Cover

Dedication

For those to come

CHAPTER 1Typhoon ShelterYOU ASKED

June 30, 1997

The Typhoon Shelter Restaurant is a stone’s throw from the Tin Hau MTR station, but you really have to look to find it, hidden as it is on a narrow side street and eclipsed by buildings so tall they scrape the clouds. But Ophelia Tang’s great-aunt Violet Mah knows the way. They trudge up the hill through the rain under their commemorative umbrellas in blue and yellow, pausing just long enough to take a quick photograph at Tin Hau Temple Road Garden No. 3, with its little shoji-screened shrine and carved stone lamps. They left Auntie Macy Cheung Koon-Ying’s flat in the Mid-Levels later than intended, and Ophelia wants to get back before 4:30 to watch Governor Chris Patten depart from Government House and board Her Majesty’s Yacht Britannia. It’s June 30, 1997, the last day that Hong Kong will be a British Crown colony.

The wind blows in at an angle, and the two women are getting drenched, eightysomething and twentysomething alike. The steady rain intensifies and threatens to become a deluge. Eager to get inside, they scramble in their squelching shoes. Water begins to descend in sheets and splash hard on the pavement. They huff for breath as the hill grows steeper.

At last, they arrive. The sliding doors roll open, and their faces are hit by a cool, air-conditioned breeze. Their nostrils, mouths, eyes, and ears flood with the scent of seafood, chilies, and fried garlic. A grumpy, tired server greets them and guides them to a table near the tanks, where all manner of sea creatures crawl, swim, or float.

There’s a clock on the wall with a graphic of a girl’s face on it. She’s got turquoise skin, little white freckles, and pink hair. She sports big yellow sunglasses and pop art lips. The hands of the clock circle her nose. She gazes at them impassively, a glamorous space alien from a stellar future no one can yet dream. When the clock strikes midnight, Hong Kong will become part of the People’s Republic of China under the slogan “One country, two systems,” recalling another midnight almost thirty years prior, when Britain let go of a different jewel in its burnished crown, with different but related consequences. The restaurant is only half full, unusually quiet because everyone is either at home watching the pre-handover festivities on TV or down at the waterfront under their own blue-and-yellow umbrellas trying to stake out good spots from which to observe the official ceremony later. Though no one but Ophelia is listening, a New Romantic band called Cri de Cur, popular a decade ago, comes on over the tinny sound system. Safety pin through her lip, the lead singer Donna Wannabe croons, “You say you’ve never been so happy / but you look so goddamn sad.” They find a table and sit.