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2000 (aged 12)
“I promise that I’ll come back and visit you.”
Hazel looks up at Ying Tai, tears streaming down her face, “really?”
Ying Tai squeezes both of Hazel’s hands, “promise. I’ll be back before you know it, and we can play during the school holidays.”
“I don’t want you to go to Canada!” Hazel cries, and Ying Tai, pulls her in for a hug.
“Don’t be like that, it’s making it difficult for me to leave.”
“I don’t want you to leave!!”
“You know that I have to,” Ying Tai reasons with Hazel. Even though the cousins were close, her entire immediate family was emigrating to Canada and it was never in doubt that Ying Tai was going with them.
Hazel pouts into Ying Tai’s shoulder, “I’ll miss you so much.”
“I’ll be back before you know it,” Ying Tai reassures once again.
Mary had to physically hold her daughter back because she was worried that Hazel would make an even bigger fuss if she tried to dash after Ying Tai into immigration. Usually, Hazel would perk up after being offered sweet treats, but none of ice cream, chocolate or cotton candy seemed to go any way in consoling Hazel.
Ying Tai had only promised to be back, she didn’t promise that she would be back before Hazel knew it, and good thing she didn’t, because it wouldn’t have been a promise that she would have been able to keep. As fifteen year olds, many things aren’t exactly within your control.
It’s 2000, so there’s no affordable international calls or video calls at their disposal. But there is snail mail and there is email.
Mary had a computer in the house to use, but it was for work and there was no academic reason for Hazel to be using the computer so it was not allowed. For a while Hazel and Ying Tai communicated via letter, setting out in considerable detail what was going on in their lives. Mary didn’t make Hazel pay for international postage out of her own allowance as she figured that this is a concession that Hazel can have, and asked her secretary to handle it alongside with her work letters.
But as Hazel got older, there was computer class in school where students were taught basic computer skills.
So instead of playing neopets or RuneScape during computer class like her classmates, after Hazel was done animating a ball bouncing from one side of the screen to another and morphing from red to blue, she would bang away at the keyboard, typing out her handwritten draft into yahoo mail.
2003 (aged 15)
It was three years before Hazel would meet Ying Tai again. Hazel never knew, and didn’t want to know if this was really because of visa or immigration issues, like Ying Tai claimed.
But what she did know was that the Ying Tai which she received at the Hong Kong International Airport did not look like the Ying Tai who she sent off years ago. The make up, the edgy haircut and the fashionable clothes were a far cry from what got up the plane, making her look miles more grown up. It made Hazel feel dowdy and juvenile, like she came from some sleepy village, even though Hong Kong was anything but.
Despite Ying Tai’s foreign accent and this charming boy that she met, underneath it all, she was not all that different. Still recognisable. Still someone who cared about Hazel and was still happy to play board games with her. But not the same. Some things, once lost, cannot be regained, and Ying Tai was more of a visitor to her life in Hong Kong than a part of it.
It is with some amount of bitterness that Hazel wonders if she would have realised this if Ying Tai didn’t physically return to Hong Kong. Perhaps seeing is believing.
The same computer which Mary didn’t allow Hazel to use to email Ying Tai, Ying Tai is allowed to use under a guest account to access facebook. Ying Tai would exchange comments with her boyfriend, one Max, on some facebook post.
2005 (aged 17)
Hazel had been given Mary’s previous work computer for her personal use. Where personal use really meant academic reasons. But that didn’t stop Hazel from using the computer for non-academic reasons when her mother wasn’t around. And Mary wasn’t around frequently, in tandem with her increasing success as a barrister, and greater focus on her career as Hazel was growing up and required less attention.
Although she now had a facebook and MSN account, Hazel still preferred sending blocks of text to Ying Tai via email since the messaging would not be instant due to the time difference. But she would look at all of Ying Tai’s facebook posts and photos to see what her cousin was up to – it seemed to be sleeping in class, cooking in the dorm’s shared kitchen and partying. Oh and going on dates with Max.
The most pressing problem though was further education. She hadn’t decided where and what she was going apply for, and this was a call which she had to make imminently. In absence of a clear decision, she studied diligently to keep as many options as possible – after all, if she was going to apply to law school, she was going to need the grades to support it.
