The Flower Drum Song by C. Y. Lee

Author:C. Y. Lee [Lee, C. Y.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2002-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

2

For convenience in writing checks, Old Master Wang had been learning English. Each day he would practice writing “one, two, three . . .” up to a hundred for an hour or so with the same enthusiasm and precision that he practiced calligraphy. Madam Tang had bought him a ball-point pen, which he held a bit awkwardly like an American holding a pair of chopsticks for the first time.

Nevertheless Old Master Wang was determined to learn how to write the numbers up to ten thousand, which was the amount of money he intended to keep in his checking account constantly. He found it a great pleasure writing checks; it seemed to give him great authority and make him feel important; besides, it was gratifying to know that the recipient of the check and the people in the bank had to read his writing.

It was a quiet evening. After a good dinner by himself, and having enjoyed his coughing, he practiced writing until his fingers were seized with cramps. He put his pen aside, massaged his fingers and cracked them, and in the meantime enjoyed looking at the result of his labor on the fine bond paper, with a chuckle. What would his wife think of his newly acquired ability, had she been alive? he thought. She had always admired his calligraphy. Now this strange language was really something for her to admire; he wondered whether his writing of it lacked strength and character. One of these days, when he was more familiar with the language, he thought, he would write a couplet scroll in English and see how it looked on the wall. It was enough writing for today. He put his writing away and called Liu Ma to bring his ginseng soup and the Chinese newspapers.

Liu Ma came in promptly as if she had been waiting outside his door. Her fat face was red with excitement and her thin lips were tightly pursed as though she were holding something explosive in her mouth and ready to release it. “Old Master,” she said, laying the newspapers on the desk in front of Wang Chi-yang, “please read this piece of news with this picture printed here.”

It was a girl’s picture, with a duck-egg-shaped face and long dark wavy hair and earrings resembling a seven-tiered pagoda. Another she-devil, Wang Chi-yang thought, and with a slight scowl he read the news. “Chinatown Gun Battle,” the headline said. “Last night two men quarreled over a woman and one of them was shot. The woman, Linda Tung, a divorcee, went to a dance at a businessman’s club on Sacramento Street with a man who she claimed was her brother. While dancing cheek to cheek with her ‘brother,’ Miss Tung ignored one of her ex-boy friends who greeted her. The ex-boy friend, Dick Wei, a seaman, patted her on her bare shoulder and asked her whether she had heard his greeting. Miss Tung opened her eyes and fluttered her eyelashes. Wei, not satisfied with the cold reception, touched her shoulder again and announced his desire to cut in.

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