A Tropical Winter's Tale by Charlson L. Ong

It was winter when he came for her. The last winter of her life. The cold air stung her face. Her throat was dry and her breasts swollen. She felt her innards turn to stone and she was suddenly heavy with fear and longing. The man wore layers of animal fur-some strange animal the girl had never seen. They called him Bei Xiong-northern bear-because he was said to have originated from some northern province where it snowed in winter. The girl Li Hua had never seen snow.

She thought he must have another name, a real name, but it didn't matter. His head was made of stone, his eyes were red, and when he turned to her in the half-light the girl thought for a moment that it was indeed some unknown animal standing before her. Her heart would have leapt were it not frozen.

The girl had been waiting for the stranger at the outhouse. The night earlier Bei Xiong had come with two sacks of rice, a goat and a jug of rice wine which he gave to the people Li Hua had always believed were her parents. They told her, however, that she was bought off some sick peasant as an act of Buddhist charity. But when she grew older the girl was too frail to work the fields, too clumsy to care for the young ones, had no talent for cooking or embroidery, and could never be married off to a well-off family.

But Bei Xiong had seen the girl buying rice wine in town one day and decided to have her. He had two wives but neither had borne him any offspring. Now he wanted a younger woman. A fresh field to plow. And if she was yet a girl, he would be patient and wait for her to blossom. He needed a strong woman that he could take away with him to another land, across the seas where he would seek his new fortune after debt and pestilence had wiped out his crop and remaining kin. He would have a new life in that faraway land of brown men who worshipped white gods, where many of his villagemates had gone, where the earth was forever kind and the sun warm. He had had enough of barrenness and winter.



Bei Xiong had asked for the girl and the old couple had consented though he was far from rich. The girl had no dowry and was worth far less than the food she consumed. The old woman gave Li Hua some of her own clothes, a bowl of steaming broth, some sweet potatoes, and told her to wait for her man at the outhouse. The old man berated Li Hua for being lazy and admonished her to thank the gods for not having dealt her a worse fate.

When the stranger spoke rocks grated against his throat but Li Hua knew he meant for her to follow him. He rode a black mule and threw her a piece of fur to cover her face against the cold drizzle. Rain seeped through the girl's cotton clothes and her shoulders began to burn. For a moment Li Hua felt an unearthly comfort and the fear flew from her body as ghosts of dead sparrows. She had always had an affinity with winter. The sadness without her was sister to the sadness within. But the fire raced down her spine and threatened to enter her. She screamed.

The woman awoke in a pool of sweat. In her dream the snow fell in clumps as giant dumplings, burying her. She knew she was inside a dream but couldn't escape. She had to shake her head several times to fully awaken. The air conditioner was dead. Another brownout in the middle of the dry season. The woman thought at once of the ground meat and foodstuff in the refrigerator.

Yesterday, some drunken customer complained that his meatballs tasted like clay. "These accursed brownouts will be the death of us," she cursed beneath her breath. Forty years of feeding habitués of their hole-in-the-wall Chinatown eatery and her meatballs had always tasted like nothing else but meatballs.

She heard the measured pounding, and the scent of dough being kneaded assailed her. It was six thirty; the girls were preparing fresh dumplings for the day. Since the new girl was hired-Anna, yes, that is her name she remembered, these huanna names continue to baffle her after forty years of calling them out-work seemed to progress faster. There were six of them now-three working in the kitchen, and another three waiting on tables. The woman remembered how she had fed far more customers working in tandem with their old cook ah Beng-who had since left them-but that was many years ago.

The woman hurried down the stairs leading to the kitchen as she did every morning. "Good morning, Mrs. Lao," the girls greeted her as always. "Good morning, Mrs. Lao," they repeated. It took the woman a while to recognize the name. It often sounded strange to her-especially when spoken by a huanna tongue-even after many decades of being so addressed. When she first heard Ah Beng greet her as he met them at the wharf-"Lao tai tai"-he seemed to be cursing. It took the woman a while to realize that that was Bei Xiong's true name-Lao. Old Lao, most people called him. The woman had never called him. She never needed to.

For all his boorishness, Ah Beng was at least respectful of her. Though the difference between their ages left little doubt among the lannang -people from the old country-that she was not old Lao's first wife, Ah Beng continued to address her accordingly. Later, when the fact of his distant affinity with Lao was established, the thirtyish cook would refer to the woman as "sister-in-law." The rest of Chinatown simply called her Li Hua, if at all. Only the huanna greeted her as "Mrs. Lao."

