A Letter from the West about the Past

Sonia,

I’m saddened to hear the news of your father’s passing.

Your father was a good man. I will miss him. Although I didn’t get to talk to him the other day, I’m glad that I was able to see a glimpse of him via the computer video.

From as far as I can remember, your father was with my family. I don’t know how I come into possession of it but I have one very old photo of him taken on the roof of the building (at Cheung Sha Wan Rd.) where I and my brothers and sisters grew up as children. In the photo was your father, my older sister, older brother, Memfus and I. Memfus was sitting in a tricycle and your father was squatting down with one hand on my shoulder and the other on the tricycle. I was probably 4 years old. He was a handsome young man probably in his mid-20s. He was like an older brother or a young uncle to me. We’ve always addressed him as brother Chiu.

When I was young, my family used to have outings at certain festivals…not very often as the factory stayed open nearly every day of the year. I do remember that for Dragon Boat Festival we used to go to some fishing village in NT to watch dragon boat races and have hot spicy sea food (clams, shrimps, crabs, etc.); it was an all-day affair. Your father was a good swimmer and he would always have a good time swimming during these outings. As a young boy, naturally I was very impressed by that.

He was a very good fisherman as well. On many occasions, he would take me and Memfus fishing and show us how to tie hooks and all the little intricacies with fishing. I remember that he would always catch fish. In those days, my father was always too busy with his business and had little play time for us so I was fortunate to have your father to fill in some of these gaps. From what I learned from your father about fishing, I’ve taught my sons how to fish when they were young. As I mentioned before, your father introduced me to swimming: how to tread water, swim on my back, on my side, etc. I don’t know how he learned to swim but he was very good at it.

He loved the outdoors and nature. At one time, he kept quite a large number of pigeons (20 to 30) on the roof at Apliu Street. He was very good at it: he built a nice cage for them with little partitions for them to lay eggs and so on. He would feed them, wash and clean the cage, let pigeons out every day. It was fascinating and a never ending source of entertainment for us children watching these pigeons. On top of that, we would have pigeons for dinner every now and then.

There are a few other things about your father that came to mind: he was from a different part of Kwangtung province, therefore, he used to speak Cantonese with a funny and cute accent though I think he had probably lost most of his accent over the years. His craft was in making ivory balls and he was very good at that. I remember spending hours watching him work those ivory balls and make intricate layers out of a solid piece of ivory. He was also a very handy person and was good at figuring out how things work and how to fix things. He loved to tinker with electrical and mechanical things when he wasn’t working with ivory. Like most people in those days, he smoked but I don’t remember him as a heavy smoker.

He enjoyed alcohol every now and then but never drank irresponsibly. One could always tell when he had had alcohol because his face would turn red and he would be much more talkative. For a few years, my father used to hold a banquet on his birthday. It was really an occasion for the factory to get some time off and have some fun. I remember your father along with my uncle would get into some of those wild drinking contests…lots of laughs; we children would have a really good laugh about these silly grown adults.

He didn’t gamble much and he had absolutely no interest in mahjong at all, which was rather unusual as just about everyone played mahjong in those days. He would go home to mainland China every so often to visit his family. In those days, traveling to China was not a simple thing like today. I do remember that it was during one of these trips that your father got married and years later he brought your mother to Hong Kong.

I left Hong Kong in 1973 and was busy with my life so there’s a long time when I was really out of touch with your father. Although we have spoken on the phone a few times around Chinese New Year and he would fill me in what you and your sisters were up to. The last time I saw him was probably 5 years ago during one of my trips to Hong Kong. My mother, my older brother, Memfus and I had lunch with your father, my uncle and a few old family friends from the good o’days. I probably have some photos somewhere from that lunch.

Your father was a good man: hard-working, honest, loyal, cheerful, full of energy and had a good heart. I have very fond memories of him and I will miss him. You and your sisters should be very proud having him as a father.

Losing someone we love is indeed sad but it is a fact of life, the cycle of life. All we can do is to hold on to our memories of him and celebrate his life.

Please give my condolences to your mother and your sisters. (Sorry I didn’t write in Chinese as it would have probably taken me days to write in Chinese because I’m very out of practice.)

Barry