Pag. 01
PROLOGUE: TAKING FLIGHT
I’m standing in the sky on the roof of a glass and
steel office tower in Rotterdam, Holland. There are twenty-one floors of air
between me and the concrete pavement below. I am about to do what I do best.
My stuntmen tell me that the fall is safe—well, not
safe, but maybe a little less than deadly. Of course, they’ve only tried the jump from the sixteenth floor…and, as I
watched the test footage late last night, alone in our production offices, I
realized that a sixteen-floor fall was too predictable.
Too... possible.
After all, my producer has been bragging to reporters
that this will be the world’s most dangerous stunt. And who would I be if I
didn’t live up to my press?
Not Jackie Chan.
So, against the advice of my director and my costars
and the executives at the studio, I have decided to add five stories to the
stunt.
That’s sixty more feet of very thin air through which
my forty-five-year-old body will be sliding.
A few more seconds of excitement for the cameras.
A few more screams from an audience starving for
adrenaline.
The formula is simple: the more terrified my friends and family are, the more satisfied my
fans will be. And they mean everything to me. They come to the theaters
hungry for a hero, for someone who can laugh at disaster, who can make funny
faces at death. Someone who can show them for real that the only thing to fear
is fear itself.
But whoever said that never stood on a roof in
Rotterdam. He never looked down over the edge of a skyscraper to see a foam
target 250 feet below. From here, the mattress looks like a postage stamp. When
I hold out both hands in front of my face, I can just about cover it entirely.
Sorry to contradict you, Mr. Whoever, but the only
things to fear are fear itself, and hitting the ground at one hundred miles per
hour with nothing between you and the emergency room but a few inches of foam
rubber.
I’m tired.
Pag. 02
My heart feels
like a rock in my chest.
My body screams
at me about the abuse I’ve put it though over the last four decades. Parts of
me I can’t even pronounce are
complaining about how badly I’ve treated them. And despite the mob of extras
milling around the base of the building—hundreds of Dutch marines and
fire-fighters and police, looking nervously up at the sky—I think to myself: Is this jump really necessary?
But the answer
is there as soon as I ask the question: Yes.
Because this
jump is special.
It isn’t just
for the fans and the critics and the box office charts.
This one is for
the man who made it possible for me to stand here today, aching and shivering
in the spotlight.
This is for my
master, Yu Jim-yuen, who was buried a week ago in Los Angeles.
My trip from
Holland to California for funeral brought production to a grinding stop,
costing Golden Harvest nearly a quarter of a million dollars. They knew better
than to tell me not to go, even if for them every wasted dollar is like a drop
of spilled blood.
I remember a frightened seven-year-old walking into
the dark and musty halls of the China Drama Academy, holding his father’s hand.
Inside, he sees young boys and girls leaping and tumbling and screaming.
Paradise—
“How long do you want to stay here, Jackie?”
“Forever!” answer the boy, his eyes bright and wide.
And he lets go of his father to clutch at the hem of his master’s robe…
For the next ten
years, I sweated and cried and bled under Master’s hands. I cursed his name
when I went to sleep at night, and I swallowed my fear and hatred of him when I
woke in the morning. He asked for everything we had, and we gave it to him,
under pain of injury, or even death.
But when we came
of age, we realized he’d given it all back. With interest.
It was Master Yu
Jim-yuen who created Jackie Chan, and I do what do today—I am what I am today—because of him. And so this leap is in his memory,
a final act of gratitude. A last gesture of defiance.
Someone slaps me
on the back, asks me if I’m ready. I nod, barely understanding. Another voice
calls for quiet on the set, and suddenly
the only sound is the wind and the blood rushing in my ears and my heart beginning
to pound like a giant drum.
“Camera!”
“Rolling!”
“Action!”
And I suck in my
churning stomach. Launch myself into the sky.
I fly.
I remember…
Pag. 03
THE YOUNG MASTER
I was born on
April 7, 1954, the only son of Charles and Lee-lee Chan. They named me Chan Kong-sang,
which means “Born in Hong Kong” Chan.
