Part 1: Li Ko-Ngai

For seventeen years now, my mother has been telling is how lucky we are to have her and my father as parents. Sure I agree that they're great parents. They take us to wonderful places on vacation, gave us presents as if they had read our minds, sent us to the best schools in this side of China, were always there for us when we needed someone to talk to--to sum it all up, they loved me, my brother Kouan who is five years younger than me, and my youngest sister Bai-yen who is only eight years old, with all their hearts. They also taught us the right values that every parent should teach their children: love, honor, respect, obedience, Confucian virtues, and filial piety.

We live in a beautiful, Chinese-style mansion which is only a small distance away from the river. The entrance to our house has a large gate with two big stone dragons on opposite sides. Behind the house is our beautiful garden which has a small lake with goldfish and carp in it and above it, a bridge with a red Chinese design. A few steps away from the bridge is our family ancestral shrine, where Popo (grandmother) often goes to pray. She's a very prayerful person. My siblings and I often try to catch the fish with our bare hands. Our father, who's a general in the Imperial Army, taught us this. Kouan and Bai-yen have been successful at this but I haven't. My little sister is sort of on the tomboy side and that's why she loves hanging out with my brother and his friends so probably that's why she so good at this. In the warm weather, the garden has all kinds of blossoms all over: cherry blossoms, magnolia blossoms, plum blossoms, orange blossoms....all kinds. In the winter, everything is covered with a sparkling white blanket of snow. We always have snowball fights and build different kinds of snowmen.

Aside from my family living in the house, Popo lives with us as well as my dad's sister, Auntie Kwan and her family: Uncle Chiao-Yen and my cousins, Jing-Mei who is half a year younger than me; and the twins--a boy and a girl--Bing-Bing and Ying-Ying who are about the same ages as Kouan. Uncle Chiao-Yen is an only child and his parents were both killed in a flood when he was eighteen and had no other living relatives. So when he and Auntie Kwan got married, he moved into our house (traditions aren't as strict as they used to be before). He's a doctor now, and a brilliant one, that's why we don't need to call a doctor when somebody gets sick since there's already one in the house.

My parents told me this. My parents share with me and my siblings a lot of stories actually. They're really interesting to talk to. Needless to say, we are all one big happy family living together in our beautiful home. I cannot wish for greater happiness than this. Oh yeah....you're probably thinking, "Where's Grandfather Li?" Well, my dad told me that he was a great army general who was killed in a battle when my dad was only twenty and still in the rank of Captain. There's actually more to that story and it involves my father's best friend, Mulan--or Auntie Mulan to me and my siblings. Dad is quite close to Auntie Mulan's family because in addition to her being his best friend, he knows her dad very well because her dad was once in the army.

"When the Huns invaded China," Dad said. "The emperor decreed that one man from each family must serve the army to defend China. Your grandfather insisted that his troops alone could stop them but the Emperor insisted that he wouldn't take any chances. It just so happened that in Auntie Mulan's family, her father was the only male so he had to serve. But she didn't want him to go because she felt he couldn't survive another battle because of an injury he got from a previous war so that night...."

And of course, we all know the rest. We know that she cross-dressed and took her father's place. That was how she met my dad because he was her drill sergeant and trainer--and he was newly promoted to the rank of Captain. We all know that she fought bravely but was wounded and was then found out. We all know that she was able to save China and was awarded by the Emperor. Because she and my father were comrades--and because she really impressed him--he visited her in her house after the battle in the Imperial City and that was how they became best friends.

We actually had dinner at her house the other night. It was her birthday. She's one year older than Mom and the same age as Auntie Kwan. Her parents and her grandmother were there and so was her husband, Uncle Ling, and their daughter Kwong who is the same age as Bai-Yen. Auntie Mulan and Uncle Ling got married only a few years ago when I was already in my adolescence age.

Also there were friends of Dad and Auntie Mulan, Uncle Chien-Po and Uncle Yao, whom I love to tease because he takes it so personally. Uncle Yao, Uncle Ling, and Uncle Chien-Po were in the army and were also under Dad along with Auntie Mulan and they call themselves the Gang of Three. They're not in the army anymore. Uncle Chien-Po opened up a fastfood chain called Chien-Po's Chow and it's doing pretty well. He also makes cassette tapes and CDs of chants to, in his words, "relax the body and be one with the soul." Yeah, whatever. Uncle Yao is a boxer and fights in the boxing matches. Uncle Ling is a pharmacist's apprentice, and I heard that he gets yelled at a lot. Going back, we had a lot of fun at Auntie Mulan's birthday dinner. Her grandmother made a lot of cool jokes, but some of them can be embarassing sometimes. (Sssshhhh....)

