I was born in Canton, China in 1955. It was six years after liberation of the war-torn China by Mao. It was the time when famine and malnutrition killed tens of millions.
My father's mother passed away when he was 4. He had to make his own living very young by catching fish and shrimp. He was self-educated and later obtained a license in Chinese medicine. However, he supported his huge family and his lifelong passion of collecting art by being a merchant in partnership with Mother.
Mother's father was a tailor in Sun Hin (new flourish). When he married Grandmother he did not tell that he already had a wife in another town. Later on, when his other wife found out, she came over numerous times to make trouble. Mother would hide from the fights and felt painful inside. When Mother was 12, the Japanese invasion started spreading south. Her whole family had to fleet. All females would make themselves look very dirty and ugly to avoid being raped. They were staying in a family friend's house when a fire broke out which killed her two sisters, a brother, and her mother. Her father jumped to safety but was severely injured. She was somewhere else and her younger brother was at work that same night. She and her brother had to earn a livelihood as child seamstresses by selling what they made. Meanwhile my grandfather remarried and had more children.
Later Mother started buying and selling materials that could be recycled. She had to travel on foot from town to town to make a living. This was how my parents met each. My father was doing the same thing, but Mother was better at it because she was pretty and could passed the military checkpoints with ease. She rescued Father and his goods from the soldiers the first time they met. They got married and continued to buy and sell almost anything they saw fit. It would included cigarettes, rice and recycling materials.
Mother had total of 11 full-term pregnancies. Two of her sons died. My younger brother was born prematurely in a train when my parents were traveling home from doing business far away.
After World War II, Father was working for a very wealthy businessman for a while until Mother convinced him to sell matches in a "shameful" location, which was under a entrance staircase, while Mother continued to travel to trade recycled shoe rubbers. Mother would live in a hotel room where she tipped the management for allowing her to use the room as her office, distribution center and storage of shoe bottoms. She slept and cooked in a corner and used the sink to test the quality of the rubbers. The good ones floated. Meanwhile, Father was getting extremely successful. Because he was known for his honesty, he was trusted by the matches manufacturers to do wholesale. He was making so much money that a cart was used to carry the money at the end of the day.
Then came one of the many Reforms Chairman Mao imposed. Father had to quit his business and hide his wealth. Mother was able to continue her work because she was not making big money. He was helping mother in her work when was arrested for doing that without a license. He was sent to a labor camp in which he moved stones across a creek. He had to cross water chest deep for a month. Up to today Father panics whenever the Chinese Government is mentioned.
After Father was released, they both got a permit to travel to Hong Kong to seek opportunities. They put all their children in the Village of Ko in the care of relatives and left for Hong Kong. I was not yet born. At that point, they were not willing to do just any work. They could not find any good business in Hong Kong and went back to China, which they later regretted. They were selling rice in Ng Chau until later they moved back to Canton City. Father was working at home melting recycled tin to produce purified blocks that he could sell. They both struggled hard to got food for the big family. They were selling their hidden art treasures in the black market in exchange for meat. They then knew that they needed to move to Hong Kong. It was another few years after I was born before Father was the first of our family that was allowed to go.
My folks have blessed and cursed me with my name Ko Chat Hay. It means to live with a high and rare standard and to live with high and rare hopes and dreams. Therefore here I am, trying to look back and to see whether I am fulfilling that spiritual mandate.
LIFE IN CANTON, CHINAMy memory of my earliest childhood is defined by the words that follow: my house, especially the front gate, illness, hunger, a black baby pig, steamed catfish, and a bronze sculpture of a boy riding a water buffalo.
MY HOUSE-Most of the Chinese houses were laid out based on a center axis starting from the front door and gate. It was a two story building. Another family lived upstair whom we(I) had never met, partly because they used another entrance. The front steps to our entrance were big, like a porch, it was made out of rough granite, same as the facade. The front gate was one of those traditional sliding gates made from a very hard lumber, which is commonly found in ancient Chinese furniture. As long as I remember, most of my siblings were raised behind the gate. My parents were always away for business. They hired two wet-nurses to care for and to supervise all 9 kids. It was not too often that we were let out of the gate to play in the glorious sunlight. That lack of sunlight might have contribubed to the nice curve of my bowlegs. Other times when I was out, I was either on the way to the hospital or to the immigration office.