I guess my
parents weren’t very original when it came to names. Or maybe they just wanted
to celebrate their relief at making it to Hong Kong, as survivors of a
breathless escape from the turmoil of the mainland. Hong Kong was the promised
land, a place that offered safety and prosperity. A place where new lives could
begin.
By the Chinese
calendar, 1954 was the Year of the Horse.
According to
superstition, the horse is a sign of energy, ambition, and success. It’s a good
year to be born in if you’re a boy—not such a good one if you’re a girl,
because tradition says that a female Horse will have trouble finding a proper
husband—and my parents were happy that I came into the world under such a
fortunate sign. Of course, my arrival in the Year of the Horse was hardly a
coincidence; actually, it took an awful lot of stubbornness on my part to pull
it off! Most babies are born nine months after being conceived. I, on the other
hand, stuck around an extra three months, until my mother was forced to go to a
surgeon to bring me into the world, kicking and screaming, by caesarean
section.
Maybe it was my
rebellious streak that made me refuse to join my parents on time, or maybe it
was a premonition of what my future would hold. After all, while comfortably
inside my mother, I had privacy, sleep, and all the food I could ever ask for,
without having to fight or work or suffer. In fact, I can honestly say that those
three extra months were the easiest time of my life.
Nothing like
that waited for me in the world outside. Hong Kong in the ‘50s was a hard and
restless place, and my family’s position there was at the very bottom of the
social ladder, among the thousands of destitute migrants who’d fled to the
British colony after the mainland’s Communist Revolution. Still, as poor as we
were, we felt lucky to have survived China’s civil war, and especially grateful
that my parents had good jobs in the strange new society of the island. Many of
our fellow refugees had arrived in Hong Kong with nothing but the clothes on
their back and the memories of what they’d left behind. They lived in shacks in
the island’s
Pag. 04
crowded ghettos,
making paper flowers and cheap trinkets to survive, or turning to less socially
accepted—and more dangerous—pursuits.
It was a bad
time to be poor. (But then again, when is it ever a good time to be poor?) As
the crowds of new immigrants grew, the colony’s swelling population divided
itself into two groups: the determined and the desperate. On the one hand,
there were those who embraced the city’s unspoken philosophy: Work hard and you’ll
survive, do well, maybe even get rich. But meanwhile, in the lower parts of the
city, the lives of many of our fellow newcomers were filled with hunger, crime,
and fear.
We belonged to
the first group—the lucky ones. Soon after coming to the island, my father and
mother had found employment with the French ambassador to Hong Kong, a kind
gentleman with a warm and caring family. Dad became the ambassador’s cook and
handyman; my mother was the housekeeper. And so, when I was born, I found
myself not on the tough streets of lower Hong Kong, but in a mansion on the
exclusive slopes of Victoria Peak—the home of the wealthy, the famous, the
powerful. And me.
I don’t recall
the house itself too well.
It was big, I
remember, and very grand. In the front rooms, well-dressed Westerners (and
sometimes Chinese) would chat and take tea or listen music; upstairs, the
ambassador’s family had their quarters, huge rooms with high ceilings and
windows that opened out onto the lights of the city below. But I didn’t see
these parts of the house very often. This was a different world from the one in
which my family lived.
Our place was
the rear of the mansion, divided from the air and light of the front by a small
door.
If you were to
open that door and pass through, you’d find yourself in a long, narrow hall
that ran along the length of the house—the highway of our world. It was usually
dark in that corridor, except when meals were being served, so it might be
easier to find your way around by smell and sound than by sight.
Here’s a quick
tour of our world.
To your right,
the first door off the corridor: the noise of chopping and sizzling, an
occasional curse; the aroma of roasting meat and vegetables simmering in
fragrant peanut oil. That would be the kitchen, where my father spent his
mornings and afternoons preparing food for the ambassador’s family. Father down
the corridor: the soft slush-slush of
trickling water, and the sweet melody of a hummed folk song—the laundry room,
where my mother washed mountains of fluffy white linens and the family’s fine,
beautiful clothing. An then: the smell of incense and wool and dried-grass
matting, the gentle noise of an infant’s breathing. This would be our family’s
bedroom, where my mother and father and I all slept together.
