But my mother was dead, and my father was caught up in his business life and the life of his concubine, who had borne an unusually large number of children. As long as he didn’t find out about it, which he mostly didn’t, I was free to do what I wanted, and what I wanted to do was dance. Of course, I didn’t have a lot of pocket money, and it was expensive to go the Repulse Bay Hotel. Violet and I weren’t like the beautiful expatriate people who lived their beautiful expatriate lives in such places. Though my family wasn’t poor, we were still Chinese. And Chinese people were only grudgingly allowed in these places. If I wanted to go out every weekend, I’d have to be more resourceful. I dreamt and planned as I played my records on the gramophone I had begged Father for by way of Second Mother Polly. I had all the latest records from Parlophone and Rex, which I bought at the Tsang Fook Piano Company. I had Victor Silvester’s Harmony Music playing “Dicky Bird Hop.” I had Gino Bordin playing “Charm of Hawaii.” I had the Phil Green Orchestra playing “Sweet Muchucha” and “The Peanut Vendor.” But what I loved most was the music coming out of the Canidrome in Shanghai played by the trumpeter Buck Clayton and His Harlem Gentlemen. Actually, Clayton didn’t have roots in Harlem at all. He was born in Kansas and made his name in a taxi dance hall in Los Angeles, but we all take on a little mislabelling sometimes so people can place us better. He played Rhapsody in Blue and “The Very Thought of You.” I sang along and discovered I had a voice. And also that Clayton had a Chinese counterpart called Li Jinhui, whose daughter was a famous singer. That could be me, I thought. I practised a few of my favourite Shanghai jazz standards: “Rose, Rose, I Love You,” “Waiting for You,” “By the Suzhou River.” But my favourite was a Yiddish song popular in Germany: “Bei Mir Bist Du Schön,” made famous by the Andrews Sisters. I sang it as I showered. I sang it as I walked with Amah down to Central to get vegetables and meat for dinner, while I helped her hang laundry and put out the garbage.

One day just before lunar new year, when all the little shops along the steps down to Central were festooned with plum blossoms, lucky sayings in gold characters on red paper, and bright lanterns over the doorways, we walked and I sang. Two men strolling in front of us turned around. One was tall and dark skinned, the other pale and slender. “Pardon me,” said the pale and slender one, in perfect Cantonese.