She is so amazing, I swear. She's, like, a hundred plus and still so energetic. And a teen at heart as well. Mom once asked her what's your secret?" She said, "Find a man to inspire ya!" and laughed.

See what I mean?

Fa Zhou was telling Kouan about old war stories. He always does everytime we visit them. Dad wants Kouan to follow in his military footsteps because we come from a great military lineage and Kouan's really enthusiastic about it. Uncle Chien-Po was teaching Bai-Yen how to position yourself while chanting. I cannot see what Bai-Yen sees in his chantings or whatsoever. I just hope she doesn't do that in fron of a cute guy I may run into in the future.

During dinner, everyone was chatting excitedly about their recent happenings. I sat, silent and observant. Kouan, Bai-Yen, and Kwong were at the childrens' table, talking about a new cartoon that aired last week. Grandmother Fa was trying to get Dad's attention and was looking at him in this certain way, but I can't figure out exactly what it was. Uncle Ling once whispered to me that she was infatuated with him.

WHATEVER!

The food was delicious. We had sweet and sour pork, lemon chicken, eel, fried rice, fish with mushrooms, oyster chicken, noodles, and green tea. Auntie Mulan and her mother are excellent cooks.

I leaned over and gave Uncle Yao a sly little pinch on his arm. He whirled around. "You!" he growled, forming a fist. He always does that but he never hits me, not even once (hey, he can't. He wouldn't dare).

Dad looked up and frowned. "Ko-Ngai!"

"Sorry," I said, but I was smiling as I sipped my tea.

After eating, the servants cleaned the table while we all walked out and did our chatting and shifting from one group to another. I stayed with Mom and Auntie Mulan. Standing together, one can mistake them for sisters. They look so much alike. They have the same shape of face, same hairstyle, same nose, same shape of lips, and same shape of eyes except that Auntie Mulan's eyes go more upward than Mom's.

"You know," Auntie Mulan was saying. "Ling almost got fired from the pharmacy last week!"

"Oh dear, that's terrible," said Mom. "What happened?"

"Well, he dropped a bottle of this really expensive herbal medicine which was believed to cure ancestral diseases and it spilled all over the floor, all gone to waste. His boss was screaming and yelling at him and he was so freaked out that he actually called me to come over and help him to convince the boss to forgive him!"

"Oh my," Mom commented.

"So," I said. "I guess we could say that...er...Uncle Ling is a, uh, gent in distress?"

We all laughed, even if I knew it was a shallow joke (adults always laugh at jokes children make anyway, whether they be stupid or not). I was almost knocked over by Bai-Yen, who was engaged in a game of tag with Kouan and Kwong. "Watch it!" I snapped.

"Sorry," she said meekly.

Auntie Mulan then turned to me and smiled. "So Ko-Ngai, how have you been doing lately?"

"Oh, just great," I told her. "Fine. Good."

"Still number one in her class," Mom said proudly.

Mom and Auntie Mulan have this thing for comparing their children. For instance, when Kouan won an amateur martial arts contest last week, it was all Mom could talk about to Auntie Mulan. Or when Kwong, who was a champion at Chinese Checkers, was proclaimed a championship in her school, Auntie Mulan gabbed about it to Mom for weeks.

"I see," Auntie Mulan said, smiling at me.

Just then, Grandmother Fa came up to us. "Anyone ready for a game of mah jong?"

"Sure!" we all replied.

At parties, we women alway gather to play mah jong, as if we were a club. I love mah jong. It's one of my favorite games.

Later, we were all seated at the mah jong table. We moved the tiles around then arranged them in order. And so began the game. Auntie Mulan won in the end. She's a champion at this, and other Chinese games, and that's probably why her daughter is so good at Chinese Checkers. Fa Li and Grandmother Fa smiled proudly. Mom managed a small smile (yep, she's the jealous type) so I reached over and squeezed her hand. She smiled at me.