But that didn’t stop her heart from aching when the cute boy which she had a crush on started going out with another girl. The very delicate petite kind of girl with big eyes, heart shaped mouth and flowing locks. And when jealousy sometimes reared its ugly head when she was alone, the kind of girl whose goal in life was to marry a rich man and be taken care of. In Hazel’s defence, she had actually heard said girl declare as such quite openly.
2007 (aged 19)
She had ended up in law school, just like her mother. She had the grades to support an application to law school, didn’t really know what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, and was told that a law degree was “flexible”. Whatever that meant. From what she can tell, law graduates either become and continue to be lawyers or they leave practice to do something like start a bakery. Surely that is not what the proponents of a law degree meant by “flexible”. Though she can easily admit that a law degree was probably more flexible than one in archaeology or the likes.
She didn’t really have a good reason as to why she wanted to go to law school other than it seemed to be the best option for her given her circumstances, but managed to get through the interview by essentially saying that her mother was a lawyer, and it seemed pretty good. Not exactly in those words, but the idea was there.
With the break before university commenced, Ying Tai asked Hazel to visit her in Canada, and Hazel took up her mother’s offer to sponsor her trip there. Hazel wasn’t sure if Ying Tai still was interested in playing board games with her, but she still made space for a pack of playing cards in her luggage. They did not exchange emails as frequently as in the past, not only was Hazel busy studying for the national exams, secondary school in Hong Kong was very different from college life in Canada, so there weren’t as many things to share like in the past.
But she was glad that despite her reservations that she had gone to visit her cousin. Ying Tai had introduced her to new board games and card games, which they would play with Max if he was around, or with her parents at night. Like in the past, they also lay down and chatted until one of them fell asleep. Ying Tai also brought her to all her favourite haunts – her favourite hang out spot, favourite restaurant, favourite bubble tea and favourite hiking trail – it was nice to see in person some of the places which popped up from time to time in Ying Tai’s messages.
It was only on this trip that Hazel realised that there was a reason why she gradually heard less and less from Ying Tai about her parents being against her relationship with Max – they were coming around to the idea.
2010 (aged 22)
Law school was not easy – the seniors at the open house were right in saying that it was more readings than one would imagine. But she got used to not quite finishing the readings, developed a sense of what was actually important and what was less so, and subsequently decided that she still had to live her life even if her readings were not finished. She also got used to law school exams being a totally different kettle of fish from the standardised exams prior to this and sometimes not knowing how to answer the hypothetical even after the examination was over.
What was hard was breaking up with her (ex)-boyfriend who she still liked. That he was training to be a physical education teacher in a government primary school was not an issue for her. That it was undeniable that he was not as intelligent as she was, she could accept. She could accept that he really liked playing online games, and would spend considerable amounts of money purchasing pixels. But she could not accept him spending all his money, and more, on online games and then asking her for money to fund his gaming addiction. She had advised, nagged, implored and begged him not to incur credit card debt for the sake of his online games but he did not listen to her – then when it came time to pay his credit card bill, he would inadvertently ask her for help. Then he discovered online gambling.
She liked him, but she had enough self-preservation to know that this was not something that she could continue to put up with. Readings used up much of her brainpower and numbed the pain, so she did that. When she wasn’t doing that, she discovered the joys of (perhaps illegally streamed) old movies.
Perhaps it wasn’t that bad a thing that she was unable to attend Ying Tai’s wedding in Canada because it was sandwiched between two final papers. It would have been raw having just come out from a painful breakup. She sends a handwritten congratulatory card via snail mail to Ying Tai and Max – the first time she’s ever spend good money buying a fancy card, and the first time in a very long time that she’s sent something to Ying Tai by post.
Thankfully a slew of photos and subsequently a wedding video were all uploaded to facebook, so Hazel could still witness it in a way. On Ying Tai’s request, she had avoided looking at the photos and videos until they managed to find a day to have a video call. Hazel was crying even before she was halfway through the album – happiness for Ying Tai but also a certain amount of sadness for herself. After she was done crying, she told Ying Tai that the wedding was beautiful and the engagement and wedding ring together was so thoughtful, and she was so happy for Ying Tai. Hazel didn’t mention her being sad and feeling sorry for herself.
2012 (aged 24)
It boggles her that she could get into law school by saying that her mother was a lawyer and she thought it was not bad, and not one interviewer blinked at that. But come time for her to look for a job, a majority of the interviewers knew who her mother was before she as much as opened her mouth.
