The line of vehicles had backed up along the highway, idling well beyond the checkpoint, the air thick with exhaust and the smell of rubber.
The agent waved the charter tour bus through.
No passport needed, Mona noted, an easy pass.
The brief stop had allowed the winter cold aboard. Mona felt the chill and was glad to have worn the cheap down jacket.
Back on the road, she noticed that some of the signs were in French. The highway led them to a bridge over a river, and abruptly to a big city spread below them—steel and glass towers, a modern metropolis set against a backdrop of dark but majestic mountains.
She squeezed the jade, pressed out Fire over Mountain. Auspicious for the traveler. There is promise in the journey.
Soon enough they were passing under a huge Chinatown gate in Won Kor Wah, Vancouver, tall concrete columns supporting a facade of yellow ceramic dragonheads in a classic pagoda motif. She saw buildings and parks bearing Chinese names, and Chinese words on the street signs.
There were old, narrow buildings, many of which were rundown, showing an older traditional Chinatown. They visited a classical Chinese garden dedicated to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, father of modern China.
She purchased a souvenir letter opener from a gift shop. It resembled a dagger and its metal handle was embossed with a colorful dragon design over the word CHINATOWN. Weighing its heft in her hand reminded Mona of Fa Mulan, the woman warrior.
She put the souvenir dagger into her handbag. Then something red caught her eye; it was a red jade bangle. A simple jadeite bangle that was colored dark red, like chicken blood. Real red jade was rare, and she knew this bangle was only a gift-shop trinket, but she wanted to add to her luck. Red jade was especially lucky, and also brought longevity. It inspired courage.
She purchased it as well, and while slipping it onto her unadorned left wrist, she stepped back into the Vancouver Chinatown afternoon. Walking along the streets she heard Toishanese and Cantonese dialects, and even Spanish. Chinese from Peru, she guessed, from Mexico, perhaps Panama.
The tour guide announced they were scheduled for dinner at the Good Fortune Restaurant.
The bus wound its way through the city. She saw British signs that reminded her of Hong Kong places: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, King George Place, Stanley Park.
They passed through a Japantown. The Japanese maple and cherry trees were pretty, she thought, but the history of hatred made her feel sad.
The dinner at Good Fortune was very tasty, but inferior to the Chinese feasts she’d attended in New York. Gone now, she remembered, for good.
Afterward, the old women checked into their rooms at the Budget Inn, where the Chinese staff made everyone feel at home. They were expecting an eventful day tomorrow so most of the seniors retired early. On the second day, the tour bus brought them to a different part of the city, to a different Chinatown where the buildings were new and tall, where the streets were clean, and the Chinese signs barely noticeable.
The community didn’t look like a Chinatown, more like the modern Golden Village that it was called. The seniors enjoyed lunch at one of the many fine restaurants inside a huge luxury shopping mall. Most of the businesses were Chinese-owned, and the shoppers appeared more affluent, stylish, and exuded a fresh young energy.
Mona imagined that she could start anew here.
The tour group was allowed to roam the streets for an hour. Mona purchased two daily newspapers, Ming Pao and Sing Tao, to read on the trip back, thinking about local news and listings. She bought a Chinatown tourist map from a newsstand, and tried to memorize the streets as she walked, taking business cards from tea shops, clothing stores, Chinese supermarkets, and banks. New destinations, she thought.
She overheard conversations in mainland-inflected Mandarin and Taiwanese.
There was an international airport nearby.
The afternoon turned to evening as they returned to the older Chinatown, to a buffet dinner at a banquet-style restaurant. The Budget Inn was within walking distance, and she finished the night going over the Chinese newspapers and watching the Chinese-language satellite TV news.
It began to snow the next morning, and after a dim sum breakfast they returned south along the Interstate. The sky had turned to slate as Mona gently fingered the charm.
Earth over Thunder, it sang. Return. No troubles at home. All is well.
She took a deep breath. Welcome help. Time is on your side.
She was keeping faith, in the yin and yang.
In the balance of the universe.
Fan and Sandal
He watched the stick of incense burn down beside the figurine of Kwan Kung, God of War.
“We’ll see how clever the little whore is,” said Gee Sin, the bok ji sin, White Paper Fan, sipping at his tumbler of XO cognac. He huffed into the cell phone to Tsai, the cho hai, Grass Sandal, his liaison at the other end of the longdistance line.
Outside the high-rise picture windows, the Hong Kong night covered the panoramic sweep of Victoria Harbour, its neon lights and colors dancing off the dark water toward the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. Stretching out on the Kowloon side were the city lights of Yau Ma Tei and Mongkok, sparkling in the distance like a scattering of diamonds. A full moon was overhead.
Down to his right, to the mean streets of Wan Chai, and then sweeping all around, was the power and money of the waterfront districts.
Gee Sin was pleased with the information. Chinese jewelry stores. After all, she couldn’t eat the one-ounce gold Panda coins she’d stolen from Uncle Four, or the fistfuls of diamonds. She’d have to sell or trade them at some point. Then the underground money traders would expose her.
He resolved to be patient, studying his reflection in the mirror wall of the Mid-Levels condominium: a bald pate with bushy brows flecked with gray, oversaggy eyes. An old face. At sixty-three years of age, he was the triad’s number three in command, holding a 415 rank, which was a magic Chinese number. Only the hung kwun, enforcer, and the Shan Chu, Lung Tau, the Red Circle Dragon Head himself, were above him.
The Hung Huen, Red Circle Triad, had devolved from their long past nationalism and noble resolve to overthrow the corrupt Ching dynasty, and to restore the Ming era. Patriotic honor had given way, in a matter of decades, to the greed, power, and bloodlust of the modern world. The Red Circle had more than a hundred thousand members, half of them in Hong Kong and China, the others operating in overseas Chinatowns scattered across the globe. This triad organization was only one of dozens of powerful secret societies that controlled the world’s heroin trade and a cycle of dirty money, billions of dollars feeding into and out of gambling, prostitution, stock manipulation, and financial fraud that crossed the oceans and touched every continent.
In the near corner stood a life-sized terra-cotta Chinese warrior, a dusty veneer covering his armor, the sword in his hand. One of the many from the thousands of clay warriors taken from Sian by the Red Circle.
Guarding the emperor.
Guarding Paper Fan.
He remembered the first of the Thirty-six Strategies of the society: Cross the ocean without letting the sky know. He was lost in memories of his initiation until more information came over the phone.
“Her mother may have been Buddhist,” Tsai, the cho hai, continued. “She died long ago.”
Yet another direction to follow, thought Gee Sin, but well worth consideration. “Have the members check the temples,” he advised, “but do not add more people to the search. Keep to the chosen few, your discreet men. Women are even better. The monks are clever and will see through lies. But Buddha is merciful, compassionate. Tell your comrades to plead with the monks; convince them that Mona is a beloved relative who has been diagnosed with cancer. Say that she is afraid but if she doesn’t get treatment she will surely die. Your sandal ranks need to be extremely diligent. When we find her, everyone will be well compensated.”