Michener, James

by Hawaii

  She was therefore distressed when many people in the High Village began to whisper that headman Char had gotten into serious trouble and had run away. She could not believe that her father had the capacity to be evil, but sure enough, in due time, soldiers invaded the High Village and announced: "We are searching for the headman Char. He has joined the Taiping Rebellion, and if he dares to come back to the village, you must kill him." The men kicked Nyuk

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  Tsin's mother several times and one of them jabbed a gun into the girl's stomach, growling, "Your father is a murderer, and next time we come back it's you we're going to shoot."

  Nyuk Tsin was six that year, 1853, and she saw her father only once thereafter. Well, that is not entirely correct, but let us grant for the present that she saw him only once, for he did return to the High Village late one night and mysteriously. The first thing he did was embrace his skinny little girl and tell her, "Ah, Jade, your father has seen things he never dreamed of before. Horses of his ownl I captured an entire Punti city . . . not a village like that one down there. Jade, they all bowed as I came in. Low, girl. Like thisl" Later he embraced her as if she were his beloved and not his eight-year-old daughter, and he took her with him to watch his Hakka friends enlist in his great venture. Pointing at the frightened would-be soldiers, he said, "To begin with, all soldiers are afraid, Nyuk Tsin. Me? I trembled like a bird gathering seeds. But the important thing is to have loyalty in your heart. When General Lai tells me, 'General Char, occupy that city!' do you suppose I stop to question, 'Now what is General Lai up to?' No, indeed. I occupy the city, and if I have to kill fifty thousand enemy to do it, I kill them. Jade," he cried warmly in the mountain darkness, "we are headed far north. I may never see you again." He swept the quiet girl into his arms and held her close to him. "Take care of your mother," he said, and the men dashed down the mountainside after him.

  Nyuk Tsin did see her father again. In 1863, when she was a thin, extremely well-organized girl of sixteen, capable of bearing huge loads of wood and of caring for her mother and the rest of her family, General Wang of the imperial forces marched into the High Village and commanded his drummer to roll the drum a long time, so that all the villagers assembled. Then, with the aid of an interpreter, for such a general would never know how to speak Hakka, he ordered a herald bearing a black object to read an official announcement.

  The man kept the black object in his left hand, stepped forward and read in a high nasal voice: "The Taiping rebel chief named Char, who was captured at Nanking and brought under guard to Peking, having confessed that he was a fellow conspirator with Lai Siu Tsuen, who himself has falsely assumed the title of General of the North, was tried and put to death last month by being slowly cut into three hundred small pieces over a period of nine hours, according to just law, and his head was exposed at the city for three days as a warning to all."

  Having said this, the herald passed the decree to another, and with his free hand drew away the black covering, disclosing in a wire cage the head of General Char. Ants had gotten to it, and flies, so that the eyeballs were gone and the tongue, but the dedicated man's features were clear, and the head was fixed to a pole in the middle of the village, after which General Wang announced sternly: "This is what happens to traitorsl" Then he demanded: "Where is the

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  widow of the traitor Char?" The villagers refused to identify the wife of their great leader, but Nyuk Tsin's mother put her children aside and announced proudly, "I am his wife."

  "Shoot her," General Wang said, and she fell into the vilkge dust.

  Later the High Village remembered sardonically General Wang's platitudes about traitors, for it was hardly less than two weeks after his brave appearance in their vilkge that he studied the various opportunities confronting him and decided to become a traitor himself.

  The year 1864 was therefore a truly terrible one in the Golden Valley, for half the time General Wang was rampaging through the villages seeking loot, while during the other half government troops were in pursuit of the traitor. Wang, having discovered the High Vilkge, rarely passed it by, and in time even enlisted a good many Hakka into his band. This gave the government troops title to whatever they could find in the High Vilkge, and they often shot Hakka farmers for the fun of it. Nyuk Tsin, by virtue of not looking too pretty and of working long hours hauling wood to the lowknds, which made her seem much older than she was, escaped rape, but many of the other Hakka girls did not.