We then went back outside. Uncle Yao and Kouan were engaged in a friendly wrestling match. The little girls were teasing Uncle Chien-Po. Fa Zhou and Dad were talking. A few seconds later, Uncle Ling came out with a huge cake. It was about 20 inches wide and 30 inches long. It was covered in white icing and in red Chinese characters it said, "Sheng-ret kuai-le, Mulan!" (Happy birthday, Mulan!)

"Oh, wow!" some of us said, while the other clapped.

"I made it myself!" Uncle Ling said proudly.

Granny Fa cleared her throat so loudly that everyone jumped.

"I mean, I owe it all to Granny Fa!" Uncle Ling sputtered, blushing.

Granny Fa smiled. "That's more like it!"

So we all sang and had a piece of that delicious cake.

That's how close we are to our family friends. My parents are good friends to everyone and I think I got that trait from them. Well, my grandmother once sang this little song to me when I was a kid: "Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold." I guess then, that it's a family trait.

My best friend is An-an. We've known each other since we started school and we're closer than glue. We're so closed that Mom once commented, "I feel like I have four children instead of just three."

Last week, An-an slept over at my house and we sneaked out at three in the morning to go skinny-dipping in the river because we weren't sleepy. Auntie Mulan told me that she did this once when she was in the army so out of curiosity, we decided to try it. Nobody saw us fortunately, however An-an got bitten by a water snake. She was so freaked out that she dashed out of the river, threw her clothes back on, and sneaked out of the house. I put my clothes back on and followed her.The next morning, we took a book about snakes with us to the river and took a look at the kind of snake that had bitten An-an to see if it was poisonous or not. Luckily, it wasn't. But An-an said, "I swear, I'll never go skinny-dipping again."

My whole family is fond of An-an. Well, Kouan and Bing-Bing are fond of her but they would never admit it. But I can tell because they love it when she pretends to be afraid of their pet cicadas that they collect.

Yes, I love my life. But it's not perfect. I have my downs as well. As a kid, there were those bullies who would push me into the rain and steal my lunch. Now, as a teen, I experience all sorts of stuff: fair-weather friends, peer pressure, tight cliques...that kind of stuff. And I do have occassional fights with my family as well.

For instance, there was the Mid-Autumn Festival, when I was fifteen. I wanted to go with my friends but my parents insisted that I should go with the family. So I pretended to be sick, and I planned to sneak out and join my friends. But Ying-Ying saw me sneaking out the window and squealed. As punishment, I had to kneel on dried grains of rice and stretch out my arms with heavy books placed on each hand for an hour. It was torture, but I learnt my lesson.

My life isn't a bed of roses. Not a castle in the clouds. It's just ordinary. I'm not a princess. But I am an optimist.

I am now sitting in my bedroom at my desk which is by the window, and I watch Dad and Kouan practice archery together. Bing-Bing is with them. I am deep in thought about many things: my friends, my family, you know, that kind of stuff.

Jing-mei is watching a movie downstairs so I go down and join her. When it's over, I go back upstairs and lie on my bed. I don't have much to do tonight.

Just then, Mom enters my room. "Ko-Ngai," she said. "I...I want to tell you something."

A cold sweat broke out throughout my body. Was this bad news? Uh-oh...

"Do you know how you have been asking about your grandparents, my parents, for years and how I simply told you that they died long ago?"

I nodded.

"There's more to it than just that. You are the eldest and nearly an adult and therefore, I think it's now the right time to tell you." After all, you should know about your family history, right?"

"Yes, Mother," I said. You see, all these years the brief and incomplete knowledge of what I had of my maternal grandparents were just one of those things that you think about for a while then forget about. But now, I could tell that Mom's story would be interesting.

She sat on my bed. "I want to tell you this because I want you to never forget your family history. You already know your father's family history and now I think you should know mine. Come here..." She took my hand and led me to the table. She got out 2 cups and a kettle of tea. I poured for both of us. And as we sipped our tea, she told her story.

As I lay in bed that night, I then realized why she kept emphasizing on how lucky we were to have her and my dad as our parents. My mind was absorbed with the story Mom just told me. What she told me tonight is something that I will never forget. Something that I will keep in my mind and heart forever. Something that I will pass on to my children when I get married. And what she said moved me to tears.