Hawaii - James Michener [260]
These were bad years, but they were terminated in early 1865 by the arrival in the Low Village of a man reputed to be fantastically rich, and within six weeks this amazing Punti had broken open the floodgates so that the river was diverted and the village spared, had bought off the traitor General Wang and then betrayed him to government forces, and had made the village not only secure but happy. The man who accomplished these miracles was a wiry, clever Punti, Kee Chun Fat, whose name meant Spring Prosperity and who had been born fifty-two years earlier right there in the Low Village. In 1846 he had emigrated to California, where he had worked in the gold fields, acquiring the eleven thousand dollars which made him, according to Low Village standards, one of the richest men in the world.
As he moved about the village, making many decisions regarding the extensive Kee family of which he was now the effective if not titular head, he wore a long pigtail, a black skullcap edged in blue satin, a gray silken coatlike garment that fell to his ankles and was tightly buttoned at the neck and heavy brocaded shoes. His lean frame kept him from making an imposing, patriarchal figure, but his evocation of energy made him the unquestioned dictator of the village. In California he had learned to read English but not Chinese, and he could figure percentages, so that as soon as he unpacked he started lending money to his relatives at forty per cent interest per year.
When the Kee family asked admiringly, "How could a man like you, who is not a soldier at all, be so brave as to argue with General Wang?" he laughed slyly and explained, "When you've had to live by outsmarting Americans, it's very easy to manage a fool like General Wang." Of course, this answer was meaningless to the Punti, so they said, "We still don't understand how you did it."
Kee Chun Fat had an explanation for everything, so he replied, "In Peking a man is emperor, but I have found that in the world money is emperor."
"Did you give General Wang money?" the villagers pressed.
"I gave him enough to keep him hanging around," Uncle Chun Fat explained. "Then I told the government troops where he was, and promised them money if they would hang him, and they did."
There was much discussion among the Kee family as to how Uncle Chun Fat had made his great fortune in America, and one had only to pose the question for the head of the family to explain: "America has gold fields where money is easily made. There are gangs of men laying telegraph wires, and money is easy there, too. But where do you suppose the money is easiest of all? Where they're building railroads. Tell me, do you think that I brought home with me only the money you have seen here in the Low Village? Oh no, my good friends! I made that much in the gold fields in one year. Washing for the miners. Cooking food. My real money is in an English bank in Hong Kong." And he produced a book to prove it but only he could read the writing.
Uncle Chun Fat's stories of America were tantalizing. Once he said, "The best part of California is not the money but the women. A man can have three Indian wives and any number of Mexicans. But not at the same time." Young men with their lips watering asked more about this, but Uncle Chun Fat has already passed on to other matters. "What I would like to do," he explained to his assembled family, "is to restore the ancestral hall until it is known as the finest in China. We will do honor to our great ancestor, Prince Kee Tse of the Hsiang Dynasty, from whom we are sprung." As he said these words he recalled the illustrious prince who had invaded Korea nearly three thousand years before, and he told his clan, "It is strange to live in America, where most men do not even know who their