  At this time Nyuk Tsin was living meagerly in the home of her uncle, who, following the execution of her father and mother, was required by village custom to take her in. This uncle, a hard, unhappy one, reminded her constantly of two dismal facts: she was already seventeen years old and unmarried; and because she was her rebellious father's daughter the soldiers might at any time return to the High Vilkge and shoot both her and her uncle. These two conditions were cause enough for her uncle to cut down on her food rations and increase the bundle of wood she was required to lug down onto the plain.

  Nyuk Tsin was not married because of a most unfortunate event over which she had no control. Her horoscope, which had been carefully cast when envoys from a distant Hakka village came seeking wives for the Lai family, showed the thin girl to be doubly cursed: she was born under the influence of the horse and was therefore a headstrong, evil prospect as a wife; and she was clearly a husband-killer, so that only a foolish man would take her into his home. There were, of course, favorable aspects to her future, such as a promise of wealth and many descendants, and these might have encouraged an avaricious husband to discount the peril, except that her horoscope divulged an additional disgrace: she would die in a foreign land. Adding together her willfulness, her husband-killing propensity and her burial in alien soil, the Hakka of the High Vilkge knew that in Char Nyuk Tsin they had an unmarriageable girl, and after a while they stopped proposing her to visiting envoys.

  She therefore worked her life away in the near-starving village. She had two items of clothing: a dark-blue cotton smock and a pair of dirty cotton trousers to match. She also had a conical wicker

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  hat, which she tied under her chin with a length of blue cord, and big strong feet for climbing down to the valley with huge burdens of wood; as far as she could see into the future, this was going to be her life. And then, on the festive night before the holiday of Ching Ming, when the Low Village required extra firewood for the great celebrations that were in progress, Nyuk Tsin left the High Village at dusk and started down the steep trail. She had barely reached the plain when a group of four men sprang at her from behind rocks, scattered the wood, slipped a gag into her mouth, jammed a bag over her head, and kidnaped her. When day broke, and her uncle found that she had not returned, he uttered a brief prayer that something permanent had happened to her, and it had. She was never again seen in the High Village.

  It must not be assumed that during these troubled times the Punti fared any better than the Hakka. In fact, since the traitorous troops of General Wang disliked climbing mountains, there was a good deal more raping and kidnaping in the Low Village than in the High; but this was halted whenever the wild river went into its periodic flood and starvation threatened to wipe out the village completely.

  These were bad years, but they were terminated in early 1865 by the arrival in the Low Village of a man reputed to be fantastically rich, and within six weeks this amazing Punti had broken open the floodgates so that the river was diverted and the village spared, had bought off the traitor General Wang and then betrayed him to government forces, and had made the village not only secure but happy. The man who accomplished these miracles was a wiry, clever Punti, Kee Chun Fat, whose name meant Spring Prosperity and who had been born fifty-two years earlier right there in the Low Village. In 1846 he had emigrated to California, where he had worked in the gold fields, acquiring the eleven thousand dollars which made him, according to Low Village standards, one of the ric
hest men in the world.

  As he moved about the village, making many decisions regarding the extensive Kee family of which he was now the effective if not titular head, he wore a long pigtail, a black skullcap edged in blue satin, a gray silken coatlike garment that fell to his ankles and was tightly buttoned at the neck and heavy brocaded shoes. His lean frame kept him from making an imposing, patriarchal figure, but his evocation of energy made him the unquestioned dictator of the village. In California he had learned to read English but not Chinese, and he could figure percentages, so that as soon as he unpacked he started lending money to his relatives at forty per cent interest per year.

  When the Kee family asked admiringly, "How could a man like you, who is not a soldier at all, be so brave as to argue with General Wang?" he laughed slyly and explained, "When you've had to live by outsmarting Americans, it's very easy to manage a fool

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  like General Wang." Of course, this answer was meaningless to the Punti, so they said, "We still don't understand how you did it."

