My Journey Read online

  A man who lived one floor above us was an amateur photographer, but my father became hostile when the man took some pictures of my mother and me. I was too young to recognize these early signs of his paranoia. He was jealous, too, of my mother’s many friends in the building.

  As for my mother’s suspicions, it turns out that they were well founded. I never discovered the existence of my father’s other family until many years later, but my mother certainly faced that hard truth back in Hong Kong.

  The eviction of Andre ratcheted up the clashes between my parents. Had my father not been so threatened by my mother’s affection for her son, had he not been so jealous and insecure, he could have embraced Andre as his own son. But he could not.

  I still have powerful childhood memories of loud and violent arguments between my parents. My father beat my mother on many occasions, and my mother would throw things at him, or wield a knife to protect herself. (Fortunately, she never used it.) When I was in Grade 3—the year I failed—my mother once leaned out on the balcony and yelled that she would die soon because my father was going to kill her. While this drama unfolded, I hid under my desk and pulled in my bamboo chair.

  Was I traumatized by these events? Perhaps. I have a powerful ability to shut out unwelcome noise, and I used it then. But is this ability innate, part of my makeup? Or was it a survival skill, something hard won through years of practice? I honestly don’t know.

  My father and mother were then in their late thirties, and that pattern of raised voices continues to this day, when both are in their late eighties. Still married, they have been separated for more than thirty years. My father still lives in the apartment in St. James Town that we moved to shortly after we immigrated to Toronto more than forty years ago, and my mother lives with me in my Victorian semi-detached house in downtown Toronto. I would love to have my father under the same roof, but I know what would happen. Our house would once again become a battleground.

  After Andre left, I was the only child.

  I had started kindergarten when I was just three and a half years old (this is still the norm in Hong Kong). Rosary Hill, a two-kilometre bus ride up the mountain, was a brand-new Catholic school started up by the Dominican Fathers. Neither of my parents was religious; their hopes for my education had drawn them to enrol me in this parochial school. I was the daughter of a senior educator and a teacher, and both were convinced that I would excel there. I proved them wrong. Naughty, spoiled, rebellious and lazy, I was a terrible student. I actually managed to fail Grade 3.

  At that point, I was taken out of the hands of the Dominican Fathers and sent to the Maryknoll Sisters. This American order of Catholic teaching nuns had established themselves in Hong Kong in 1925 and set high academic standards for the teaching of girls. As it happened, in addition to their main Convent School in Kowloon, Hong Kong, they ran a neighbourhood school in Happy Valley, right across the street from our place on Blue Pool Road.

  The Sisters were well educated, tough and kind, and they did their best to teach me. But I just picked up where I had left off at Rosary Hill and became the hellion of the school. Later, in my early teens, after I had discovered self-discipline, I excelled in class and even skipped Grade 8. But during those early years, I was a teacher’s worst nightmare. Obsessed with play, I was the leader of the pack in the schoolyard. And in the classroom, I was the one organizing arsenals of paper folded into hard little Vs—missiles to be launched via elastic bands at other kids’ heads when our teachers’ backs were turned.

  Every morning before class, dressed neatly in my blue and white school uniform, I went straight for the swings in the playground. I would skip, run and immerse myself in my make-believe world, one that books had helped me construct. Despite being a defiant student, I had learned to read when I was very young, and I consumed huge numbers of novels: Chinese romances by Chiung Yao, the martial arts novels of Gu Long and Jin Yong, and weekly kung fu magazines. At night, long after I had been sent to bed, I would read books under the covers using a flashlight and escape into my imagined world—one fed not just by books but by Chinese soap operas on the radio and my favourite TV shows and movies filled with drama, adventure and the heroics of Lassie, Batman and the characters on Mission: Impossible.

  Every evening after dinner, it seemed, my father would say, “Why don’t you go up to the rooftop and play with your friends?”

  “But what about my homework?” I might reply. “I have to do some writing.”

  My mother and father played good cop/bad cop in this scenario, with my mother telling me, “Ollie, do your homework!” and my father indulging me. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll write it for you” was his standard response.

  “But you don’t have the same handwriting as I do,” I would counter.

  “You’ll never get away with it” was my mother’s admonishment to the two of us.

  “I’ll use my left hand, and no one will be able to tell,” my father would say, and so it was settled.

  This all seemed perfectly normal to me, and I took full advantage. But my teacher eventually noticed that I wasn’t actually doing the homework myself, and I got a detention. My father was doubly upset. It was unacceptable that the daughter of the school superintendent should be given a detention. He could not see that the detention was well deserved, or that he was the cause. By indulging me and meddling with my homework, he jeopardized both his career and my schooling.

  My father was an educated, creative and talented man who sang Western opera in his spare time and who regularly performed on radio and with Hong Kong opera companies. Yet he had such a blind spot where I was concerned, and I was always prepared to take advantage of it.

  My fantasy world didn’t disappear when the sun came up. I had a bunk bed and I would hang curtains from the upper bunk to create a stage so my friends and I could put on elaborate dramas. No doubt influenced by what I was reading and watching, I stuck with an abiding theme—impossible rescues, with me as the invincible superhero.