The wall of the toilet had a peephole to the outdoors, through which I saw my first papaya tree. It was like a fairyland every time I went. That was the reason I don't remember the odor of the room. It wasn't a flushing toiletbowl but a terra cota pot which was brought in front of the house at night for service. I occasionally heard the sewage collector doing the job. It was always way after dark when the clock-man walked by to announce each hour by knocking at his bamboo soundbox. There were other venders who came to the door were cotton candy man, knife sharpener, sweet-rice-flour ball soup man, Dou Fu Fa man, and most of all, the dough doll man. He used dyed flour dough to make figurine on a stick. Colorful characters included monkey king, queens, and gods of all kind, practically anyone in many Chinese classic novels would be depicted. Though I thought this was already a lost art, I met a man doing that exact thing in HK Victoria Park during the Flower Market for Chinese New Year 2005. He was quite pale, slow and shaky, but I was glad to have my wife and son see in real life what I was telling. Here are two photos of the dough man.
Even though I am not a figurine maker, this is what I have interest in training youngsters to do in order to resurrect the art.
Father, when he was not traveling, stayed home to practice his calligraphy brush with water on the terra cota floor tiles. All things were in short supply those days. It was a marvelous alternative to ink on paper. It seemed he was squat-walking from tile to tile for hours at a time. At night, well behaved kids (and that sick child) were allow to go in their bedroom to see father's antique and art collection. Those were the sweetest moments that I was eager to work hard to behave well when I wasn't sick.
Father's huge collection was hidden in drawers and trunks except the many paintings by Chi Bye Sai and the objects around the ancestor shrine in the front room. It was a time in Chinese political history that one didn't want to be known to have any good stuff.
Mother took baths in a room where a wall was opened to the next before it reached the ceiling. I remember climbing that wall for peeks and vaguely recall my brother was with me.
I lived at that house till I was 7 and had not seen it again until I was 49. It was 2004 I visited what remains of the old Canton
City. Fortunately, the house was still there waiting for me and my family to take a last look and a photo.
The city is becoming less and less Chinese in its architecture as more of the older neighborhoods are torn down for the new. China has not yet found its own father or mother of modern architecture. The result is, at most, a subjection of a culture of many thousand years to the western melting pot. These photos (to the left) shall always remind me of a sad phenomenon that people are losing their own sense of heritage. They are throwing out their own cultural identity which makes them who and what they are. It is said that a person's present and future is hollow without taking on the past. One can easily see such symptoms among many trendy contemporary Asian artists and others. Their works are merely excrements of undigested hot dogs and hamburgers. It is equally as bad for a person who would do nothing else but to copy that of the past. A person and his/her works without renewal is without life. Mankind is of one people. However this one people has had a "thousand faces".
VILLAGE OF KO
In 2004 Anne, Chim Chune and I went back to Hong Kong and China to inquire about my family history. Since Hong Kong had changed so much, we decided we would spend more time seeing what was in China by visiting the place where my ancestors had lived for the last 800 years.
First off we took a coach to Canton City. The ride gave me sad feelings, seeing the urban development along the whole two hours of high speed sightseeing. It was almost 100 miles of concrete constructions of buildings and roads; a massive human resettlement that had left out what I believe as the most essential part of being man. Trees and greenery were the least things we came across. Buildings were nothing more than stacked boxes. One would not find them pleasing to the eye, left alone any sense of cultural character. As someone who has been living in the luxury and comfort of an middle class American home, all I could think of was what happens when the summer tropical heat and pollution descends on these concrete structures.
It was quite a relief arriving in Canton city, which is among the most populated areas in the world. I hadn't been back for 37 years. I had a feeling of heartache mixed with joy. It too had changed and continuously modernized, but not to the point of being unrecognizable. I was excited to see many architectural icons and buildings that I remembered seeing as a child. The city and my people have more wealth and live a much better life as a whole than when I left. The dichotomy of the rich and poor was obvious. When Mao was alive nobody was allowed to live in material comfort, except the politically powerful. Now there are private enterprises that individuals are allowed to own and make wealth, so the rich get richer, which is a natural course.
One evening we dined in a fancy restaurant with mostly female servers who dressed a lot better than we did. Even I thought some of the entrées were way too expensive. On the way back to my sister's apartment where we were staying, a child a couple feet tall appeared running around our legs in the dark night begging for money. My other sister, who had paid for our dinner, was a lifelong citizen of the city and was quite familiar with the scene. She shooed the child away and warned us not to give anything, for if we did we would be swamped by many more. A few steps further down we saw another child who was a little taller and then a group of adults apparently directing these children for the operation. These kids couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 years old.
We saw shop after shop with all kinds merchandize that was so inexpensive. I know the guy who owns Walmart is ripping us off.
I was happy to be able to locate the house my family lived in when I was born. The house facade was remodeled and all around the neighboring houses had been replaced by high-rises. I am afraid it too will be gone in a matter of time. So a photo seemed to be the most cost effective insurance for its survival.
On the way to shop for musical instruments, I came across the house my mother and her family lived in before she was married to Father. I still had a very clear visual memory of attending my grandfather's funeral there. I was about 4. Those traditional Chinese funerals were so spooky. The horrific looking coffin and scary sounding music with human cries had surely imprinted on me for good. I got goose bumps when my brother in law pointed out the house as we passed by.