Already from doing a few internships here and there she felt that there was additional attention given to her and unspoken expectations placed on her. She wanted neither. She didn’t think that she could be a more successful barrister than her mother is, and definitely was not prepared to sell her soul for that, but she also didn’t want to live in the shadows of her mother.
Perhaps it was the fact that the interviewer never raised her mother and quite actively persuaded her to join or maybe it was because they gave her more time to decide if she wanted to join them that she decided in favour of joining the government service to be a prosecutor.
She would later find out that the interviewer did know that she was her mother’s daughter but had opted not to raise it because he believed that surely she was her own person. Not that she regretted her decision, seeing her batchmates suffer through pupilage and practice. She didn’t study law to make oodles of money, and with the benefit of having gone through law school, she decided that she just hoped she just hoped to make a good living while doing something meaningful, and being a prosecutor allowed her to do that without needing her to sacrifice her physical and mental health in the process.
She also isn’t mad that the job provided her with sufficient money and leave for her to fly over to Canada to see Ying Tai and her, what was it, niece first removed, whatever, Ying Tai’s daughter. It’s been five years since she’s seen Ying Tai in person. In the intervening time, she had been busy with law school and internships during the summer, Ying Tai has also been busy with work, her husband and daughter and it was just never a good time. But the stars had finally aligned, they had managed to take leave at the same time and intended to do some light touring too.
2015 (aged 27)
There was a part of her which wished that she had not found out until they were done with this holiday. But thankfully there is no part of her which wished that she had never found out.
“It was an implied term,” she roarer at him when he had the gall to defend himself by saying that he never explicitly committed to dating her exclusively. He had never explicitly committed to dating her exclusively, but was there happily introducing her to his family. He had never explicitly committed to dating her exclusively, but had made multiple express references that he intended to marry her – she supposes he never said that he wouldn’t cheat. He didn’t respond to that.
Having bought the flight tickets and made all the arrangements, there was no way she was not going to Canada to visit Ying Tai, but that also meant that she would potentially be stuck in a closed metal/fiberglass/carbon fiber tube with him for many hours. She was not looking forward to that. But it seems that he is at least some small degree of contrite because she boards the plane and finds an empty seat next to her, so at least he had enough decency to not put her in that position.
She spends entire flight sleeping, eating and replaying their interactions. By the time she was disembarking in Canada, she concluded that he had tried to hide it from her, but with the benefit of hindsight, the signs were there, she was just willfully blind, and that was on her. Hindsight was 20/20 after all.
After Hazel told Ying Tai that he wouldn’t be joining them because they had broken up and he was cheating on her, Ying Tai tells her that she can do better than that, she’s sure. Then sets out where they will be touring, introduces her to new board games which they have procured and accompanies her the entire time so she doesn’t have much time to feel sad about him. But the night before she departs for home, Ying Tai asks her if there is any chance that they will reconcile – she replies in the negative, and asks Ying Tai to hold her accountable to it.
On the flight home, Hazel is glad that she had found out right before her trip to Canada. It was easier being a tourist and playing board games with Ying Tai compared to facing her mother and having to work. She promises herself that she will make a greater effort to visit Ying Tai.
2018 (aged 30)
To her mind, the opportunity comes up randomly. She was casually approached by a senior judge and asked if she had any interest to join the judiciary. It wasn’t a possibility which she had actively considered, and she had honestly told him that much.
Subsequently when it became clearer that this was more formal than casual, her mentor told her that she should seriously consider because it was a good opportunity, to which she asked if her bosses were trying to get rid of her. To which she was told that this was not something that her bosses had arranged, such a move was not say unusual, and she did seem to have the right temperament for it. She asked her mother who said it was an honour to be considered but she should do what is right for herself, whatever that may be, though then added that she thought that she did have the right personality for it.
Perhaps it was because she felt that everyone else was moving forward, getting married, buying a house, having children, fighting for partnership, but she was still stuck in the same place, working the same job that she had since she graduated from law school. Perhaps it was because she felt like she had nothing to show and it was undeniable by now that her mother was a legal great. Perhaps it was because her big boss told her that she should take it up if she was so inclined, and if she didn’t like being a judge, then she was free to come back. She’s not sure, but in any case, she had decided to go through with the process and see what became of it. She didn’t really think that she would have successfully made it through the process.
But yet here she finds herself accepting the new position and serving her notice. Starting a new life.
