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Pag. 47

THE NEW ORDER

That was one of the few times in my life at the academy that I ever got the best of Yuen Lung and his cronies. For a few days, I rode a wave of admiration from the younger kids, because I’d actually dared to mouth off to Big Brother Lung—and survived.

I didn’t know at the time just how big a mistake I’d made.

You see, the system we lived under at the school was simple and straightforward. Master believed in just three things: discipline, hard work, and order. Discipline came quickly and painfully, measured in strokes of the cane. Hard work was the rule of the day—a few minutes of stolen rest often meant an hour of extra practice for the unlucky students caught slacking off. And order: order was imposed by a strict line of command that placed Master at the top (never to be disobeyed or disrespected); then his wife, Madame; followed by the instructors who taught singing, boxing, and weapons skills; and then us students at the bottom.

Even among the students there was an order. Each of us was ranked by seniority, with the Biggest Brother (the one who had been at the school the longest) at the top, and the littlest (the newest students) at the very bottom of the entire heap.

The order was never to be challenged. If a brother who was more senior told you to do something, you did it. If you told a more junior brother to do something, he did it. And if Master gave a command everybody jumped. The order was enforced by the fact that anyone who disobeyed it was beaten soundly, either by the master’s cane or, among students, by the simpler (but not any less painful!) means of a hard-swung fist.

Seniority didn’t just mean power; it also paid off in a more direct fashion, in the only currency that meant anything at the academy: food. As I mentioned before, seating at mealtimes was arranged from top rank to bottom, and all dishes were passed down the table, from Master to Madame to the instructors to Biggest Brother, and finally, after dozens of other hands had touched it, to Littlest Brother, by which time almost nothing would be left.

After I became an “official” member of the school, I found myself moved from my privileged place right nest to Master, all the way down to

Pag 48

the very end of the table. As Littlest Brother I’d stare in horror as dishes of meat or fish worked way along the row, getting smaller and smaller, until just a bone or some scraps of fat were handed to me, very cold and not at all filling.

These were grim indeed for a boy who loved to eat. Especially with Yuen Lung up near the head of the table, just a few seats away from Master. As second-biggest, he was in a good position to grab a  healthy portion of each dish long before it came down to us young kids, and he was as big a glutton as they came. You could tell just by looking at him. Even though we worked like dogs all day, he was a pretty heavy boy, and he kept his chunky build up by eating twice as much as any other student—even Biggest Brother Yuen Ting.

Out of all the older students, I liked Yuen Ting the best. Well, you couldn’t really like any of the big brothers, since their main goal in life was to abuse us exactly the way they’d been abused by their big brothers before them. But Yuen Lung and Yuen Tai took an unholy pleasure in administering beatings and applying punishments. Yuen Ting seemed to do it only out of a sense of duty. When he was given Master’s cane and told to supervise us while Master was away, he showed us no mercy—but he never used his position to take advantage of us, the way Yuen Lung did.

And we didn’t know it yet, but things were about to get worse. A lot worse.

It was just a few weeks after incident of the somersault injury, the one that should have sent our brother to the hospital. (He was lucky; he didn’t have a concussion, just a bad bruise, but for days afterward he turned white and shaky as soon as Master announced it was time for acrobatics practice.) Ever since that day, Yuen Ting had been in a strange mood. He’d never been one to joke or pal around with the other older kids, and we younger kids weren’t worth noticing much less befriending. But Yuen Ting had gone from being quiet and withdrawn to being a complete loner—shaking off any attempts at kindness, even telling me to go away when I offered him first pick out of my mom’s magic bag of goodies.

“What a weirdo,” snarled Yuen Lung, just out of Yuen Ting’s earshot.

“You try to talk to the guy, and he acts like you don’t even exist. Rude is what I call it.”

Yuen Tai, his mouth full of almond cookie (which he grabbed away from me without even asking, as usual), nodded in agreement, ignoring the crumbs falling from his chin.

“Stupid, too, getting in Master’s way during training,” continued Yuen Lung. “You fall, you get back up again. You’re hurt, you just gotta try twice as hard to do it right. Those’re the rules. Biggest Brother’s job is to enforce the rules. If he don’t like it, he should get the hell outta here. This ain’t no place for weaklings or sweethearts…Hey, gimme those cookies, dammit.”

Their conversation dissolved into an argument about how much of my

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Loot each of them deserved. But, sitting and carefully guarding the rest of my snacks, I saw Yuen Ting quietly slip out of the room. He’d heard the conversation.

