She ordered the servant to stay at the window, monitor the fire’s progress, and report to her. Meanwhile, she bent down and picked up her little brother. She held him tightly on the edge of the bed. Placing his head on her heart, she rocked him gently back and forth and hummed his favorite songs. Soon he became calm and went back to sleep. Yan didn’t put him down or pass him to the servant. She was ready to run to safety with him in case the fire got too close. Fortunately, it didn’t. The fire was put out, and the noise eventually died away.

  Hours must have passed, for she heard a rooster crow in the distance. The traffic outside started to flow, and the room was not dark anymore. Only then did she fall asleep, still tightly holding her brother.

  When her parents came home and learned about the big fire and what she had done, they were very pleased. She was rewarded with praise for the first time. She also felt closer to Chon Gao now that she knew he needed her.

  Chapter VI

  The Wellington

  Clock & Watch Shop

  Yan’s life with her new family was mostly confined to the apartment. At first, her parents would occasionally take her with them to dinner or a party at their relatives’ or friends’ houses. On such occasions, children would normally be sent to a different room to play and have dinner.

  The first time Yan was taken out for such a visit, a housekeeper shepherded her straight to the kitchen. She found herself at a round table surrounded by children of all ages. Each of them sat in front of a white enamel plate with half a boiled egg, some soy sauce for dipping, and a bowl of plain rice. Yan never liked boiled eggs. She looked at her egg and then the strange faces, which stared back at her. She wanted to cry.

  “Look, a spoiled brat. She will cry for her parents in exactly two seconds.”

  One big boy whispered a challenge to another, who picked up some rice, rolled it into a ball, and threw it at her. Yan was caught by surprise as a warm, sticky mass attached itself to her forehead. All the children broke into laughter, while Yan cried and tried to get the gooey stuff off her face and hair. She refused to sit with this group of rude children. Who cared if they happened to be her relatives? She complained and after the maid made several diplomatic trips between the kitchen and the grownups’ dining room, she was granted permission to be seated with her parents.

  “Now, now, stop crying,” her father said as he wiped her face. Then he ordered a servant to bring a chair for his daughter. She felt a secret thrill hearing his words.

  Soon, Yan was sitting on a big chair upholstered in red and gold brocade, sharing a twenty-course feast with the grownups.

  “Try this.” Her father blew on a spoonful of soup to make sure that it was not too hot before he fed it to Yan. “It’s called Bird’s Nest Soup.”

  Yan tasted it. It was delicious. Her father gave her a whole bowl of it, and she sucked down every drop. As she enjoyed the rare, expensive soup, she thought about the children in the other room, who would never see, much less taste, this delicacy tonight.

  “You should never let a child taste chicken, let alone Bird’s Nest Soup,” a round-faced woman advised Ho De, as she smacked her lips and chewed on her roast duck.

  The other women looked on approvingly in support.

  “Children should only be given plain food so they can’t tell the difference between good and bad. It’s easier to raise them that way.”

  “Oh, really?” Yan’s father felt embarrassed by his relatives’ comments. He didn’t want them to get the impression that he didn’t know how to raise a child, but he also didn’t know how to refuse his one and only daughter.

  “You have spoiled her,” his wife shouted at him in a taxi on the way back home. “Who would feed a child Bird’s Nest Soup? What will all our relatives say about us as parents?”

  Then she poked Yan hard. “Why do you have to be different? Why couldn’t you just eat your egg and rice like the rest of your cousins? Answer me! Answer me now!”

  Yan couldn’t because there was no right answer. She also wondered why grownups always had to spoil the little fun she had.

  Now, whenever they took her out, Yan wouldn’t stay at her children’s table. Her parents felt embarrassed by her behavior and stopped taking her to social engagements. This did not bother her. Yan had tasted enough grownup dishes. She preferred staying home. In fact, whenever her parents went out at night or weekends, she felt relieved. She could spend time with her servant, sharing a chocolate bar with her, cracking and devouring peanuts together until their stomachs would not take any more, listening to some strange old folktales, or whatever she felt like doing. It was a rare time of freedom, and she savored it. When she was tired, she could fall asleep on the servant’s bed. The servant’s room became Yan’s favorite part of the apartment.

  “You act like a servant, rather than the daughter of a high-class family,” her mother complained.

  Yan ignored her. She was not interested in class distinctions. She did what made her happy, although often at the cost of some physical punishment from her mother. Her father would never punish her. She liked him more from the beginning.

  Her adoptive father’s name was Ho De. He was a very attractive man, tall even by the Western standards of the time, with big, attentive eyes set under a pair of dark, handsome eyebrows. His face was a reflective mirror of his inner self: easy-going, honest, and hard-working.

