The next day I find out why Zhang in such a hurry for the trousers. We have to go to a banquet. So when the tailor come in the yard with one pair for each of us, Zhang relieved. And he tell us to go get dressed. When Xiuquan ready Zhang tell him to run up to Barry Street and fetch two buggies and when he come back we leave with Ma wearing a traditional cheongsam in deep red with white plum blossom, and Zhang dressed in a dark blue Zhongshan suit, with its turndown collar and four symmetrically placed pockets, named after Dr Sun Yat-sen and now the army uniform for Mao Zedong.
The place they have the banquet got a big room with wooden tables and benches and a veranda all the way ’round outside. And then it got that same thing again upstairs. The stairs go up straight out of the middle of the room. Every inch of this place is packed so I reckon the whole of Chinatown must be here. Mr Chin at the door to welcome us and escort us to his family table where Madame Chin sitting with their three daughters and two sons and one daughter-in-law and one son-in-law and the children. Everybody bow and happy to see us.
All ’round the corners of the room there is big barrels full of rice, and a lid to keep it warm. So when you need to you can just go up there and fill up your bowl. The meat and vegetables come on a big wooden tray that it take two people to carry and they unload it all on to the table because that is the food for our family. There is everything. Just like home. Preserved salted fish and pork; char siu, roast pork, roast duck and white cut chicken; duck gizzard and beef stew; ginger lobster, steam fish, boiled shrimp, stir-fry vegetables, choi sum, pak choi, steam eggs, wanton noodles. And we just eat, in the noise and the heat, and with the little ceiling fans whirling round and round.
All the time we eating I see them moving a little wicker basket from one table to the next. All ’round downstairs, and out on to the veranda and then someone take it upstairs. And a long time after when they bring it back down they go in the yard with it. Then after that they come back inside and bring it to Mr Chin.
Mr Chin stand up and Zhang stand up, and Mr Chin give the basket to Zhang and they bow. And then Zhang turn ’round and he bow to Ma and I think to myself well this thing getting on like a wedding banquet. So I don’t understand what is happening, except I know for sure that the basket full of money.
After the dinner over, Madame Chin get out a basket with four shut pans and give it to Ma so that she can take home some of the leftover food.
Two days later when Zhang think we well enough rested him say, ‘You boys save from death. You come make new life. Time you turn your hand to something.’ And him walk towards the gate expecting us to follow. He open the gate and stop, and turn to us and say, ‘The Jamaicans angry. They causing a stink because of bad wages and unemployment, so you boys mind how you act. They don’t need no aggravation from you.’ And we step into the lane and the dry morning heat together.
We walk up Matthews Lane till we get to Barry Street, where Zhang know every man and woman in sight, every shopkeeper and market trader. People in grocery stores, laundries, hardware stores, bakeries, dry goods; people who happy to see him; people who just stand up on the street and talk to him and smile and bow their heads.
We visit every shop, and from every one Zhang collect a small brown paper bag, with smiles and bowing heads; and wishes for him to have good health and a long life. Shopkeepers offer ‘Perhaps a small gift for your young charges?’ but Zhang refuse and bow his head in respect. This is how we travel the length and breadth of Chinatown.
Afterwards, Zhang say we must go get something to eat. So we go down a little alley off Barry Street and open a gate into a yard with a lot of Chinamen just standing there, and we go up a couple of wooden steps on to a narrow veranda and open a door where this big room is full of men playing mah-jongg, and shuffling the tiles and making a racket. We walk ’cross the room and Zhang open another door, and that is when the smell hit me. This heavy, sweet, pungent smell.
The room big like the mah-jongg room, and it got a lot of platforms that them laying on with the wooden pillow under their head. There is Chinese men and white men as well. Well-dressed white men, some of them even in the Queen’s uniform. And the little lamps is burning, and they laying on their side with the long pipe puffing over it. Or they just laying there on their back with their eyes wide open. I hear plenty of stories about opium but I never actually see anybody smoking it before. And what I notice is how all of the smokers look half dead and sweaty, and how the men preparing the pipes and serving the tea wearing the changshan that Zhang don’t like, and how quiet the place is. Quiet.
Then we go through into the next room and that is where they got the food. Wooden tables and benches, and steaming rice and a red-hot wok, and steamed pork buns and pickled cabbage. And a open window looking out on to the back of the yard with a wooden shutter prop up with a long piece of old wood. And catching that bit of air is nice because the other two rooms don’t have no windows.
After we finish eating and walking back to Matthews Lane I notice how Zhang look sorta proud the way him coming through Chinatown, puffing out his chest and holding his head high. He say, ‘Back in old days the Negroes steal and burn and loot Chinese shops. But things get better. Chinatown get safe and happy.’
After that it was just one thing after another. Do this, do that. Go here, go there. Ma do this, Xiuquan do that. Me run and fetch, help this man, collect from that shop. It was like Zhang was settling everybody into their place. Fixing them into their routine.
Every day, except Sunday, Ma make saltfish fritters with the help of a girl named Tilly. Then Tilly take the fritters for sale in Chinatown. Later she come back, and she and Ma pick duck feathers to make pillows to sell.
Zhang teach us tai chi although Xiuquan already know some from our father. We do it every morning. From the beginning – Grasp Bird’s Tail, White Stork Cools Its Wings, Brush Knee and Twist Step, Carry Tiger to Mountain. To the end – Shoot Tiger with Bow, Strike, Parry, Punch, Apparent Close-up and Conclusion.
Zhang tell us ’bout Sun Tzu and how more than two thousand years ago he formulate a strategy to plan and conduct military operations. And how Mao Zedong still take lessons from Sun Tzu’s writing, and how important it is for us to learn the ‘Art of War’.
Every evening after dinner, Zhang teach us English.
And what we have to do is just help him. Just help Zhang look after Chinatown.
Then one day I doing my chores and meet pushcart boy. I recognise him from that first day when we land. Him follow me all up Barry Street, every stop I make. I go in the shop, him there. I come out, him there, leaning up against some post, or examining piece of old wood, or just kicking the dirt with his hands in him pocket. Not look at me. But I know is me him waiting for. I help Mr Chin and Mr Chung and Mr Lee. I shift barrels, sweep floors, collect Zhang’s pai-ke-p’iao gambling money, but no matter how long I in the shop when I come out pushcart boy still there. In the end I can’t take it no more so I go up to him and say, ‘You following me, bwoy?’
Him look surprise. ‘Me, sah? No, sah.’
‘Yes, you follow me. You come all up Barry Street. I think you go all ’round Orange Street and back again.’ I wave my arm in the air pointing in the direction we been walking all morning. ‘You think you going follow me all day?’