Pag. 05
Our room was
tiny, and it was not what you would probably consider comfortable. There were
no windows, and the walls and floor were clean, but bare. The furniture had all
been made by my father’s hands, and there wasn’t much of it; a bunk bed, some
benches, and a storage trunk. My parents slept together in the top bunk of the
bed, and I slept in the bottom one. From the top bunk, you could reach up and
touch the ceiling; four long steps would take you from wall to wall.
This was all the
home I knew for the first six years of my life, and I was happy there, despite
the cramped quarters and the simple furnishings. Actually, I didn’t know at the
time just how good I had it.
The next place I’d
call home would make our small room seem like a palace.
But I haven’t
finished the four. Follow the corridor to its end, and you’d hear the buzz of
flies, and your nose would wrinkle at the pungent odors of mold and aging food.
This alcove at the end of the hall would be the rubbish room, where the
household garbage was stored during the day, to be disposed of at night.
By the time I
was a small child, I’d get to know this room very well. More on why later.
I mentioned that
I’d started giving trouble to my parents even before I was born. Of all the
crazy stunts I’ve done, in my opinion, nothing compares to my mom’s achievement—surviving
nearly an entire year of pregnancy, then giving birth to a healthy baby who weighed
twelve pounds at delivery. Both my
parents were shocked when I finally arrived. My father said he’d never seen
such a big baby in his life—he and Mom nicknamed me Pao-pao, which is Chinese
for “cannonball.” And I’m sure my mother was glad that she didn’t have to give
birth to me naturally….
There was a
price to pay for my safe and sound arrival, of course. The bill for my mother’s
surgery came to HK$500 (about U.S.$26), and my parents’ savings didn’t
come close to covering that cost. But
the lady doctor who performed the surgery must have been impressed by me too,
because afterward she approached my nervous father with a deal. She had no kid
of her own, she explained to him, and she knew he and my mother had no money. If
my father would allow her to “adopt” me, she would be willing to pay for the
costs of the surgery and my mother’s hospital stay, and even give my parents
and additional adoption fee of HK$1,500.
I’m not angry
about the fact that my father thought long and hard about the offer, Two
thousand Hong Kong dollars was a lot of money back then, and poor children were
regularly given to wealthier friends and relatives to bring up in those days.
Maybe it would have even been for the best, because the lady doctor would have
brought me up in style.
But I was my
parents’ only son. I was a symbol of their new start in
Pag. 06
Hong Kong. I was
born under a lucky sign, and I was big and healthy. My father went home and
talked about the doctor’s offer with some of his friends, who all said the same
thing; there was something special about me, the twelve-month, twelve-pound
baby, and if I grew up to be a great man, my father would always regret giving
me up. Dad’s friends lent him the money to pay the hospital debt, and (after
thanking the doctor for her skillful surgery and generous offer), he took my
mother and me home, to the big house on the Peak.
Pag. 07
FAMILY STORIES
That’s the story
of how I was born.
Or at least
that’s the one my dad told me all my life, anyway.
But inside every
story hides another one, and over the years, I found out a little more about
our secret history—about what my parents left behind in China when they came to
Hong Kong, and the real reason I was too special to give away.
If you were to
look at pictures of my father as a young man, your first impression would be
that is a man of great strength and enormous pride. And of course, you’d be
right. Dad was born in China’s Shandong province, the land of the famous North
Clan and the birthplace of many legendary warriors and martial artist. His
family was a very respected one, and even as a small child, he was expected to
go on to great things.
Now, back then,
shanghai was the style capital of Asia. All of the finest things and people in
China could be found in this one city, where art, fashion, philosophy, and
society reached their height of sophistication. The Chans brought their promising
son there at the age of three, grooming him to become one of society’s leaders.
When he came into adulthood, he was married to the daughter of another
respectable family.
I don’t know if
was happy then, but I have to assume he was. My father and his wife lived
together, with the approval of their clans. They shared a roof and a household.
And they had children.
I found this out
just a few years ago. I knew my father always sent money back home to relatives
in China—sometimes he’d say it was for his brother, other times, his sister. I’d
never met any other member of his family, so I didn’t have any reason to ask
him any further questions. And really, I don’t have that much curiosity in my
personality.
