Under the Dragon (22 page)

On the street below the dogs howled. In the bare room next door May tossed and turned. She always slept poorly after playing the airline game. No amount of
fu ling
could calm her spirit. It was not simply that the game reminded her of her son. She slept no better when their imagined journeys avoided America altogether, venturing instead out on Yangtze ferries or into the Mandarin Oriental Hotel at Macau. The fantasies that diverted and amused May always left her with a sense of dissatisfaction. She often cursed them, stopping in mid-flight and swearing never to play again. Yet less than a week would pass before she insisted on resurrecting the entertainment. Kwan obliged her not so much because she enjoyed the game, but because she was dependent on her twin. All her knowledge of the past came to her through the sister who didn’t honour it. She remembered nothing of her life before the riot, except for the smell of mint and dust.

Burma and China are ancient adversaries. The Burmese have long been suspicious of the intentions of their powerful neighbour. But in 1988 and 1989 the two countries were drawn together by their respective massacres; first in Burma and then at Tiananmen Square. The governments found mutual solidarity in the face of Western outrage. And when Beijing ended its support of the Burmese Communist Party, political expediency smoothed the old animosities. History books were rewritten to overlook the numerous Sino-Burmese wars. State agriculture agencies were instructed to purchase Chinese hoes and shovels, not home-produced tools. Schoolchildren were taught that linguistics linked the two nations, both Burmese and Chinese being Sino-Tibetan tonal languages. Textbooks failed to mention the Red Badge affair. The old enemies became new friends; and the SLORC generals had a dependable source of weapons.

The official cross-border trade, which swapped teak and jade for bullets and mortars, also enticed new entrepreneurs from Yunnan and Szechwan. As soon as Chinese law permitted it, migrants poured across the border to settle in Lashio, which straddled the only road between Yunnan and the sea. They set up shops and hotels, trucking lines and import-export agencies. To them Burma was a land of opportunity. Its isolation and poverty had left it backward, with resources unexploited and locals vulnerable to fast deals and flashy tat. It was a good place for the Chinese to get rich quick.

After the attack May had buried her husband. She then carried her sister into their parents’ sleeping chamber and waited at her bedside. Kwan had not fully recovered consciousness and May fed her like a delirious child, changing her bedding and explaining over and over how they would leave Lashio as soon as her health improved. For the first twelve months she rarely left the house. She avoided the station and never talked to strangers. The Burmese neighbours, the strangers who had watched Wei being killed, now brought food and medicine. Offerings of rice and curry were left on the table inside the storehouse door. Every morning for four years fresh limes appeared in her kitchen. The doctor called by every third week and never once asked for a fee. May did not thank her neighbours, but she held no grudge against them. No one in Burma who valued their life stood up against soldiers.

The postman stopped demanding payment for the letters that reached her from California. Her son described a new world of rapid-transit systems and jumbo jets. He worked nights as a baggage handler at LAX, enrolled at UCLA, bought a beige Ford Pinto. He graduated with a degree in mathematics and became an air traffic controller. As she watched her sister sleep, May fantasised about her own escape to America. She imagined her flight on its final approach. Over the cockpit radio she listened to her son talking down the aircraft. ‘Roger, Pan Am 002. You are on course for touchdown on runway two-niner. Have a nice day.’ After the landing he took off his headset, strolled down from the control tower and drove her home to his house in Long Beach. He had written that each room had its own television set. In another letter he wrote that forty-two different airlines flew into Los Angeles International and then listed the name of each one, from Aeroflot to Varig Brazilian. He marked with an asterisk each carrier that served South-East Asia. Yet as desperate as May became, as much as she missed her son, she never considered going to America alone. Kwan was her twin, half of a whole, and she could not imagine them ever being parted.

In time Kwan regained her health. She walked from room to room, moving with unfamiliarity through the familiar house, fingering unknown objects which she had always known. May, who preferred to talk about the future, told her little about their past.

