AN EXCERPT FROM BANYAGA: A SONG OF WAR

By: Charlson Ong

When he saw the line of humanity filing down the ramp of the Chungking, Ernesto Yu
panicked for a moment. He saw mostly men, in dark blue and gray slacks, some still sporting pigtails-
provincials unaware of the great changes that have taken place across the middle kingdom-carrying
bundles, rattan baskets filled with grain and preserves. There where a few women, one or two worth
a second look, but he could see no teenage boys. This was the third time Ernesto had sent money
home to his cousin Ah fan, who'd been promising to send over his biggest, brightest boy to apprentice
with Ernesto. But twice before Ah Fan had sent letters of apology, written by the village scribe See Co,
explaining how he needed every hand for the coming harvest or that his son had suddenly fallen ill.
This time though, Ah Fan had written:

"Honorable brother, Wei Bun, my third son Hap Sun is on his way. He is slightly smaller and
less strong than his brothers, and is sometimes given to constipation. But he is quite intelligent, and
quick to learn, a virtue which I believe is most welcome in Lu-song. In truth, if I had the means I would
have sent him to the provincial capitol or even to Shanghai where he might make most of his wits.
But, alas, the poor are cursed. Still, I thank you once more for your generosity. I beg you to have
patience with my son, to treat him fairly, if sternly. Teach him well and do not spare him the rod. Beat
him as you might a lazy, disobedient caribou if so doing will make him a useful man. Remind him
always of his responsibilities at home: his blind grandmother, his suffering mother, his unwed sisters
whose futures can only be secured by dowry, his youngest sibling who is weak-minded. When he is
come of age, perhaps in three or four years, I expect you will send him home to marry a good
daughter of Am-kaw. In the meantime, steer him clear of the vices of the huanna as well as of our
own people who are given to excess and debauchery. Let him worship the ancestors each morning,
and swallow bitter gourd at supper to remind him of his station in life and of the long journey ahead. I
expect you will send me religiously the amount we have agreed upon in exchange for my son's
services. You may subtract the cost for his board and lodging which I expect to be minimal as our Hap
Sun is used to a most frugal lifestyle. Let him sleep in the workplace and share his meals with house
pets, if that is what you deem best. And if the most untoward fate should befall him, I expect you will
provide him all the services befitting a member of the clan. Otherwise, you may do as you wish.

"Your unworthy brother, Lee Mo Fan."

Ernesto cringed at the memory of his cousin's letter. He wondered what his long absence from
home had done to his reputation that he should be thought of as one who could treat a boy, and a
relative at that, as a draft animal. He wondered what his own father had written in his letter to
Ernest's distant uncle all those years back when Ernesto, a gangly fifteen-year-old Lee Ah Bun, was
sent over to apprentice to Yu Bien. Did his father mention "our Ah Bun wetting his bed on his wedding
night?” Did his old man also ask YuBien to provide every service befitting a member of the clan should
the most untoward fate befall the boy?"

Finally, Ernesto saw a group of teenage-looking boys heading for the Customs House. He
quickly made his way into the concrete and wood building and saw the boys approaching the officer's
desk. His heart sank. He saw two, perhaps three, anemic-looking boys who seemed hardly able to lift
a bale of milk much less stir huge vats of dye ten hoursa day. He remembered Yu Bien's look all those
years back. “What?" Yu Bien had shouted as Ah Bun stood outside the Customs House. “Your father
promised me a stallion, now I'm stuck with this donkey!"

Ernesto felt like doing as Yu Bien did back then and rail at the boys, if only to exorcise
memories of that long-ago day when he became a Customs House boy for nearly a month. Yu Bien
was so disgusted by the sight of the young Ah Bun; the bull of a man dragged the boy back inside the
Customs House and handed him back to the officer. “This is the wrong boy," Yu Bien told the huanna,
"this is not my nephew, he is a stowaway, send him back." "Who will pay for his passage” "I don't
care!"

The stunned Customs Man scratched his head and told Ah Bun to sit in a corner. Ah Bun sat
there watching the people from the boat file through the Customs Men. He saw people greeting each
other, overjoyed, while others wept, perhaps upon hearing about the death of a loved one. He heard
people shouting, arguing. He thought his uncle would return for him later, perhaps in a carriage draw
by four horses. He sat until all the people from the boat had left and the day became night and night
gave way to light. He might have dozed off a while, dreaming of the nearly ripe lychees in their
backyard when the huanna Customs Man woke him."What will we do with you?" the huanna asked
the teen-aged boy who looked bewildered but unfazed. He'd seen men killed, he'd seen houses
burned. He was unafraid. "You don't even understand a word I say, do you?" the huanna asked.