But then
something happened that made me curious in spite of myself. The mail had just
arrived, and I was going through it. Nothing interesting: bills, invitations to
events… And an unsigned letter from the mainland, addressed to my dad. He wasn’t
at home, and suddenly, I realized that I wanted to know more about this mystery—all
those unasked, unanswered questions about my family. So I opened the envelope.
“Dearest father…”
Dearest father!? I knew I hadn’t sent the letter. I looked at
the envelope again; it was sent to my house, in my dad’s name.
Pag. 08
And inside the
envelope, something else. A photograph of three old men. “We miss you…”
continued the letter.
My brothers. My
dad’s sons. And I’d never seen them before in my life. When my father came
home, I waved the letter in this face. “What’s this?” I shouted. “Who are these
guys?”
His face went
stiff. Like stone. “You don’t need to know, Jackie,” he said quietly. “You don’t
need to know.” And he took the letter and photograph away.
We never talked
about it again.
That’s how I found
out about my half-brothers.
The rest of his
story isn’t very clear. I know that it involved the Japanese. When the armies
invaded China, they turned the nation upside down. Chinese were fighting
Chinese, and Shanghai—the city they called the Jewel of the East—became a place
of fear. My father’s family had to abandon everything it owned. And even more:
my father was forced to leave behind him his sons and his wife. I don’t think
she survived the war.
At this time, my
mother was also in Shanghai. She was from a very poor background, so she had
none of the advantages of my father’s upbringing. Like my father, she was
married. And, like my father, in the turmoil of the war, she had to leave her
husband and family behind.
She escaped the
terror by hiding from Japanese troops, scavenging food, and making a dangerous
journey on foot to the coast. It was in Shandong—my ancestral home—that she met
my dad. Despite the difference in their backgrounds, the war had turned them into
equals: two refugees, still mourning the loss of their loved ones. Somehow, Dad
managed to bring her with him on the boat that smuggled him out of the mainland.
They got married soon after safely reaching Hong Kong. And not long after that,
I was on my way.
All through my
childhood, they always told me that I was an only child, their special son.
This is part of the reason why I was so shocked to find out about my brothers.
But that shock was just the beginning.
My mother is
very old now, and even though my wife has always helped to take care of her,
some years ago it became clear that she needed someone to be with her all the
time, to live with her in my parents’ house in Australia.
One day, when I
went visit them, the person who answered the door was a strange older woman.
She didn’t introduce herself as she brought me in to see my mother, but
somehow, she seemed familiar. “Hey, Mom, who’s the new housekeeper?” I asked.
My mother looked at me in silence for a few moments. “She isn’t a housekeeper,”
she said finally. “Son, meet your sister.”
Even today, I
don’t know everything. I don’t think I want to know. My mother told my manager
Willie the whole story once, and he came running
Pag. 09
over to tell me that
it would make a fantastic movie. I told him that even if it would, I didn’t want
to make it. I don’t want to find out that I have more brothers or sisters, or
that my father isn’t my real father, or that my mother isn’t my real mother.
Our secret
history belongs where it is now: in the past.
Still, I guess
you can see why my parents were reluctant give me up. There might have been other
children lost in the branches of the family tree, but who knew at the time if
they’d survived the war? And besides, I was the only child they shared: the only son of Charles and
Lee-lee Chan.
Sometimes I
wonder what it would have been like to have known my half brothers and sisters
growing up. But being an only child had its advantages, too—most of which had
to do with my mother. Without any competition from siblings, I had all of my
mom’s attention—winch of course is exactly what I demanded.
As a toddler, I
remember watching my mother do the chores that filled her waking hours. A large
part of her day was spent in the laundry room, washing, ironing, and folding,
and I would crawl around her feet, pulling down sheets, putting soap chips in
my mouth, and nearly tripping her as she carried hot water from the running tap
to the scrub basin. Eventually, Mom did what she always did when she needed a
little bit of peace: she filled a big tub with warm water and put me inside,
letting me splash and play. I wasn’t any easier to take care of when evening
arrived, either; restless in my lower bunk, I would scream and cry throughout the
night. The noise would not only keep up my hardworking parents, it would
sometimes filter upstairs to the ambassador’s bedroom, waking his patient—but light-sleeping—wife.
