Eva Hung

Tongues I called him daddy Never the Chinese baba Never the Cantonese ah ba He named me in English a name embracing life the beginning and the end Not Wai Yee as given by Grandpa only sign from a kindly man that he wanted a boy for a first grandchild Not Maria as recorded in the Catholic Church one of ten thousand week-old babies living only in church registers I live by the name my father chose Goten morgan, he said, when I was ten Remnants of German he learnt in the morning of his life: Chinese boy in Portuguese territory patrolled by the Japanese Imperial Army where German was taught in school. Ema nanji deshika? It was the high noon of his life. He squeezed time out to monitor Japanese classes in a college he helped to found. I picked it up from there and studied Japanese for two years. Then there was the language of resentment a look  a gesture no look  no gestures An awkward teenager in search of justice arguing in silence for years. And there was the language of respect when intelligence paid its due to wisdom: the tongues of a raging flame subsided before the glow of a mature fire. I might have told him I loved him when I learned to talk I just don’t remember. Would it have been different if we did not speak in tongues?

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