs would be black too. When the sun shone outside and the water retreated, a layer of silt remained in the houses. Of course, this was not pure mud. It was usually mixed with vegetable leaves, fishbones, eggshells, old shoe uppers and sometimes dead rats. This rich mixture stuck to the bottom of the men’s shoes, and was trodden from one room to another and from one street to another, until the whole of Chinatown was impregnated with its rich colour and smell.