I can only imagine my parents’ embarrassment—when the life of their employer
came down in her nightgown and robe to the servants’ quarters, asking them
(very politely) to quiet their obnoxious child!
When this
happened, my mother would pick me up and bring me outside to the mansion’s back
garden, cradling me in her arms and gently shooing the mosquitoes away a straw
fan. While she held me, she would hum a soft melody without words, until
finally I went to sleep.
Every child
thinks his mother is the best in the world, but my mom really is the greatest. She had no education,
no opportunities in her life; she’s a very traditional Chinese woman who
devoted her entire life to her husband and her son. I never remember her going
out, and never saw her in makeup or fancy clothing. I don’t even remember her spending
money on herself: everything was for the family. Even now, when I can afford to
buy her anything, the things she chooses to wear are things she bought forty
years ago. I remember one day, When I was in Australia visiting her, all of a
sudden she turned to me and said, “Son, can you give me one hundred twenty
dollars?”
Pag. 10
It was strange
request. “Why such a weird amount?”
“If you give me
one hundred twenty dollars,” she said, “I’ll turn it into one thousand.”
That made me
blink. “How?” I asked. My mother is a wonderful woman, but she’s no magician—or
financial wizard.
She smiled.
“I’ll show you”.
I followed her
as she left living room and walked down the corridor to her bedroom. “Reach up
and get that bag, Jackie,” she said. I stood on my toes and grunted as I pulled
down the suitcase. It was almost brand-new, one of the ones I’d bought her; she
never used them when she traveled, preferring the old, battered bags she’d had
since my parents lived in Hong Kong. Inside the suitcase were clothes she no
longer wore, but couldn’t bear to throw away. Lifting out and setting aside
some old sweaters, she pulled out a huge bundle of wrinkled, faded bills. I
looked at it in shock. Not a single one of the bills was in a denomination
greater than twenty dollars. There were hundreds of ones and fives and tens.
And it all added up to $880.
This was the
money she’d saved from over twenty years of keeping house: tips from
ambassadors and presidents and members of parliament, all of the people she’d
cleaned up for and straightened up after.
Mom, give me the
money, and I’ll give you ten thousand dollars in Australian cash.”
So we traded.
And you know what? We had dinner with friends that night, and we spent her
whole stack. Twenty years of my mother’s life, and boom—we ate it in one meal.
I said before that there are advantages to being an
only child. Well, there are also disadvantages—most of which had to do with my
father. How much easier would my childhood have been, if only I’d had siblings to
share the burden of my father’s expectations?
You see, Dad,
like his Shandong ancestors was a warrior at heart—a man of great courage and
determination. He was proud that he had managed to overcome everything fate had
thrown his way, all the tragedy and suffering and years of backbreaking labor.
“The Japanese army conquered China,” he would often boast, “but they could
never conquer the Chinese! That is why our civilization has survived for
thousands of years. To a Chinese man, suffering is like rice: it only makes us
stronger.”
From this
followed a scary kind of logic: pain gives you discipline. Discipline is at the
root of manhood. And so, to be a real man, one must suffer as much as possible.
Because bringing
me into the world was so expensive, Dad was especially adamant about raising me
up as a properly disciplined man, even if he had to knock me sideways to do it.
Each morning, he’d rise when dawn was just a hair-thin line of light on the horizon,
leaving my mother
Pag. 11
still dozing.
Leaping to the ground from his bunk as softly as possible, he’d shake me
roughly awake. “ Ah Pao, it’s morning. Up, up, up.”
If I complained
too much or rolled away, he’d just grab me by the waist and pull me out of bed
in a tangle of sheets and arms. When I was lucky, I’d get my feet under me
before the rest of me hit the floor. When I wasn’t, well, at least I learned
how to take a fall. A good lesson for the future.
Once we were
both more or less awake, we went to be laundry area and splashed water on our
faces and chests. The water always freezing cold, and in the chill of the early
morning it raised goose bumps on my skin. But the chill wouldn’t last long.