  Ho De was the general manager of a clock and watch shop owned by his cousin in the heart of Shanghai’s most prestigious shopping district. In fact, several of his cousins pretty much monopolized the time machine business in Shanghai. They owned shops variously named the Atlantic Clock Company, Wellington Clock & Watch Shop, Pacific Watches, Inc., Hendry Chronologers, Big Shanghai Clock & Time Emporium, and many more in the British and French occupied territories. Ho De was perfect for the job, born into a well-to-do conservative business family. One of his other relatives owned the famous Three Oceans Emporium. Well-educated through years of private tutoring, Ho De was a master of Chinese calligraphy and poetry. The truth was that he preferred art to business. But above all, he was a good, obedient son who followed instructions and made few choices of his own.

  Once, a friend of Ho De’s father came to visit and was appalled to find the young master at home daydreaming, practicing ink strokes on a silk scroll. “Young men of his age should be at sea or learning a trade,” he said to Ho De’s father. “Good handwriting won’t help him support a family someday. He needs to see the world to learn about the world.”

  “My son is too gentle to travel on the ocean. He gets seasick.”

  “How about a railroad job? My friend needs a bookkeeper on his train. I can recommend him.”

  Ho De spent the next few years on a passenger train chugging around the country. He learned how to keep accounts and daydream at the same time, all while bouncing up and down in a private railway compartment. His parents finally saved him from a perpetually shaky career by arranging for him to become an apprentice in a relative’s clock shop.

  “Your cousin needs someone to help him at the store,” his mother said to him, one day while he was home. “Why don’t you work there so I can see you more often?”

  To Ho De, his mother’s words were more a command than a suggestion, and he obeyed. A couple of years later, impressed by his diligence, honesty, and his ability to learn, his cousin appointed him manager of the Wellington Clock & Watch Shop—much to the envy of all his relatives. He continued to obey everything his parents told him to do. That included, of course, who to marry. Even for a young man of the time, it took total trust in his parents to tie the knot for life with a woman whom he had never seen or met. In China, marriage was the biggest gamble in life.

  As the general manager at Wellington, Ho De was put in charge of purchasing, accounting, and customer service. Like most of the upper- and middle-class Chinese at the time, his customers and merchants were heavily influenced by Western culture. In turn, Ho De’s thinking and lifestyle were also exposed to Western influences. Every morning, he wore a suit and tie, a spiffy white shirt, and black patent leather shoes, complemented by a pair of gold-framed spectacles and a gentlemanly black lacquer walking stick.

  Wellington was his pride. The store was doing extremely well under his management. His customers loved him because he understood their needs and fashion tastes. Ho De knew exactly what to order for each upcoming season. The merchandise flew off the shelves as quickly as it was stocked. At the peak of his career there, Wellington had a pair of grandfather clocks in solid sterling silver, standing five feet tall in the display window. They turned into an instant attraction, and people from all over the city went there just to admire the clocks.

  Ho De’s foreign business friends were mainly from Switzerland and America. They brought him business. They brought him friendship. They also brought him a new religion—Christianity. He and his whole family were eventually converted from Buddhism to Christianity.

  Chapter VII

  Radio Days

  Ho De’s fondness for foreign things brought him another new taste from a world he had never known before. Like other educated Chinese who were beginning to appreciate Western culture as much as their own, he got caught up in the craze for technology that was sweeping the country. When radio came to Shanghai, he was as excited as a child tasting candy for the first time. He dressed Yan up and took her out to a special store so she could hear what he described to her as “a talking and singing box.” What happened there made him regret taking her, for Yan wanted that “talking and singing box” so much that she would not leave the store unless he bought it for her.

  At that time, a radio was the size of a clothing trunk, a big machine in a big, wooden frame. It came with an equally big price tag. Yan had never asked Ho De for anything before. Now she did, and it was the most expensive novelty in town. Ho De could afford the radio, but he couldn’t give a child anything just because she asked for it. What if her next wish was the moon? His Chinese frame of mind would not allow him to buy the radio for her, even though she begged, cried, and made a spectacle of herself. It was very embarrassing, and Ho De didn’t know how to get her out of the store.

  She moped for a few days, but Ho De would not give in. It seemed like the issue was a standoff, but, just then, a dangerous flu hit the city. Little Yan got horribly sick. Fever and congestion left her bedridden with no appetite for anything. Ho De pampered her with the best of everything, feeding her slow-simmered black-bone chicken soup with bitter herbs and bringing in expensive, black-suited Western doctors with round eyes, round monocles, and bags full of mysterious instruments of obscure purpose. Somehow, though, she just wouldn’t get better.

  One day after work, Ho De came to her bed. Looking at her feverish thin face and hollow cheeks, he gently said, “I wish there was something in this world that could make you well again.”

  Quick as a wink, a small and weak, yet hopeful voice replied, “I would get well tomorrow, if you would buy me that ‘talking and singing box’.”

  Ho De shook his head as he patted her on the shoulder.

  The next day, Yan awoke to strange voices and noises, and the servant rushed in. “Miss, Miss, there’s a big delivery for you, and your mother’s not home.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s in a huge box. Your mother’s going to be mad about the mess they’re making.”

  When they finally opened the giant box, Yan leapt to her feet. The talking and singing box! She couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Daddy bought it for me! Now, I’ll get better!” She jumped up and down until she got weak and almost fell off the bed.