As they had lost the family business, Kwan suggested they open a small market stall with the money sent every month by May’s son. It was a sensible proposal. Their savings would buy herbs and a simple weighing scale, with a few kyat spare to bribe the appropriate official. They could build on their father’s reputation, and with luck one day expand into a little shop on Lashio’s main street. Kwan stood beside the market’s only herb vendor and whispered to her sister. ‘Do you see?’ she asked, speaking in Chinese so that the Burman would not understand. ‘Poor quality. And he has neither
gan
cao
or ginger. None of the new Chinese will buy here. We could do very well.’ She had already chosen a fine spot in the shade of a tamarind. ‘We can lay out our herbs in baskets here.’

‘Baskets,’ interrupted May. ‘Now that is something to consider.’

‘You want to sell baskets?’ asked Kwan, disappointed but not surprised by her sister’s dismissal of her idea.

‘Not old bamboo baskets, no,’ said May, shaking her head. She wanted to break with the old ways. She saw the new possibilities. ‘I think these newcomers want something different.’

‘Different baskets?’

‘Wouldn’t they rather walk through the market carrying their shopping in a bright plastic bag? Something colourful, with words on it?’

On the dusty lanes around them every woman carried a bamboo basket. Every man had a woven Shan bag with a broad shoulderstrap. There was probably not a single plastic carrier in Lashio. Those found elsewhere in Burma had been imported by tourists or business travellers, and were considered status symbols, especially if emblazoned with English or American advertising slogans. They were prized even after their handles had ripped, their bottoms had torn and their colours had faded.

‘You want to make them?’ asked Kwan.

‘I want to import them. They will fetch a healthy premium.’ Plastic bags could make May’s dream of travel come true, if she could raise sufficient capital to begin the venture.

‘But no one is unhappy with bamboo,’ said Kwan, shaking her head. ‘And they don’t need plastic bags.’

‘It isn’t a question of need.’

‘I would prefer to sell spices.’

‘Then you’ll do it without me.’

May could risk being dismissive, even though she needed Kwan’s help, for she knew that her sister would never set up the stall alone. Kwan needed to feel contained, either by the family or by tradition. She had always lacked the confidence to step out into the unknown. May felt a new sense of urgency with the passing years. Day by day age was diminishing her future. She had to seize the chance to earn enough money to buy their passage to the United States.

Glacé fruit and citrus preserves were popular delicacies in Burma. But local factories, having been starved of investment for forty years, were unable to produce a consistent supply, so the luxury was expensive. Limes, on the other hand, were cheap. They grew in the hills around Lashio. It was in this discrepancy that May saw her opportunity.

She knew of a cousin over the border in Kunming who would be willing to buy the fruit for its juice. She had heard too of a synthetic sugar mill in Kwantung that was in need of business. With the last of their savings the sisters bought a truckload of fresh limes. Kwan paid twenty-five pyas – a quarter of a kyat – for each. The price pleased the farmers, for in the past the People’s Council had often allowed the fruit to rot on the trees. The truck drove to Kunming, where the limes were squeezed to produce juice for the Chinese market, then carried the skins to Kwantung to be conserved in syrup. With the money from the sale of the juice, May paid for the printing of catchpenny wrappings to package the preserves. The lavish sleeves of dehydrated Burmese limes were then returned to Lashio as imports, and sold for twelve kyat apiece. The locals bought back their fruit at forty-eight times its original cost. May’s knowledge of trade had served her well.

The profit enabled her to place an order with a plastic works in Yunnan. Five thousand plastic carrier bags were delivered one month later. May opened each bundle with care, smoothing the sleek surfaces, tracing the slogans of Lifebuoy soap (‘Protect the Ones You Love’) and Montana cigarettes (‘Your taste, baby’). She compared the logos of Aviation batteries, Kosmo lubricant and Jesus’s Cream Crackers. She was excited by the brash colours and bold lettering and held one carrier at her side. It read ‘Flour Power’.

‘What do you think?’ she asked her sister.

Kwan didn’t answer at first. She was too startled. Her nose, which had sensed nothing for years, was filled with the keen stink of new plastic. She didn’t like the smell. It percolated through their rooms and into her clothes. She gestured as if to sweep it out of her hair. Kwan wanted to breathe in sweet honeysuckle, or even the earthy aroma of
ku sheng
, instead she smelt only plastic. But she didn’t want to disappoint May, and nodded in approval.

