作者：黄维克
初到香港：从“厅长”到打工仔
终于见到了这辈子第一次碰面的外祖父，他见过我丁点大的黑白照片，我见过他很多张巨大的彩色照片。我们两个相互打量，再次确认我们有一种关系，但是谁都不像对方。
外祖父长得就像外国人，后来他到国内四处旅游，更加证明了这一点。到哪里都有人围观，他看到小脚的女人就追，拿着照相机和摄像机在后面拍。
别说我们第一次见面，在此之前我根本不知道他存在在这个世界，知道外祖父这个人，也是没几年的事情。一次放学回家与小伙伴吵架，对方突然说，你家外公是“美蒋特务”，现在派驻香港。我说没可能，妈妈家里从来都没人。
后来自己也觉得不对，没有外公哪有妈妈，回去一定要问个水落石出。我问母亲：“我有没有外公？” ，“有”；“他现在到底在哪里？，“在香港。” 我听完感觉晴天霹雳，忍不住嚎啕大哭。
父亲的家是“剥削他人”的资本家，这下母亲的家又是一个说不清的“里通外国”。 天啊，我这辈子怎么这么倒霉。
母亲不断地跟我解释，这一切都是为了保护我，一定是对方小孩的家长偷看了“档案”。我们那时候，生活在一个内地大学的院子里，虽然是知识分子云集，但是海外关系仍然比较少，算是在一个保守的城市里面相对开明的单位。
尼克松访华后，整个中国从上到下，从沿海到内地，逐步开放了大门。母亲便开始申请赴香港探亲了，我实在不明白她的目的，因为对外祖父毫无任何感情，为什么要去那个“吃人不吐骨头”的地方？
母亲香港回来，校园里都有很多人找借口来探访，她从来都是那么谨慎，总是具备那一种常人没有的本领：令对方达不到目的 – 打探香港的情况，又保护了自己和家人，而且还没有得罪任何人。
家里出现了很多彩色照片，相对我们原来黑白的照片，它们都像“巨人用的物品一样”反差特别大。照片里母亲抹着口红穿着高跟鞋，在飞机旁边、在游轮上面、在高楼大厦前拍的。 怎么自己天天面对的妈妈，活像一位外国领导人的夫人？
记得上个世纪的某一天，我在北京来往香港的飞机上，机舱里大屏幕正播放的一位女歌手的演唱，歌词大意是那不幸失散的“孩子”，什么时候能回到“母亲”的怀抱，背景却播放着香港高楼大厦的繁华景色， 和内地的城市形成了鲜明的对比，我在想这个“不幸的孩子”又有多幸运 ！
这是到香港的第一天，一大清早我就得起床了，因为我是“厅长”(客厅的长官), 睡觉比任何一个人晚，起床比任何一个人早，这就是我几个小时前才知道的“残酷”现实。
那时候像我这样的情况赴香港，都可以说带着一个任务，那就是去“继承遗产”，大院里在我之前走了一个男孩，他祖父在马来西亚有个橡胶园。听说也是去继承遗产。市公安局面对这种情况一律开绿灯。
记得当时外祖父有一份家信交到了公安局，他介绍自己是本世纪翻页的时候出生 – 1900年。毕业于税务专门学校，原称北京税务学堂，后来在海关任官员。在香港拥有自己的生意，也热衷各种社会慈善捐款活动。
记得他写的那一封信，除了繁体以外，还老是咬文嚼字之乎者也，听起来都是有钱人的口吻。在香港不用去住山上搭建的临时屋和政府的廉租屋，拥有自己有电梯的房子，而且还不是“唐楼”，自然有富人的感觉。
那时候的电梯有自己开的和别人帮你开的，自己开的比较高级一点，但是每到一层用一次要自己开门和关门，记得门是一个有铁和竹子的栅栏。
不知道有多少的推友，那个年代去过香港的穷人家里，山上很多临时搭建的房子，属于那种外面下大雨里面下小雨，家里女性上厕所都要陪伴的。
如果你幸运被抽签住上公屋，也不是每一层都有电梯，人们常排队等电梯，还不能到自己想到的楼层。每家人的空间都极其狭小，门口都拉一块布帘，用这样的方法能透口气。公众的走廊上充满着，锅碗瓢勺碰撞声和父母孩子之间的叫骂声。
记住，穷人不是住“公屋”的，而是那些住“笼屋”的。
外公是一个纨绔子弟，除了周游世界外，从来都是把钱花得精光。但他有一个集邮的嗜好，还成立了一个“九龙邮票社”，老香港的人都应该记得。
他在铜锣湾闹市区有一个豆腐干大的小铺头，那里常有集邮爱好者的光顾，也吸引了一些放了学的中小学生。原来集邮这个玩意儿是丰俭由人，有便宜的不得了的，也有贵的得吓人的。
邮票社是一个世界组织的会员，时常会收到寄来的邮包，都是一些世界各地最普通最通用最便宜的邮票。寄来的邮票连着剪下的部分信封，每一百张用橡皮筋捆在一起，我们需要用温水把它们分离，就像其他家庭作坊一样。
那时候也有人拿“邮票极品”，拿来寄卖或者交易。那就是中国的“全国山河一片红”和英国的“黑便士”和“红便士”。这些小小的邮票现在都能价值几百万美元或者欧元，几千万人民币，当时只能换一台彩色电视机而已。
很明显我的香港之行，占用了国家宝贵外汇：二十港币。终于看到了我眼前的现实：外祖父不穷，但也绝对谈不上富。原有“继承遗产”的梦想就这样彻底破灭了。
编辑：黄吉洲 校对：周敏 翻译：沈美花
Twenty Yuan to Hong Kong (Part 2)
Author: Huang Weike
First Arrival in Hong Kong: From “Living Room Bureau Chief” to Hired Hand
I finally met my maternal grandfather for the very first time in my life. He had seen a tiny black-and-white photograph of me, while I had seen many large, color photographs of him. The two of us sized each other up, confirming once again that we shared a relationship, yet neither of us looked like the other.
My grandfather looked just like a foreigner—a fact proven even further when he later traveled all over Mainland China. Wherever he went, crowds would gather to watch him; whenever he saw women with bound feet, he would chase after them, snapping photos and filming with his camera.
