The Beauty of Humanity Movement (59 page)

“Uncle Chi
n has many many customers. The shop is always very busy,” said H
ng.

“Well, I know you are a great help to him,” his father said, making H
ng feel unusually proud.

His mother swooped in then and scooped the sack off the table. She tossed it in the air, catching it with alternate hands. “My, my,” she said. “What a rich new world you inhabit.”

H
ng’s father quietly advised him to keep his birthmarked cheek to the wall when he greeted his mother in future, and H
ng found that when he did so on subsequent visits, his mother even managed to smile at him, suggesting he might want to bathe or lie down after his long journey—
after
he unburdened himself of his heavy sack of coins. He would spend one night with his family before making the three-day return journey, a night when his mother would cook something good and tell him news of the village, treating him like the visiting relative from the city he had quickly become.

H
ng’s father would whisper to him upon his departure, “I am proud of you, my son. But I would be proud of you without the coins. Please believe that.”

And H
ng did believe that. He returned to the city each time with the satisfaction of knowing he was helping his family.

The respect H
ng had for his father mutated into pity as he got older, pity for a man bullied by his wife’s small-mindedness, a man who could have had much more from life if circumstances had allowed. Ironically, his father had created for his blemished son a chance of a far better life than any H
ng ever would have led in the village.

Later, after Uncle Chi
n became sick, it became impossible for H
ng to leave the shop and return home to his family’s village. His uncle spent more and more time resting in the backroom, but the rest seemed to age rather than heal him. Just a few days before he died,
Uncle Chi
n reached out and touched the mole on his nephew’s cheek. “You’ve been a blessing to me,” he said, “not a curse.”

H
ng’s parents periodically sent one of his brothers to the city to collect the money from him after Uncle Chi
n’s passing. This brother never did stay for breakfast, despite H
ng’s insistence, or offer more than the barest news. Throughout the winter of 1954, in the months after liberation, his brother failed to appear. H
ng socked away a portion of his rapidly declining proceeds for his family each month and worried about them more and more.