If I were him, I thought to myself, I’d knock Big Brother’s block off. Hey, Yuen Lung, what’s the penalty for disrespecting your elders? Boom!

But it looked like Yuen Ting was just going to eat it. Ignore the whole thing.

Maybe he was too soft to be the biggest brother.

“We want more cookies, twerp,” said Yuen Lung. Evidently they’d settled their argument by deciding that I should just cough up more stuff to even out their piles. I groaned and reached back into the bag.

When midnight rolled around, everything seemed normal. I was tired and achy, having made a mistake on a difficult acrobatic maneuver that not only led to a cracked jaw but a demonstration of Master’s cane technique on my butt. I pushed one of the younger boys who was crowding my space, and he rolled over, grumbling.

“Lights out,” shouted Yuen Ting, turning off the overhead electric bulb. I’d feel better in the morning, after a good five hours’ rest. I hoped.

But I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know whether it was because of the pain in my jaw or the bruises on my rear, but regardless of how I turned, I couldn’t get comfortable.

And then I heard noise—not just the rumbling of Yuen Lung’s thunderous snores, or the usual shifting of bodies. I opened my eyes and got used to the darkness. Someone was moving around the room.

It was Yuen Ting. Carrying a bag over one shoulder.

“Hey!” I whispered, sitting upright.

He turned and saw my silhouette in the dim, reflected light of the moon. We stood starring at one another for a few moments, each waiting for the other to speak.

Then Yuen Ting put one finger over his mouth, asking me to remain silent. And with that, he carefully opened the door into the hallway and left.

I was stunned.

Biggest Brother was running away.

I lay awake most of the rest of the night, wondering what new surprises morning would bring. The queasy feeling in my stomach suggested an answer: nothing good.

My chin was trebling, but I refused to cry as the rod came down again on my palm. Whack!

“I will ask you again, Yuen Lo: do you know what happened to Yuen Ting?” The master’s face was ugly with fury, twisted up in a way we’d never seen before.

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I shook my head, afraid to open my month for fear of screaming. Whack!

“Still no words?” Master said, disgusted. “Get back in line.”

As Littlest Brother, I had the misfortune of being first in line for Master’s interrogation session regarding Yuen Ting’s disappearance. I knew exactly what had happened to Biggest Brother, but I wasn’t about to talk—and besides, I didn’t know where he’d gone, so what was the point? Ratting on Yuen Ting wouldn’t have helped anyone. We all knew in our hearts that he wasn’t coming back.

I took my position against the wall and rubbed my abused hand, watching as the next-littlest brother took his licks. The entire session lasted most of the morning, giving us a welcome break from practice (except for the fact that we’d all gotten beaten, of course).

Finally, the master reached Yuen Lung, who looked almost as angry as Master did. You could tell what he was thinking by looking at his face: Damn that Yuen Ting! It was all his fault, ditching and getting us in trouble. The coward.

“Hold out your hand, Yuen Lung,” said Master. Big Brother extended his palm, his face blank.

Master raised the rod, and then put it gently into Yuen Lung’s hand. “There was once a student here named Yuen Ting, who was your Big Brother. He failed to live up to his responsibilities, and so he is no longer a part of our school, and no longer a part of our family. We will not speak his name again within these walls.”

Master turned to the rest of us as Yuen Lung looked down in shock at the rod in hand.

“This is your new Biggest Brother, Yuen Lung,” said Master. “I hope he will not disappoint us.” And with that, he told Yuen Lung to lead us through practice for the rest of the day. There would be no breakfast, as the time for breakfast had long since passed. And, because we had wasted so much training time in the fruitless questioning session, there would be no lunch as well.

All of us younger kids wanted to scream. This was hell. And as long as Yuen Lung was in charge, there would be hell to pay.

“Okay!” shouted Yuen Lung, slapping the rod against his beefy thigh. “You heard Master! Stretching exercises…begin!”

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THE GREAT DICTATOR

That was the first day of the worst days of my life. Yuen Lung used his authority in ways big and little, and all of them were designed to make things as rotten as possible for the rest of us.

As I mentioned, Yuen Ting hadn’t been an easy taskmaster, but he was usually fair. Yuen Lung, on the other hand, was a tyrant. He was one of           the school’s best fighters, a sure hand with weapons, and surprisingly graceful in acrobatics. In short, he demanded perfection from himself and no less from the rest of us—even those of us who’d been at the school less than a year.