  Kee Chun Fat had an explanation for everything, so he replied, "In Peking a man is emperor, but I have found that in the world money is emperor."

  "Did you give General Wang money?" the villagers pressed.

  "I gave him enough to keep him hanging around," Uncle Chun Fat explained. "Then I told the government troops where he was, and promised them money if they would hang him, and they did."

  There was much discussion among the Kee family as to how Uncle Chun Fat had made his great fortune in America, and one had only to pose the question for the head of the family to explain: "America has gold fields where money is easily made. There are gangs of men laying telegraph wires, and money is easy there, too. But where do you suppose the money is easiest of all? Where they're building railroads. Tell me, do you think that I brought home with me only the money you have seen here in the Low Village? Oh no, my good friends! I made that much in the gold fields in one year. Washing for the miners. Cooking food. My real money is in an English bank in Hong Kong." And he produced a book to prove it but only he could read the writing.

  Uncle Chun Fat's stories of America were tantalizing. Once he said, "The best part of California is not the money but the women. A man can have three Indian wives and any number of Mexicans. But not at the same time." Young men with their lips watering asked more about this, but Uncle Chun Fat has already passed on to other matters. "What I would like to do," he explained to his assembled family, "is to restore the ancestral hall until it is known as the finest in China. We will do honor to our great ancestor, Prince Kee Tse of the Hsiang Dynasty, from whom we are sprung." As he said these words he recalled the illustrious prince who had invaded Korea nearly three thousand years before, and he told his clan, "It is strange to live in America, where most men do not even know who their grandfathers were. We shall make the name of Prince Kee renowned once more thoughout China." Chun Fat had an older brother who had never amounted to much; nevertheless this Kee Chun Kong was still nominal head of the family, and Chun Fat was careful not to usurp any of his moral prerogatives. But time was short, and in practical matters the energetic Califomian had to make one swift decision after another, for which he was forgiven in view of the fact that he was paying for everything. Therefore, as the yearly festival of Ching Ming approached, when honorable- men pay obeisance to their ancestors, he dispatched runners with this command: "All members of the Kee family shall return to the ancestral hall to celebrate Ching Ming." He then spent nearly a thousand dollars beautifying the low tile-roofed building which was the spiritual focus of the Kee ckn.

  One of his messengers traveled as far south as the evil little Portuguese city of Macao, across the bay from Hong Kong, and there

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  in the Brothel of Spring Nights he delivered his command to a handsome, sharp-eyed young man who cooked for the hrothel and helped in other ways. Kee Mun Ki was twenty-two at the time, a clever opportunist, with a brisk pigtail, quick gambler's hands and an ingratiating smile. His father, hoping that his son would mature into a solid, gifted scholar, had named him Pervading Foundation, but he had wandered from academic pursuits, finding himself skilled at luring young girls into the brothel and hi gambling with European sailors who frequented Macao. When the messenger from the Low Village arrived, young Mun Ki was in the midst of an impressive winning streak and showed no intention of leaving the Portuguese city. "Tell my father," he explained, "that this year I must miss the feast of Ching Ming. Ask him to offer prayers to our ancestors on my behalf."

  "It was not your father who sent for you," the runner explained.

  "Is he dead?" the young gambler asked in apprehension.

  "No, he's well."

  Relieved, Mun Ki asked, "Then who presumes to send for me?"

  "Your uncle, Chun Fat," the messenger explained.

  The young brothel assistant could not remember his uncle, who had left the Punti village when Mun Ki was only three, so again he dismissed the command. "I can't return this year," he explained. "Business is good here in Macao." He pointed to the freshly painted brothel and to the red dragons on the gambling hall nearby.

  Then the messenger delivered the striking news that was to modify the young pimp's fife. He said, "Uncle Chun Fat has come back to our village with several million American dollars."

