“Come-Saw” (1)

Bob Choi

27 March 2012

When I was growing up, both my parents had to work long hours to make ends meet. My grandma looked after me for the most part. “Por Por” (how I called my grandma) taught me everything I needed to know as a child: how to brush my teeth, how to wash behind my ears, how to prepare simple snacks, how to wash clothes and how to sew loose buttons. She also taught me an important lesson in humility. The occasion took place when I was eleven and she was eighty, but the lesson was deferred until her death ten years later. This is how it went.

I returned from school one afternoon and was doing my homework from my English class when grandma came to me.

“How did school go today, Ah Yuen?” she asked.

“Por Por, it went very well. We learnt several new English words today.”

English was my favorite subject at school. In Hong Kong during the fifties, most children would begin learning English at school around the age of seven or eight, starting with the alphabets.

“I’ve heard that you’re doing very well in your English class. I’m very proud of you.”

“Yes, Por Por. Miss Wong, the English teacher, said I was the best student in her class. I know many English words and I can make sentences with them! You want me to read some to you?”

Grandma grew up around the boondocks where her father worked as a longshoreman. She had never attended school. In her days, girls didn’t get to go to school.

“Oh -- that will be nice, but I should let you know, I don’t know any English words except ‘come-saw’”

“Did you say ‘come-saw’? What does it mean?”

“You don’t know?” she sounded disappointed.

“No.”

“I don’t know what it means either. All I know is that when I was a little girl living near the pier, if I spotted any ‘gweilo’ (Chinese for ‘ghost’: a term reserved for Westerners), I’d run to them and said ‘come-saw’ and they would give me a coin or two.”

“Por Por, I know the word ‘come’ and also the word ‘saw’, but I’ve never heard of ‘come-saw’. Are you sure it’s ‘come-saw’?”

“Well, yes, it’s commm-sawww,” she said it slowly this time. “At least that’s what I learnt from the other children.”

“Oh -- so you learnt that from the other children!”

“Yes, of course, there were no schools for girls in those days.”

“Por Por, I don’t think there’s such a word. The children probably just made it up!” I said with all the authority and confidence that could be mustered by an eleven-year old who had started learning the alphabets only three years earlier. To consider the alternative which was that the only English word that my grandma knew was not in my vocabulary would be rather unsettling.

“Well, maybe, but it sure worked with the ‘gweilo’, ha!” she snickered. “Anyway, as soon as you finish your homework, I’ll show you how to mend the holes in your socks.”

“Great, Por Por!”

...........to be continued.........