Of course, this is different than a quiet trip into town to pick up supplies. When we go out as a family, we draw a lot of attention. Everyone in Macau recognizes us. We are seven blond singing kids, like the von Trapp family in The Sound of Music, but for China.
I’m excited to return to Macau to sing. I have been onstage with my brothers and sister as long as I can remember. My mother says the first time, I was not even two years old. My brothers and Mary were singing up on the stage and I started dancing in the aisle, my fat diaper bouncing. I was stealing the show, so she lifted me onstage and that was it. Back then we often performed on the main Hong Kong and Macau TV channel, TVB Pearl, as well as on radio shows and huge live-televised performances.
We sang at the Hong Kong governor’s Christmas tree lighting and all the Chinese New Year events just a year before we moved here, but that was before the first big persecution. The very next week, after we went home to Macau, we were quietly banned from Hong Kong. My parents heard a rumor that officials from America agitated the Hong Kong government to put all known Family members on the immigration blacklist, even babies. They heard the local Baptist and Catholic churches strongly supported the move. My parents called it a witch hunt. How can a baby deserve to be on a blacklist?
I didn’t understand. They hadn’t charged us with any crime, but it seems our beliefs had earned us a spot on the country’s unofficial blacklist. We are permitted to enter Hong Kong for only twenty-four hours at a time, and we must convince the immigration officer that doing so is for necessary business, like renewing our passports or accessing the airport, as there are no airports or embassies in Macau.
We used to sing so often we didn’t need to practice unless we were learning a new song or skit. But it has been a while since we’ve been onstage, so Mommy Esther organizes a practice session. After Devotions, she gets out her acoustic guitar to accompany us. We all line up, from oldest to youngest, in our T-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops. Our everyday clothes are hand-me-downs by Family members or donations; only the clothes we wear for performances and singing appearances are purchased new with our busking money. I will get to change into my special clothes later, but for now I’m wearing my favorite dress, a simple gingham, blue-and-white-checked dress that came in a donation box. The dress is old and stained, but I love how the skirt spins out flat around me when I twirl. My mother keeps trying to throw it away, and I keep fishing it out of the garbage when she turns her back.
Mommy Esther plays the guitar and coaches our voices as we run through our repertoire. Mommy Ruthie stands in front of us, demonstrating the hand motions that act out the words of the songs and helping us with some simple choreography.
Before setting off for the city that evening, we pray, “Keep us safe on the roads, and protect us from any accidents or bad drivers.” Everyone is wary of persecutors and journalists.
Our white Dodge van pulls up in front of the Hotel Lisboa and Casino, Stanley Ho’s opulent twelve-story hotel on Lisboa Avenue, and all ten of us clamber out.
Stanley Ho, Macau’s most powerful man, is a respectable mobster who owns all the casinos and famously has multiple wives and more than a dozen children. Polygamy was part of Chinese culture until Mao banned it, and child brides, in 1950. Even the straitlaced British only banned polygamy in Hong Kong in 1971. The Portuguese have a “live and let live” attitude, as well as a long history of mistresses. My father is openly envied by our male Systemite friends, who can’t figure out how he got two beautiful women to agree to marry him. Since his name is also Mr. Ho, he gets a knowing smirk from the local officials, who compare him to the other Mr. Ho with many wives.
The Jade Garden, a fancy Chinese restaurant inside the Lisboa Hotel, is just one of the places where we used to perform regularly. Today, Mary and I wear dark green velvet dresses shaped like a bell, and the boys are wearing button-down shirts and dark blue pants. I look up curiously at the familiar flashing neon lights. It’s good to be back in the city. Will people remember us? Will they let us sing? I worry.
As we walk through the lobby of the Hotel Lisboa in our matching singing outfits, a Chinese man calls out our family name in Cantonese. I turn and smile and wave like I’ve been taught. A young Chinese woman rushes over with her camera and grabs me off the floor, shoving her camera into her friend’s hands. I smile politely, posing for the photo while my parents wait with indulgent looks.
I learned long ago to never get upset or show displeasure when people grab us for photos on the street, no matter what mood I’m in. “You need to be a good sample of God’s love!” my father scolded angrily after I grumpily refused to smile in a photo for border guards in China one time.
The crease of concern on Mommy Esther’s face melts away as she asks for the manager of the Jade Garden and he gives us an enthusiastic greeting.
The waitresses in their long green Chinese chi pau (traditional dress with little buttons trailing up the side to the high collar and a slit all the way up the thigh) crowd around, laughing, touching our hair, and trying to pick me up. The manager finally shoos them back to work, and we follow him, weaving through the food-covered tables to the center of the round room. My Mary Janes race to keep up, struggling to turn away from the temptation of so much yummy food at eye level.
Fifty large round tables create concentric circles widening out from where we stand on a slightly raised circular platform in the center. The green carpet muffles our stomping feet but does nothing to dampen the din of hundreds of Cantonese voices and clashing cutlery. The china bowls clatter louder than the slap of mah-jongg tiles in a gambling den. Singing without a microphone is a shouting match—us against them. But we know if they like it, they will quiet down.
We line up in the cramped space between the tables, with Mommy Esther and her guitar behind us. She strums her guitar once to alert us, saying under her breath, “One, two, one, two, three . . .”
“Sai zhong shu shan ga liang tai!” we belt out in unison, and we’re off, twisting, singing and smiling with all our might. This song is one of my favorites. It is not a witnessing song. It is a funny Cantonese song about a guy who gets dressed up in a new shirt and tie and goes out and all the girls go crazy for him. Then he goes and changes into a new outfit and does it again.
Hundreds of faces stare at us in surprise, but the audience soon starts clapping and laughing with us. Bones, our family clown, is twisting out in front and hamming it up with facial expressions, pretending he has all the girls fawning over him.