The Customs Man led the boy, almost a young man really, to a table and gave him something
hot and dark and bitter to drink. He gave Ah Bun strange-looking dumplings and something white and
rank-smelling to eat. The boy would soon know that these were the coffee and bread and cheese,
which some of the huanna ate when they woke up in the mornings. The boy pined for some gruel and
minced fish and tofu. The man led Ah Bun to a room with many bunks, some of which were occupied
by people from the old country people from other boats, the boy surmised. Then he understood what
had happened. He understood that his uncle Yu Bien would not take him; that he Lee Ah Bun, was
now among the abandoned and unclaimed among derelicts and criminals, discarded humans. The boy
felt his guts freeze and he could not stop the tears. He wept terribly, angrily. He wanted to be among
the dead, among those he'd seen murdered and mutilated by bandits hard and shouted at him. Wen
Ah Bun stopped crying he made up his mind that he would she said, and Ah Bun wanted to touch her,
to pull her to him and be with her the never again weep the rest of his life. The oldest lannang-all of
them men-regaled Ah Bun with stories about Manila.

Some had never left the Customs House while others had lived in the city and even traveled to
the provinces before running afoul with the law. Many had debts and fake papers—they

had bought the tua di, alien landing certificates of other lannang who had gone home to the old
country and decided to stay put. Most were charged with petty crimes. Some were awaiting trial.
Others yearned to return home if only some benevolent ship captain would give them passage. One
shook violently and moaned like a sick dog and was often beaten up by the Customs Men. He was an
opium addict, Ah Bun learned. The men at the Customs House had little to eat. Occasionally, some
kind people from the "benevolent society" brought food, but the Customs Men would have their fill
before giving the lannang their share. Once a Buddhist nun came with hot noodle soup and sutras;
another time, a white man in black robes showed up with a pretty young lass,a lannang who spoke
Hokkien, they talked about the Son of God. “The Son of God is alsoa white man?" Ah Bun had asked
the young lass who reminded him so much of the pretty girls back home, of Pue An, his own teenage
wife of three months, who did not have bound feet. "He is not really white," the young woman said.
"But his eyes, his hair ..." "Do you want to know more about him?"

“What is your name? Where are you from?"" Margaret. My Chinese name is Po Kim, precious
lute. My parents are from Xiamen. I was born here. I'm studying to be a nun."

"Why?" Ah Bun asked, in his heart he regretted that he was already a husband; that he had
agreed to marry a near-stranger because his father wanted a new fish net. He would not want to
make this lovely girl, this fairy of a foreign land, a second wife. But perhaps, he might stay here
forever ... perhaps.

"This is no place for a young man like you," Margaret said, "Fr. Andechaga will talk to the
authorities. I will go to your uncle and talk some sense into him. He can't do this," she said, and Ah
Bun wanted to touch her to him and be with her the way he'd been with Pue An, but different. But he
only said, "No! I won't have anything more to do with him!"

"Don't be a fool. You don't want to rot here."

Ah Bun learned many things from the lannang at the Customs House. They gave him foreign cigarettes
to smoke and taught him some of the words of the huanna until the boy tried speaking to the
Customs Man. The huanna laughed at Ah Bun's attempts tospeak Tagalog but gave the young man a
bottle of beer and began teaching him how to play huanna chess. Ah Bun shined the huanna's shoes
and scrubbed the floor. He carried pails of water from the deep well as he did back home and washed
the walls. He fed the few chickens the Custom Men and the lannang raised behind the building. Ah
Bundecided that the huanna was as good a man as a huanna could be and years later, when he was
asked what name he wanted to be baptized with, Ah Bun remembered the name the Customs Man
had said before the boy finally left the Customs House: Ernesto. After spending twenty-four days in
the Customs House, Ah Bun finally saw his uncle Yu Bien again. He was with Margaret and the foreign
priest. Margaret smiled at Ah Bun and he felt his heart beating against his ribcage; in another time
and place he would have begged her to marry him, he would have sworn to forget Pue An and his past
life, but now he was but a worthless beggar that she had come to rescue. Yu Bien looked agitated; he
tried to smile as Margaret and the priest led Ah Bun out of the Customs House. Still the boy stared
into his uncle's eyes and saw him look away. Ah Bun knew then that Yu Bien would never again turn
him away. "Why did you have to disgrace methis way?" Yu Bien finally asked his nephew when they
were alone heading for home.

