Once a well-known fortune-teller, casting a horoscope for me said that my fortune was shaped like a bamboo. By that he meant that my fortune, good or bad, never runs smoothly for any great length of time. I never believed him because not only the facts of my past particularly belied his statement but, I thought, it was a generalization such as applicable to most people. For years I never consulted any prognosticator.
After the dust of the turmoil that ushered my entrance into Hongkong had settled down, I soon found myself in a most restless mood. I was living on the kindness of a relative and there was not any prospect of getting a job. One day when I was loitering along Nathan Road admiring the large display of wares and edibles in the show windows and calculating, not without soreness, the large quantity of goods I could have bought with the money that I had been forced to pay as ransom for my freedom, a stranger accosted me saying that he liked to tell my fortune for one dollar. The fellow spoke my own dialect and had the look of a scholar. Besides, he caught me just in that listless frame of mind when one, not knowing where to turn for counsel, is willing to try even the mysteries of the oracle,"I'll do better," I said, "let's have tea first." We went into a teahouse across the street.
After cups of tea and some bites, I asked him if fortune-telling had been his profession. He said it had been his hobby but, now as a refugee, it had become his avocation. "I do not consider myself a professional," he said, "because I do not solicit business from people to whom I have nothing important to tell." I was not impressed, as I thought he was trying to intensify the mystery angle by speaking as if he had been a harbinger of some high message and I, a man of destiny. After asking my age, date and hour of birth, and taking a look at my forehead, my nose and profile, he scribbled some characters on a paper and did some mathematical calculations. He recounted my past with uncanny accuracy: when my parents died, how many children I have, etc. "During the last three years," he said, "your luck has been running downhill but it has now reached rock-bottom since you have had trouble with the law." Not to encourage any elaboration on the last point, I asked him when my fortune would turn. "Within a month," said he with precision, "you will get what you have come to seek. But there will be other changes in store for you before the year runs out. Remember, your star is hitched to officialdom, not to business."
After I parted with him and the last fiver in my pocket, I went home to muse on his predictions. Strangely, those few remarks from a stranger had lifted me out of gloomy indolence, like a wonderful tonic that suddenly cleared away the stupor beclouding my mind. I felt I could regain the self-confidence as well as the initiative energy that had slipped from me but that, I knew, was badly needed to push me out of the gutter. From the following day I started to read the "positions vacant" columns with serious attention and went out to call on my friends. Failures no longer killed my good humor nor revived my former defeatist outlook. When I felt low in spirit, I always comforted myself by saying, "Be steady and patient, good luck is just around the corner."
And Fortune did smile on me before two weeks had passed.
When I was in Shanghai, I had a chance meeting with a Mr. Ling, who was a friend of a partner of mine when we were engaged in manufacturing electric switches. At our first meeting I could not place him exactly in the social stratum. He seemed to me a man of many contradicting parts. Short and thin, he was so pale that his skin was almost transparent so as to reveal every vein underneath. In spite of his delicate appearance he had very strong hands, very bright and engaging eyes and a set of square jaws befitting only a strong and determinate man. His voice was loud and the tone very decisive and he seemed to know many things on every topic. For instance, when we showed him our product he gave us a very succinct account of all the factories manufacturing the same thing in Shanghai and compared the merits of each. He evaluated our cost correctly and offered some expert advice on remodeling our mold to economize bakelite powder. After he left, my partner told me that he had worked for years with an American newspaper and had also engaged in various other lines of business in Shanghai.
I met him several times later and always thought that he was a Sherlock Holmes in miniature as he seemed so well-informed and his reasoning were so exasperatingly infallible. His gossips on people in public eyes were original and of the sort that might be called "inside stuff." He never mentioned anything about himself and, in telling some events when he got near to his own part in them, he always skipped the part by saying, "That's not important."
He had come to Hongkong before I did. One morning at the ferry someone touched me on the shoulder, saying, "So you have come out." Turning round with a start, I was happily surprised to see him. We crossed the sea together and went to his friend's office, where he made me comfortable as if he had been its owner. He told me that he knew all about my case up to deportation and asked me the amount of money that bought my freedom. "I did not try to give you a hand because that hand must hold more dollars than I have now." I asked him what he was doing in Hongkong. "Oh, nothing in particular, just looking round for money," said he with nonchalance.
