Do you want to know the story of how Captain Lee got his wife, your great-great-aunt Siu-Wai, to marry him? She was Hakka from the respected village of Chek Keng. He saw her one day at Sai Kung, which is where the main dock for that area was and is. Wah! He thought she was so beautiful. He saw her, and he was so smitten, even more smitten than Macy is by Sutton Ngai—you saw them together at dinner last night, they couldn’t stop staring at each other, so embarrassing, lah. But of course Captain Lee was not rich like his granddaughter Macy. Not yet, anyway. I told you, he was a poor Sui Seung Yan looking after his aged mother, with no father or older brothers to protect him or look after him or give him face. You know in those days no one would marry a Tanka. Not the Punti people, for sure. Not even the Hakka. They were really looked down upon. We really treated them badly, I’m ashamed to say.

What do you mean I put the Hakka down by saying “not even the Hakka”? Don’t be such a sociologist. I don’t look down on the Hakka. You know me, I treat everyone the same. Ting-Yan is part Hakka and isn’t she my nearest and dearest?

Anyway, so Captain Lee saw Siu-Wai, Kwan was her maiden name, at the Sai Kung docks. And he thought to himself, Wah, that lady is so beautiful. I’m going to marry her for sure. If Our Lady of Grace can save me from certain death in a storm that killed everyone in my family stronger than me, then she can help me marry that beautiful lady. He burned incense at the little onboard shrine every day, and prayed to Tin Hau with her rosary on. “Mother Mary, I have sinned,” he said. “Mother Mary, please make that lady love me.” What patience that onboard Tin Hau must have had, to be dressed as some other deity and asked favours in that other goddess’s name. Don’t tell your aunt Ting-Yan I said that, she really believes in God. I kind of believe, but I believe in Tin Hau too.

What? Yes, I know doctors like me are supposed to believe in reason. I believe in reason! That doesn’t mean I have to believe in it to the exclusion of everything else! Lots of Chinese people believe in more than one thing. I’m no different from the rest of my people.