A few fishing boats dotted the placid surface of Clearwater Bay. A British launch boat owned by one of the big hongs in town cut leisurely through the water and moved on to the next bay. On shore, it was hot and humid as the inside of rattan steamer over a boiling pot, but out here on Clearwater Bay there was a little sea breeze and the sun was pleasantly warm. True to the name of the bay, the water was so clear you could see straight to the bottom. Cheung Chiu-Wai, head cook at the Hong Kong Cricket Club, and his sworn brother, Captain Lee Cho-Lam, the fisherman, odd-jobber, and occasional smuggler from the village of Chek Keng on the Sai Kung Peninsula, had their feet up on the gunwale of Lee’s ever-faithful fishing boat, the Oolong, and their fishing rods over the water. They could have used nets, but nets signified work, while rods meant relaxation and leisure, a fashionable concept they seldom had the chance to indulge. Cheung’s younger son, the shy, loyal, and hopelessly skinny Tak-Tam, and Lee’s brave and capable daughter, Ting-Yan, rounded out their little party. Tak-Tam loved Ting-Yan for her tanned face, strong back, and quiet wisdom, but the feeling was not mutual. Ting-Yan loved Cheung’s older son, the handsome and athletic Tak-Wing. That feeling was not mutual either. Tak-Wing loved a vain but beautiful girl called Emily Mah, whom Cheung despised because of who her father was.

The British launch boat returned to the bay, putting through the mild waters in their direction, kicking up a froth. It didn’t come too close, but Cheung could see a woman on the boat looking at them through binoculars. He scowled. Couldn’t they mind their own business on his precious day off? With determination, he returned to the thoughts that he didn’t have time for during the workweek, while he ran about to serve exactly the kind of people who watched him now from that shiny leisure craft.

If ever a man had two sons as different from one another as rice and fish, it was Cheung Chiu-Wai. His younger son Tak-Tam was bookish, selfless, and practical-minded; his older son Tak-Wing was just the opposite. Like his father, Tak-Wing was broad and tall—very unusual for a Southern Chinese. Like his mother, he was gregarious and outgoing, though perhaps not the brightest bulb in the box. He was too much governed by feeling, and a little self-absorbed too, not pathologically, but in the way that handsome men can sometimes be. Tak-Tam was a better person, but Tak-Wing was Cheung’s favourite, though he could barely acknowledge this to himself.