Hawaii - James Michener [293]
"Have you such a name for Mun Ki's boy?" Whipple asked respectfully.
"I have!" the scholar replied, and with bold strokes of his brush he put down the fiery name: Kee Ah Chow. He repeated it aloud, awed by its splendor.
"I thought it had to be Kee Chow Ah," Dr. Whipple suggested.
"It does!" the scholar agreed. "But sometimes rules must be broken, and this child's name is surely Kee Ah Chow."
The scholar handed the new name to Mun Ki and explained in Punti: "As you were leaving the store I had a sudden vision of your life. Your family's bold and you will venture far. You will have many sons and great courage. The world is yours, Mun Ki, and your firstborn must have a name that signifies that fact. So we shall call him Kee Ah Chow, the Kee who Controls the Continent of Asia. And your next sons shall be Europe and Africa and America and Australia. For you are the father of continents."
Mun Ki smiled deprecatingly, for the words were sweet. He had always imagined himself as rather special, a man nominated by the gods, and it was good to hear a scholar confirming the fact. Giving Nyuk Tsin an imperative shove, he started to leave the store, but again the scholar stopped them, pointing imperatively at Nyuk Tsin and crying, "And her name shall be Wu Chow's Mother, for she is to be the mother of continents."
This prophetic announcement caused embarrassment, and Mun Ki had to explain in Punti: "She is not my wife. My real wife is a Kung girl in China. This one is merely . . ."
The scholar folded his hands, studied Nyuk Tsin, and replied in Punti, "Well, that's the way of China. Maybe it's better, seeing that she's a Hakka." He shrugged his shoulders and turned to go, then paused and added, "Let her be known as Wu Chow's Auntie." Mun Ki nodded and told his wife her new name.
Dr. Whipple was perplexed by this exchange of words he could not understand, but he judged the matter under discussion was one of importance, and from the manner in which Nyuk Tsin stood, the blood of shame rising to her ears, he guessed that they were talking about her, but no one explained what was being said. Finally Mun Ki bowed. Wu Chow's Auntie bowed. Together they recovered the poem and the name book, and when Mun Ki handed them to Nyuk Tsin to carry he touched her hand and said proudly, "We are going to have many sons."
The scholar, for his important role in naming the Kee's first-born, received a fee of sixty cents, and Mun Ki considered the money well spent, for he was certain that his child was properly launched; but Dr. Whipple, who was then much concerned with the manner in which his own children and grandchildren were occupying themselves in Hawaii, was even more deeply impressed by the incident. He recognized it as symbolizing one of the strengths of the Chinese: "They exist within a hierarchy of generations. Their names tell where they belong, and remind them of their parents' hopes for them. A Chinese lives within a defined system, and it's a good one. No matter where he goes, his name is listed in a village, and that's home. We Americans drift where we will. We have no name, no home, no secure address. I'd like to know more about the Chinese."
So although he was then sixty-seven years old and preoccupied with important matters, John Whipple began his last scientific work: a study of the Chinese whom he had brought to Hawaii, and much of what we know today about those early Orientals--those strange, secret people imported to work the sugar--we know from what he wrote. It was Whipple who cast a shadow of fear across the other sugar planters by publishing an article in the Honolulu Mail: "We are deluding ourselves if we persist in the belief that these intelligent, thrifty and hard-working people will long be content to stay upon the plantations. Their natural destiny is to work as accountants and mechanics in our cities. They will be excellent schoolteachers and I suppose some will become bankers and enterprisers of great force.
As soon as their indentures are discharged, they are flocking to our cities to open stores. More and more,