stores, and Chin paid my rent in Luke Lane so I had no need. But now I needed cash money for your passage. I also asked Chin to let me start up a little pai-ke-p’iao business. We Chinese like to gamble, so I thought I could make something there and he agreed.
‘Chin said to me, “You get woman and boys from China? Good. Time you married and have family.” So he was keen but he had the wrong idea, and I did not feel like I wanted to explain anything to him. I just wrote to Meiling and told her I would send the passage for the three of you to come to Jamaica.’
Next day I ask Ma why my father never reply to Zhang’s letter. She say, ‘He tried many times, but his tears soaked into the paper.’
After that I just do what Zhang tell me to do, and hope that maybe one day I become like him, a man that believe in something. A man that is loyal to a cause. A man that people can count on. Sun Tzu say, ‘ The wrong person cannot be appointed to command. This is like gluing the pegs of a lute and then trying to tune it .’
8
Confirmation of the Ground
The year after Xiuquan gone to America Zhang tell me he want to stop.
‘I have lost two Yangs. Yang Tzu to glory and the revolution and Yang Xiuquan to the Americans and their war. I am tired, Pao. This business is not for old men like me.’
I reckon he think it was a new era because in 1944 Jamaica get a new constitution giving us representative government and they decide to call a general election so everybody was running round excited to go vote for the first time. So maybe Zhang think it was my time as well. My time to come of age. I take over little bit by bit, so that by the time the war end in 1945, and they say I turn twenty-one, I had complete control of Chinatown. And that was when it hit me. That after all these years I wasn’t playing at this thing no more. I was responsible.
Next thing Miss Tilly get herself a man and she want Hampton to move outta the house. Zhang say it OK Hampton can come live at Matthews Lane, so he move into the room next to Zhang. And this is when I discover how come Hampton so big and strong because when him move in him bring a tiny little bag with his things and a whole heap a iron that he set up in the yard so that every day he is busy doing bench and curl, and clean and jerk.
But then Tilly say she want all the surplus move outta her outhouse as well, and even though we have the storeroom at Matthews Lane Zhang say he don’t want the surplus in the yard. So me and Hampton have to go find somewhere to put it.
We rent a shop in West Street. It is a dark, rundown wreck of a place but it cheap and it have a big, dry storeroom out the back. We got no intention of turning our hand to shopkeeping but we reckon with a little fix-up and a lick of paint we can make a nice office away from Matthews Lane.
The only problem is we have to put something on the shelves to make it at least look like we in business. So we have to go buy some things because the surplus we have in the storeroom we can’t put out on the shelf like that in broad daylight. Well that is OK but we don’t want to put out so much stuff so we actually start attract business, not that there is much likelihood of that in a place like West Street. So we balance it out. Every now and again we get a vagrant come by and we have to give him something to scram. The whole thing work out right in the end.
Now me and Hampton and the Judge down there most days eating oysters and drinking beer. We still have Zhang’s weekly pick-up ’round Chinatown, and his pai-ke-p’iao business, which is good because Chin and the Chinatown Committee not looking after us like the way they do with Zhang in the beginning. Chin say that was a long time ago and a different sort of arrangement. Now we have to make our own way. So we got Bill, and now we have a Chinaman at a chicken farm in Red Hills telling his boss the chickens weigh four pounds when they weigh six and doing all sort of
‘Chin said to me, “You get woman and boys from China? Good. Time you married and have family.” So he was keen but he had the wrong idea, and I did not feel like I wanted to explain anything to him. I just wrote to Meiling and told her I would send the passage for the three of you to come to Jamaica.’
Next day I ask Ma why my father never reply to Zhang’s letter. She say, ‘He tried many times, but his tears soaked into the paper.’
After that I just do what Zhang tell me to do, and hope that maybe one day I become like him, a man that believe in something. A man that is loyal to a cause. A man that people can count on. Sun Tzu say, ‘ The wrong person cannot be appointed to command. This is like gluing the pegs of a lute and then trying to tune it .’
8
Confirmation of the Ground
The year after Xiuquan gone to America Zhang tell me he want to stop.
‘I have lost two Yangs. Yang Tzu to glory and the revolution and Yang Xiuquan to the Americans and their war. I am tired, Pao. This business is not for old men like me.’
I reckon he think it was a new era because in 1944 Jamaica get a new constitution giving us representative government and they decide to call a general election so everybody was running round excited to go vote for the first time. So maybe Zhang think it was my time as well. My time to come of age. I take over little bit by bit, so that by the time the war end in 1945, and they say I turn twenty-one, I had complete control of Chinatown. And that was when it hit me. That after all these years I wasn’t playing at this thing no more. I was responsible.
Next thing Miss Tilly get herself a man and she want Hampton to move outta the house. Zhang say it OK Hampton can come live at Matthews Lane, so he move into the room next to Zhang. And this is when I discover how come Hampton so big and strong because when him move in him bring a tiny little bag with his things and a whole heap a iron that he set up in the yard so that every day he is busy doing bench and curl, and clean and jerk.
But then Tilly say she want all the surplus move outta her outhouse as well, and even though we have the storeroom at Matthews Lane Zhang say he don’t want the surplus in the yard. So me and Hampton have to go find somewhere to put it.
We rent a shop in West Street. It is a dark, rundown wreck of a place but it cheap and it have a big, dry storeroom out the back. We got no intention of turning our hand to shopkeeping but we reckon with a little fix-up and a lick of paint we can make a nice office away from Matthews Lane.
The only problem is we have to put something on the shelves to make it at least look like we in business. So we have to go buy some things because the surplus we have in the storeroom we can’t put out on the shelf like that in broad daylight. Well that is OK but we don’t want to put out so much stuff so we actually start attract business, not that there is much likelihood of that in a place like West Street. So we balance it out. Every now and again we get a vagrant come by and we have to give him something to scram. The whole thing work out right in the end.
Now me and Hampton and the Judge down there most days eating oysters and drinking beer. We still have Zhang’s weekly pick-up ’round Chinatown, and his pai-ke-p’iao business, which is good because Chin and the Chinatown Committee not looking after us like the way they do with Zhang in the beginning. Chin say that was a long time ago and a different sort of arrangement. Now we have to make our own way. So we got Bill, and now we have a Chinaman at a chicken farm in Red Hills telling his boss the chickens weigh four pounds when they weigh six and doing all sort of
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