Hawaii - James Michener [267]
Grandly, he left the ancestral tablets and returned to his chair, from which he reasoned directly: "But we know that it is always better when a Chinese man has some woman with him, so it would be wise if, when you get to the Fragrant Tree Country, you took a wife there too. And the reason I say this is that while I was in America I noticed again and again that the Chinese men who made the most money were those with women. You might think it ought to be the other way around, but as long as I had no woman I did rather poorly . . . gambling . . . bad houses . . . and I may as well confess it, I got drunk every night for almost a year. Well, anyway, I found this Mexican woman and pretty soon I had her washing for the miners and cooking their food. And consider this, you Kees who are departing for a strange country. Even though I had to pay much money for her food, for she ate like a pig, and even though she was always wanting a new dress, it was only because of her that I saved any money. Therefore, it seems to me that if a bright young man like my nephew Mun Ki were to marry the Kung girl here, and then also find a strong wife for himself in the Fragrant Tree Country ... but be sure to get one who can work . . . well," and Uncle Chun Fat coughed modestly, hiding his lips with his silken-sleeved hand, "it would not surprise me at all if he were to return to this village a much richer man than I am."
With a new flush of modesty he dropped his eyes and allowed this dazzling prospect to capture his family. Not for a summer's moment did he believe that Mun Ki or anyone else would come close to his record of more than forty thousand dollars, but from the corner of his eye he saw with assurance that some of the young men were instinctively looking out across the fields and planning where, among the hills, they would build their cemeteries when they returned with staggering riches. But from the rear of the family came a nagging question: "When Mun Ki returns a wealthy man, does he bring his strange wife back to this village?"
"Certainly not," Uncle Chun Fat said evenly.
"What does he do with her?"
"He leaves her where he found her."
A buzz of admiration swept over the crowd, for the solution was both right and simple. The Low Village would be contaminated if it had to accept wives with strange customs, and while the elders were congratulating Chun Fat on his perspicacity, he quieted them and told the sprawling family: "The other wives will be able to care for themselves. When I left California I had three wives. A Mexican in San Francisco and two Indians in different parts of the mountains. They had helped me, so I helped them. I gave each one a thousand dollars." The crowd gasped at Chun Fat's compassion, and he concluded: "Because the important thing in a man's life is to return home to his village, to find his patient wife waiting, and in his old age to acquire two or three beautiful young girls of good family." Behind him his three wives smiled gently as he said, "Believe me, under those circumstances a man's joy is great."
When the young gambler Mun Ki accepted the betrothal his uncle had arranged for him, Chun Fat sent the Kungs in the next village not the customary thousand cakes--"Your daughter is worth one thousand pieces of gold, but please accept these poor cakes"--but two thousand and forty-three, the idea being that the number really could have been as large as he wished. Each cake was the size of a plate: soft sponge cakes, cakes stuffed with chopped nuts and sugar, hard flat cakes, cakes lined with