“You know,” Lee said, “I think Ting-Yan would be content to marry Tak-Tam, once she’s had a little while to recover from the shock. Tak-Tam was always my first choice. Tak-Tam can inherit the house at Chek Keng. And the boats and fields. I think he would be happy. And the God of the Hearth—I mean the Christ—would be content with this order of things also. But if they were to marry, the whole family, including Tak-Wing and Emily, could relocate to Chek Keng. I mean, if you have to … if …”

“If I have to sell the Tai Hang house?”

“I didn’t want to say it.”

“You’re a good friend to me, Ah Lee. Give me a day to clear my head?”

And that was how the house at Tai Hang was lost. But as the Christians say, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” There is also a Taoist moral tale about a man whose son loses his ability to walk when he is thrown from a wild horse. As a consequence, when the army comes recruiting, that man gets to keep his son while all the other villagers lose theirs.

CHAPTER 9Typhoon ShelterTHE GEOMANTIC FATE OF WONG NAI CHUNG VILLAGE

June 30, 1997

Over the tinny sound system blasts an infectious tune that Ophelia recognizes as a Top 40 song popular with tweens in the late 1980s, by the manufactured British girl band, Cat Call.

Woman wanting

Only daunting

For a guy that’s low

The music infects the grumpy server, who wiggles a little dance step on her way to the table. But in the back, someone is irritated. The song comes to a halt mid-line.

Woman wanting

Don’t come haunting

’Less you’ve got some—

Then a new song rises in Mandarin: “Mei Gui, Mei Gui, Wo Ai Ni,” “Rose, Rose, I Love You.” Ophelia’s going through a riot grrrl phase and can’t be bothered with any of it, though she has to admit that the rose song is catchy. The congee arrives in a steaming pot, fragrant and rich with the smells of seafood and warm rice. Great-Aunt Violet ladles some out for Ophelia and then for herself. There’s lettuce, green onion, cilantro, and peanuts in a little dish on the side to sprinkle over the congee to taste. Great-Aunt Violet takes a sip. “Done right,”she says. “The rice was muddled with thousand-year-old egg and left to marinate before boiling. Good quality pork stock.” Ophelia likes most of it—the fresh fish, the bean curd skin, the dried squid, the slivered roast pork, and the fish cake. The only thing she’s not nuts about is the boiled pig skin, tender-crisp in that way that Chinese people like. “Pah,” says Great-Aunt Violet. “Your taste is too Western. You should come back to Hong Kong and live here for a while. You will learn to find different things delicious.”