“Of course he’s not dead,” Sun Quan said as he lay on his deathbed. “Guan Yu had no fear of death, and my only regret is that I will not have his company where I am going. I had hoped we might one day be friends.”
“Of course he’s not dead,” said Cao Cao to Liu Chan, Liu Bei’s son, as he gave the order to break the Seal of the Kingdom of Shu, now that he had finally united the Three Kingdoms. “I have never thought much of your father or you, but if Guan ?Yu was willing to serve your father, then he must have seen something that I couldn’t. As Lord Guan Yu may still be watching over you, I would show him that I am not without virtue. I will not harm you and you will always live in my house as an honored guest.”
“Of course he’s not dead,” said the mother to the child. “Lord Guan Yu was the greatest man the Middle Kingdom has ever produced. If you have even one hundredth of his strength and courage, I will never need to fear thieves and bandits.”
“Let us pray to Lord Guan ?Yu,” said the scholar to his students. “He was a poet and a warrior, and he lived each day as a test of his honor.”
“Let us pray to Lord Guan ?Yu,” said the Emperor as he dedicated the Temple to the God of War. “May he grant us victory over the barbarians.”
“Let us pray to Lord Guan Yu,” said the player with the black stones. “All of us wei qi players wish we could play a game against him. If we play well today, perhaps he will deign to come and give us lessons.”
“Let us pray to Lord Guan Yu,” said the merchants as they prepared to set out across the ocean for the fabled ports of Ceylon and Singapore. “He will watch over us and subdue the pirates and typhoons.”
“Let us pray to Lord Guan Yu,” said the laborers as they boarded the sailing ships headed for the Sandalwood Mountains of Hawaii and the Old Gold Mountain of California. “He will help us endure the journey, and he will break apart mountains before us. He will keep us safe until we have made our fortune, and then he will guide us home.”
THE CHINESE RESTAURANT
By late summer, the stream that fed the Chinamen’s claim had dried to a trickle. Though Logan and his men were good at managing water, the onset of the dry season meant that it was no longer possible to mine the placer deposit effectively. They had to settle in and wait until next spring.
Though they had done well with the mining season during spring and summer, the Chinamen had by no means accumulated a large fortune. As they settled into the life of Idaho City and waited out the rest of the year, they tried to figure out other ways to make ends meet.
Ah Yan and some of the younger men looked for work around the town and talked amongst themselves. They noticed that there were plenty of single men in town who simply refused to or couldn’t wash their own shirts, and there simply weren’t enough laundresses taking in the washing for all the men.
“But that’s women’s work! Have these men no sense of decency?” Elsie was incredulous when Jack told her the Chinamen’s plan.
“Well, what of it? Why do you seem to hate everything the Chinamen do?” Jack said, amusement and annoyance struggling in his voice.
“Thaddeus Seaver.” Elsie looked sternly at her husband. She knew better than to expect that her husband would show any proper sense of shock at the antics of these outrageous Chinamen when Thad was the one who encouraged them to become bolder and bolder every day. But then she hit upon an argument that even Thad had to acknowledge.
“Why, think about it, Thad,” she said. “I’ve seen the way these heathen Chinamen go about their work. When they set up their laundry shops, they’ll work seven days a week, sixteen hours a day. They’ll do it since their hearts are filled with greed for gold and pumped full of sinful opium so that they never stop for a moment to think about the Glory of God, not even on Sundays. And I’ve seen the way they eat. The Chinamen are like locusts: they survive on nothing but cheap rice and vegetables when honest Christian men and women need to eat meat to keep up their strength. And they do not spend money on honest wholesome entertainment and camaraderie that keep the town’s shops and taverns afloat as our men do, but rather waste their evenings away wailing their cacophonous songs and telling their secretive stories. Finally, when night rolls around and every Christian family withdraws around the privacy of the familial hearth”—and here she paused to give Jack a meaningful stare—“the Chinamen squeeze as many bodies into as few beds as possible to save on rent.”
“Why, Elsie,” Jack laughed uproariously. “I’ve heard of faint praise before, but I do believe this is the first time I’ve ever heard of faint damnation. The way you go on, I’d think you are a lover of the Chinese if I didn’t know better. You claim to be showing me their faults, but all you’ve said simply show that they are industrious, frugal, clever, happy with each other’s company, and willing to bear hardships. If this is the worst you can say about the Chinamen, then it is all but certain that the Civilization of Confucius is going to triumph over the Civilization of Christ.”
“You are not thinking,” Elsie said coldly. “What do you think the inevitable result of the cheap labor of these Chinamen will be? These Chinamen are going to undercharge Mrs. O’Scannlain and Mrs. Day and all the other widows. These women have a hard enough time as it is, working day and night, their fingers all red and raw from the constant washing, and they barely make enough to feed themselves and their children. Naturally, the weak men of this town, uncertain of their Christian duty, will give their work to the Chinamen, who’ll charge them less than the honest widows who must keep God and their virtue close to their hearts. What will you have these widows do when their work has been stolen from them by the Chinamen? Will you have them throwing themselves at the mercy of Madam Isabelle and her house of sin?”
For once, Jack Seaver didn’t know what to say in reply to his wife.
? ? ?
“How about carpentry? Furniture finishing? I could hire you to come and work in my store as clerks,” Jack said to Ah Yan.
“You can’t afford me,” Ah Yan said. “We charge twenty-five cents a shirt, and that means almost ten dollars a day from the bachelors alone. I’m not even counting the money from the blankets and sheets from the hotels. I’ve been told that we do a better job ironing than the women used to.” Ah Yan gave a rueful smile and flexed out his wiry right arm to look at the distended thumb at the end. “Even my thumb is getting bigger from pushing that iron all day. My wife back home will be tickled pink to hear that I’m a master of the iron now.”
To hear Ah Yan talk of his family was jarring to Jack, reminding him that Ah Yan, who looked so young to Jack’s eyes, wasn’t just some clever young man who knew how to cook and wash, but rather a husband and probably a father who was forced to learn how to do these things because his wife couldn’t be with him.
Lily had told Jack a few days earlier that the Chinamen were coming up with some new ideas that they wanted to ask his advice on. Finally, this morning, he could leave the store for a few hours to come over with Lily, who ran into the backyard to be with Logan as soon as they arrived. Jack thoughtfully bit into the steamed bun that Ah Yan had given him for breakfast; the bun burst open in his mouth, filling his tongue with the juice and flavor of sweet pork and hot and salty vegetables.
“Wait.” Jack swallowed quickly, regretting that he couldn’t enjoy the taste as long as he would have liked. “I have an idea. Before tasting your cooking, I would never have believed that cabbage and beans could taste better than beef and sausage, or that bitterness that lingered could be something that you liked. But you’ve been able to prove me wrong. Why not show the other people in Idaho City? You and the others could open up a restaurant and make a lot more money.”
Ah Yan shook his head. “Won’t work, Mr. Seaver. My friends in Old Gold Mountain tried it. Most Americans aren’t like you. They can’t stand the taste of Chinese food. It makes them sick.”