‘One day every woman in Burma will carry one of our plastic bags,’ May crowed. ‘By which time you and I will have left this place for ever.’

May had decided not to sell the carriers directly to the public. If anyone with a few kyat could buy a Coca-Cola bag, their rarity value would soon be lost. Instead she chose to sell them only to the new Chinese electronic stores, charging a premium that prevented the shopkeepers from giving the bags away with any but the most expensive purchases. The tactic hindered her sales at first, but it established the carriers as luxuries by association, and earned them increased status. She took the same approach with shops in nearby Mu-sé and Bhamo, and started to build up the business in calculated steps.

In a handful of months Lashio’s streets, which had been unaltered for generations, began to change. The brightest colours in the markets were no longer the crimson mounds of ground chilli or the morning-green dresses of Palaung. Levi’s denim blue had become more popular than traditional Pa-o turquoise. Yamaha yellow turned more heads than did the golden plaid of a Kachin
longyi
. ‘Have a Good Taste for your Life’, proclaimed one azure carrier. The brazen, synthetic glare of Pepsi and Sony transformed the look – and the aspirations – of the town. The vast majority of locals would never be able to afford the expensive Western goods, but they all wanted the plastic bags that were linked to them. There were fewer and fewer bamboo baskets to be seen.

Success invigorated May. She was ninety years old, but moved like a woman half her age. Money won her respect in the swelling Chinese community. It lightened her step, so that she always appeared to be about to break into a brisk run. Her mornings were spent in the market visiting her outlets, discussing current designs with the young shopkeepers. The importers of Walkmans and whiskies guided her selection and became the town’s arbiters of taste. They suggested dropping Brut aftershave for Chanel, replacing Mandalay beer (‘The only local choice’) with Heineken (‘Refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach’). May’s afternoons were reserved for planning, not for the business but for her travels. She pored over the
ABC Airline Guide
, shipped at considerable expense from an agent in Kunming, working out again and again her route out of Asia. Should she fly by way of Guangzhou or Bangkok? Air Mandalay had daily flights to Rangoon. Would it be better to travel with Thai International to Chiang Mai? Air China had the most competitive fares across the Pacific. May sat in the bare, white room and planned to travel the world.

But success brought little richness to Kwan’s life. Her days lacked variety, both in their pattern and in her imagination. She rarely ventured far from the low table which served as her desk. There was a sameness to her work, a steady march of time from dawn until dusk. She was responsible for checking deliveries, paying suppliers and maintaining the accounts. She worked hard because there was nothing to distract her, no memory of past lives, no fantasy of future travel. She did not share her sister’s dream of going to a better place. Her step lacked May’s lightness, and her nose crinkled in disgust at the stink of plastic.

It seemed unfair that the sisters’ undoing should come by air, but it did. The Chinese were not alone in seeking out business opportunities in Burma. After 1988 the country’s borders had opened to admit French oil companies and Korean industrial groups. British engineers arrived on Biman Bangladesh. Japanese traders flew up country on Air Mandalay. May could have traced the route of the Taiwanese-American salesman who landed one morning on their doorstep: Singapore Airlines from San Francisco, Silk Air on to Rangoon, Myanma Airways to Lashio. He wore a cream linen suit, and when he reached for his card a boarding pass fell out of his pocket. It fluttered to the ground, and he did not bother to pick it up.

‘You’re from California?’ gushed May, having never before met an American. His Chinese had an odd nasal twang. ‘But my son lives in California. Maybe you know him?’

‘It’s a pretty big place,’ replied the salesman, not bothering to ask her son’s name. It was too hot and he was too jet-lagged to make polite conversation.

‘He’s an air traffic controller there. He may have given your aircraft its departure clearance.’

‘You never know.’

While Kwan prepared the tea, May invited him into the front room and asked if he preferred the Airbus or the new Boeing. He admitted that he hardly noticed the difference. ‘Boeing, I reckon,’ he said.

‘My son always favours Boeing too,’ said May in delight. ‘He lives in Los Angeles, you know.’