Let alone meeting for the first time, before this I didn’t even know he existed in this world. Learning about my grandfather was something that had only happened a few years prior. Once, after getting into an argument with a classmate on the way home from school, the other kid suddenly blurted out that my grandfather was a “US-Chiang [Kuomintang] spy” currently stationed in Hong Kong. I said that was impossible—my mother’s side of the family never had anyone around.
Afterward, I felt something was off; without a grandfather, how could there be a mother? I was determined to get to the bottom of it when I got home. I asked my mother, “Do I have a grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“Where on earth is he right now?”
“In Hong Kong.”
Hearing this felt like a bolt out of the blue, and I couldn’t help but burst into loud crying.
My father’s family was labeled as capitalists who “exploited others,” and now my mother’s family turned out to be another unclear case of “colluding with foreign forces.” Good heavens, how could I be so unlucky in this lifetime?
My mother kept explaining to me that all of this was done to protect me, and that the other child’s parents must have peeked at our confidential personnel files (dangan). At that time, we lived inside the compound of a mainland university. Although it was a place where intellectuals gathered, families with overseas connections were still relatively rare; it was considered a relatively open-minded institution within a conservative city.
After Nixon visited China, the entire country—from top to bottom, from the coastal regions to the inland—gradually opened its doors. My mother then began applying to visit relatives in Hong Kong. I truly could not understand her motive: having no feelings whatsoever toward my grandfather, why would she want to go to that place where “people eat people and spit out the bones”?
When my mother returned from Hong Kong, many people in the campus compound found excuses to visit her. She was always so cautious, constantly possessing a knack uncommon in ordinary people: preventing the other party from achieving their goal—prying into the situation in Hong Kong—while protecting herself and her family, all without offending anyone.
Many color photos appeared in our home. Compared to our original black-and-white photos, they were so starkly different, like “items used by giants.” In the photos, my mother wore lipstick and high heels, posing beside airplanes, on cruise ships, and in front of skyscrapers. How could the mother I faced every single day look just like the wife of a foreign head of state?