2021 (aged 33)
No one prepared her for how hard it was. So many times in the first two years she came close to throwing in the towel because it was too hard and the option of going back to what she knew and was familiar with was there. But it was an honour, it was, it was, and if she gave up now she would really have nothing to show. So she grit her teeth and persevered. Read and studied even harder than she did at any point of her education, asked for advice and help where she could and got up for work every morning. Too soft, she can’t be that nice to the barristers, she’s told – she’s already pretty, young and female, in addition to the fact that she’s actually a very nice person, so if she is too nice to them, she will get pushed around and bullied by the barristers in court. She needs to assert her authority where appropriate, she’s told, it’s her courtroom after all. Her mother usually isn’t around to see her crying in her bedroom and her non-legally trained friends don’t quite understand. Her law school classmates tell her that it doesn’t need to be that hard, most of them have left the hustle of practice behind for other endeavours, including some of them who have had enough decided to leave the workforce altogether.
She finds herself only just starting to wake up from the haze that blanketed her life since she started this new life of hers, only to realise that perhaps she has gone too far in the other direction of being too soft, and that some of her friends’ babies are now walking around and speaking. She realises that she has indeed woken up on the other side when her mother starts to make half joking remarks about wanting to be a grandmother, something which she had made absolutely no mention of ever since she broke up with him.
Except that she wakes up into a world of isolation and unprecedented social restrictions thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also a world post introduction of the national security law, and one where there is more scrutiny of the independence (or the lack thereof) of the judiciary. She is thankful that she was not called to the bench under these circumstances – she can honestly say that she was not called to the bench because of her political inclinations.
Driven by the prevailing restrictions, and the heavy limitations on social life, in addition to accompanying her godpa and mother hiking, she takes up Judge Cao’s suggestion of going fishing together with him. Since she can’t visit Ying Tai now, they’ve also jumped on the video conferencing bandwagon and have taken to having regular zoom sessions. In the quiet of the night, she can admit that this is not how she saw her life at 33.
2023 (aged 35)
She doesn’t think that she could have foreseen herself going to her ex-boyfriend’s wedding, but she finds herself preparing a red packet for said event. She wanted to see her former colleagues, and this would be a good opportunity to see them all in one place.
More surprising than her going to her ex-boyfriend’s wedding was having to recuse herself from having to rule that her first boyfriend owed a bank a sum of money which she has reason to believe might well bankrupt him. It was a straightforward case, he had credit card debt which he did not (or perhaps could not) pay, and the bank was trying to recover. It is with some amount of relief that she notes that there was no mention of online gambling or any kind of illegal activity in the submissions on behalf of the bank.
It would take much longer for Daxiong to find out, but actually, that day when she told him off in court, perhaps he was unlucky. It was shortly after she recused herself from her first boyfriend’s case and after an encounter in court with her ex-boyfriend who came before her in court less prepared than he should have been. She thought that he did deserve to be told off, but then he had just gotten married after all, the legal industry was so small and she didn’t want to give people fodder to talk about her behind her back. So she held her tongue. It annoyed her even more that she knew that he knew that and would probably not have done it if he was going before another judge.
Daxiong was the first barrister who came before her after the incident who deserved to be told off, and then he got told off for both of them. She’s sure that his history with his eyes going blurry and her reputation did not help.
But he comes into her life at a good time. At a time that she had peace with the fact that her mother is a legal great and it would not be a reasonable expectation for her to match up to her mother’s accomplishments in the legal world, at a time when she know herself well enough to know that “settling” is not suitable for her and if that means that she end up alone, she will be okay.
Ying Tai finds out about Daxiong accidentally, and before Hazel was entirely comfortable sharing about this. But Ying Tai and her were seated on the floor, propped against her bed chatting when she allows the person knocking on her bedroom door to come in, and it turns out that it is Daxiong has brought desserts for her.
“Oh, this is fascinating,” commentates Ying Tai, as if she is an observer removed from the situation entirely.
“Sorry for interrupting, I should go,” Daxiong stammers, and tries to beat a hasty retreat.
“No, please don’t go. I’m Ying Tai, Hazel’s cousin. I’m sure you who are knocking on Hazel’s bedroom door at night has heard of me before.”
“I’ll see myself out,” he repeats and tries to leave the scene.
“Wait - hang on,” Ying Tai extends a hand as she stands up, “it’s nice to meet you, I’m Hazel’s cousin, Ying Tai.”