The cab ride to the Village of Ko (Gao Bin) was nothing like I expected. I remembered going there as a child. Then it was a bumpy bus ride on dirt roads and all I saw was rice fields and one time I saw a ghost. What I was looking at now was one industrial district after another. The two major manufacturers were making fabric. Motorbikes were all along the main highway. I have never seen so many fancy and not-so-fancy motorbikes anywhere.
I also did not expect a left turn after 45 minutes when, in just one block, time could go back 800 years. It was the village of Ko. In front of the village was what used to be a small river, now it looked more like a sewage ditch because the water has been deflected to other uses. In front of the village gate was the old cypress tree under which was a stone where people gathered and for the Kos to settle who are the best chess players.
Looking to the right was what seemed to be the dividing line of what was and what was not the village of Ko. To the left was the calling sign of history, heritage and of culture, the village arch. It was monumental but modest. Mottos of red and gold paper were posted on the gates to filter out the unfortunate. Though it was not polished, it was made out of real expensive stones. Next to and all around it were walls of bricks. I could imagine that it was a place packed with homes and my kin-folks.
It was late afternoon when we arrived. Grown-ups were at work, but upon stepping under the arch, kids and adults started to appear along the narrow thruway. They were curious and excited, for they had to know these strange looking creatures--my wife, Chim Chune and my long hair included--had to have some relationship to the Ko's to be walking in the village. And of course, my parents' presence would have easily given it away. It was a profound moment, for, as I found out later, the three thousand inhabitants in the village were all my relatives. I found great grand nephews and Chim Chune had old folks calling him uncle. It was wild. Folks were screaming down the way to have more people come meet us. I had no memory of how it was when I visited when I was a child over 45 years ago.
The most moving moment was when an aged man, smiling with tears in his eyes, was telling us that he had been waiting for me or my brother to return for all these years, and he knew that it would happen before he died. His energy was so warm that I felt an immediate connection. It was interesting, as I later found out from my "sweet-potato aunt" whose son was the village mayor, that that man and his family were not really Kos. They came in a long time ago for protection and livelihood and changed their name to Ko. It is incredible how people can make sure such past is a fresh memory at all times. Even my mother, who is very fond of them, had to make a point of it.
In the village of Ko, my parents still own a house which has an interesting history. It was built at a time and place where and when men were not necessarily monogamous. It was a quarter of a huge complex building belonging to my grandfather who had several wives. My father bought it sometime later after Mao's policy had faded. It was the house he grew up in. Like all the other houses in the village, red and colorful paper door gods were pasted on the bi-folding doors. Both sides and the top of the doorway had pasted proverbs, passed down from ancient times. The houses have been remodeled and rebuilt thru the years, so there are all kinds of material mixed in every house.
My parents rebuilt the house a few years ago but they made it as authentic as they could. There were two bedrooms and a living room. The kitchen is semi indoor. Open air allows cooking grease and exhaust to get out. There was an ancient well inside the house. At one point in history that well provided water for the entire village. The village has running water nowadays. The well is something my father preserved for its spiritual meaning. Behind the house is a little courtyard with two large Chinese fruit trees.
The village of Ko was established in the year 1195. During the Sung Dynasty my ancient grandparents moved to the area and settled in Bad Bin Chun (white side village). They made their living as duck farmers. His name was Ko Way G. Her last name was Mug. A bit later they relocate to close by where the Fungi Shun was very good and named it Gao Bin. They had four sons. The oldest (Jung Chow) decided to move back to his old hometown Dong Tin. The other three sons stayed and started building their houses. Their names were Jung G, Jung Hay and Jung K. Today, after 28 generations, there are over 3000 persons living in the village.
The shape of the village is like a ship with bow to the north where a fish pond is located. The pond was fed by a stream running in front of the front gate. A stone bridge was built across the stream. There are five entrances to the village.
There are not many stories written down except it was mentioned in the family tree that life was hard due to natural disasters. Their hard work was often wasted and the yield was poor. Many Kos left the village to make a living somewhere else. The worst flood occurred in 1915. Many houses were destroyed and many Kos became homeless. Then in 1938 was the Japanese invasion. People were running away. Some Kos escaped to foreign countries to survive.
In recent years the village is doing well. Here are their improvements. In 1945 the social hall was built. In 1961 electricity came to the village, and in 1966 a school was built for the Kos. In 1992 they got running water, and in 1993 all the roadways were paved and street lights were added. The village is giving up farming. The whole region has been industrialized.
the Kos at a viilage gate
my parents at a viilage gate
CCK following G. Dad in an alley
lots of little Kos
the old village well