hidden trove

Mom tells us about her mom, our amah - leaving her family in China to come to the Philippines to marry angkong, her dad and our grandfather. She speaks of their love letters, written in the most beautiful calligraphy. 

According to amah, these letters contained their courtship. Lyrical descriptions of his adventures and challenges. Scholarly texts he'd read and deep thoughts generated. Insights and inspiration angkong intimately shared with amah. 

Though they spoke it fluently none of their children could read and write in Chinese characters. So they listened avidly as their mother read them her treasured love letters. She kept them in a locked camphor chest. Part of a set of four that came with her as her dowry. 

antique Chinese camphor chest or baul

Years later we would dig through these exotically carved trunks which we called ba-uls. These depicted in meticulous detail life in ancient China before Mao's communist revolution. 

Elegant men in full length Mandarin robes. Whip thin women in their tight clinging cheongsams. Tiptoeing daintily on bound feet. Crossing humpback wooden bridges. Strolling under parasols. Stepping across thresholds through a round moon gate. 

Precious little scenes in private gardens or public markets. Now part of an ancient and alien life far removed from our mother and her siblings. Stranger and more mysterious to us who have never been to China. 

A China vastly changed and unrecognizable after decades of its closed door policy. Modified beyond recognition in its recent decades of growth and expansion. In its aggressive fight for world dominion over the West and all things western. 

The piercing smell of camphor wafts out in a strong puff as the trunk is popped open - unlocked and its heavy lid lifted. Its interior deep and cavernous, dense and solid, cool and dark. As a small child standing right up to its lip edge it seemed so overwhelmingly massive. 

Breath held and with mounting curiosity I lean in to peek inside - eager and excited to see what treasures this Alibaba's cave had to offer up. 

When building our parents' current home our mother was adamant in her insistence over lots and lots of closet space. No matter what he provided she kept bugging the architect for more. Even with a walk in closet we could be ballroom dancing in she demanded more, more, more. 

Finally her dream home boasted 360 square meters [not feet!] of shelves and closets crammed all through the rooms, the halls, the stairwells, the bathrooms, the garage. 

All the space to store her beloved treasures and junk in. As a child in the aftermath of World War II's wreckage and rationing she has turned into a world class pack rat. 

Given all that closet space, an item would have to be really, really, really special to warrant a space of honor in her heirloom camphor chests. These is where she kept prized bolts of brocade silks, rare ethnic weaves, delicate gossamer lace, yards of sheer saris, her collection of painted Spanish fans. 

Buried deep down in one tucked away corner was an old beaten tin that once held some special moon cakes. In this can she kept her mother's - our amah's - old love letters. All thirteen of them - a priceless baker's dozen. 

Still in their worn envelopes - postmarked and stamped to her old college in Singapore. The whole bundle carefully tied with a pale blue half inch velvet ribbon. Worn thin and threadbare but lovingly tied in a perfect neat bow. 

These letters are unreadable to us. Amah asked they be buried with her. But Angkong refused to allow it. She loved those letters more than she loved him. He knew it and hated her for it. 

She just laughed at how petty he was. Why be jealous of letters you wrote me? she would slyly tease. He would turn beet red - all hot and puffed up - he'd burst out of their room in a huff. In a bad mood all day. 

Decades later, long after Amah was buried without her beloved letters. Long after Angkong himself was buried as well - having turned sour and acerbic. Mom finally admitted that those letters were written by Angkong's best friend.