1898, HONG KONG.
ELIZABETH LEE: Born in Hong Kong as the only daughter of an extremely wealthy man and his concubine, Elizabeth is disposable. A pawn to be bought, sold, and traded - specifically, for the drug, opium, the business in which her fath...
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A BLUE, FLOUNCY PLAID SKIRT COVERED MY THIGHS, stopping short at my knee-high white socks, partially covered by my black Mary Janes. My torso was covered by a white blouse and navy blue sweater, all of it making up my St. Francis Canossian uniform. I stared at myself in the mirror, coiling my shoulder-length hair into a neat and glossy black bun. Today, my appearance was like that of any other school day. If only that were the truth.
I sighed, and adjusted my hair one last time before the door opened. My boisterous roommate jostled me, trying to take my place at the one mirror in our shared dormitory. As always, Anna Wong was a mess of frenzied energy: black hair out of its knot in wispy strands, despite St. Francis's strict dress code, her white blouse mis-buttoned and wrinkled, and missing her left shoe. I laughed and moved aside as she hopped on one foot, trying to get her black flat on properly while also fixing her hair. In the twelve years that we had shared a dormitory, as little girls boarding at St. Francis together, I'd still not gotten used to how different she was from me. (1)
As though she was living with a very wealthy family and had mui zai to clean up after her—even though I knew full she hailed from Mongkok unlike me who had grown up in my father's house in the Mid-Levels—she never picked up after herself. On the other hand, I liked things neat and tidy, with 'a place for everything and everything in its place' as the nuns said. Well, they also liked to say 'cleanliness is next to godliness', but I suspected that was a line they trotted out to make us clean more.
"I still can't believe you'll be leaving me to marry that... that gweilo (2)," she commented in Cantonese, with both shoes on but her hair still looking like a haystack. "What happened to finishing seventh form together?"
I made a face but said nothing, instead sliding on a jade bracelet, the green stone cool against my skin. Technically, jewelry wasn't allowed in the school dress code, but... I was leaving now, what had been my world for the past eleven years. Today, I wanted one last memento of my old life before I moved onto my new one. "I suppose you're going to try to enrol in Hong Kong University, then?"
It was a question that needed no answer. Both of us had had that dream since we'd arrived here, but now our paths were sadly diverging.
"Is there any other dream?" She pinned her hair back, coiling her plait of hair into a neater bun.