A few days later he came to me in high spirits. Without any preliminary he said, "I have found a job for you which I advise you to take until we find something better." He told me that he knew a friend G., a manufacturer of carved furniture and boxes, who was doing big business with a US purchasing agency in Hongkong. "He is a queer fellow," said he. "He abandoned all his belongings before the Communists arrived in Shanghai and came to Hongkong with less than HK$50,000 in cash. I knew him the last time I came here when we both speculated on gold and lost our shirts. While I returned to Shanghai, he stuck here and, almost from nothing, has now reestablished himself in the manufacture of carved furniture and boxes through the help of some American officers he had known in Shanghai. Illiterate and speaking only pidgin English, he knows how to get along with the American boys and is now exporting his products, mostly to the US Army in Japan, to a yearly value of about half a million US dollars. I must warn you that he is a hard-driving and dirty-mouthed man but has an eye for real value. If you can hold you breath while he gives vent to his churlish temper, and show him that he is getting his money's worth out of you, there are plenty chances for gain by working for him I have recommended you to be his English secretary at a starting pay of HK$600 a month."
The following morning Ling accompanied me to call on G. at his factory. It was a big establishment but the equipment was rudimentary and the management slip-shod. There were more than a hundred men in the big yard, hewing, carving and assembling all with their hands and there was not a piece of machinery in sight. We went directly to the proprietor's office which was in a small nondescript room. G. was a young man in his middle thirties, very healthy and strong and handsome in his way with bright and unusually big eyes. He was sitting at his desk and did not bother to stand up when Ling introduced me. Motioning us to sit down, he said in his earthy Shanghai dialect, "This chap has told me all about you but I never believe anything he says. Let's try one week with no obligation on either side. One thing I have to tell you: I want a man who can not only write but should be able to look after this place when I am away and also do any kind of work that I can do. You can see that this ·is no place like a Custom House, not even a modern office; we have no office hours, no division of work, this is rather a family workshop. My last secretary once asked me to buy a new typewriter, but I told him to go to hell. If I can manufacture fine products with nothing more modern than chisels and knives, he should be able to produce readable typescripts with any sort of machine."
With this pleasant introduction, he asked me immediately to sit on the desk opposite him and handed me a bundle of "archives" and several letters that needed reply.
While I was engaged in looking through the letters, Ling chatted with him. I could see that they were quite familiar but neither had any respect for the other and the language both used was terrible. Ling not only smoked G's fine cigarettes like a furnace, but filled his own case to the full, while G. cursed and ridiculed him in. Incessantly. When later I was engaged as secretary, I always gave Ling lots of printing work, for which he charged exorbitant prices. G. always cursed him and ordered me not to give him any more business, which I, of course, completely ignored. Whenever Ling visited at dinner time he often cajoled G. to give us a treat, and at the restaurants appointed himself manager and ordered the best food and the most costly drinks, good-humoredly ignoring all the strong objections and dirty curses of the man who paid the bill. I could see that both enjoyed it as a sort of game.
The secretarial work was not difficult though onerous. My procedure was to explain to him the letter received, ask his opinion for a reply, type out the reply and read it to him before he would sign. Though he could read very little, he could understand the simple spoken words and I had to translate only longer words, which, for this reason, I avoided using as much as possible. The onerous part was that I had to type out a lot of packing and price lists on a machine that should have been junked long ago and those packing lists had to be prepared in a hurry to catch the numerous shipments. He was never aware that he was doing business with a foreign official agency, which demanded not only exactness but cleanliness in all records. When any complaints were received he always ascribed it to my inefficiency.