He found flaws with everything. If it wasn’t in our execution, it was in our style. If it wasn’t in our style, it was in our energy. If it wasn’t in our energy, it was in our attitude. Sometimes he just didn’t like the way we looked. And every mistake we made was greeted with a taste of Biggest Brother’s iron fist… uncles he had Master’s stick which case he heartlessly beat us with the full force of his thick arms.

Outside of practice, Yuen Lung was even worse. Nome of us little kids were safe when Yuen Lung was near; he would demand his tribute as Biggest Brother, and thrashed any junior who dared to deny him. If he liked your clothes, he’d just say, “Nice T-shirt,” and the next day he’d be wearing your T-shirt. If he saw you eating something, he’d say, “How’s that taste?” and he’d walk off with it in his hands. There was no help for it. Everything gave him whatever he wanted. Because if you didn’t, you knew that the next day he’d be leading practice again, rod in hand, and that he would remember.

Yuen Lung was a bully and a thug, and I have to say that through most of our time together at the academy, I hated him. But looking back, I’ve realized that Yuen Lung wasn’t crueler than the rest of us by nature. This was the way he was expected to behave according to the system under which we lived and learned. It was like being in military school: seniors had rights, juniors didn’t. Living through abuse at the hands of big brothers bound us younger kids together. And surviving our master’s punishments helped turn all of us students into a team.

A harsh as it may have seemed, it was a system that had worked for

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decades, even centuries, producing the very finest acrobats, singers, and fighters that the world has ever seen.

The kind of training we received just doesn’t exist anymore. There are still opera schools, but they don’t allow you to punish students physically; that kind of discipline is now against the law. And to tell the truth, younger generations of performers aren’t as good as we were, and the ones who went before us. The schools are still good, and the students still learn, but many of them are just doing it because their parents want them to, or because they want someday to star in movies. We did the training even if we didn’t want to. Because there was always the stick. Unless we wanted to follow Yuen Ting—and what a humiliation that was! What a waste of years of study!—we didn’t have a choice. There was never a choice.

So I guess you could say the system worked. But even the constant threat of beatings couldn’t completely crush the will to rebel. Especially not in a boy like me—someone driven by a love for independence and a hatred of authority. Even back on the Peak, I’d always hated it when older kids pushed younger ones around; it turned my stomach. And I couldn’t stand it at the academy either.

It wasn’t a problem when I was the littlest brother, because when I was at the bottom of the food chain, I could take care of myself.  But time passed, we grew older, and our family eventually had to expand.

And though I didn’t know it at the time, the arrival of our newest brother was a momentous occasion; one that would eventually change the oath of my life—and the life of my nemesis, Biggest Brother Yuen Lung.

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FRESH BLOOD

One day, as we went through the rigors of our afternoon workout, the creaking of the hallway door announced a visitor.

Yuen Lung, who had been assigned to train us while Master was away, slapped the floor with his cane and snapped at us to ignore the distraction. But the arrival turned out to be Master himself, who nodded benevolently at the sight of his sweating students and called for tea to be brought to his guests.

The visitors were a young couple with a small boy, who was clearly somewhat frightened by his new surroundings. “And this is our grand practice hall,” said Master importantly, “and these are our students!”

The couple sat down quietly, and the boy, who looked even younger than I was when I’d arrived at the school, quickly ran to his mother’s lap.

We knew what was happening, and it brought hastily hidden smiles to our faces. Fresh meat was on its way. This was good news, especially for me; there was now a new low man on the totem pole.

But we didn’t have much time to think about the consequences, because Biggest Brother was eager to show off his teaching skills in front of Master and his visitors. He barked a set of new orders, and we jumped back into action.

After tea was served, the master brought out the papers and his seal, and the teaching contract was signed. Master congratulated the parents, assuring them that their son would receive the very best care and training.

We’d all heard it before.

The couple hugged their son, bid him good-bye, and left the academy. Putting his arm around the boy, Master introduced him to his new brothers and sisters. “Everyone welcome the latest addition to our family!”  he said, flashing his nicotine-stained teeth in a wide smile.

We dutifully bowed to the new, and Master took the cane from Biggest Brother, who went to his customary position at the head of the practice formation.