Like any survivor, my father was a jack-of-all-trades, an accomplished amateur
carpenter and handyman. Out of stray pieces of wood and recycled rubbish—rice
sacks, rope, and large cans that still smelled faintly of cooking oil—he’d made
a makeshift gym, and we would greet sunrise with a workout that left me
breathless and soaked with perspiration. We would run, lift bags filled with
sand, do military-style push-ups—and spend hours practicing martial arts.
Though I was just four or five years old, already my father was teaching me the
basics of Northern-style kung fu.
It may seem
strange that such a young child would be learning how to fight. You have to
remember, though, that to us Chinese, kung fu isn’t just a means of
self-defense. In some ways, the history of kung fu is the history of China.
Legend says that
kung fu was invented by Bodhidharma, the monk who traveled from India to China
to spread Buddha’s teachings. When he arrived at the great temple of Shaolin,
Bodhidharma was turned away by the skeptical Shaolin brothers. He then took up
residence in a small cave near the temple, and meditated there for nearly a
decade. Over the years, the Shaolin monks watched in awe as Bodhidharma stared
intently, without sleeping or even blinking, at the wall of his cave. After
nine years, the power of the stare bore a hole through the e wall into the
daylight.
This display of
discipline led the monks to embrace Bodhidharma as a great teacher. “How can we
learn how to be like?” they asked. And so Bodhidharma taught them about the
greater wisdom of Buddhism and the power of meditation, but found that, no
matter how the monks tried, they were not strong enough to resist sleep and
other temptations. As a result, he wrote a manual called The Classic of Muscle Change, blueprinting a
series of exercises to toughen the body and mind.
Over time, the
Shaolin monks adapted these exercises into Chinese kung fu.
Kung fu translates loosely into English as “skill,” but by the time of the Tang
dynasty, which they call China’s heroic age, kung fu had diverged
Pag. 12
into many different skills: the Southern
styles, which emphasize strong defensive postures and powerful fist techniques,
and the Northern, which are flowing, acrobatic, and focused on dynamic,
spinning kicks. When the Tang emperor Wang Shih-ch’ung faced a revolt in the
countryside, it was warrior monks from the Shaolin Temple who defeated the
rebels—spreading the legend of their boxing abilities, and turning kung fu into
something every gentleman of quality should know.
Although skills
with the sword, the spear, and the staff were always an important part of
Chinese martial arts, it was the unarmed techniques that were most admired. A
master of Chinese boxing was deadly even when alone and armed only with his
iron fists and lightning legs. When the Manchu invaders conquered China in the
seventeenth century, study of martial arts was outlawed. But the spirit of kung
fu could not die. Rebels loyal to the true emperor gathered in underground
societies called “Triads,” developing the art of kung fu in secret.
By the turn of
the century, the Triads had turned into an extensive network of revolutions
committed to driving out the Manchus and their Western allies, and restoring
Chinese rule. The arrival of the year 1900 triggered the Boxer Rebellion, an
uprising by Triads convinced that their mysterious skills would protect them
from the bullets of the hated foreigners.
Unfortunately,
they were wrong.
Thousands of
Triad members were killed, and the rest were driven into hiding in Hong Kong,
in Taiwan, and even in the West.
In China, kung
fu was suppressed for generations, its masters dead or in exile, while the
disgraced and broken Triads degenerated into brutal criminal gangs. But the
crackdown on kung fu in China only led to its spread throughout the world. Now,
the techniques of kung fu are practiced everywhere by those who realize that it
builds the character traits that lead to greatness: strength, patience,
courage, and subtlety.
My father believe
this more than anyone. To him, learning kung fu was the same as learning how to
be a man.
And frankly, I
was a big disappointment. Lazy and impatient by nature, at first I practiced
under his watchful eye only out of the fear that if I didn’t, he’d demonstrate
his techniques on me, his useless son. Worse yet, when I finally realized that
his training was making me strong, tough, and a fearsome opponent for any kid
stupid enough to get in my way, I bought my dad’s worst nightmare to life: I
went from being a brat, to being a brawler.
I found out
quickly that fighting was gun—when you won, anyway—and it soon became one of my
favorite hobbies, next to eating. (Well, nothing really compared to eating.