Besides the large number of workmen there were six other employees in my office. They all had their desks placed against the walls and sat with their backs towards G. As I sat there reading the letters, none of them took any notice of the three of us. Under their desk lights they all seemed busily engaged in their work. But as soon as G. and Ling went out, they threw up their hands and stood up like one man to speak with me. They were all younger than myself, between 25 and 40. The cashier, Hsu, was G.'s own younger brother; Zee, the stockkeeper was his relative; Huang was his apprentice who could do the work of everybody, though assigned to no particular job; Liu and his assistant Chen looked after the accounts; and Ku was a sort of draftsman and designer. None of them had received any high education and Liu and Chen did not understand a word of English. However, they all had big English names, such as Washington, William, Abraham etc. and were a happy, carefree lot living only for the present. Except Zee, who was living with a young girl as his concubine, all of them were bachelors. Every day they bragged about their conquests the night before which turned out to be nothing but gay ventures with cheap prostitutes. Though they were assigned to their work, G. never gave them any authority. They, on their part, always tried to conceal their work from him unless he took them to task. Their salaries ranged between $200 and $300. Since there was no definite date set for payment, the cashier who could advance or retain their salaries just as he pleased enjoyed his privilege of over lording them all.
During my first week I learned a lot about the factory and established a very cordial relationship with my colleagues. The business was truthfully a big one and the margin of profit was very substantial. Oftentimes the finished product was sold in US dollars for what it had cost in equivalent Hongkong currency. Having established his reputation with foreigners, G. was never afraid of competition. Whenever a customer hinted that a similar article could be bought at only half his price, he simply said the article did not bear his hallmark. More likely than not, the customer would return to pay his price with a sheepish what-else-can-I-do look. The main business was done with American armed forces in Japan, which placed big orders often amounting to six figures in US currency nearly every few months.
As I had practically no experience with the business world, I was at first rather puzzled by the way G. managed his business. There was apparently not one atom of system in his methods but he always turned out to be the gainer of much more profit than could have been realized if the factory had been managed in a modern style. The one principle that he guarded and followed relentlessly was to reduce his cost. As we became better acquainted I saw that the man was a rough diamond, who was not only unusually smart in doing business but had his own ways of doing things that were fundamentally sound though they might superficially seem crude. As the sole proprietor, he nearly decided on everything himself. He only asked for counsel on things that he could not understand but never sought any advice to make up a decision. His very manners of an unpolished Chinese countryman helped to idolize him as a real Chinaman and all his products as indigenous Chinese art in the eyes of foreign customers, not a few of whom were still pitifully obsessed with images of pigtails and bound feet. In dealings with his countrymen he also had the advantage of taking them off their guard by his sudden outbursts of business acumen after playing the guileless all along from the beginning.
One sample will suffice to show his ability. In Hongkong all business people acknowledge that the British and the Cantonese are tycoons with whom all others have to play ball according to their rules. When these two forces are joined, as in the case of big British firms, business transactions with them often become unconditional capitulations on the side of the other party. G. had been importing most of his teakwood through one of such British firms, which, more than once, had sold his cargo to other higher bidders when the spot price was better than his contract price. That not only delayed his wood supply but also caused confusion in his production schedule. His complaints were of no avail and it would be expensive to go to the law with such big enterprises. When I went with him to see the manager, he always played the meek suffering party and withdrew with a typical cheek-to-cheek wide grin that foreigners liked so much to see on a Chinaman's face. Meanwhile he asked me to solicit quotations directly from Thailand and when he had orders placed directly with them, he placed one additional big order with the local British firm. After the direct orders had arrived, he invited all the manufacturers of furniture and wood ware he knew and offered to sell them the wood at a price far lower than of the British firm and made contracts with them for future supplies. The British firm delivered the big order on time, but G. delayed the payment with no reasons given. At last the Cantonese comprador came to the factory and threatened a lawsuit. G. told him that he was not satisfied with the wood and asked the firm to appoint a public surveyor to arbitrate. When the comprador came with a British surveyor the following day, G. picked out one of his own workmen and we went with them to the yard where the lumber was stored. G. claimed that more than 60 % of the wood were cracked inside and, asking his workman to pick one piece as if at random, he had it sawed into small- pieces. There were damaging cracks just as he had said. With a grin he asked the comprador whether he would agree to saw all the rest in the same manner. "You can sell them as firewood, anyway", he said with innocence. That put the Cantonese in a dilemma and the surveyor in uncertainty. The comprador said that cracks were unavoidable in lumber. G. asked him where was the stipulation in the contract making such a provision. Taking a piece of paper out of his pocket, G. read him a long list of teakwood orders that he had placed with the firm during the past years side by side with statistics such imports into Hongkong. From the knowledge he had recently acquired through direct order he computed to him the amount of profit firm had realized. "I have been you; biggest teak customer but you have been treating me like a fool," he said with sudden outbursts anger. "I am now in the lumber importing business myself. You cannot compete with me because I have no overhead expenses. As to this you can take them back or sell them to me cost." As he had cornered most of the teak buyers, the firm had at last to give in according to his terms. Thus he succeeded in further reducing his cost, but I had more routine work heaped on my shoulders.