The new boy spent much of the morning session in tears, demanding to know when his parents would return. I saw Yuen Lung and Yuen Tai exchange knowing glances, guessing that this small and fussy boy was likely to be easy prey.

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It was all too much. Feeling sorry for the newcomer, I went over to the new boy and introduced myself.

“Don’t worry, kid,” I said. “We all went through this. You’ll be all right.”

Pleased at the attention, the boy dried his eyes, took my hand, and followed me to the lunch are. The master motioned for the boy to sit next to him at the head of the table, which brought a smile to his face. You could tell the new boy was thinking that things were looking up.

After lunch, we went back to training, beginning our somersault and acrobatics practice. Sitting by himself against the wall, the new kid watched our antics with awe. I looked in his direction and gestured with a shake of my head: C’mon over and give it a try.

The new kid shyly covered his face, but the temptation proved to be too much: after a few more minutes, he timidly walked over and tugged on my shirt. As Yuen Lung executed a complex set of tumbles, I explained to him how a somersault worked.

“Let me try,” he said. “I can do it!”

“It’s tricky….” I said, remembering my clumsy first attempt. I unconsciously rubbed my head, remembering the bump I’d received upon smashing into the hard practice room floor.

The new kid took a deep breath, ran forward a few quick steps, and performed an almost perfect somersault. The master looked on with pride and surprise; the other kids watched with envy.  And Yuen Lung stood there stunned. As far as he was concerned, the new kid should have spent the day crying and sobbing for his parents—not showing off in front of his. The attention he was getting didn’t make them happy at all. For the rest of the day, the kid proved again and again that he was a natural, a born acrobat.

“All of you should learn from this boy’s example!” shouted the master, in a display of fine humor. “One day under my training, and already he could almost perform on the stage!” And with that, he canceled the rest of practice and led the boy away, calling for tea and cookies.

Yuen Lung grabbed onto Yuen Tai’s arm as we filed happily out of the Practice rom, heading for the courtyard to spend the rest of the afternoon at play.

“That kid showed us up,” Biggest Brother growled.

Yuen Tai nodded. “Can’t have that.”

They walked off together, plotting their revenge.

And I decided that it wasn’t going to happen.

That evening, Master sang the new boy’s praise with the arrival of each dish at dinner.

“Look at him, such a small boy,” he said to Madame. “But I can tell already he’s going to be a big star!”

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The new boy laughed and took another piece of fish. Yuen Lung and Yuen Tai exchanged conspiratorial glares.  They’d wipe that smile off his face.

When dinner was over, Master and Madame left the academy for the evening, visiting friends elsewhere in Kowloon. We were between tutors at the time, so there was no evening lesson, and Master didn’t even tell Yuen Lung to put us through a nighttime drill.

Yuen Lung had other plans. He and Yuen Tai followed as the new kid brought his small bag into the storage room where we kept our personal belongings. Like a trained hit team, the pair drifted in behind him, taking care not to draw attention from the other kids. Yuen Tai secured the doorway. Yuen Lung quietly the boy from behind.

The new kid yelped and was silenced by Biggest Brother’s broad hand. “Shaddup, baby,” he said. “It’s only us, your big brothers. Nothing to be scared about, unless you disrespect us, right, Yuen Tai?”

“Right, Big Brother,” snickered Yuen Tai. “Can’t have that.”

The new boy began to cry, and Biggest Brother gave him a rough shake. “It’s all about respect, baby,” he said. “You want to show us you respect us, you got to pay the ‘tribute.’”

“Wh-what tribute?” said the kid, muffled by Yuen Lung’s hand.

“Well, whaddya have?” said Yuen Lung.

“Nothing…” said the new boy.

“Everybody’s got something,” said Yuen Tai.

Despite their attempts to be unobtrusive, I’d seen the big brothers slip away, and I knew what they intended to do. As a result, just as Yuen Lung raised his fist to administer the traditional penalty for disrespecting elders, I found myself ducking under the arm that Yuen tai had stretched out to block the hallway door and stepping into the tiny storage room.

“What do you want, Big Nose?” said Yuen Lung. “This doesn’t concern you.” Biggest Brother had lately taken to calling me Big Nose. I had to admit that the insult fit, not just because I do have a rather big nose, but also because I had a tendency to stick it where it didn’t necessarily belong.

“Leave him alone, Big Brothers,” I said. “Master’s gonna be back soon, and you know that the new kid’s off limits.” Until he’s gotten his first serving of jiajiang mien, I added to myself silently.

