Kerry Young - Pao

The only problem I got is that George Morrison already leave for Scotland and the last thing I want now is for Fay to look outta some window and see Morrison standing there ’cross the street. That would make her convinced for sure that I was up to something. And worse, that I go break my word to her. But no matter how much I ring and ring the telephone number Morrison give me I can’t get no answer. The days ticking by and I thinking any minute now this thing going turn into another calamity.

In between telephoning George I start wondering what I going write in this here letter. What can I tell them ’bout things because in truth everything here is a mess. Unemployment, poverty, shortages, violence. The foreigners own all of the bauxite and aluminium industry, more than half the sugar industry, well over half of the tourist industry and a big chunk of the new manufacturing industry. So no matter how hard the people work the foreigners still taking out the profit and Jamaica not got no capital to invest in herself. She still the slave working to make the masa rich.

So I think to myself what future Mui and Xiuquan really got here? Next thing you know Xiuquan mix up with some bad element and him end up dead just like Kenneth Wong, because after all the commotion die down over the bow and arrow what I discover was that it wasn’t the first time. Xiuquan been taking stuff from all over town without paying for it. That night was just the first time anybody catch him. And afterwards Ethyl tell me that when him up Lady Musgrave Road Xiuquan following after Kenneth any chance him get. So maybe he was heading that way.

And what ’bout Mui? What kinda life is waiting for her back here? When my brother leave Jamaica him tell me he wanted to be more than a Chinaman in Chinatown. And Mui deserve better than that too. She too smart to come back here and follow in my footsteps. So maybe Fay right after all. I sit down and I write.

Dear Mui,

My heart warmed when I heard from Father Michael that you had written to me even though I never received your letter. I am also glad to hear that you are well and school is good. Perhaps you should try harder to make friends with the other children. They may not be used to meeting such a very smart and loving Jamaican girl like you.

All is well here. Everybody misses you and send their love – Zhang, Ma, Hampton, Finley and everyone. And even though I am very sad that you are not here with me I think perhaps your mama is right that England is a better place for you right now so that you can grow up peacefully without all of this trouble we have down here.

And then I stop writing and I think should I be writing to the two of them? Or maybe I should write a separate letter to Xiuquan? But what play on my mind all the time is that he knew. He knew and he plan and plot with Fay so she could do what she done. He never even give me a chance to see if I could make it up with Fay and keep this family together. He just go ahead and let the three of them take off.

I think to myself I know two Yang Xiuquan, and both of them betray me. One with the tales him tell to Zhang, and the other one with the plotting he do with Fay. And both of them leave me. One to become a farmer in America and the other one to follow his mother to England. So maybe it was a mistake me naming the boy Xiuquan. Maybe Fay was right when she decide to just start call him Karl.

So I finish the letter.

I hope both your mama and Karl are well. Say hello to the both of them for me.

With much love

Papa

I put it on the side because I can’t bring myself to mail it without knowing what going on with Morrison.

And then a couple days later I finally get through to him.

‘Where the hell you been, man? I been ringing you for well over two weeks.’

‘We’ve been in the Highlands visiting some of Margaret’s family.’

‘Visiting family? While I been going mad down here wondering what the hell you doing.’

‘Is something wrong?’

‘Never mind ’bout wrong. What yu do ’bout tracking down Stanley and Fay and the children?’

‘Pao, I just got here and since we arrived we have had to visit every one of Margaret’s sisters to introduce them to John.’

‘So yu no go down to England yet?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Don’t bother go down there. The problem solved.’

So I mail the letter and when I get Mui’s reply she tell me all sort of things ’bout her school and what it like at Stanley’s house. And how Fay got a job working in a office, which surprise the hell outta me because I never think Fay would ever do a thing like that. Get a job. So it make me realise how serious she is ’bout making a future for the children.

Mui write: ‘You asked me to say hello to Mama and Karl, which I have done but I do not understand why you did not call him Xiuquan. Is there a reason?’

And when she finish send her love to everybody she say, ‘I hope Gloria and Esther are well.’ And she sign it with a PS. ‘England is fine, Papa. But Jamaica is my home and that is where I want to be. I know that you will understand that.’

When I write back to her I just say, ‘I decide to call him Karl as a way to maybe have a new beginning.’

Early in 1969 Norman Manley retire and him son, Michael, get elected as leader of the People’s National Party, the PNP, which at the time was the opposition party in Parliament. The first time I hear Michael Manley it was on the Rediffusion and he was saying ‘Better must come’.

So I start read ’bout the PNP’s ‘politics of participation’, and them four basic commitments to create a Jamaican economy that was ‘less dependent on foreign control, an egalitarian society based on equality and opportunity, a truly democratic society, and a society proud of its history and heritage’. It put me in mind of Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong and Zhang, and my own father, Yang Tzu. And it seem like maybe there was still a chance for us. Still a chance that Jamaica could hope for a better future. And when I go listen to Manley speak at one of him rallies he stand up there and say: ‘We come too far, we’re not turning back now. We come too far, we’re not turning back now. We have a pride now. We have a place now. We have a mission now. And I say to you, my friends, together we are going to march forward under God’s heaven building democratic socialism. Glory to socialism.’

And that was it. That was me and Michael Manley because this was how we was going to create a fair and just Jamaica. Just like how Zhang talk ’bout the right of the ordinary woman and man to live a decent life free from the tyranny of warlords and the domination of foreigners. This was the same thing, only now we wanted social justice and fair distribution of wealth, and we wanted to ease out from under so much foreign economic control.

When Michael Manley win the general election in 1972 I celebrate more than I done for Independence ten years earlier, because this time it really seem to mean something. It wasn’t just that we going take over governing ourselves. It was like we really going do something. We really going make it different, like Manley say, we were going to ‘walk through the world on our feet and not on our knees’.

Manley buy the public utilities, and take over all the foreign-owned sugar estates and a heap of the hotels. So instead of one man own one plantation, now we had workers’ co-operatives, and small farmers working the land that nobody used to do nothing with. People was learning to read and write. There was day care and community centres. Plus the government bring out new labour legislation that replace the old Master and Servants Law and them introduce a minimum wage.

It was a new Jamaica. It was a new vision. It was new hope.