Besides raw materials, the other big outlay his production cost was naturally labor. The factory sometimes employed as many as 2 workmen, but of those only a small fraction were on the regular pay roster, the rest works on a job basis. G. was most in his element when dealing with his workmen. Nearly the skilled laborers came from the mainland either at his invitation or of their own volition owing to the untenable conditions over there. He kept them on regular pay but they received on sufficient to keep alive. Some of them who had been in his employ for years since Shanghai days were still slovenly and had not a cent of saving. The unskilled laborers were nearly all recruit locally. He paid them on a daily basis and had an overseer, who was responsible to him personally. As he knew and actually could do a part of the production work, none could deceive him. To the skilled laborers he always remind them what they would have become if he had got them out of the Communists' hands; as to the unskilled he always threatened that he could get any number of them in Hongkong.
There was no welfare plan of any sort either the staff or the laborers. There were scales of pay and increases of pay were unknown and unexpected. Whenever he took a fancy somebody he would take some money out of his own pocket and gave it to him in the nature of philanthropy. Everyone had therefore to find his own comforts and take as much rest as his work would allow him. Except for the staff, not even drinking water was provided; but he kept a medical box containing sterilized cotton and gauze to stop bleeding for those who cut their hands in their work. The lavatory was the most dirty and crude sort that I had ever seen in my life. But he himself used it every day.
During my first probation week I saw clearly that my boss was a hard and callous man to deal with. To make me his understudy as he had promised, he brought me with him both on his inspection rounds in the factory and on errands outside. He showed me how the furniture and boxes were made and assembled, how to pack the exports, how to deal with his customers, his bankers and the shippers. During those rounds I became more and more aware that he was really a very dexterous and capable man in manual work as well as in dealing with people. As a salesman he not only sold his wares but also his personality. When showing his products he would casually leave his burning cigarette on a teapot, which was varnished with fire-proof lacquer, and let his uninitiated customer discover in surprise that the smoldering tobacco did not leave any mark on the surface. He would as if by accident drop the solid but delicate-looking jewel boxes inlaid with artificial jade to the ground and, in his pidgin English, fabricate romantic stories about the human figures carved on the trunks to amuse the lady customers. Tourists who came in to pick up some souvenirs often went away with a full set of furniture and many a home-bound GI was convinced by him that, with the special duty-exemption treatment a GI enjoyed on return, he could get one set of furniture free by bringing home another set for resale.
As a businessman, a salesman and a slave driver, G., in my eyes, had few compeers; but he had no friends, and his employees, including his own brother, never had a good word for him at his back. Before my first week passed, I had learned from my colleagues what a mean and ruthless man he was and the way he had treated my predecessor, as told by them, was enough to scare me away. But as a refugee who had not sat at a desk for three long years, I was determined not to believe what I heard but to bear with tolerance and patience what I saw. I thought the trouble with G. was that he had too many and too sudden successes, the impact of which on his strong, willful but uneducated mind confirmed his selfish confidence without pruning his inferiority complex. The result was that he became belligerent and suspicious all the time and even if he had a kindly thought he would express it in an unkindly way. For instance, during the first few days when he noticed that my fingers were badly infected with ring worms, he brought me a tube of ointment and, throwing it on the desk, said, "This may improve your typing speed. If it doesn't cure, see my doctor." In a materialistic and cultureless society like Hongkong, where Nemesis is wedded to Mammon, men like him are lords of all they survey, whom the unfortunates like myself have to humor and endure like polluted air or bad weather, if they want to exist. A hazy idea began to form in my mind that if I was to better my lot-and incidentally the lot of other employees-this egotist must be made to see that there were boundaries in human relationship which could not be violated permanently without retribution. But how to bring about such a miracle, I had not yet the slightest notion.