As much as he hated it, Yuen Lung knew I was right. He left the new boy and pushed him away with a sullen glower. Yuen Tai wasn’t about to give up that easily.

“Who the hell do you think you are, Little Brother?” he shouted. “You think this is any of your business? Get out of here, before I kick your ass.”

“Don’t you mean ‘kiss my ass’?” I retorted.

Without warning, Yuen Tai swung out and slapped me across the face, bringing a sudden sting of tears into my eyes. I couldn’t hit him back.

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That was against the rules. But nothing was going to stop me from using my mouth.

“Screw you, asshole,” I said.

Not believing his ears, Yuen Tai slapped me again. “What did you say?”

“Screw you!” another slap.

“Screw you!” Yet another slap. Now blood was trickling down my chin.

He kept on hitting me. I kept on repeating it. My face began to swell with bruises. And I never lifted a hand against Second Biggest Brother.

“Screw you. Screw you. Screw you.”

Finally, Yuen Lung, who’d decided not to get involved in the situation, heard Master coming in the hallway. He ran out, with the new kid on his heels, shouting Master’s name. By the time Master arrived at the storage room, blood was pouring from my mouth and nose, my jaw was swollen like a chipmunk’s, and I was mumbling “Screw you” dazedly beneath my breath.

“Stop!” shouted Master, breaking Yuen Tai from his trance. If Master hadn’t intervened, he might have gone on hitting me forever. And I’d have just kept on cursing him out, until my lower face collapsed off my skull.

“What the hell is going on here?” Master said angrily, looking at my damaged face.

I looked at Yuen Tai, who seemed suddenly frightened. “We were having a disagreement,” I said.

Master looked at Yuen Tai, who was unmarked, and then at me, my clothes spotted with blood and my face a bruised disaster. “A disagreement,” he repeated. He turned around and walked out the door. “If I see that any of you have a swollen nose or bruised face again, I will kill you,” he said, as he headed back toward his quarters. “How can anyone perform with a damaged face?”

Yuen Lung and Yuen Tai left the room, knowing that they’d escaped a sound beating by the skin of their teeth. And the new kid looked up at me with starry-eyed admiration.

“You know, I was lying,” he said.

“Lying?” I mumbled.

“When I said I don’t have nothing,” he said, digging into his bag. He pulled out a handful of candy bars and gave me one of them. I tore one of them open, and then winced as I tried to open my jaw wide enough to bite it.

“I think I’ll just save this for later,” I said.

“That’s okay,” said the new boy. “There’s more where that came from. I just—Ijust wanted to thank you, Big Brother.”

That was the first time anyone had ever called me that. I smiled and led the new kid out of the room, feeling good despite the aching of my face.

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The funny thing is, the whole time I never even knew the kid’s name. And I didn’t find out, either, until a few weeks later, when he received his traditional first dish of jiajiang mein. And then it didn’t matter, because he had a fresh name to replace it.

From that point on, we knew him as Yuen Biao, our newest Littlest Brother.

I feel like everything I’ve said so far has made life at the academy sound like torture and Master Yu sound like a monster. Well, it certainly felt like that was true at the time. There wasn’t a day I was there when I didn’t think of taking Yuen Ting’s way out: escape.

But I had nowhere to run. My mother couldn’t have taken care of me on her own, and anyway, if I’d gone back to the mansion on the Peak, I wouldn’t have had anything to do. I was too young to work, and I wasn’t suited for school. The academy was the only place where my abilities could be developed into something worthwhile, the only place where I had a future.

And look where I am now. I’m the son of a cook and a housekeeper. I grew up fighting for food and eating scraps. I never had toys, or nice clothes, or even a room I could call my own. Yet today I’m one of the most famous people in Asia, maybe even the world, with more money than my parents ever dreamed of, traveling everything, meeting famous people, making movies.

Every time I think about the ten years I spent in Master’s hell, I just think about how Master lived the last decade of his life in an Alzheimer’s haze, barely able to recognize his own family. He spent his last two years in a coma, hooked up to machines that kept his heart pumping and his lungs breathing. When he died at the age of ninety-five, it could only have been a blessing.

You might think I was happy he was gone, that I was relieved finally to be free of the man responsible for a decade of suffering. You couldn’t be more wrong. As far as I’m concerned, Charles Chan was the father of Chan Kong-sang, but Yu Jim-yuen was the father of Jackie Chan.

