Spring Flowers and Autumn Moon

Ted Hsieh

On a sunny and warm spring day in March, an old man was leaning on a lamppost across the street from Number 80 Waterloo Road. School children were still wearing their winter uniforms. Spring was nowhere to be found. But then he was not there to look for spring. The old man was looking for the dormitory building of his high school days. That stately looking building with a balcony opening to the big street was gone. He knew that it was gone before he returned to this spot of his youth. But still, he was standing there with all the patience in the world, under the warm spring sun, alone and searching.

There once was a restaurant below the three-story dormitory facing the big street. He remembered its name. It was called A-B-C. How could anyone forget a name like that, he murmured to no one in particular. The restaurant was very small but was full of welcome. It only had five booths against one wall and some stools alone the counter. The food they served there was rather forgettable. But the workers there were always friendly. They always had those knowing smiles on their friendly faces. 

The old man just could not hold back his smile as he stood there remembering. You see, that restaurant's front door opened to the big street but it had a small back door that led directly through a thirteen-step stairway onto the campus. Dorm kids, who were late for curfew, would return to the dorm through A-B-C, amid those knowing smiles. Behind the locked Great Gate was a guardhouse right above the stairway. But the doormen would look the other way as a late kid was scrambling up the steps and running by the guardhouse like a flying bullet. 

You just had to love Pui Ching. Everyone was so accommodating. You especially had to be grateful to those "gong-you" (labor-friends). 

Now the old man's smile was full of joy and mischief. He was remembering those nights for he was often late himself. But, he would want you to believe now, those nights when he was late, he was almost always on some "official" duties. That Red Cotton Cafe on Nathan Road was just like magnet to him. Its dark Coca Cola and foaming Ovaltine would be there to inspire him and his friend as he meditated on such class duties as the Year Book, Spring Flowers and Autumn Moon.

He wondered if the old cafe was still there.

So he left Number 80 Waterloo Road and walked pass Soares, Victory and Peace Avenues. He smiled as he thought about classmates who used to live there. 

He then went under the Canton-Kowloon Railway viaduct. He saw a blind couple selling model wooden trains and steel bicycles. He bought two bicycles and chatted with them for a while. Suddenly, the blind husband asked the old man if he went to Pui Ching. How could he tell, the old man wondered. The blind man said that he could hear a voice that was friendly and the language polite. He said he listened to hundreds of students passing this spot everyday. Students from Diocesan Boys, Queen Elizabeth, All Saints and Chiu Chow walked by him from the north down Yim Po Fong Street. New Methods, Homantin Government and Pui Ching kids came from his left along Waterloo Road and Wah Yan boys from his right. He said he recognized them all. 

The old man thanked him profusely for the compliments. Was the blind man trying to get him to buy some more bicycles? Hong Kong people were great businessmen, he remembered.

He also remembered many food vendors along Soy and Fa Yuen Streets nearby. He promised himself before he left Chicago that he would eat on the street just like when he was a schoolboy. He traveled by himself this time and felt very much like a schoolboy again. So he took off to Soy Street with spring on his steps.

Oh, he was in heaven again! There were so many food vendors on Fa Yuen Street just south of Soy. Tiny tables and chairs spilled onto the sidewalk. Huge yellow banners with red letters proclaimed all dishes for only HK$10.00. 

Young girl hawkers touched his heart with their smiling eyes and his elbows with greasy hands as they begged him to stop by their stalls. He stopped by three. He ordered a bowl of Wanton Noodle in one, Tan Tan Mien in another, and Niu Nan Mien in a third. 

Gently glancing at his rather attractive stomach at this point, the old man declared him-self full and satisfied. He walked toward Nathan Road. There was no sidewalk on Nathan Road. It was carpeted with people. 

Hong Kong was more prosperous than he thought. He was impressed. He offered thanks for the good fortune on behalf of his beloved city. This stretch of Nathan was his. It was filled with his people. It was not like the Central District or Tsim Sha Tsui. Those places were for rich people. But the Upper Nathan was for common folks. He really identified with them, even when he was a boy.

The old man felt very much at home on this spot of the world. He walked south on Nathan on the westside of the street so that he could see things more clearly under the afternoon sun. But he could hardly recognize anything. The buildings were much taller than those forty-three years ago when he was there. The stores were bigger and brighter. He felt like Lau Lao Lao in Grand View Garden. He stared at everything and everyone.

He walked slowly on this world-class street. The colors, the sights and sounds, and the people so overwhelmed him at times that he thought he was looking at this great street scene in a negative of a film. He felt very much loved and blessed because once upon a time he belonged to this city. The smile and the glow on his face had to be something that he felt being stared at instead.

The old man entered the Nathan Hotel lobby. With misted eyes, he remembered the breakfasts of many Sunday mornings he had with his dad by a balcony table. He was very tempted to find the table again and order a breakfast this afternoon just for old time sake. But reason prevailed over emotion this time. Three meals he just ate at Fa Yuen Street still had their effect on him. Besides, ham and eggs, the standard breakfasts of father and son in those days, had little appeal these days to this old immigrant from America.

In the end, he could not find the Red Cotton Cafe. He did not try very hard. What would he do if he had found it? Memories had a way of creating fiction over facts. All these years, he just knew as a fact that he had never had Coca Cola that tasted better, looked darker, and smelled stronger than those he had at Red Cotton more than forty-three years ago.

He also had given Ovaltine many chances through out the years. It was no use. Red Cotton Ovaltine was so special that it was better to leave it in memory, preserved and intact.

The old man smiled as he thought about those Red Cotton evenings and nights. He might have seen better Year Books after 1959. But he had never smelled sweeter Spring Flowers since. Nor had he seen a brighter Autumn Moon.