Kung fu was part of the makeover I was giving myself. I’d set goals: a black belt and a bachelor degree, things nobody in my immediate family had. I’d seen Bruce Lee movies, but that never made me want to learn kung fu. Probably the opposite. I didn’t want to fit someone’s stereotype.
It took the Wu-Tang Clan to turn me on to kung fu. The rap crew was from Staten Island but claimed Shaolin. I didn’t get the metaphor, but it sounded like some deep shit. They’d sample kung fu flicks, Chinese guys getting philosophical: “The game of chess is like a sword fight. You must think first before you move.” I’d dwell on these sampled lines like they were proverbs from my forefathers. I didn’t consider that the original lines had been dubbed over in English by voice actors, most likely white guys, channeling their inner Confucius.
The sifu of my kung fu school didn’t teach beginners, only his most trusted pupils. I’d have to put in years of training to be able to learn directly from him or fork over a hundred bucks for one of his special seminars. Everybody had a hustle.
Goh Goh would wait for me outside the kung fu studio with the Celica running. I’d jump in the car, slamming the door behind me. “Roll down the window,” he’d say. “You stink.” In the cup holder of his car, there’d be a plastic bottle filled with cigarette butts floating in dark liquid, a mixture of water and leftover coffee, his ashtray.
We’d head through the Presidio, a former military base that had been converted into a huge park. Empty roads, winding and dark. Goh Goh would put on his high beams. No oncoming cars, only trees lit up in front of us, a white light that tempted us to believe everything could be made visible.
boss
The crumbling of my brother’s water filter empire coincided with my father opening up his own restaurant. Bah Ba had convinced his youngest brother to partner with him. All his brothers were businessmen, groomed by their father, my Yeh Yeh. One brother owned a motel in Montreal, one a restaurant in Toronto, another had run Yeh Yeh’s shops in Hong Kong.
If Bah Ba hadn’t succeeded like his brothers, he also hadn’t succeeded like his sisters. Though they were told the family business could not be theirs—daughters were temporary Lams who’d one day marry into another family—Bah Ba’s sisters were encouraged to pursue studies abroad. One in London, the others in Canada. My father, the oldest son of ten siblings, a year shy of fifty, had no college degree and owned no business, the only son who wasn’t his own boss.
I learned about Bah Ba’s siblings through constructing a family tree, with the help of my mother, an assignment for a cultural anthropology course. I used a pencil to draw circles and triangles, women and men who shared my blood, a ruler to make lines that connected one generation to the next.
Bah Ba bragged to my mom that “two thousand people” had applied for employment at his buffet-style restaurant, that a line of applicants stretched from his office to the parking lot, men and women awaiting my father’s word.
To lure customers to his grand opening, Bah Ba devised a raffle. Every customer would automatically be entered. My father didn’t play it safe with the prize. He gave away a brand new car, a Camry. Loyalty could be bought.
boys
My father’s restaurant did not arrive as good news. It’d be awhile before he’d turn a profit. No more checks home. My mom circled job listings in the Chinese newspaper, one for a jewelry store in Chinatown, but Willie talked her out of it, worried she’d get harassed coming home at night. So with my sister living on her own, and my brother locking himself in his room, rent fell on me.
I had a new job, my first full-time gig. I bused tables at a fancy restaurant on the top floor of the downtown Nordstrom. My uniform was a pinstripe shirt, black khakis, a black apron, and a clip-on bowtie. My girlfriend hooked me up with the job. M worked at the same Nordstrom, in a department specializing in clothes for middle-age women. M and my sister were alike in that they were both naturals when it came to customer service. I didn’t see how you could get so happy making small talk with strangers. Being a buser suited me. I’d pour customers water, place a plate of focaccia bread on their table, clean up after they were gone, and besides saying “You’re welcome,” I never had to say shit. Trying to connect with diners, that was the waiter’s job. Busers were to remain silent. We were the help. It was my kind of job.
I was nineteen at the time, M was twenty-two and she also had a three-year-old daughter, A. We’d sleep together with her daughter between us. I’d hold A’s hand as we trucked up the hill to their apartment. I’d play a game with her where I’d squat and walk around pretending my hands were tied behind my back, and only she could liberate me. A would wave her hand and proclaim, “You’re free!” I’d rise in disbelief that my shackles had vanished. I’d pick her up, dig my face in her belly, and blow a raspberry.
When I first began talking to M, she had a boyfriend, but it was obvious their relationship was falling apart. If it wasn’t, the weak game I spit at her wouldn’t have worked, some version of what’s-a-girl-like-you-doing-in-a-place-like-this. We were at Mickey D’s. M had high cheekbones, and I threw in that she looked like Spinderella from Salt-n-Pepa. She wrote down her number but told me she had a boyfriend.