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CENTER STAGE

While we were at the academy, we didn’t think much about the outside world. Between lessons and chores and practice—and our few stolen moments of personal freedom—all of our time and energy was expended, and it was rare that we thought about more than when our next square meal would be coming, or how to avoid the watchful eye (and cane) of Master.

But there was a reason why we were training so hard, and it wasn’t just to impress our instructors. Even if we didn’t think about it often, we knew in our hearts that we would eventually be players in one of the world’s most demanding and exciting theatrical genres, one that combines gymnastics, stage combat, mine, acting, and singing. And to fully prepare us for our time before the floodlights, we eventually needed to see the goal of our efforts for ourselves—an opera performance in all of its glory.

As usual, we had no warning when the fateful day arrived. One day Master just told us during our morning training session that there would be no afternoon practice; instead, we would be taking a trip.

A trip! This was big news. We buzzed excitedly in small groups, wondering where we might be going.

“I hope we’re going somewhere fun,” said Yuen Biao, always the optimist.

Yuen Tai barked out a laugh. “Yeah, right, we’re going to an amusement park. We’ll go on all of the rides and eat until we’re sick, and then Master will give us foot massages and tuck us into bed…moron!”

“Leave him alone, Big Brother,” I said. “You mean you don’t know where we’re going?”

Second Biggest Brother let out a snort. “Just because I’m smarter than the rest of you dummies doesn’t mean I know everything.”

Then Yuen Lung came over and told us to get ready to leave. “Chat time is over, babies; we’re getting out of here. And no wandering around, ‘cause if you get lost, we ain’t gonna waste time looking for you.”

We quickly got in line, oldest first, youngest last, and set off after Master on the short walk to the bus stop. It was great to be out in the big, real world again, and despite the admonitions or Biggest Brother to keep

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quiet and stay in file, we couldn’t help talking and laughing among ourselves from sheer joy at leaving the stifling confines of the academy.

We made it to the stop just in time to catch the big double-decker bus as it pulled up to the curb. The driver stared at us in shock as we boarded his vehicle, dozens of small boys and girls in identical outfits. Master didn’t even yell at us when we raced up narrow spiral staircase that led to the bus’s upper deck.

“Yaaaaaaahooooo!” shouted Yuen Kwai, a rowdy boy about my age who was one of my best friends, when he wasn’t being a giant pain in the ass. He’d pulled open one of the bus’s sliding windows and jammed his body and arms through it, waving at passing pedestrians and hawking loogies at the ones who gave him dirty looks. Even the girls, usually models of innocence compared to us boys, were pushing and tugging at one another, competing for seats near the windows.

“Where do you think Master’s taking us?” whispered Yuen Biao, seated quietly next to me. I’d elbowed us over to a window seat and was enjoying the feel of the wind whipping across my face.

I shrugged. “Why don’t you go ask him?”

Yuen Biao looked at me with horror. “No!”

I laughed and kept watching the view from the window. In the far distance, I saw the Peak. It had been many months since I’d left the ambassador’s mansion. I wondered how the ambassador’s wife was, and her little daughter. And then it struck me that I could barely remember their faces or the sound of their voices. My life had truly changed forever. I’d never be able to go back to those days. I couldn’t ever do home again, because the academy was my home now, and my opera brothers and sisters, more than anyone else, were my family.

Suddenly, the bus stopped, and a familiar bellow from below signaled that it was time for us to disembark. And as we stepped off the bus, all of us found ourselves staring around us in disbelief.

Yuen Tai’s mouth hung slack and open, as if he’d been struck dumb.

I thumped Yuen Kwai on the shoulder, and he grabbed me by the waist and lifted me over his head, grinning like a madman.

Yuen Biao screamed at the top of his lungs, and then quirked an eye at Big Brother Yuen Tai. “Does this mean we get foot massages too?” he said, the picture of innocence.

Before us was a wild vision of crowds and noise and smells and motion, of hawkers selling food and toys and, in the distance, the sound of laughter as games of skill and chance were played.

It was the Lai Yuen Amusement Park.

We’d died and gone to heaven.

“Stop gawking,” grunted Biggest Brother, herding us younger boys after Master.

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Obviously, the purpose of our visit wasn’t to play the games or to ride the rides.

Crestfallen, we followed Master to a large and garishly decorated building surrounded by a crowd of men and women clutching slips of paper in their hands. It was a theater, and from its dark interior came the sounds of instruments being tested and tuned.