The night he had her they had spoken little. The man had hoped to be patient with the girl. He would wait for her to feel at ease, to come to him. But the coldness oppressed him, mocked his timidity, turned his patience into desperation while she enjoyed her silence. She was centuries distant from him, wrapped in those wet cotton slacks reeking of drenched manure, trapped in her thoughts.

Her lips wanted to smile even as her eyes remained empty as a cadaver's and the man was suddenly frightened.

"Come here," he called her, trying not to be rude. "Make me warm." But the girl seemed deaf. Bei Xiong panicked. Had he indeed bargained for an idiot? Why else would the old couple have given her up for so little? She had sat almost unmoving in her corner since coming to his home two days ago, chewing occasionally on her piece of sweet potato. Certainly his many-layered brick home with its large hearth which housed generations of kinsfolk before the plague was preferable to the old couple's mud shack. How can the girl be pining for such people who'd treated her not much better than an animal? She had not uttered a sound while trudging the ten lis to his village and had since wallowed in her muteness-refusing food, unmoved by his gestures, dead to all else but some vision in her mind's eye. Bei Xiong felt his chest tighten, he'd heard of yao kways -ghosts of those who die before forty-who possessed winter travelers. And Bei Xiong thought for a moment that he'd indeed taken in the very evil spirit that had cursed his family. The force of his backhand blow sent the girl sprawling and when she looked up she saw him in the light for the first time.

Her innards seemed to be melting as she felt a sudden nausea. She was weightless now and the man lifted her and brought her to his four-post bed-the largest bed she'd ever seen. He began undressing her brusquely. She wasn't sure what he wanted from her but a strange peace came over the girl. She was at once a child being rudely tucked in bed by an impatient father-the father she never had. She could hear him vaguely: "Don't you know how it's done? Don't you ever watch the dogs, the pigs? A rural runt like you?" She thought of the pigs and the dogs. She remembered the boar she helped their neighbor, Co lay, butcher a fortnight ago. Li Hua loved butchering. The first time Co lay allowed her to try his big, sharp knives her hands and arms seemed possessed by the spirit of those wondrous metals. Li Hua could see in her mind's screen the brilliant blade sliding softly through the layers of flab and the deep red blood oozing forth, then rushing out in torrents. She suddenly remembered how they had laid the bled pig down on its back even as Bei Xiong pinned her down. Bei Xiong tied the girl's arms and legs to the bedposts. She thought for a while he'd cut her open like they had the pig; carve out her entrails, her still throbbing heart; and stew them in his aromatic herbs, said to be the finest in all of Fujian. And then he was naked, his body so frail, she wondered how it could have supported that head of stone. He straddled her and cradled his member against her thigh. And then a hundred knives slashed through the girl's insides. But she thought only of the disemboweled pig. How she masterfully cut through the rib cage to extract the lungs whole and unmarked-perfect for cooking in ginger oil-how the entrails seemed to give in to her every move, offering no resistance. She had never been so much the master of her actions. And the girl knew then, in her heart, that it was her calling.

Lia Hua told Bei Xiong about her talent for butchering. He glared at her in disgust and shook his stone head, convinced that he'd bargained for a nitwit. She spoke to him again and the man flared up. Where on earth, he wanted to know, were there women butchers? Anyway, there were never enough pigs or cattle to butcher. There was never enough food for people much less animals. After he'd disposed of his remaining property they would travel to Xiamen and board the ship to a place called Manila where Bei Xiong's distant cousin, who'd gone there earlier and apprenticed himself to a cook, would help Bei Xiong open an eatery. The brown natives of lu song were said to possess an insatiable appetite for Chinese food. Bei Xiong himself had worked in eateries in Fuzhou and Guandong where he learned from some of the best masters.

The wind was soft and the sun gentle as they alighted from the boat. For two days and nights they were trapped amidst a sea of humanity aboard the overcrowded ship. Li Hua feared at times that she was among ghouls being brought to the land of the newly dead. But the air that greeted her was the scent of rice and palm. The man, Ah Beng, who met them was lean and square-shouldered. His teeth were the color of tobacco but his smile gave her strange comfort. When he called her "Lao tai tai," Li Hua thought for a moment that the man was addressing a fellow traveler invisible to her, but he smiled and she understood.

The kalesa took them through cobbles streets of gray stone houses and low wooden structures. She saw earth-colored men and white women with hay-colored hair. Even the lannang here laughed louder, their skins darker, like Ah Beng. Perhaps the earth was truly kinder here, perhaps she would bear Bei Xiong's sons and he would treat her well. Her heart rose with the wind and she pined for winter.

