Captain Lee was a poor Tanka, living on a tiny houseboat with his mother. His father and older brothers were dead. They died in a storm at sea. You know these nasty typhoons we get here. Their little onboard Tin Hau shrine was not enough to save them, and they had no motor in those days either. The storm came up quickly. All the men were at oar, desperately working to keep the little boat upright. It was a wooden fishing boat, you know the kind with the green cover that rolls over top? We call them tang tsai, which just means small boat. The whole family lived on that boat and made their living by it. Well, the winds blew strong and the waves rose to the height of mountains only to collapse a second later. Little Lee and his mother clung to the central mast, each with an old rubber tire around their waist. A big wave came and washed all the men clear off the deck, while Little Lee and his mom cried and wailed. You don’t know what life was like back then: it was so hard, the people really suffered.

The men washed right off the deck and into the ocean. They were all drowned. Little Lee and his mom hung on for dear life. Can you imagine? I can hardly imagine. Life was so terrible, ai yah, what a tragedy. Somehow, Lee and his mom hung on. Ting-Yan says Lee didn’t pray to Tin Hau, but cursed her. He prayed to Mary—in those days the Christians proselytized through their floating church down in Aberdeen and up on the Sai Kung Peninsula. He cursed Tin Hau and prayed to Mary and promised her that if he and his mom survived the storm, he would convert to Catholicism. Well, somehow the boat remained upright. Somehow, they clung to the main mast. They survived that storm. The boat was damaged, but it was not smashed to pieces, which is a miracle, don’t you think? The next day they were rescued by other Tanka boats in the area, and that afternoon, Little Lee went straight to the priest to get baptized. He didn’t remove the Tin Hau shrine from the boat though. He just put a rosary around the little statue’s neck and called her Mother Mary or Our Lady of Grace from then on.