Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [248]
Fees ranged from one to five local dollars, on a sliding scale according to the family’s income. Children from destitute families were completely exempted. Boarders brought their own rice rations and did not have to pay anything else for their keep. The school was especially keen to encourage girls to study and generally accepted them without payment. In addition, the girls with the best attendance records were awarded five pounds of extra rice rations every month. They had started out with a dozen or so boys, but in a few years the number had increased to over two hundred boys and thirty or so girls.
Kam Sau had sold all the jewellery and silver her mother had given her as a wedding present to set up the school. But that only went so far. Most of the money came from the old scholar who lent them the land. His son had been at college with Ah-Yuen and Kam Sau. All three of them were Mr. Auyung Yuk Shan’s star pupils. The family had substantial business interests in Japan and South-East Asia and, although the son had gone on to join the military after graduating from college, he had persuaded his father to use some of his wealth to fund the school for his two friends. On opening day, Mr. Auyung attended the inauguration and wrote in his own hand the words “School for All for a Bright Future” for the tablet above the entrance.
Kam Sau and Ah-Yuen were well aware that sending sons and daughters to school full-time meant a considerable sacrifice for the villagers. It cost money and it meant the families would be short of farmhands, but they wanted to see their children succeed in life at any cost. Kam Sau and Ah-Yuen threw themselves into their teaching with a fervour which matched the families’ determination. Kam Sau frequently saw the girls saving their mealtime rice rations and taking every spare grain home to their families at the end of the month. Her heart bled for them. What difficulties these girls faced! For her part, she saved as much of the food brought by her mother as she could, and divided it among a few of the girls who looked particularly pale and undernourished.
After Wai Kwok was killed in the bombing raid, Kam Sau had to take a break from teaching. Every time she stood in front of the other pupils, she was reminded of her son. The slightest thing made her break down in tears in the middle of the class. Even though she was three months’ pregnant, she could not eat or sleep, and lay awake staring at the ceiling all night long until dawn touched the bedroom curtains with a pale light. When she was no more than skin and bones, Ah-Yuen took her back to her mother in Spur-On Village.
When Mr. Auyung heard, he hurried over to see what was going on. But instead of offering condolences, he said with a grim smile: “You can’t have hair without a skin. When the eggs are in danger, you protect the nest. If you cried as hard for China as you have for your personal loss, you could save the whole country.” “What’s our school for if not for the country?” protested Kam Sau. “And I’ve sacrificed my son for that! If we hadn’t set up this school, Wai Kwok wouldn’t have been studying here. He’d be at the Overseas Chinese Children’s School, and this disaster would never have happened.”
Kam Sau’s cheeks flamed and her voice shook with fury. Mr. Auyung glanced at Ah-Yuen: “That’s better. So long as she hasn’t completely lost heart,