Sampan Sue
Ivor Hughes.
Suzi .. all bar girls in those days were called Suzi. She was Cantonese born and lived in a Sampan on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong Harbor and like most of the Cantonese women she was small, high cheek boned with a fine boned frame, and so exotically feminine. Bar girls got paid for the amount of drink tabs they collected from appreciative and intoxicated patrons. Behind the polished veneer of brittle glitz and seductive eyes was a girl child grown old before her time.
That is why we hit it off so well, for I was also a child who had grown old before my time. Her recounting of the daily fight to eat amongst the forests of sampans and the dark green oily water awash with garbage .. with everyone emptying their night soil into that on which they floated .. and only floated by dint of the daily work of patching leaks and strengthening weak spots that kept out the sea .. the typhoon season was an annual ordeal ritual, which in essence was similar to life in the city slums of Britain. Needless to say that marriage to a man of her own race was out of the question .. because of the stigma attached to such an occupation by the Chinese people themselves.
Sue always left by 10pm each night having collected sufficient bar tabs to pay for her room at a cheap Chinese hotel plus money for food and the occasional dress and the other things that were needed for her trade .. and we would rise early and take to the Chinese quarters off Nathan Road. Even at the crack of dawn the streets would be teeming and pressure lamps hissed and sputtered .. and the pervasive mixed smells, An exotic steaming cauldron of humanity.
Kowloon never closed .. the battle for survival was a 24 hour 7 day a week slog. One could order and be measured for a tailor made suit at 3am, and go back 24 hours later and there it would be .. beautifully tailored and laid for ones inspection and the fitting and the adjustments made on the spot .. and oh, that food .. one of my favorite dishes was fresh grouper laid on a bed of rice and topped with greens and garnished with a seaweed sauce then baked to a nice crusty brown on top .. a feast fit for Royalty at a cost of 20 cents. In those days a Hong Kong dollar was worth one English shilling and threepence. Meager though the price was, it was still a luxury for many of the denizens of those cramped and narrow streets.
Occasionally it was necessary to visit the Herbalist to obtain relief from a surfeit of the local beer .. one look at my face .. no words were spoken and he would fix me a repulsive infusion of nine herbs .. it always did the trick, rather like a Chinese version of the German J�germeister. The so called Traditional Chinese Medicine practiced in Western Nations today was not to be found in those mean quarters .. that type of medicine was reserved for the well to do.
Sue explained that orthodox Chinese medicine was far beyond the financial reach of the common peoples and that everywhere tradition was carried out by a folk herbalist and not by that of the orthodox medical school. Rickshaws were everywhere weaving expertly through the thronged streets carrying freight as well as people, a well honed muscle powered taxi service.
We always took a rickshaw when Sue needed to buy a new cheongsam which was the uniform of the bar girl brigade .. she would stroke the different colors and designs of the many rolls of cloth and all the while keeping up a steady stream of Cantonese chatter with the seamstress .. who sat amidst tendrils of sweet Chinese incense that beautified the air .. occasionally Sue would hold a fold against her cheek and gaze critically into a full length mirror.
And those perfumes .. exquisite .. subtle floral with a drift of a spicy end note, which when applied behind those delicate ivory ears made the head reel .. and how we laughed, she would try one, a light dab behind the ear and then bat those black lashes at me and hold her cheek up to be kissed and even then she would seek further approval .. you like? you like? she would say.
Sue was very proud of the fact that she had managed to purchase a decent funeral for her parents, whose polished bones now enclosed in urns were resting in a little niche, high on a hill called Tai Mo Shan .. So now their earthly remains sit high above the squalor and their vale of tears. I was once taken by her, on a special day in the Chinese calendar to visit with her parents .. we left before dusk to catch the train back to Kowloon .. darkness had descended by time we reached Sha Tin and Sue pointed back from where we came, and like golden dragon tails .. endless bobbing globes of light moving along the contour lines of that earthly abode of the ancestors .. multitudes of families would have made that annual pilgrimage to honor the ancestors before the sun rose again.
I still wonder now and then .. what became of her, and hope that life was kind to her in return for her stolen childhood, for behind her armor she was the quintessential woman and in spite of the ever pressing needs of her life she never hesitated to comfort and help where it was needed, and it was needed often, but somehow she always retained her essence in a wallowing breaking sea of humanity.