  "He's rich?" the adroit young nephew asked.

  "He's very rich!" the messenger replied in an awe-filled voice.

  "We'd better leave at once," Mun Ki said forcefully. He went in to see the brothel keeper and reported, "My father summons me home to the Low Village." That sounded impressive.

  "Then you must go," piously replied the Punti who ran the house. 'Children must honor their parents. But if you find any extra girls in the village, bring them back. We can always use extra Punti.

  As Mun Ki and the messenger hiked along the river bank to their village, the soft airs of spring brushed over them, and they were deeply moved by the sight of rice fields just bursting into a limpid green; but when they came within sight of home, they saw the bright red paint that had been lavished on the ancestral hall, and Mun Ki whistled: "Oooooh, he must be very rich," and he hurried home to report to his uncle on the Eve of Ching Ming.

  Uncle Chun Fat was thoroughly impressed by his nephew, for he recognized in Mun Ki his own quick shrewdness. "How is work in the brothel?" he inquired.

  "Good," his nephew dutifully replied. "You can always steal a little something from the Europeans. But I make most of my money gambling with the sailors."

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  Uncle Chun Fat studied the boy's hands and said, "You ought to go to America."

  "Could I prosper there?"

  "Prosper! My dear nephew, any Punti who cannot make his way in America must be very stupid indeed." Encouraged by the boy's attentiveness, Chun Fat expatiated upon his favorite theme: "Ifs ridiculously easy to make a fortune in America if you remember two things. Americans understand absolutely nothing about Chinese, yet they have remarkably firm convictions about us, and to prosper you must never disappoint them. Unfortunately, their convictions are contrary, so that it is not always easy to be a Chinese."

  "I don't understand what you are saying," Kee Mun Ki interrupted.

  "You will in a moment," his uncle replied. "First, the Americans are convinced that all Chinese are very stupid, so you must seem to be stupid. Second, they are also convinced that we are very clever. So you must seem to be clever."

  "How can a man be stupid and clever at the same time?" the young pimp pleaded.

  "I didn't say you were to be stupid and clever. I said you had to seem to be."

  "How is that possible?" the handsome young gambler inquired.

  "I left America with forty-one thousand dollars in gold because I discovered the answer," Uncle Chun Fat gloated.

  "For example?" the student pressed.

  "Take the gold fields," the Californian began
. "For two years they watched me travel from camp to camp, observing everything. But they thought: 'He's a stupid Chinaman and he don't see anything.' And I will confess I did my best to look stupid. When I had learned as much as possible, I went into San Francisco . . . Mun Ki, when you do go to America, be sure to go to San Francisco. What a marvelous city! So much happening!"

  "Where did the clever part come, Uncle? the young man interrupted.

  Chun Fat liked the boy's attention to detail, and continued: "In San Francisco I went to all the newcomers and told them, 'I can tell you which land to buy,' and they always said to one another, "These Chinese are very clever. If anybody knows where the good land is, they do.' And I got rich."

  "Stupid and clever," the young man mused. "That's difficult."

  "Not necessarily," his uncle corrected. "You see, the Americans want to believe, so you don't have to work too hard. It's difficult only when you want to convince the same man, on the same day or even at the same instant, that you are both stupid and clever. Like on the railroad gang."

  "What happened there?" Mun Ki inquired.

  His uncle began to laugh heartily and said, "There was this big American boss. When you go to America, Mun Ki, never try to

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  be the boss, not even if they ask you to, which they won't, because you can always make more money by not being the boss. Well, anyway, if I wanted to run the restaurant for the gang, at my own prices, I had to get permission from this big American, and I simply could do nothing with him until on a certain day when he cried in desperation, 'You stupid goddamned Chinaman!' And then I knew things would pretty soon be going my way, because if you can get the boss to yell at you, 'You stupid goddamned Chinaman,' everything is going to be all right."