Plop! Plop! Plop!
It’s a small thing. A toss for a life.
My life has been full of these small things. Clothes without holes. Boots that fit. My first real mattress. Chma lounging in sun slants and dust motes. New, not-molding books. Bowls of rice porridge every morning. Classes with chalkboards. Dai rumpling my hair every time he sees me and talking about how long it’s getting. My sister smiling again.
The small things add up.
One day I’ll find a way to pay it all back. I’m learning all I can — books and books of words. Mrs. Sun says I’m “exceptionally gifted.” I can be whatever I want. A doctor or a diplomat or a lawyer. I don’t know for sure what I want to be yet, but I know I want to help. I want to find a way to go back for my mother. To face my father without a gun in my hand or a bruise on my face. To show her she doesn’t need him.
For now, I’ll keep throwing.
“Jin!” I look back over my shoulder. See Dai waving a brown paper bag over his head. Like I’m a taxi he’s trying to flag down. Chma is on his lap, begging. “I got stuffed buns!”
My stomach squeals the way Chma used to whenever I accidentally stepped on his tail. It’s never hungry the way it was before — all gnaw and teeth. But the stuffed buns always taste just as good as they did that morning on the roof.
“Coming!” My voice gusts back over the sand.
There’s one last shell by my toes. All curled and coiled the way Nuo wears her hair. So big my palm almost can’t hold it. I pick it up anyway. Toss it far, far, far into the sea.
Author’s Note
The Walled City was real.
A very real, unreal city.
I first learned about its existence when I went to hear a woman named Jackie Pullinger speak. She spent nearly twenty years living and working in Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City. The place she described — a sunless, lawless shanty-town overrun by gangs — sounded like a setting straight out of a dystopian fantasy. My imagination began racing (as it tends to do). I started thinking about all the different types of people who lived in the Kowloon Walled City: the street kids, the prostitutes, the fugitives, the ruthless gangsters. Storylines rose out of nowhere. Wove together into a story I couldn’t put down.
This book does not fit into the category of historical fiction, and was never intended to. While I did extensive research on the actual Kowloon Walled City, and tried to portray it as closely as possible, I also employed artistic license to convey the story I wanted to tell. This can be seen in the name changes (Hong Kong became Seng Ngoi, for example), the timeline of the Walled City’s eviction and demolition, Seng Ngoi’s judicial system, and the specific operations of the Brotherhood of the Red Dragon.
Another thing savvy readers might notice is how I handled characters’ names. Names in the Kowloon Walled City were generally in Cantonese, with a single-syllable surname (such as Sun) and a double-syllable given name (such as Jin Ling or Mei Yee). In Hong Kong today, it’s not unheard of to shorten the given name to a single-syllable nickname (as Jin does, to maintain her disguise), though back when the Kowloon Walled City existed, this practice was not common. But for the purposes of the story I wanted to tell, I chose to shorten some names throughout. Some of the names also had Japanese or Mandarin origins, depending on where the characters are from. I also feel it’s worth mentioning that although the term Mama-san has negative connotations in the US today, it was the traditional title used for women who managed brothels in the Kowloon Walled City, where there was some Japanese influence because of Japan’s occupation of Hong Kong during World War II.
Apart from the things mentioned above, I do believe the reality and the fiction are not all that different. Both Hak Nam and Kowloon started their lives as military forts. Both grew so thick and fast that the sunlight could no longer reach the streets. Both housed powerful gangs and over 33,000 people in their cramped borders (it was 6.5 acres, only 0.0102 square miles). Both were eventually torn down by the government and turned into a park. In fact, the decision to demolish the real Kowloon Walled City was announced on January 14, 1987. The exact day and year I was born.
Although I was never able to see the real Walled City, I was fortunate enough to visit the park built in its place. The space is small and manicured, filled with remnants of the neighborhood: cannons, the crumbling ruins of the South Gate, a metal replica of the old city, a bonsai tree garden, and even (on my visit) a tailless cat. Should you ever find yourself in Hong Kong, it’s well worth taking the time to visit this site.
The Walled City might be gone, but human trafficking is not. According to a 2006 UNICEF report, nearly two million children have been trafficked into the sex trade. Some, like Mei Yee, are even sold by members of their own family. To learn more about this issue and how you might be able to help, I suggest visiting the website of the International Justice Mission, a human rights agency dedicated to rescuing victims of trafficking and providing them with legal protection. You can find it at ijm.org.
Acknowledgments
Writing this book was a raw, intricate process. I felt as if I were plucking out pieces of my soul, spinning them into delicate strings, knotting them into a tapestry of words. But writing this book was not a lonely process. So many people supported this project and ultimately became a part of it. Strands of their own.
There are those who knew it as Cutthroat Novel — Lydia Kang, Amanda Sun, Kate Armstrong, and Emma Maree Urquhart. Those who read it as WALLS — Kelsey Sutton, Justina Ireland, Christina Farley, and Caroline Carlson. Those who encouraged me to keep working even when it seemed foolish — The Lucky 13s and Aimee Kaufman.
There is my brilliant agent, Tracey Adams, who loved the strength of sisters and mountains beneath the sea. There is my phenomenal editorial team — Alvina Ling, Amber Caraveo, Bethany Strout, Nikki Garcia — and all the publishing teams, who worked tirelessly to bring this book to the world. There are the readers — Mio Debman and Amy Chaw. Mio especially provided invaluable cultural insight and helped me paint a more vivid picture of Hak Nam.
There are my friends and family, whose love and encouragement constantly remind me that the braid is always stronger than the strand. There is David, who sits on rooftops and seashores with me. Who talks about stars and home, and stretches my heart full.
And through it all there is God, who weaves all things together: my stories and my life. Soli Deo Gloria.
