Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady (Part 22)
By Emily Ho
Editor’s Note: The author runs an ice-cream parlor on Hong Kong’s Lamma Island. When time allows, she draws caricatures and writes. The following are semi-autobiographical anecdotes blending fact and fiction.
The Piano
The glossy lid of the huge, new, three-legged musical “box” reflected little Emily’s tiny, dark face. Never mind her big mouth full of tiny-baby teeth and adult ones piled irregularly. She felt like the world’s most beautiful girl!
Emily wore a pink, chiffon evening dress and had ribbons of the same color around her pigtails. Her shiny-black leather shoes had little heels. Altogether, it felt like a dream-come-true.
Truthfully, Emily seldom dreamed of owning a piano because her parents couldn’t afford even a proper dining table, let alone a grand piano. But here, the smell of maple wood reached every corner of the room.
A big-bully elder sister sat quietly on the same stool, ready to turn pages. Finally Emily pointed her tiny index finger to the “Middle C” on the keyboard.
“Ping” was what she heard, instead of a “ding”, followed by another “ping”. The sounds came not from the keyboard, but from near the pedals.
Looking down, Emily saw a broken bowl and scattered rice on the floor. Glancing back up, she realized that the keys had vanished too. Instead of a piano, she sat at the new dining table that Uncle Four had bought yesterday for his sister.
Seeing a reflection on the tabletop, Emily noticed that her pigtails had been replaced by boyish, short hair; her evening dress by ragged pajamas; and her black leather shoes by plastic sandals.
“Lun Jun (clumsy)!” yelled her big sister, speaking Cantonese.
Hearing the noise, Emily’s mother rushed from the kitchen and ordered her daughters to pick up the broken pieces.
“I won’t help. Ah-mei broke the bowl, not me!” Emily’s sister protested.
“Ah-pa (Daddy) will come home shortly. He’ll beat you up if he sees this, no matter who did it. So please act quickly!”
Leaning close to Emily, her sister murmured, “Stop day-dreaming, you ugly, little rat. No more pretending to play a piano on the new table.”
Rich Gweilo, ‘Poor’ Gweilo
One day, Emily waited at a bus stop near the entrance of a Jockey Club Betting Centre on Hong Kong Island. There, she overheard a middle-aged Chinese man talk to a companion.
“Why does a gweilo need to buy lottery tickets?” he asked, pointing to a western man going inside.
Many of Hong Kong’s older Chinese people regard Westerners as synonymous with wealth and status. Supposedly, the gweilos work as bankers or business tai-pans and probably join the China Club or the Hong Kong Golf Club. They must live in mansions at the Mid-levels or on the Peak. There, they’d have several ah-mahs (Chinese maids), dressed in traditional-style, white-linen tops and black pants, to obediently perform domestic duties for the “white masters”. Probably the gweilos also have drivers, gardeners and even loyal English butlers for their children.
Actually, the portion of Westerners fitting this description has dropped dramatically. Now many listed companies bring their top executives from the Chinese mainland.
Most Westerners, just like the ordinary Chinese folks, must work hard for a living. Some may work as drivers or gardeners serving “yellow” masters. True, they’re probably not ah-mahs because Filipinas and Indonesians dominate those jobs. But many Westerners teach English, work as information-technology professionals or survive as freelance journalists.
What about the mansions? Many of the biggest and most expensive homes now belong to super-wealthy people from the North. These affluent Mainland Chinese don’t need to bother speaking or learning English, the language of the former colonial rulers.
Where do most of Hong Kong’s gweilos live? Probably they’re residents of Wan Chai, Hung Hom, Sai Kung, Tai Po, Lantau Island or Lamma Island.
Coming Soon:
Casual Lamma Defies City's Fashion Frenzy (more Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady)
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