Ten days passed before he talked to me about my appointment. For the first time, he spoke to me in his mild salesman tone. He told me he would give me HK$600 a month as pay and possibly 6 months bonus if the factory earned as much as he expected. He would sign no contract with me but, pointing to the other employees in the office, he said, "I have been keeping this useless bunch for years; so you need not be afraid that I may discharge you." All considered, the treatment he gave me was far better than most salary men could expect in Hongkong at the time. Besides the pay and the bonus, I had two free meals a day and, when going round on business with or for him, G. always paid the bills and allowed me to have the use of his car. The only drawbacks of the job, it appeared to me then, were that I had to stay and work in the factory from 9 to 9 on ordinary days and occasionally as late as midnight with no Sundays or holidays and that I had to put up with his peculiar habits and choleric temper.
After a month or so I became more used to my environment and also became wiser. I would go to office ten minutes before he was expected to arrive and leave it ten minutes after he left and sometimes would take time off during the long office hours to have a tea or see a movie when he was away. After the day was over, I often had a beer and supper with my friends or with my daughter. Life was beginning to look like that of good old days.
During the six months that I stayed with him, I can recall with satisfaction some affairs, in which my character helped him to spontaneously correct his own selfish outlook and made him see that people often reap as they have sown. Those matters all vitally concerned his personal fortune, so that the lessons they taught were readily intelligible to his mercenary mind. As I have said before, his main line of export was to the US military in Japan. To keep that business he had to observe certain official rules. Those rules he had signed to observe but he could not strictly stick to them for reason of profit. I was in custody of some original documents that could prove this offense and Ku had in his hand some papers of secondary importance. While I fully knew the importance of those documents, it never occurred to me that they could be used to completely wreck his business or used for my personal profit. Ku had different ideas. He took photostatic copies of some and secretly supplied them to one man in the local US purchasing office. The man talked to G. demanding a high price to forget the matter. Probably to press his demand, he succeeded in instigating an American officer to investigate at our office as a matter of formality. I sent the American away satisfied that all the rules were being followed and immediately advised G. to settle with Ku by paying him off with a year's salary on condition that he got the photos back. Ku agreed only when I told G. that his proofs were not conclusive evidence without mine. Later I told G. that Ku could have succeeded if I had cooperated with him and gently remonstrated with him to be more sincere and lenient in dealing with his employees thenceforward.
For the sake of personal ethics, I do not wish to retell the other incidents. Suffice it to say that from thence on he consulted with me more frequently and ceased to indulge in perennial ridicule of the value of education as a means to achieve worldly success. One happy result of his new confidence in my judgment was that I succeeded in overcoming his abhorrence of labor unions and persuading him, to support the formation of one in his own factory before the Communist agents in Hongkong could get hold of his workmen.
But my own life was not yet to be normal and regular as I thought it would be. The trouble I had with the police, who had detained me for one week for transgression of the immigration law, was not yet to end. One evening as I was riding on a bus, I had the misfortune to meet face to face with one policeman who recognized me immediately. This youthful policeman was on good terms with me; he advised me to be very careful of my movements and gave me word that he would not divulge my address. His assurances notwithstanding, the incident caused great worry in my mind. From the next day onward I felt I was always being shadowed and therefore I no longer dared to appear in public places. Any friend who called my name or tapped my shoulder from the back always scared me out of wits. I dared not walk near any policeman and when some of them called at the factory on business they drove me immediately into the lavatory. I was living again the life of a fugitive and the terrible thought of falling again into the hands of the police haunted me day and night. The worst part was that I could not confide to anybody the mental agony that I was suffering for fear of forsaking even their friendship, since involvement in police affairs was the last thing any Chinese in Hongkong would like.
