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salty than earthy. What strike me is how different the people look. There was ones with dark, dark skin and the broad nose and thick lips and tight hair. And even the ones that got lighter skin still got the nose and the hair. They got every shade from blue-black to all sorts of brown. They even got some with ginger hair. Then they got some with skin sorta smooth and sallow, and they got straight nose and straight hair. And they got ones with white, white skin, and yellow-white hair and red eyes. I never know there was so many different ways a person could look. All I knew about was the straight black hair and the flat nose and the eyes.
    The next day I find out why Zhang in such a hurry for the trousers. We have to go to a banquet. So when the tailor come in the yard with one pair for each of us, Zhang relieved. And he tell us to go get dressed. When Xiuquan ready Zhang tell him to run up to Barry Street and fetch two buggies and when he come back we leave with Ma wearing a traditional cheongsam in deep red with white plum blossom, and Zhang dressed in a dark blue Zhongshan suit, with its turndown collar and four symmetrically placed pockets, named after Dr Sun Yat-sen and now the army uniform for Mao Zedong.
    The place they have the banquet got a big room with wooden tables and benches and a veranda all the way ’round outside. And then it got that same thing again upstairs. The stairs go up straight out of the middle of the room. Every inch of this place is packed so I reckon the whole of Chinatown must be here. Mr Chin at the door to welcome us and escort us to his family table where Madame Chin sitting with their three daughters and two sons and one daughter-in-law and one son-in-law and the children. Everybody bow and happy to see us.
    All ’round the corners of the room there is big barrels full of rice, and a lid to keep it warm. So when you need to you can just go up there and fill up your bowl. The meat and vegetables come on a big wooden tray that it take two people to carry and they unload it all on to the table because that is the food for our family. There is everything. Just like home. Preserved salted fish and pork; char siu, roast pork, roast duck and white cut chicken; duck gizzard and beef stew; ginger lobster, steam fish, boiled shrimp, stir-fry vegetables, choi sum, pak choi, steam eggs, wanton noodles. And we just eat, in the noise and the heat, and with the little ceiling fans whirling round and round.
    All the time we eating I see them moving a little wicker basket from one table to the next. All ’round downstairs, and out on to the veranda and then someone take it upstairs. And a long time after when they bring it back down they go in the yard with it. Then after that they come back inside and bring it to Mr Chin.
    Mr Chin stand up and Zhang stand up, and Mr Chin give the basket to Zhang and they bow. And then Zhang turn ’round and he bow to Ma and I think to myself well this thing getting on like a wedding banquet. So I don’t understand what is happening, except I know for sure that the basket full of money.
    After the dinner over, Madame Chin get out a basket with four shut pans and give it to Ma so that she can take home some of the leftover food.
     
    Two days later when Zhang think we well enough rested him say, ‘You boys save from death. You come make new life. Time you turn your hand to something.’ And him walk towards the gate expecting us to follow. He open the gate and stop, and turn to us and say, ‘The Jamaicans angry. They causing a stink because of bad wages and unemployment, so you boys mind how you act. They don’t need no aggravation from you.’ And we step into the lane and the dry morning heat together.
    We walk up Matthews Lane till we get to Barry Street, where Zhang know every man and woman in sight, every shopkeeper and market trader. People in grocery stores, laundries, hardware stores, bakeries, dry goods; people who happy to see him; people who just stand up on