"I only told the truth."

"Truth? The truth is that you must learn to be a man. You must know that the food

I will feed you is food I deny my own child. You must know how fortunate you are to have a
home in this strange land!" “Yes, uncle. I have learned my lesson," Ah Bun said before dropping
suddenly to the ground in front of Yu Bien, kowtowing, "Thank you for teaching me well." "Get up!
Get up you fool!" Yu Bien said trying not to attract more onlookers.

"You've brought me enough shame!" And now, as Ernesto Yu eyed the Customs Man who was
inspecting the two boys in front of him, a strange sensation came upon Ernest briefly; he remembered
his boyhood, the time before war and pestilence and the journey across the sea, and he wondered if
he'd ever been happy.

"There is only one name in this document, Mr. Yu," the huanna said, "which one of them is
Lee Hap Sun?" Ernesto's pleasant mood turned into irritation. "Let me talk to them," Ernesto told the
officer and dragged the two boys to a corner. "Which one of you is my nephew?" he asked. The two
boys looked at each other and the smaller one raised letter to your father. I only need one apprentice.
I can only afford one. Who is this?"

"I am Ah Tin, distinguished uncle ..." "Shut up!" "This is Ah Tin, uncle. He is the eldest son of
third Aunt Mei Lu." "Who?"

"Aunt Mei Lu, your niece by grandfather's third wife the former maid servant, grandmother
Po Lian.” "I don't know any Mei Lu! His name is not on this document! Do you know what that means?
He is here illegally! He'll have to be sent back or else be kept in the Customs

House where I must pay for his upkeep!""Not the Customs House, uncle, I beg you," Ah Sun
pleaded. “Or I will have to pay that thief over there five hundred pesos and be indebted to him for the
rest of my life in this country. "I will work off my debt, uncle," Ah Tin said, fearful but afraid to cry.
"Don't call me 'uncle,' you stowaway. Do you know how much five hundred pesos is? Not ten of your
worthless lives can pay for the trouble you've caused." "Forgive me," Ah Tin said and dropped to his
knees. Ernesto panicked, he suddenly saw what Yu Bien saw all those years ago: a pitiful boy kneeling
before a curious-looking Chinaman. “Get up you fool! You've done enough harm!" Meanwhile, the
huanna had approached. “So what are we going to do with the boy,Mr. Yu?"

"Do as you wish!” Ernest was tempted to say for a moment. "Let him learn his lesson as I did!
Let him shine shoes, scrub floors, clean outhouses! Let him sleep amo ng junkies and thieves!” But
Ernesto knew that the boy would not survive as he himself once did. He knew the world had changed
even if he seldom left his own workplace these past twenty years. He knew the huanna had changed;
they were sharper now, wiser, less prone to laugh at Chinese stowaways trying to speak Tagalog and
to teach them chess; the white men have changed, the Spaniards had left with their noses in the air
and their tails between their legs, replaced by Americans who but stayed clear of Chinatown. brought
automobiles and running water and electric lights, built street cars and boulevards, roads and cleaned
up the boats, and paid the right price for everything they bought, "We've known each other for a long
time, Martin, let me have this one." Emesto said, he'd learned enough Tagalog to strike a decent-
enough bargain with the huanna. "Ah,what we do for old friends," the Customs Man said, shaking his
head, "three hundred paved pesos.

"Martin!" Emesto nearly screamed. "I'm not a rich man, Martin. I own no lumberyard or bank.
I'm just a poor dye maker. I'll send your wife the blue cotton." "Cotton? So you think my Melissa is
good enough only for cotton?"

Emesto swallowed the bitterness in his tongue. "I mean to gift her with the silk

for Christmas," he said, trying to smile. “Thirty pesos," Martin whispered, showing off his
nicotine-stained teeth. "I don't have that kind of money on me, here, take this," the Chinese replied
taking off his watch. "It's Swiss-made, I'll redeem it tomorrow."
 Martin eyed the watch briefly and waved it away; he had no use for watches. He had no use
for colleagues talking behind his back. He was surprised that the Chinaman who didn't seem to have
more than two camisas to wear despite his bolts of textile should have such fancy silver on him.
"Must have accepted it as a payment from some bankrupt debtor," the huanna thought to himself.
“Take the boy," Martin whispered, “I don't have much use for him. My wife will like the silk." Source.
Ong, Charison. Banyaga: A Song of War. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing House, 2006.