Journey of Acceptance

June 13, 2018

Journey of Acceptance

To write about one’s present or even venture into one’s future, there must be a recognition and acknowledgement of the past. That is called maturity, that is called acceptance, that is called forgiveness. I envision this blog series to be a bounty of people, events, and reflections of the stories that brought me to this place in my time. Personal crossroads appear because of the richness of the journey.

When I moved to Sacramento, I unpacked a box filled with a treasure of old bound books. Amongst them, I found my Mother’s Portuguese dictionary. In her handwriting she had signed and dated it: Maria Theresa Baptista, 24.11.1944, Hong Kong B.C.C. She was 14 years old. Its cover is now fraying and its pages stained with age. Ah, but within its well utilized pages, there belied the story of family and heritage

Our ancestry is Macanese--Portuguese of Macao, a Portuguese colony founded by explorers from the time of Henry the Navigator, Magellan, and DeGama. These descendants came to be known as the “Macs”. In their proudest moments, I would hear my Mother, Aunts, and Uncles speak of Portugal and how our ancestors left the harbor of Lisbon to explore foreign lands. There were also ancestors from Italy and Holland… some of the countries that went in search of conquest and colonization. I was told stories about streets in Macao named after famous ancestors.

Though the Portuguese eventually settled throughout Asia—the majority moved down the delta to Hong Kong. For generations, my family lived in Hong Kong, a British Crown Colony. As a child, I came to envision their Hong Kong as it was pictured in the film, “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing”. I imagined it to be filled with beaches, ferry boats floating on a bay dotted with sampans that sat before a rising skyline, with lots of gardens and quaint, cobbled streets. Proud British police in their khaki shorts would ride in rickshaws to lunch at the Peninsula Hotel.

Though Portuguese by heritage, the Macs also revered the English as they saw themselves as loyal subjects of the British Commonwealth. Long live the queen! They never questioned as they would take their place “below” the English, working primarily as the accountants, teachers, etc. in the socio-economic structure of the colony.

Ah Yee and me

There was also a huge Chinese population. After all, they were there first. Before ANY European intrusion. But for so many centuries, it was accepted that they were the “amahs”, the servants. When I was born, even I had my very own amah. She was referred to simply as Ah Yut. #1 servant. When my brother was born, he was cared for by Ah Yee (#2), then followed by Ah Sam (#3) for my youngest brother. That was the life in the colony. That was the world of my parents and those who came before them. Centuries of confusing allegiance to the romanticized Portuguese Motherland, the English oppressive colonial rule, and the minimization of the Chinese. It was a caste system that muddled social interactions and ultimately paralyzed hierarchal mobility. And its ramifications on the personal stories are truly worthy of a Michener saga.

One photo in particular imprints and explains…one my Mother had on a mantle in the living room. In the greying, fading patina of this intriguing portraiture are rows of little girls placed in social ranking, perhaps intentionally or perhaps naturally as an unconscious acquiescence. The bottom row clearly shows girls of Asian descent, wearing simple Chinese amah garb of black pants and white tunics. In the middle row stood the Portuguese girls—a mixture of darkened faces that seemed racially undefinable. My Mother stood in this row. They wore more Westernized dresses, clearly hand sewn and perhaps handed down from sister to sister—yet there was a prettiness and pride that each was wearing their “best”. And on the last row were the English girls in lovely frocks and large bows in their blonde hair, flanked on either side by dashingly handsome and tall British gentlemen,each dressed in suit and tie.

“What is happening in this photo, Mom? What are these little girls doing?” I asked. My Mother told me about a famous British trading company. They were having a party for all the local children. These were the girls who attended.

“So did you play with them, were they your friends?”

She seemed startled but then simply explained, “No, I only spoke with the Portuguese girls in the middle row…we all knew our place”.

A side bar…when World War 2 began, Hong Kong which, as noted, was English. England was an Allied country and at war with Japan which promptly began invading/bombing Hong Kong. The Portuguese community fled to Macao, which, as a Portuguese colony, remained neutral. The Portuguese government did accept them as refugees but relegated them to very dire living situations. The Chinese were left behind to suffer the direct ravages of war and the British fled back to England. But not all escaped. Many of the British were put into Japanese concentration camps. As the story goes…three of the English girls in that very photo, in that last row with their fairy tale dresses, were being transported in a Japanese freighter to one of those camps. Their boat was bombed and it rapidly began to sink, leaving the survivors flailing in the water. As they swam for their lives, the girls were shot by their Japanese captors to ensure they could not escape.