Our factory had to turn in periodical reports on the number of workmen to the Labor Office. As the Secretary of the factory, it was my duty to check their identity cards before preparing the forms. When some of them had none or had lost them I applied for new ones for them from the authorities and it seemed all a matter of routine. It occurred to me immediately that if I could get such a card for myself all my troubles would be over. I filled in the application forms and a few days afterwards I was requested by the Immigration Office to appear in person at its office.
The Chinese assistant in the office asked me how long I had been in Hongkong, how I entered the Colony and why I had not applied for the card before. I demurred and told him vaguely that I had been in Hongkong for more than a year but had not applied for a residence card before because I had been unemployed until then. He asked me to fill in a form and print my fingers thereon. The last requirement immediately alerted me of the danger. Seeing that I had to use a seal to complete the form, I left him on the excuse that I had not brought it with me.
A few days afterwards I received a notice from the Immigration Office asking me to have an interview with the Commissioner. I decided not to comply. A day or two later a policeman called at my house and, as I was away, he told my daughter to remind me of the interview. I saw that I had committed a very foolish mistake in giving them a lead to hunt me down and the only way to stop the chase was to break the link between my daughter and myself. I told her that I would move to live in the factory where I had more chance of hiding arid warned her not to divulge my whereabouts under any circumstance. If the police called again, I told her, just tell them that I had returned to Macao. Here her cold faith in Christian commandments again caused frictions between us. She said she could not lie for me. I told her that if to tell a white lie in order to save her father from imprisonment was a sin, I would hate to see my own children believe in such kind of a religion In tearful anger I gathered my few belongings and left her without a word.
I have been an agnostic all my life, but before this I had no quarrel with any kind of religion, least of all with Christianity. As a matter of fact, I used to read the Bible and attend the church occasionally before I left the mainland. I found reading the English Bible interesting as literature and singing the psalms a consolation to the mind; but had never been impressed by the sermons of any preacher or moved by them to accept the Faith. I always considered religion as a help to lead a more happy life, a sort of self-hypnosis or safety valve to relieve high pressure in the minds of people who have experienced or are leading busy and often unhappy lives. To take to religion not as a means but as an end of one's whole life, or for the very young to simulate the very high moral standard of Christ or evaluate every human action by these fundamentalist standards, have always seemed to me a little fanatical.
After I moved to live in the factory, my life became most dreary and lonesome. After a hard day's work I shut myself in a small room and lay on a camp bed during the night. Estranged from my only blood relation in Hongkong, my sole comfort was to read and read over again the letters from my wife far away on the mainland. Such a state of mind should be fertile soil for sowing the seeds of religion, as it should have been so when I was held in detention by the police; but when I reflected on the real cause of all my troubles and the most expedient ways I had used successfully to overcome them up to then, I could not but admit that religious or oral beliefs were completely incongruous with such a wicked environment, in which the devils had to be beaten at their own games if one wished to exist.
Some days later my daughter talked to me on the telephone. As soon as I heard her voice, all my dislike for her previous behavior melted away like morning fog and I felt happy once again. She informed me that the police had called again and that she had answered their enquiry as I had wished. She asked me whether it would be right for her to come to the factory. Her trembling voice revealed her anxiety for reconciliation. All forgiving, I asked her to come right over. From that day onward I often spent some time with her every few days in restaurants and other public places. Like any parent, who loves his own by instinct and not as a duty ordained by Commandments, I would rather run the risks of exposure than deny her even the pleasures of good food and my company.
One night G. discovered that I was living in the factory. In a very friendly way he asked me if I had any trouble with my relative. Then and there I told him for the first time the whole story of my life before I became his secretary. He was much moved but mildly protested that I had kept him in the dark all the time. When I said that I was afraid he would not have taken me on if he had known it at the time, he said that I had underestimated him by a long range. "Such matters are easy to arrange. Now I am your boss, it is my duty to extricate you; from your troubles," he promised.
As good as his promise, G. asked his brother to find out the home address of the commissioner in charge of the Immigration Office, whom he had known as the chief of a police station before his promotion. A few days later he sent him some of the factory's best products with his name card attached but without any word or message.
One afternoon the commissioner invited G. to a cocktail. When he returned he said, "How do you like a few days' holiday in Macao, to return with a very proper entry permit in your hand not only for yourself but for your family if you wish?"