  Another stage was the rooftop of our apartment complex, a series of three interconnected four-storey buildings with a common roof. This was our playground, and what a vast and wonderful play space it was, filled with hiding spots—behind water tanks, under the various staircases. Up here, with friends who lived in the complex, we played catch and tag and hide-and-seek.

  My constant companion was Ah Qui, a babysitter whose only job was to play with me, do my homework with me and be a “good influence.” Our housekeeper was older and adept at cooking and taking care of the house, but she was definitely not a playmate for me. My mother had actually enrolled Ah Qui in my English classes to help me learn, but instead of studying at home we mostly listened to Chinese soap operas on the little radio I got for my seventh birthday. When my mother hid that radio, we listened to the big family radio in the living room. And when my mother pulled the plug on that one, we started exploring the neighbourhood and getting into endless trouble, for we were both fearless, high-energy types.

  Living out superhero fantasies was exhilarating for both of us. One time when I was about ten years old, I climbed a very high rooftop antenna, which was a deliciously scary but reckless thing to do. Ah Qui was older than me and should have restrained me, but she did not. Neighbours saw me and dutifully informed my parents. The ultimate adventure was the day that Ah Qui tried to teach me how to climb the building—from our third-floor balcony to the one above us—using water pipes and the bars that secured the balconies. She had climbed up to visit her friend on the fourth floor, so why couldn’t her ten-year-old charge do the same? There was one minor detail she had ignored: if she slipped, she would fall three storeys and break her neck. And the same fate awaited me if I lost my grip. We were caught in the act, and our days as a Dynamic Duo came to an end. Ah Qui was sent packing.

  I was once again on my own, and I remained obsessed with play. I had plenty of playmates at school and in the complex—including my best friend, Rosalind But, another high-spirited girl. Unlike me, though, she excelled in school and at piano. And, as my father’s overindulged only child, I certainly had all the toys I needed. At my birthday parties, the presents would roll out: the teddy bear, the furry Bugs Bunny that said “What’s up, doc?” when you pulled the string on his back, the James Bond peashooter (which stung many a victim), the wooden sword, the electric train, the remote-controlled tank that I deployed to bulldoze the Lego houses I had just finished building. All perfect for an adventure-seeking tomboy. I had a dollhouse, too, and I occasionally moved the furniture around.

  On weekends, my mom and dad and I would often go to the beach with my dad’s brother and his six children. We would swim, play catch, build sandcastles and dream. My mother and father had many friends in Hong Kong and they all had children my age, so we were constantly playing.

  My childhood was marked by light and dark, by times of pure joy and other times of almost unbearable tension at home.

  I recall the dread I felt whenever I was asked as a child to make an impossible choice. From time to time, my parents would ask me: If we separate, which of us would you choose to live with? My father doted on me and let me do whatever I wanted, while my mother was the disciplinarian. But I loved them both.

  We had many wonderful moments as a family when I was little, like the days at the beach, and parties and celebrations. I had many friends—all of them more diligent than me in their studies. Virtually all little children in Happy Valley took piano lessons, and the expectation was that we would all do well in school.

  I did not meet those expectations. My piano lessons lasted less than a year. At school, I was punished time and again for acting out. I’d get the strap—those were the days when corporal punishment was normal—or I’d be made to put my back to a wall
with my knees bent. The aim was to make my thighs burn, but I was in terrific shape from all my running in games of tag. My attitude was, “Bring it on!” I was rebellious, restless, difficult—and a supreme embarrassment to my educator parents. In a class of thirty-five, I would habitually come in thirty-fourth—because I was not paying attention, did not study or do homework and just did not care. It’s amazing that I failed only one grade.

  My dad thought I was doing poorly because I was lonely, so he bought me a dog—a little terrier I called Bella—to keep me company. She was a wonderful pet, but she met a sad fate on the road and was replaced by another terrier, also called Bella. This second Bella was impossible—constantly barking, disobedient, frenetic. She chewed everything in sight and was soon banished from the household. And then came Ah Woo (which means “grey” or “dark” in Cantonese). I did many drawings of Ah Woo. I captured his curling tail, his dark sensitive eyes and his stubby legs with hair almost to the floor. I even captured his sweet and attentive face. Ah Woo followed me everywhere and would quietly sit by me through good times or bad. We also had hamsters, fishes, birds and, at one time, two turtles.

  And when the miniature zoo failed to have the desired effect, and the hamsters were threatening to take over the apartment, my father started hiring tutors. Every few months, a new one would appear and try to make me focus on my studies. They mostly quit because I was impossible to teach, and I would make their lives hell, hiding their umbrellas, ignoring my schoolbooks and disobeying them.

  By Grade 6, when I was ten, I was on the brink of being tossed out of school. But then a remarkable young woman entered my life—Sophia, my new tutor. She had been educated by the Maryknoll nuns, and she embodied the selflessness that was central to their faith. And somehow, she had faith in me. Sophia connected with me through her patience, her love and her understanding of what I was going through at home. That connection was a turning point.

