"The Rose"

My most memorable encounter with Grandpa Wah Sun—my mother’s father—happened when I was in high school.  It was his homecoming.  At long last, after decades of separation from his wife and family, he was coming home.  We gathered at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport hours before his plane was scheduled to land, acting as if our early arrival at the airport would somehow hasten the reunion.  No wonder: the last time my grandmother saw her husband was before the Second World War, in the 1930s, when he had to return to the United States to resume his life as a merchant, leaving his wife and children behind in Hong Kong. 

It was by chance that my grandfather and his older brother (a son of the principal wife) enrolled at American universities instead of Hong Kong or Chinese universities.  According to family lore, my great grandfather summoned them to his study one day to ask them a question about the United States.  He was greatly disappointed when they professed ignorance, and decided on the spot to send his sons to the United States for further education.  My grandfather chose Columbia and his brother went to the University of Chicago, where he majored in economics and later became a banker in Hong Kong.  I never did ask my grandfather about his choice of university, but my hunch is that he was influenced by the fact that some of the key players in the nascent intellectual revolution in China were enrolled at Columbia.  Perhaps he had read their articles published around 1917 in the magazine New Youth, calling for a literary revolution in China.  Perhaps my grandfather thought that if he had to study in the United States, he would want to join the core group of radicals at Columbia.  Perhaps, perhaps . . .
I never asked my grandfather these questions because it did not occur to me to ask.  Growing up in Hong Kong, I did not know my grandfather.  Even after his homecoming, when I had the chance to see him at least once a week, at dim sum brunch on Sundays, our interaction was circumscribed by Chinese rules of propriety which discouraged me from asking him questions that were deemed too personal.  Perhaps if I had spent more time with him I might have defied convention and satisfied my curiosity; but before too long it was my turn to attend university in the United States and the opportunity to learn about his life in his own words eluded me when he passed away in 1975.

In 1975, I was a graduate student in Chinese history at the University of Hawaii.  The romantic in me wished that my grandfather had been able to answer his father’s question about the United States, because that meant that he could have participated in the May Fourth Movement, China’s “renaissance.”  This in turn meant that I would have personal access to first-hand accounts by one of the student activists.  (Of course my grandfather would have been one of the radical students.)  But he had to flub his father’s test, ended up at Columbia, and missed being a part of the historic May Fourth Movement. The romantic in me was sorely disappointed. 

In 1975, I did not know that I would be given a second chance to learn about my grandfather in his own words.  I was a graduate student enamored with the May Fourth Movement and more generally, the history of student activism in China.  So after my grandfather’s death I began asking questions about his student life in the United States, and was told for the first time that he majored in history, that after graduation he returned to Hong Kong to become a filmmaker, and that he owned his production company.  I was told that his creative venture failed and almost bankrupted him, and that was why he had to return to the United States, to rebuild his fortune.  So it was only after his death that I realized that he did not morph immediately from Columbia grad to restaurant owner in Newark, New Jersey. And it was only after his death that I was told about his manuscripts.  I automatically assumed that these would be poems written in the classical Chinese style, for I had seen him retreat to his bedroom to compose with brush and ink. The romantic in me was inspired to learn more about my grandfather’s inner life.

In 1999, I returned to Hong Kong for the first time in 20 years, and began my campaign to gain possession of the manuscripts.  The following year, I got my wish and brought the boxes back with me to Albany. 
My second most memorable encounter with my grandfather happened at my office in Albany, when I opened the first box of manuscripts. I stole a glance at my friend whom I had invited to be there with me to share the moment, and saw my astonishment reflected in her eyes.  This is what I found near the top of the box, written in long hand on legal size lined paper yellowed with age:

The Rose [link to copy]

A lady patron sent me a rose, a lone rose, in care of her friend.  I smiled at the rose beautiful and red, and in return I sent her two pieces of peanut candy also in care of her friend who was as lovely as the rose.  After a few days the lady came in and told me that the candy I sent was very sweet. "But the rose you sent me was much sweeter," I said, "Besides, the sweet fragrance of the rose still lingers in the air after the blossoms have withered."
         "You are poetic," she commented.
         "But one thing I regret."
         [“Hmm?”]
         "You sent me a lone rose," I smiled, "It makes me lonely too."
         "Is that why you sent me two pieces of candy?"she asked.
         "I don't know," I said.  "Two is even number, a symbol of good luck.  To be exact, it symbolizes companionship."
         She let her head hang low, her eyes smiling.  Our conversation was interrupted when I left her to greet the guests who had just arrived.
         Later, I asked myself why the lady sent me the rose that I understand is for love.  I had no thought that she would love me, of course.  I had no idea whether she asked herself why I sent her the candy, the sweet thing.  Harmless flirtation, I suppose.

I broke down even before I reached the last line.  Of course I had read articles about what life was like for Chinese men living in Chinatown, in what amounted to bachelor communities.  But these men were subjects for historical and ethnographic research, not my grandfather.  Of course I could imagine how lonely they must have been, living thousands of miles apart from their wives and children, but intellectualizing was not the same as feeling, and I did not feel acutely for them until I confronted my grandfather's pain.  The romantic in me was heartbroken.

My grandfather was a gentleman. This was my first and lasting impression of him.  It was formed the moment he stepped out of Immigration at Kai Tak Airport.  He was a tall and lean man, and his slick jet black hair was combed straight back. He was wearing a dark brown suit and a charcoal wool blend overcoat was draped over his right arm.  His right hand gripped the brim of his fedora.  A wooden walking cane was hooked over his left arm (as I recall). With his thick, square glasses, he looked more like a professor of Chinese literature than a retired restaurant manager.

My grandfather was a gentleman and a faithful husband.  He and grandmother had four daughters and one son, the son being the youngest.  This meant that the birth of each successive daughter brought increased pressure on him to acquire a concubine to produce a son, but he refused to do so.  Perhaps he had been deeply affected by the fate of his own mother, a concubine.  Among his papers I found this typewritten note [link to copy]:

Before I was born I did not know anything about myself.  After I was born and when I was a baby I did not know anything about myself either.  All I can say is what my mother said about me, "Son, when you were small you cried every night, and I had no way to calm you.  Your father and your big mother [the principal wife] could not sleep and I took the blame for not knowing how to care for you. I was mad but you were so innocent.  I couldn't punish you.  Yes, I did spank you many times because your father and your big mother thought I must have you trained.  And in the day time when I swaddled you on my back, working in the house you always made my clothes wet.  Your diapers were wet too.  I had to stop working; and your big mother said I was lazy and wanted to rest.  Surely, your father scolded me for that. Son, I want you to know it takes courage to live in your father’s house."

I am haunted by this note.  I am haunted by the thought of my grandfather typing this note in his room late at night, after working long hours at the restaurant.  Was there no one with whom he could share these feelings?  Did it ever cross his mind--however fleetingly--that the "lady patron" would be a sympathetic listener, a willing companion?  In "The Rose"--which I am convinced is a chapter from his memoir and not a short story--my grandfather raised but quickly ruled out the possibility that she might be in love with him, just as he dismissed the notion that his offering of two pieces of peanut candy could be more than "harmless flirtation." And yet, reading "The Rose," I could feel his yearning for companionship, and this made his fidelity to grandmother ever more poignant.  My grandfather was truly a gentleman.