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cursing.
    The truck stopped and a voice shouted in Chinese, “Get in! Hurry!”
    Ping clambered on. It wasn’t until the truck reached the main road that he saw that Shek was driving.
    Ping gasped and his hands started trembling.
    â€œWhat do you want?” he asked.
    Shek braked and said quietly, “Little Brother, I promised our mother that I would watch out for you.”
    Then he opened the door, hopped out and vanished into the night.
    Ping took a deep breath and dropped his head onto the dashboard and wept bitterly. When he recovered, he drove into town without a word. He delivered his shipment of potatoes, took the money to the steamship agent and bought passage on the next ship to China. He landed in Hong Kong and then a ferry slowly took him up the muddy river to his village.
    On reaching home, he fell onto his knees before his mother and knocked his head against the floor.
    â€œMother, I have committed a terrible wrong,” he said in a pained voice. “I pushed Shek into the river when it was running high from the winter meltdown. I thought I was smarter than him, but he wouldn’t let me sell the land, not even when he was dead. And when angry farmers almost beat me to death, Shek’s spirit rescued me in the nick of time. He was a better man than me.”
    Ping expected his mother to be angry. Instead she leaned back and sighed.
    â€œWhat good sons I raised,” she said. “Shek looked out for his younger brother even in death, and you came back an honest man. Now I can die with a clear conscience.”

EIGHT Alone No Longer
    IN 1914, THE Year of the Tiger, a man named Ko made the most difficult decision of his young life. He said farewell to his sweetheart and journeyed alone to Canada. They had loved each other since their village childhoods, and he promised to return and marry her. In the meantime, his pocket held a photograph. It was black and white, but had been tinted to give her pink cheeks and red lips. They had exchanged studio portraits, and he imagined she studied his picture every day, the same way he worshiped hers.
    In Canada, he paid the head tax with borrowed funds, approached a Chinatown job broker, and landed in the kitchen of a downtown restaurant. Day after day, he peeled potatoes, carrots and beets. Week after week, his knife reduced bushels of onions and cabbage to thin slices. His hands grew chapped from cold water, but soon he learned to season roasts of meat, make savory gravies and bake lightweight cakes that could be iced and decorated. It took ten years to clear his debts, but Ko thoroughly mastered the Western kitchen.

    During this time, Canada changed its laws and banned Chinese from entering. Chinatown was furious, for no such rules applied to any other immigrants. But men such as Ko who had already paid the head tax could visit China and re-enter Canada if they had the proper documents.
    Finally, Ko shopped for thoughtful gifts, packed his bags and sailed home. His parents welcomed him joyfully, as did his sweetheart. Family and friends gathered to celebrate the wedding, for the devotion between Ko and his bride was well known.
    After the rounds of festivities, Ko gently explained that Canada would admit him but not her. She was surprised such cruel laws existed to keep families apart and begged him to stay behind. But he argued there was no future for him in China and promised to return as soon as enough money was saved.
    But when he went back to the restaurant where he worked, the doors were locked and newspapers covered the windows. Ko looked elsewhere for work, but jobs were scarce. So he took the train east through the mountains and into the prairies, where every small town had a café run by Chinese. He traveled throughout the three inland provinces, but no cafe owner would hire him.
    The prairies loomed like an ocean of land stretching flat to the edges of the earth. Ko felt small and afraid. There were few trees and no mountains to