I remember one day in the last century, while on a flight between Beijing and Hong Kong, the large screen in the cabin was playing a female singer’s concert performance. The general meaning of the lyrics was about when that unfortunately separated “child” could return to the embrace of the “mother,” while the background displayed prosperous views of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers. It formed a sharp contrast with mainland cities, and I thought to myself: how fortunate this “unfortunate child” actually was!
This was my first day in Hong Kong. I had to get up very early in the morning because I was the “Living Room Bureau Chief” (Tingzhang)—going to sleep later than anyone else and waking up earlier than anyone else. This was the “brutal” reality I had only learned about a few hours prior.
Back then, people in my situation going to Hong Kong could be said to carry a mission: to go and “inherit an estate.” Before me, a boy from our compound had left; his grandfather owned a rubber plantation in Malaysia, and rumor had it he was also going to inherit an estate. The Municipal Public Security Bureau gave a green light to all such cases without exception.
I remember my grandfather once delivered a family letter to the Public Security Bureau. In it, he introduced himself as having been born at the turn of the century—in 1900. He graduated from the Special School of Taxation, originally called the Beijing Customs College, and later served as an official in the Customs Service. He owned his own business in Hong Kong and was also enthusiastic about participating in various social charity donation activities.
I remember that letter he wrote: besides using traditional Chinese characters, he was always pedantically quoting classical literary phrasing (zhi-hu-zhe-ye), sounding entirely like a wealthy person. In Hong Kong, he didn’t have to live in temporary squatter huts built on the hillsides or in government public housing (resettlement estates); he owned his own building with an elevator, and it wasn’t a traditional tenement building (Tong Lau) either, naturally giving off the aura of a rich man.
Back then, elevators included those operated by yourself and those operated by an operator for you. The self-operated ones were more upscale, but on every floor, you had to open and close the door yourself when using it; I remember the door was a folding gate made of iron and bamboo.
I wonder how many fellow netizens have ever visited the homes of poor people in Hong Kong back in that era. Many temporary houses built on the mountains were the type where it rained heavily outside and lightly inside, and the women of the household needed someone to accompany them just to go to the toilet.
Even if you were lucky enough to win the lottery and move into public housing, not every floor had an elevator stop. People often queued for the lift, and it might not even take you to the floor you wanted. The space for each family was extremely cramped; a cloth curtain was pulled across every doorway—using this method just to catch a breath of air. The public corridors were filled with the clatter of pots, pans, bowls, and ladles, alongside the shouting and scolding between parents and children.
Remember: the truly poor did not live in “public housing,” but in those “cage homes.”
My grandfather was a playboy (wan-ku zi-di); apart from traveling the world, he always spent every last penny. However, he had a stamp collecting hobby and had even established the “Kowloon Stamp Company,” which old-timers in Hong Kong should still remember.
He had a tiny shop no bigger than a piece of dried tofu in the bustling area of Causeway Bay. Stamp collectors often frequented the spot, and it also attracted some primary and secondary school students after school. It turned out that stamp collecting was a hobby for any budget—there were stamps that were dirt cheap, and others that were terrifyingly expensive.
The stamp shop was a member of an international organization and would periodically receive mail parcels containing the most common, generic, and cheapest stamps from all over the world. The incoming stamps were still attached to the cut-off portions of envelopes, tied together with rubber bands in bundles of one hundred. We needed to use warm water to separate them, just like in other cottage workshops.
Back then, people also brought in “rare gem stamps” for consignment or trade. Those included China’s “The Whole Country is Red” as well as Britain’s “Penny Black” and “Penny Red.” These tiny stamps can easily be worth millions of US dollars or euros, tens of millions of RMB today, but back then they could only be exchanged for a single color television set.
It was obvious that my trip to Hong Kong had consumed the state’s precious foreign exchange: twenty Hong Kong dollars. I finally faced the reality before my eyes: my grandfather was not poor, but he was by no means rich either. My original dream of “inheriting an estate” was thus completely shattered.
Editor: Huang Jizhou
Proofreader: Zhou Min
Translator: Shen Meihua