  The servant was scared by Yan’s sudden burst of energy. “Calm down, Miss. You should lie in bed. No more jumping. You’ll get me in trouble if anything happens to you.”

  But Yan didn’t hear her words. She managed to get back on her feet and went straight to the big shiny box, which was as high as her shoulder and planted herself in front of it. You are one strange-looking miracle, Yan thought. She slid her hands over the cool wooden surface, wondering what to do next. Then, she noticed a row of ivory knobs and some square buttons and remembered from the store to twist and push a few of them. She placed her ear on the box as it vibrated to life. Startlingly loud music and voices started to pour out. Yan was pleased and so, it seemed, was the magnificent, monstrous radio, with its glowing eyes and grinning mouth full of ivory teeth. The servant forgot all about getting Yan back to her bed and they both sat on the floor listening side by side with their mouths open. They didn’t even hear Yan’s mother when she came home.

  “What’s going ON?!” Jin Lai shrieked.

  The servant regained her senses. “Master has sent Miss a ‘talking and singing box,’ Ma’am.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense! Stop this right now! And why aren’t you making dinner?”

  The servant hurried out of the room, leaving Yan and Jin Lai staring at each other. Judging by her expression, Jin Lai wasn’t pleased by this unbelievable indulgence of Ho De’s.

  Yan didn’t get well as fast as she promised. But her illness was made more bearable by spending time with her radio, listening to her favorite shows, especially Shanghai operas. She loved their mellow tunes, poetic lyrics, and dramatic themes. In her imagination, she saw all the dazzling costumes, elaborate hand gestures, and acrobatic movements she heard about so many times when Ho De and Jin Lai came back from the theater. A whole new world opened up to her. As the years went on, she could imitate the singing styles of some of the most famous actresses, and she memorized several popular operas from beginning to end.

  Radio eventually led her to acting school and an acting career, which made Ho De regret ever giving her the radio. He was a conservative man who believed in raising a girl to be proper and well-behaved so that she would one day become a lady. At the time, acting on the stage wasn’t considered acceptable for a young woman from a good family. It was all right to love opera, for he, too, was a fan. But acting in public was a different matter. It was an issue that would later divide father and daughter.

  For now, though, radio was the first trophy Yan ever won in her life. She felt like a princess, secure in the belief that her father would give her anything she wanted. Later on, she proudly told her children that her father got her one of the first radios in Shanghai. The “talking and singing box” never lost its charm for her. Throughout her life, in good times or bad, in health and sickness, the radio was her constant companion. As she became more dependent on radio, it became more and more accessible, until it was transistorized, and, finally, was small enough to fit in her pocket or under her pillow.

  Chapter VIII

  Educating a Daughter—

  the Old-fashioned Way

  Because of the radio, the relationship between father and daughter was strengthened. Ho De and Yan listened to operas together. They shared laughter and applause, as well as sympathy for doomed lovers and praise for heroes and their endeavors. Most of all, they found a channel to communicate and connect with each other. The more Ho De spent time with his daughter, the more he was surprised by her intelligence and sensitivity. She needs to be educated, he thought. And yet he was not willing to send his daughter to a school, to be seated shoulder to shoulder with boys in the same room, to voice her opinions in public, and to be heard by everyone.

  However, times were changing fast. Yan’s feet weren’t bound the old-fashioned way, as they were for her mothers and grandmothers. She could walk as fast as a man if she wanted to, though she would be criticized for not being elegant and ladylike. If her parents permitted it, she could go to school and become the first woman in her family to read and write. Foreign missionaries were opening more and more schools to serve girls just like her. She could even sit face to face with a doctor, instead of sitting behind a curtain and extending her arm through it to have her pulse felt. Ho De didn’t object to these social changes. But he opposed the idea of sending his daughter to school, as more and more upper- and middle-class families were doing. To him, young girls should be kept private, delicate, and domestic. Girls were too vulnerable to be exposed to strangers and should always be protected. There had to be another way besides sending Yan to school. Then, he realized the answer to his dilemma: He would do the job himself.

  One day, before he returned home, Ho De went out of his way to a stationery store and bought some pencils, a large pink eraser, a writing brush, a stack of rice paper, and some notebooks. He had everything gift-wrapped in a fancy silk box. When he finally turned the key and opened the front door, he could barely contain his excitement.

  “Where is Yan?” he asked his wife.

  “You know where she is,” she grunted. “Always in her room with her radio.”

  Jin Lai turned her head toward the kitchen and trumpeted an order: “The Master is home. Come and get his coat!”

  Ho De didn’t wait for the servant to appear. He went straight past his wife toward Yan’s room.

  Jin Lai’s heart sank when she realized that the gift box wasn’t for her. She wished that her husband would not spoil Yan the way he did, feeding her “Bird’s Nest Soup,” buying her a radio … and now what? That box surely contained another one of his indulgences. No wonder Yan liked him more than her. Why wouldn’t she? But Ho De never learned to be a proper parent.