The man at the gate waved us quickly past the line of ticket holders, greeting Master with familiarity.

“So these are you students, Mas Yu!” said the ticket seller. “They look quite promising.”

Master shrugged and offered him a smile. “We shall see,” he said. “In time.”

Inside, the room was dark and somewhat smoky. Yuen Biao stumbled over someone’s foot and bumped into Yuen Kwai’s back. Yuen Kwai pushed him roughly away. One of the younger girls let out a whimper at finding herself trapped behind small group of strange men. Biggest Sister retrieved her and brought her back to our group.

“Don’t make noise, and don’t move about,” warned Master, signaling with his hand that any misbehavior would be met with severe punishment upon returning home.

As the rest of the room bustled with people settling onto their wooden benches, a clacking noise drew attention to the front of the hall, where a set of tall yellow curtains hid a nondescript wooden stage. The curtains parted, and music began: wailing, keening strings that followed the clipped rhythm of drums and other percussion instruments. Suddenly, with a whirl of fabric and flashing metal, the stage was filled with performers, acting out the opening of a grand battle.

We’d practiced moves for months, we’d learned to paint our faces and modulate our voices, but this was the first time we’d seen these skills in action.

It’s all worth it, I thought, looking at the rapt faces of the other audience members. I realized that, more than anything else, I wanted that to be me up there on that stage; I wanted to hear a crowd clapping and cheering and screaming for me.

The performance left all of us, even the big brothers and sisters, in a state of excitement. We’d seen our future, so close, so loud, so real for the very first time. It was like what Biggest Brother had told me, my first day at the academy. This was what we ate, drank, and dreamed. This was what we lived for. And it had finally arrived.

As we buzzed and whispered outside the theater, Master told us that he had business with the theater owner, and that we should take the same bus back to the academy on our own.

Pag 61

As usual, he placed Biggest Brother in charge. Cuffing Yuen Kwai on the back of the head—Yuen Kwai had strayed a bit too close to a stand selling fried sweet bread—he waved at us importantly and marched us toward the amusement park exit.

As we filed out of the theater, taking one longing look at the attractions around us, Yuen Biao tugged anxiously on my sleeve.

“Big Brother, I can’t find my return ticket,” he whispered, his voice urgent.

I stared at him in horror. “Just get on the bus,” I whispered back. “Don’t worry.”

But I was worrying. What could we do? None of us had any money… except maybe for Biggest Brother, who was already gesturing impatiently at us stragglers to board the return bus.

“What the hell is taking you guys so long?” he muttered as we hustled inside, Yuen Biao first, me close behind. Irritated at the delay, the driver pulled away from the curb as we were dropping our tickets into the box. His eyes watering, Yuen Biao cleared his throat and stammered, “Big Brother, I can’t my ticket. Can—can you give me money for the fare?”

Yuen Lung scowled, and then let a slow smile spread across his face. “So, baby, you got ‘nothing’ again, huh?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Screw you. I’m not giving you any of my money. You can walk back.”

Then Biggest Brother spat out something unprintable about Yuen Biao’s mother.

I’d had enough.

“Take that back about Yuen Biao’s mother,” I said.

Surprised, Yuen Lung pushed me away. “What the hell is it to you?”

“If you said it to him, you said it to me,” I answered. “Him and me, we’re brothers.”

The driver pulled over to the curb. “Listen, you little brats, you don’t have a fare, get off the damn bus.”

I handed Yuen Biao my return ticket and flipped Yuen Lung the finger, then jumped off the bus. Biggest Brother growled and leaped after me, murder in his eyes.

The bus had stopped near a movie theater, and even in the early evening, there were crowds. I weaved and whirled among the moviegoers, keeping an arm’s length away from my furious big brother. I may not have been the best acrobat or the best fighter or the best singer in the school, but I was one of the quickest, having long since lost my baby fat. Heavy, husky Yuen Lung had no chance of catching me in a flat-out footrace. Once I was past the movie mob, I gunned my engine and ran like the wind.

Pag 62

And all the way back to the academy, I taunted Big Brother, leaping and dancing out of reach.

When we got back, of course, there was nowhere left to run and nowhere to hide. Big Brother was puffing like a locomotive, but he wasn’t too tired to give me the thrashing of my life.

But the bruises were worth it: without raising a fist, I’d gotten my revenge on the tyrant, Yuen Lung.