Carolyn Cooper | The one and only Dr Victor Chang

In 1978, Victor returned to Jamaica to teach at The University of the West Indies. The immigration officer mischievously greeted him this way, “You going in the wrong direction, man!”

Those were the days of Michael Manley’s democratic socialism. Many business owners were fleeing the country, fearful of losing their wealth. Some were quite conflicted. They enjoyed life in Jamaica but they also wanted to protect their livelihood.

Manley had arrogantly invited discontented capitalists to leave on one of the five daily flights to Miami. Many of them, especially the Chinese, took him up on the offer.

The immigration officer had mistaken Victor for one of these capitalists. He was not. From humble origins in rural Jamaica, Victor had grown up in the culture of the ‘Chiney shop’. It nurtured him to become a literary critic, a creative writer and a committed teacher.

Victor liked to say that he went to the wrong school on North Street. Kingston College, not St George’s! In the 1950s, a high percentage of students at St George’s were Chinese. Kingston College was predominantly black. It seemed that Victor was going in the wrong direction from quite early. He was not. KC gave Victor access to a whole new world of urban black culture, which he gleefully embraced.

FLESHING OUT THE STORY

In his short story, ‘Mr Chin’s Property’, Victor fleshes out the incident that precipitated the 1918 anti-Chinese riots. And it was about flesh. A Chinese shopkeeper caught his black lover in bed with a policeman and gave him a good beating. The ‘property’ of the story’s title is both the shop and the black woman who did not allow Mr Chin to own her. She exercised her right to be a free agent, giving Mr Chin ‘bun’ in his own shop.

In the historical account, as in Victor’s retelling of it, the policeman disappeared. Rumour had it that he was murdered and pickled by the shopkeeper to be sold as salt meat.

A century ago, this macabre story seemed entirely believable. How could this be possible? The history of the relationship between black people and the Chinese in Jamaica is quite troubling. And it’s all the fault of the British. In those long ago days when Britannia ruled the waves, the British assumed the right to move people across the seas as they saw fit.

The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago, Archibald Gloster, sent a letter to the Colonial Office, dated April 3, 1807 in which he spelled out his view of the purpose of Chinese immigration in the Caribbean: “For my part, I think it is one of the best schemes; and if followed up with larger importation, and with women, that it will give this colony a strength far beyond what the other colonies possess. It will be a barrier between us and the negroes, with whom they do not associate; and consequently to whom they will always offer a formidable opposition.”

FILLING THE BREACH

Shortsighted cynics like Gloster did not anticipate how easily some barriers can be overturned, given the right motivation. The sex drive is a powerful social leveller. Chinese women didn’t migrate quickly enough and black women filled the breach. Or, more accurately, allowed their breach to be filled, as they saw fit!

With quiet authority, Victor tells the unsettling story of the disastrous love triangle between the fictional Miss Belle, Mr. Chin and Constable Ruel Samuels. The narrator is a perceptive black boy whose mother did laundry for the shopkeeper.

Somewhat like Victor at KC, the unnamed boy begins to see the other culture with new eyes. He gives us an intimate portrait of the world behind the shop counter. Mr Chin practises tai chi, which enables him to defeat the big-belly policeman. And he’s an excellent cook. The boy’s description of the sizzling meals Mr Chin prepares resonates with all of Victor’s friends and colleagues who were fortunate to be entertained at his legendary dinner parties: “I stood there watching, enveloped in the smell of cooking food so different from what I knew at home.” Food, like sex, establishes empathy.

And so does the teaching profession. Victor was a passionate, caring academic who demanded the best from his students. He earned a well-deserved reputation as a no-nonsense lecturer with a very sharp tongue, which he used with deadly precision in and outside the classroom. Some students didn’t appreciate the sarcastic remarks he made to motivate them. It was very tough love. These students made sure to avoid Victor’s classes like Chik-V. Others enjoyed the challenge he threw out and took pride in excelling.

Then, Victor had a Mini which sported a broken headlight for a good while. A foolhardy female student made the mistake of telling him in the presence of witnesses, “Dr Chang, your car looks like it had an argument with a light post and lost it.”

Without missing a beat, Victor replied, “I could say the same about your face, my dear.”

Walk good, Marse Victor! We will long remember your wit, passion and, most of all, your generosity.

 Carolyn Cooper, PhD, is a specialist on culture and development. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com