I was 20 years old and it was the first time I met this sister of mine from Hong Kong. She is the eldest of the family of 13 from one mother and one father. Friends and relatives liked to poke fun at us saying that our family had its own football team with two spare players. When we talk about football in Mauritius we mean soccer.
This sister was born in Mauritius, I do not know the exact year but I calculated that it must be around 1928. When she was a baby my mother took her and a second younger baby sister to China and they were left there with Grandma. Why my mother did not bring them back with her to Mauritius I don’t know the answer and I had never enquired about the reason. I could only deduce that my parents were too poor and too busy making a living in their new country that it was difficult to raise two small babies. I am sure it was extremely hard and heart breaking for mom and dad to be separated with my two baby sisters. I later learned that the second sister was given away to another family. Again I did not know why and I never asked of my parents. Giving children away was a common practice in China in that era, usually necessitated for one of two reasons, either the parents were too poor to bring them up or the children were constantly sick and the local soothsayer would recommend that the child be given away to a new family. This should stop the sickness. When we were growing up and our mother told us about the second sister we felt quite sad and sorry that it had to be this way.
This is a typical Hakka Community House where hundred of families reside. My sisters probably lived in one of these units in the 1930s
Somehow life went on. My mom gave birth to many more babies in Mauritius and we all never saw our two eldest sisters for many years to come. They grew up with Grandma, went to school and did whatever children would do in China. They seemed to have done well because both went to school and are literate unlike many other kids in China who did not have the chance to an education. Though my second sister was given away, I believe she lived not too far from the first sister in a Hakka village in Meixian County, North East of Guangdong Province, where many of the villagers, including my parents, had some time ago decided to cross the Five Oceans to look for a better place for them and the children. This reminded me of the Japanese whom I met on board the M V “Ruys” during my voyage to Hong Kong when they were returning home from Brazil to visit their parents and acquaintances. It was a relief to me to learn that the two sisters kept in touch with each other while growing up. One of the hardest things in life, I believe, is to have to leave one’s place of birth and the loved ones for a new country where the language, the food, the weather and the customs are very foreign. Hakka people originally from Northern China had been on the move for many centuries, migrating to the South due to social unrest, upheavals and invasions, and eventually from there across the seas to all corners of the globe.
Contemporary immigrants to a new country have a less hard time as they or at least their children are likely to speak the language of the new country, they would have done some research of what to expect and prepare for it. With modern telecommunication systems they technically are in touch with the loved ones they have left behind and the probability is high that they would be able to save enough money in a few years to travel back to their old country to renew acquaintance with their friends and other members of their family. Immigrants like my father and mother had a much harder life, they left their country with only a dim hope that luck would be on their side to allow them to one day return or visit their place of birth.
My parents might have travelled in a similar ship when they immigrated from China to Mauritius in 1920s
When I left Mauritius for Hong Kong in 1966 I had to travel by sea, air was out of the question, far beyond my means and the voyage took 15 days. I can do it today in 10 hours. Telephoning my parents long distance was too much of a luxury and was only used in case of extreme emergency. I remember that I wrote to my parents regularly when I just landed in Hong Kong, I had the choice of sending my letters by Air Mail or Sea Mail. For many the savings in postage between air and sea was something quite worth considering. I don’t recall having telephone my parents even once because though there was a house phone at my sister’s residence, my parents had no phone at home. They would have to ask a favour from some residences that had a phone and then there were not many in the neighbourhood where they lived.
I remember that the only one time my family contacted someone on the phone was when I was around 8 or 9 years old. I used to spend my summer vacation at my aunt’s shop at Deep River, a small village in the district of Flacq some 40 kilometres from Port Louis. Deep River was a Sugar Estate owned by a prominent family of French descent. My parents had gone to the nearby Boulangerie (Bakery) to ask to use their phone. They had called the Deep River’s Estate office, a five minutes walk to my aunt’s place. Some one had run to my aunt to announce that there was a phone call for her from my parents from Port Louis. My aunt, my cousin and myself walked as fast as we could to the Estate Office to answer the call. That was the way communication was in the 1960’s in Mauritius. Hong Kong then was far ahead with almost every household or group of households having a telephone unit.
This is a rotary telephone unit popular in the 1960s. All now replaced by digital phones.