In war, there is no mercy for privilege.

After surviving the war and back in Hong Kong, the “Macs” seemed to realize the potential "threat" of communism from China. It was the early 1950’s. Having experienced that neither the British or Portuguese would really protect them, they began a slow emigration--primarily to America, Canada, Australia, and England. Today, Hong Kong is no longer a British colony. It was given back to the Chinese, rather peacefully and matter of factly. Towering skyscrapers prevail and the landmarks that marked the lives of my family are either gone or dwarfed amongst the newness of the bursting boom. Macao is now a gambling mecca and the cobbled streets and old homes have vanished. And there are very few Macs left in either place.

At Kai Tek Airport, the day we
left Hong Kong, with family and friends saying
good-bye

In 1957, when I was 4 years old, my parents left Hong Kong, in the height of the mass Macanese exodus. This time it was not to flee the ravages of war but to look for a new life, new opportunities. To ensure a continuance of the culture they left behind, they were collectively part of a group of familiar friends and family that settled in San Francisco. My childhood was filled with excursions, crisscrossing the avenues of the city, going from gathering to gathering where the language, the food, and the sentimental stories of Hong Kong days prevailed. I can still hear the old ladies clacking their mah jong tiles, still taste the fejoida, still see the framed photos on the wall of parties at the Club Recreiro.

Growing up in San Francisco

At the same time, I was growing up. I struggled with my legacy. I came to see myself as American. It was easier than explaining all that colonization and conquering “stuff”. And I created my own childhood memories that were defined by neighborhood and the city that surrounded it. And I came to see myself as simply an American. I became that little girl who started each school day with the Pledge of Allegiance and was proud of her new country. This evolution was necessary assimilation and acceptance – and a concerted effort to leave the past behind. The immigration process is the most challenging for the very first generation that must ultimately figure everything out and forge a new life.

I will never go back to Hong Kong or Macao. The lifelong immersion with the legacy has been overpowering enough. One of my cousins once told me to forget about Hong Kong; it was not the glamourous place our parents romanticized incessantly about. It was and is a mess. Just move on. For many, many years, I thought she is right.

Then…when my youngest daughter graduated from college, she announced that she was going to visit Hong Kong and Macau. “I am going to find out what you did not tell me.” I was shocked and responded defensively. I thought I was protecting her from the confusion. I thought I had raised her free from the shackles of the past and that I had presented her a good life neatly wrapped in Americana. But she went and, ultimately, I found myself very, very proud of her.

Then Mom died. It was and continues to be an immeasurable void. It is not just the enormity of losing your Mother but it also is a grieving process of understanding who and why she was. As I went through her things, I found her diary, her photographs, her special vases, the dress she wore as she left for her honeymoon. And with each artifact, with every word I read, I finally understood. I came to see that my love for her did include that young girl who carried that Portuguese dictionary as she walked to school in a dress she inherited from her sister. I came to understand why she felt obligated to stand in the middle row of that picture. I came to forgive her for not letting go of the world she loved while I was trying to make sense of it all. It has been an incredible journey of acceptance.

My grandaughter presenting her heritage
to her classmates. Her younger sister
looks on.

Last month, I stood alongside my 8 year old Granddaughter as she presented her heritage to her classmates. I was honored that she picked my story to share. (I am sure her Mother, my oldest daughter, encouraged this. I have learned that as hard as it is for that first generation of immigrants, ultimately, their children understand with love). While preparing for the presentation, I shared with my granddaughter the family tree, the story of the street in Macao named after my great, great father, the art of another ancestor whose paintings of the Hong Kong peninsula now hang in the British Museum, the treasured old photos of family through the generations. After her speech, I helped my granddaughter hand out corn starch cookies, my favorite Portuguese dessert, as well as English toffee in honor of the once British colony. And each of her classmates also received a “lei see”—a Chinese tradition of wishing happiness for the coming year with a bright red envelope filled with a bounty of money. (We filled them with chocolate coins). Yes, I burst with pride, as she taught her friends to say “Kung Hei Fat Choi”. Happy New Year in Chinese.

And deep in my heart, I sensed that the ancestors were smiling—especially Mom.