Even now, I guess I’d have to say that nothing comes close to the pleasure of a
good, hearty meal.)
Pag.13
But, in my own
defense, I never got fights without good reason. Or at least a reason that
seemed good at the time. I mentioned that the ambassador’s family was always
very nice to us, but you couldn’t say the same for some of our neighbors. We
were poor Chinese, living as servants in the home of a rich and important
Westerner. The other Western kids thought it a shame that the ambassador’s wife
encouraged her children to play with me. These bullies made it their hobby to
pick on me, which was okay, and on my friend…which was not.
Don’t mess with
my friends. Ever. That’s a lesson I’m always willing to teach with my fists. My
closet companion in the world at the time was the ambassador’s youngest
daughter, a beautiful little girl who called me her boyfriend. I accepted the
role with pride, and anyone who dared to make her cry would soon find himself
on the ground, with me and all my chubby weight on top.
Unfortunately,
my dad didn’t care about my chivalrous efforts to defend my young friend’s
honor. The first time he found me seated on the screaming body of one of the
neighboring boys, bruised but crowing victory, he grabbed me by the scruff of
my neck and pulled me into the house.
“Dad, I won!” I
shouted, causing my mother to peek her head out of the laundry room in alarm. “Daaaaaad,
ow!”
I was more
scared of my father when he was silent than when he was shouting. When he
yelled at me, I knew I’d get a spanking at the very worst. Pain never bothered
me much. After all, it went away eventually, and at least after a spanking I’d
be free to do whatever I wanted. But when my dad was quiet, I had no idea what
he would do next.
Except that I
wouldn’t enjoy it.
My mother
watched as my father pulled me down the corridor, past our room, where spanking
usually took place, and into the alcove where trash was stored.
“What’s wrong,
Dad? I won!” I said, my voice
trembling. His eyes flashed, and I flinched away from him.
“I did not teach
you kung fu so you could beat up your friends,” he said, ice dripping from his
words. “I am teaching you how to fight so that you will never have to fight at all.”
“Well, he wasn’t
my friend,” I countered.
My dad turned
bright red. Without another word, he pushed me into the alcove, which was full
and stinking with the day’s garbage. I stumbled to my knees, and heard the door
being slammed and locked behind me. In the corridor, my mother said something
to my father, who barked back a response, before both voices disappeared into
the distance.
I looked around
at my surroundings. The alcove was tiny and crowded. I could reach out with
both of my arms and touch both walls, or
Pag. 14
At least I could
have if walls hadn’t been lined with bins and bags of trash. There was no roof
to the alcove, allowing the dimming light of the sun to trickle into the space.
I suspected that I would be there long after the moon took over. Gingerly
sitting down on the floor and resting my back against the locked door, I made
myself as comfortable as possible, and tried to take a nap.
I didn’t care
what my dad said. When I jumped on that bully, my little friend had looked at
me like I was a hero. If a hero’s place was out with the trash, well, I’d take
it as an honor. Too bad I was going to miss dinner.
A faint tapping
roused me from my dozing. I realized that my stomach was rumbling with hunger—even
as boy, my body always demanded food on a regular and sizable basis.
“Pao-pao?” said
my mother in a whisper from behind the door. “Look up.”
The doorway to the
alcove had a narrow space above for ventilation. My mom is a small woman, but
by reaching up with both arms and standing on her tiptoes she could just place
her fingertips into the crack. As I raised my head, a crisp white paper package
fell from the ventilation space into my lap, pushed through by my loving mother’s
hands. Inside the wrapping was a sandwich, made of warm, soft bread and roast
meat.
Without even
thanking my mom, I began gobbling the food, only half listening to the padding
sound of my mother’s feet walking back down the corridor to our family’s
bedroom.
As I said, my
mom is the best mom in the whole wide world.
The next
morning, I was rudely awakened by the opening of the door against which I was
leaning. I fell backward into the corridor, blinking up at the expressionless
face of my father.
“ Ah Pao, it’s
morning.” Time to get up,” he said, and instructed me to help him move the
heavy bins of trash out for collection. By the time that was done, dawn had
arrived, and it was time to greet the sun with our morning workout.