Daxiong is programmed to be polite, so he shakes her hand, “nice to meet you, my name is Ma Wei Xiong, but everyone calls me Daxiong.”
“Ma Wei Xiong? Daxiong? Have I met you before?”
“You know each other?”
“Isn’t it Pang Wei Xiong?”
“Oh?”
“If I’m getting the right person, you used to help schoolmates with homework during recess, and after school while we were waiting for the school bus. Then at the end of one school year, you told us that you couldn’t help us with homework anymore because you would be transferring to another school.”
Daxiong frowns, “if you know all this about me, then I do think that we have met before.”
Ying Tai chuckles, “I don’t know much else, but I know that after you left, homework became harder. I never got a chance to say thank you, so thank you. I hope you’re doing well. Better, much better than those nasty classmates of yours who would ignore you during recess.”
“I don’t know about said classmates, but I’d like to think that I’m doing okay.”
“So,” Ying Tai gestures at him, and then at Hazel, “knowing Hazel, and knowing Aunty Mary, it would be out of the ordinary for you to be allowed up here unsupervised, suggesting that Aunty Mary knows who you are, since she is sitting in the living room downstairs and knows that you are welcome here. Welcome enough for you to troop upstairs to Hazel’s bedroom with what looks like dessert that you have bought for Hazel.”
Daxiong gives Hazel a questioning look - it’s clear to him that Ying Tai doesn’t know for a fact, if not she wouldn’t be asking questions like these, but at the same time he can’t really think of a good excuse either. Hazel simply gives him a permissive nod.
“Yeah, um, we’re seeing each other.”
“Oh?” Ying Tai responds with the same upward inflection in voice which Hazel had used earlier when she had asked if his surname was Pang instead, before dragging Hazel off to the side, “you didn’t tell me!”
Hazel sighs, “I knew you were coming, and I didn’t really want to be questioned.”
“But yet you didn’t tell him not to come?” Ying Tai asks, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder.
“My fault, sorry, I knew that you were coming to Hong Kong, but I didn’t consider the possibility that you might be over here, I didn’t get a response after texting her and decided to just come over since I managed to buy her mango mochi.”
“I would be happy to meet you, even under different circumstances, though I suspect that this feeling might not be shared by you or Hazel.”
“From my perspective, it doesn’t matter,” he states, “since you’re Hazel’s cousin, and given the close relationship you and Hazel share, I’m sure that we would have met eventually. I note that Hazel doesn’t want to be questioned, and I understand that you are concerned about her, so if both of you don’t mind, you can direct the questions my way.”
“Since he’s okay, you can ask him what you want, but if it’s about the two of us, unless it’s something that makes you think that I should dump him, I don’t want to know. But I will give you the brief overview. It’s only been a few months, he’s a barrister, and it’s about right to say that we met in the line of work. Yes, you are right that my mother knows. Though we haven’t gotten around saying anything because it seems that we both have reasons to believe that it is somewhat complicated.”
“It’s okay,” Daxiong reassures her, sensing that it is not just that Hazel doesn’t want to hear him talk about her, it’s also probably in greater part that she wants to protect him and his family background, “Ying Tai will find out sooner or later, and since she recognised me, I would rather be the one to tell her.”
“Alright.”
“You’re right, I used to be called Pang Wei Xiong. My father is Hazel’s godpa’s older brother, and my mother is his so-called little wife. But I was not treated well by my father’s legally married wife, and my mother refused to continue to see me get bullied by her, so she took me and we left the Pang family. That’s why I transferred school one day, and changed my surname to Ma follow my mother’s. I hadn’t been contact with anyone from the Pang family, save for Uncle Paul occasionally since we left the Pang family for many years, but due to a series of events, now I am in more frequent contact with my grandmother and Uncle Paul. There are some complications arising out of that too.”
“So Hazel’s godpa is your uncle?”
“Yes, and for the avoidance of doubt, I had known all along that Uncle Paul was her godpa, but Hazel only found out later.”
Ying Tai snaps her fingers, trying to summon the information from her memory, “isn’t Hazel’s godpa some… what was it… property developer?”
“That’s right.”
“So the Pang family is rich, and you’re not exactly on good terms with the Pang family but then your uncle is Hazel’s godpa?”
“Not exactly, but that’s reasonably accurate.”
“Does Hazel’s godpa know?”
“For now no. But both our mothers know, and I know that mom won’t lie to godpa so it’s a matter of time before he finds out.”