Hawaii - James Michener [393]
But when the ceremonies were ended, a most shameful thing occurred, and to Malama it would always epitomize the indecency by which her nation had been destroyed. As the Hawaiian flag fell, an American caught it and, before he could be stopped, whisked it away to the palace cellar where, with a pair of long shears, he cut the emblem into strips and began passing them out as souvenirs of the day.
One was jammed into Micah's hand and he looked down to see what it was, but his eyes were so strained from writing letters on behalf of Hawaii that he could not easily discern what he held, and imprudently he raised it aloft. Then he saw that it contained fragments of the eight stripes symbolizing the islands of Hawaii and a corner of the field, and he realized what a disgraceful thing had been done to this proud flag. Hastily he crumpled it lest his wife see and be further offended, but as he pushed the torn cloth into his pocket he heard from behind a cry of pain, and he turned to see that his wife had at last been forced to cover her face in shame.
AS THE NINETEENTH CENTURY drew to a close, and as Hawaii accustomed itself to being a part of the United States, it gradually became apparent to the residents of Honolulu that in the Kee family Hawaii had another of those great, intricate Chinese units which were destined, by force of numbers alone, to play an important role in the community. There was old Mrs. Kee--known to the family simply as Wu Chow's Auntie--now fifty-two years of age and bent from arduous work. There were her five clever sons, Asia, Europe, Africa, America and Australia, and their five wives, a prolific brood with a total of thirty-eight children and a promise of more to come. Thus, as the century ended, there were already forty-nine Kees in the family, many of them approaching marriageable age. In two more decades the Kees would probably number more than two hundred.
To Nyuk Tsin, who still sold pineapples and taro-stem pickles through the town barefooted, her two baskets hanging down from her bamboo carry-stick and her conical woven hat darting along the alleys of Chinatown, the multiplication of her offspring was gratifying indeed, and whenever on her daily huckstering trips she reached the point where Hotel Street crossed Maunakea, in the heart of Chinatown, she felt a glow of satisfaction. Years ago she had made a cold calculation that of her five sons--who shared the world among them--it would be Africa who would grow into the ablest. He had been given the education, and now at the age of thirty-one he was a leader in the Chinese community: Africa Kee, Lawyer. The sign in gold letters said so, but what it did not say was that the building in which his office stood was also his and that several of the stores in Chinatown belonged either to him or to his brothers.
Actually, the specific title to these buildings was of little consequence, for although to outward appearances it was Asia Kee who owned the profitable restaurant on Hotel Street, it was really owned by the Kees as a family. Under Nyuk Tsin's guidance, the five brothers had formed a combination known in Hawaii by the expressive term hui, pronounced hooey--"Them Kees got a hui workin"--and it was this informal corporation, the great Kee hui, that effectively controlled the family income. If Australia's lovely wife, the Ching girl, acquired from her family a small inheritance, it did not go to Australia or to his children. It went into the hui, for no member of the Kee family could begin to identify the benefits he himself had already drawn from the hui. His clothes, his education, the education of his sons, his home, his start in business: all these things