One by one his investments failed, first the real estate, then the shipping, then the casinos upon which he had gambled his fortune. He even had to sell the flat at Kadoorie Hill where his mother was living. There was no such thing as insurance in those days. Many men’s fortunes rose and fell like ocean waves. Captain Lee was one of those men. Soon all that remained was Siu-Wai’s family property at Chek Keng and the tang tsai he had inherited from his father and brothers. The day he sold his final property to pay his final debt, he brought his mother back to the village to live with Siu-Wai, returned to his boat, and slept as well as he ever had, which is to say quite well, because he still had his mother, his daughter, his beloved, a house with land and a little tang tsai watched over by Our Lady of Grace. That’s a lot more than most Hong Kong people had in those days. It’s a lot more than most Sui Seung Yan had. He still considered himself a wealthy man.

The crab is gone. Ophelia stares at the giant pile of shells on her plate, and the relatively small pile on Great-Aunt Violet’s.

“Oh my gosh, I ate it all.”

“Never mind. Not my favourite, anyway. I wanted you to have it. I prefer tang tsai jook. The congee they used to make on their little boats for sale to passersby.”

Great-Aunt Violet raises her hand in the air and shakes it furiously to get the server’s attention. The server comes, grumpy as ever, to take their order.

Great-Aunt Violet glances at the pink-haired girl on the wall. “1:30. Still time. We eat this, then we go. You can watch Chris Patten leave Government House on TV at Macy’s.”

“You told me before that Grandmother Emily eloped. I didn’t know Chinese girls did that in those days.”

“It was a little unusual. But anything a British girl can do, a Chinese girl can do better. Don’t you know that by now?”

CHAPTER 7ELOPE

July 8, 1937

On July 8, 1937, the South China Morning Post reported that, the previous night, the Japanese Imperial Army had entered Wanping, a walled city outside Beiping, with the excuse that a Japanese soldier had gone missing inside the city. The soldier returned unharmed to the barracks, but the Japanese had not left Wanping.

Amah was worried, but Father said that Hong Kong was going to be okay. “We’re a British colony. Why would they bother with us?”

“Because we’re a British colony,” I said. “Haven’t you heard the slogan ‘Asia for Asians’?”

“With the Communists and KMT together, and Stalin backing the Chinese, the Japanese don’t stand a chance,” Father replied. “We don’t need to worry.”

“We need to have a plan for all eventualities, Father. No one can say for sure what will happen.”