  By now I finally clued in that I would have to pull up my socks and behave or else I would get kicked out of the school and lose many of my friends. I would also have to face the humiliation and boredom of travelling for an hour each day to another school. After my mother read me the riot act, and with the gentle encouragement of Sophia, I ditched Batman, Mission: Impossible, Lassie, the countless Walt Disney movies and the Chinese variety show “Happy Tonight.” Ditto the romances, fantasy novels and superhero comics. I snapped out of my make-believe world, and I squarely faced reality. Finally, and for the first time in my life, I studied. I applied myself to work as I had applied myself to play.

  My dad got into the act, too, and purchased the Hong Kong version of Coles Notes for me—shortcuts to help me make up for lost time. Within six months, I had passed all my exams and had high enough marks that I was promoted to Form One, meaning that I could now proceed to junior secondary school.

  When he was fourteen, my brother had taken up Wing Chun, a Chinese martial art later made popular by the movie Ip Man, about the Wing Chun kung fu grand master (who taught Bruce Lee, among others). No doubt Andre started learning it in order to protect my mother. On and off, Andre practised Wing Chun for more than six years, and he became more and more confident. Whenever Andre came home to visit, he would show off his latest Wing Chun move. I was totally mesmerized and would often beg him to teach me a few moves. He knew he could tackle my father if he had to. And my father seemed to know it too. Every time Andre came home on weekends, my father was too wary of him to strike my mother.

  After such beginnings, I am amazed that my brother turned out strong and well. Andre got a degree in electrical engineering and held down good-paying jobs all his life. After a successful career in New York as the chief financial officer of a fashion company, he’s now semi-retired and works part-time. He’s also a talented photographer—he took my very first campaign photo when I ran for school trustee almost thirty years ago. We both have two grandchildren, and even though he has a lot of buried anger, he was able to manage it through meditation—he is a vegan Buddhist.

  This lovely, gentle man managed to rise above my father’s ill treatment. One of my dreams is to have him retire to Canada so we can meditate and travel together.

  “I want to learn judo, ballet and guitar,” I said to my mother when I was thirteen, “but I can only take two after-school activities, not three. What should I take?”

  “Judo and guitar,” my mother advised.

  “Ballet,” said my father. “Definitely not judo, because you are enough of a tomboy already.”

  My mother had a reason for picking judo. As she told my father, “She can defend herself in future against men who want to take advantage of her.”

  So I signed up for guitar lessons—and judo. Three months later, my mother invited me to practise on my father. We all cheered when I was able to “throw” my dad to the ground.

  But then it was my turn to be thrown and have my world turned upside down. My father announced that we were leaving Hong Kong.

  Meanwhile, the Cultural Revolution was raging in Mainland China, bringing upheaval and bombings to Hong Kong. I was barely aware of the 1967 riots, but my parents were alarmed. I vaguely remember a bomb that was planted in our neighbourhood. Those riots had been accompanied by drought, made worse when China cut off the flow of water from the mainland. There were severe water restrictions, and people went days without water. Anxiety about the future of Hong Kong was widespread.

  Finally, my father embraced the hope that if he took early retirement and made a new start somewhere else, family tensions would subside. Vast numbers of people were leaving Hong Kong, and we would ride that wave. (Andre had preceded us; he was by then studying at an American university.) My dad wanted a clean slate, and a better future for his daughter.

  Soon I was saying farewell to all my friends, my dog Ah Woo and my comfortable middle-class life on Blue Pool Road in Happy Valley. The Chow family was being uprooted. Our destination was Canada and the city with the largest Chinese-speaking community in that country. Toronto.

  CHAPTER 2

  St. James Town

  An immigrant to a new land is always looking for home, in whatever form. For me, home—our apartment in St. James Town—was a place marked by angst and sometimes violence. So I sought a sense of belonging elsewhere.

  Saltine crackers with peanut butter on top. This became my comfort food, an after-school snack, soon after I arrived in Toronto from Hong Kong in the summer of 1970, at the age of thirteen. I can’t remember where I picked up this habit—certainly not from my mother, who found Canadian food bland and who had no interest in venturing into a new cuisine. But just as the sight and smell of chocolates bring back memories of my Hong Kong childhood, the sight and smell of peanut butter conjure up my teenage years in Toronto.

  In the Chinese calendar, 1970 was the Year of the Dog, and I sorely missed mine. My beloved Ah Woo was given away to relatives when we left Hong Kong, relatives who passed him on to other relatives, after which Ah Woo’s trail goes cold. I don’t know what happened to him. I know only that when I arrived in Canada at the age of thirteen, I felt an overwhelming sadness. I was Woo-less.

  I don’t really remember our departure from Hong Kong. I look at a photograph of thirteen-year-old Olivia taken at the airport, and she looks like a bored teenager, but I’m sure I was anything but bored. I don’t recall much of the flight either—except for a memorable moment when fire broke out on the left wing and we were forced to stop over for a day in Anchorage, Alaska.

  I can’t say that I suffered much from culture shock when we first arrived, beyond enduring the usual teenage angst about where I fit in and belonged. There were large numbers of Chinese Canadians in Toronto, which is, in part, why my father and mother had chosen that city. I am so grateful for the many Chinese Canadians I befriended at this time who eased me into school and this new life in a new country. I had friends who looked like me.