So he waited, grieving, as the sun set upon the place where his mei mei had been interred. He remembered his Chinese grandmother and how she’d once talked about the Lolos, the tribal people of Southern China who believed that there was a star in the sky for every person on Earth. When that person died, their star would fall.
His ears popped and he heard the familiar booming of mortars and the rattle of gunfire. He watched as the horizon lit up with flares and the flash of cannons. Then the sky was dark again and everywhere he looked, it was raining stars.
UNBOUND
(1902)
The man who was not his uncle came for Yung in the morning. A white merchant with a ruddy beard, he removed his elegant suit jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves to reveal an array of old tattoos. He squeezed Yung’s arm, pulled his hair, looked in his ears. He then smiled and nodded as his translator, a remarkably fat Chinese man, clapped his hands and shouted, “Hay sun la!” waking other children—a host of girls and a handful of boys, who had gathered in and around the cemetery during the night. All of them seemed older than Yung, grade school age at least, or well into their teens. Some had rolls of bedding and carried their belongings in bamboo baskets attached to long sticks, topped with netting, while a few of the older girls wore modest, hand-sewn dresses and tied their hair with red strings. But just as many were like him, in rags, barefoot. And all of them stared at Yung when they realized he was a mixed-blood child. He recognized the look, not one of curiosity or contempt, but an expression that said, I may have nothing, I may be homeless and starving, but at least I’m not him.
Yung ignored their attention and tried not to think about his mother as they followed the men away from pillars of black smoke and the sounds of gunfire that were rising in the distance. They walked for hours, Yung taking two steps with his little legs for every one of theirs, as he struggled to keep up. A tributary of sadness flowing into a greater stream of refugees that became a flood of humanity, traveling away from the sound of thunder in a cloudless sky. They boarded a boat, which took them to a city on the Pearl River. When they arrived, in the shadow of a great ship, the salty air made Yung’s mouth water, though the only signs of food were the bones of fish that had been recently caught, cooked, and eaten, on the banks of the murky water.
Yung’s eyes grew wide as he gazed up at the massive freighter, with four masts and an enormous funneled stack. Everyone spoke of the Chang Yi, but he didn’t know if that was the ship’s name, or if they were referring to the man who was not his uncle.
Swirling black smoke from the stack muddied the sky, turning the sun a ruddy orange, and Yung wondered how such a stout ship could move. Then he felt his legs tremble from the vibrations of a great steam engine. His body was haggard, weary and numb from the march, but he was grateful to be upright as he watched a group of Chinese stevedores pulling an oxcart bearing a dozen elegantly dressed girls with bound feet. Yung heard a shrill whistle as they were unloaded, limping, while a white marine officer parted the crowd and began yelling in broken Chinese, “Line up and be silent!”
The officer pointed and snapped his fingers as Yung queued up and they were poked and prodded, noses counted.
The officer culled those with rickets or those with stooped backs. That group was herded away from the ship, back toward the heart of the city. Yung watched as the boys and girls obviously stricken with lice and mites were doused in foul-smelling waters, given a change of clothing, and then taken to another vessel.
Yung overheard the sailors chattering back and forth in Chinese, Portuguese, and English, which he understood just enough to gather that they were blackbirders.
His mother had once talked about these men—sailors who sold poor Chinese to plantations in Hawaii, outlaws who smuggled workers into the western world, and brokers who delivered brides to lonely men in the gold mountains of Gum Shan—the rich and mysterious frontiers of North America.
Despite those warnings, Yung’s heart quickened as he began to smell real food—roast chicken, garlic, and other savory spices, emanating from the ship, wafting on the breeze.
The officer yelled boarding instructions, and Yung was ushered onboard with his tiny knapsack of clothing. He could see another gangplank leading up to the front of the ship, where the man who was not his uncle had donned a coat and top hat and was hosting elegantly dressed men and women, Asian and Anglo, on a forward deck. There were men in military uniforms and a host of Chinese officials. Yung stared, his mouth watering as he watched them eat, and drink wine from long-stemmed glasses. He and the other children and teens were herded below, through narrow hallways, past crew cabins, and beyond rows of bunks crowded with shirtless Chinese sailors who sported brands on their chests and scars on their backs. Yung followed as they were taken down into what felt like the bottom of the ship, to a cargo hold that smelled of coal dust and stale urine. And there was a constant mechanical thrum coming through the walls that he could feel as well as hear.
As his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit space, Yung could see that the cargo hold had been converted into a living quarters, divided into racks of bunks and rows of low-walled pens, with woolen blankets and straw mattresses. He was assigned to a pen with five other boys, who looked at him warily. A group of peasant girls, some with bound feet, perhaps eight or nine years of age, were put in pens directly across from them, while the teenagers in silk cheongsams and lacy European dresses, with high necks and tight collars, were put in a locked wooden paddock toward the rear of the room. The iron bars suggested the place had previously been used for storing precious cargo. Yung watched the sailors regard the comely girls the way his mother and he used to hungrily stare at street vendors cooking fresh siu mei. That’s when Yung realized the well-dressed girls had been locked away for their own protection.
“You will sleep here, you will live here, and you will spend the entire month at sea belowdecks,” barked a Caucasian man in a dark blue uniform. He spoke English, which Yung assumed only a handful of children understood. The man removed his cap and rubbed his chin, feeling the blond scruff of a close-cropped beard. He introduced himself as the ship’s chief medical officer. “You will stay here, otherwise you risk catching and spreading a coughing disease.” The doctor pointed to his chest. “I will conduct daily health inspections. If one of you gets sick, or is stricken with a rash that bleeds, you will not be allowed to threaten the rest of the passengers—you will be thrown overboard. No exceptions. There is no mercy at sea. Is this understood?”
Yung nodded, wide-eyed as a Chinese crewman translated the doctor’s words. The boys in his pen, the ones who had been lounging on the floor, immediately sat upright. Yung looked around, wondering who might be sick. He didn’t dare sneeze for fear of being dragged back on deck and cast over the side.
There were hushed whispers followed by a nervous pause.
Then a horrible wailing began as the young doctor drew a long, hooked knife from a satchel and went about the room, cutting the soiled cotton bandages that bound the feet of many of the girls, both the rich and the poor. Yung could hear their crying as the girls’ painful feet were touched, moved, the popping of bone and cartilage as they tried to flex and put pressure on their lotus-shaped stumps. For the younger ones he could tell that this was a euphoric feeling of freedom and relief, but for the older girls, their feet long since broken again and again, this brought more pain than comfort.
“You will feel better in a few weeks,” the doctor said as he threw the dirty bandages into a wooden bucket. The cotton smelled like blood and herbs and rot.