In the beginning life was simple. She helped Ah Beng shop for fresh foodstuff at daybreak: they'd wash and prepare the meat, fish, and vegetables while Ah Beng taught her the ways and words of the huanna . Later, Bei Xiong would fry the radish cake and boil peanut soup for the stevedores, merchants, traveling salesmen, and workers who came for breakfast. The food was simple-dumplings, fried noodles, beef stew, maki, machang, siopao, siomai . The people were simple. Li Hua made fast friends with other women from the old country. They brought her news of her home village. In the evenings she listened to the lilting melodies of the huanna over the radio, which lulled her like the monotone chanting of Buddhist sutras, or went to see a Fujian opera with friends. At night Bei Xiong came to her. Sometimes when business was good and he'd just had enough to drink, the man was gentle and the time passed quickly. He was always fast when gentle. Other times, when Bei Xiong had just turned over a day's earnings to the huanna policeman who dropped in occasionally for his beef noodles, and had had too much to drink, he'd be rough and impatient. He'd wield his member like a weapon against a despised enemy. On such nights Li Hua thought of the pig she disemboweled, she remembered the grace and power her hands and fingers once commanded. Later, she'd try recalling other sights and sounds as his body mashed desperately against her. She'd try helping him but this made him angrier and more violent. She thought of winter, the sleet hanging from dead trees like mutant fruits. Her insides would freeze and the pain would fly from her body like ghosts of dead sparrows. But in the end she always returned to the disemboweled pig, to the power and grace in her hands, and her spine would stiffen sending needles throughout her body as the man released his anger into her.

But when two years had passed and she was still without child, Bei Xiong accused her of secretly aborting her pregnancies. Lia Hua begged her innocence but his anger was beastly. He left her for dead and disappeared for weeks. Ah Beng nursed her wounds and ran the business single-handed. At night he read poetry and tried to teach himself the words of the huanna . He would practice calligraphy and sing to her songs from the old village. The masters, he said, would paint trees only in winter. For only in winter, stripped of foliage, does a tree's true character surface. Yes, she answered, she understood. When he held her hand, guiding the brush along its smooth, plaintive arc, Li Hua felt the power return to her fingers. Not since the day of the butchering had her fingers been possessed by this unearthly force. The black ink spread cleanly across the crepe paper. Three strokes and their hands, together, had written the character for "person," he said. Then she saw his hands move up her arms; feeling her shoulders, her nape, her back and Li Hua knew then that everything that had gone before were but a means to prepare her for this moment.

One night as Ah Beng was teaching Li Hua calligraphy, Bei Xiong returned. His face was unshaven and wounded, and when he saw them he knew he was the stranger in their lives. Bei Xiong looked at the couple almost imploringly like cattle about to be slaughtered and went into his room. Li Hua fixed him supper. Early next morning Ah Beng was gone.

Ah Beng's departure left a void in their lives that would never be filled. Li Hua had to do the morning shopping by herself while she and Bei Xiong seemed to spend every moment of their lives cooking and waiting on tables. Some evenings Li Hua would try practicing the few characters Ah Beng had taught her. But without Ah Beng's strong guiding hand and vibrant eyes that seemed to see beauty in a bowl of fried tofu as much as in Li Hua's crooked calligraphy, the spirit withdrew from Li Hua's fingers. And when Bei Xiong came to her at night she could only think of the disemboweled pig.

During weekends Bei Xiong would be away on what he claimed was "business." The hours of his absence grew longer until Li Hua hired extra hands to help her with the work as word of Bei Xiong's almond-flavored dumplings spread among the huanna as well as the lannang . Yet something close to joy seemed to have descended upon Bei Xiong. He was hostage to a distant anxiety and often seemed hard pressed to resist smiling just like the time when he thought Li Hua pregnant. His newfound lightness was a blessing to Li Hua and she was both glad and fearful, but above all she savored his absences.

Bei Xiong brought the huanna woman home one morning. Her name was Clarita. She had black, silky hair that reached to her buttocks, her skin was light but the black in her eyes reminded Li Hua of burnt coal. She was smaller than Li Hua and not much older. Bei Xiong announced that Clarita would henceforth live with them. She would sleep in their room, eat at their table, and help in the kitchen. The woman was with child, he said.

Something inside her told Li Hua she should be angry, that she should rage against Bei Xiong's animal ways. Yet the thought of an extra hand to lighten her load, of another presence to liven up the deadening days of their togetherness gave her strange comfort. And if the huanna girl were truly pregnant, if she were indeed to bear Bei Xiong's child, then he may yet be saved from the anger gnawing away inside him. That night Li Hua moved her own things out of their room and into the kitchen. She was now completely free of the man.

But before long Li Hua heard the ugly rumors spreading across their neighborhood. The lannang was distraught. Bei Xiong had always seemed an illiterate but honorable man. Even the lannang back home who took other wives housed them separately if within the same courtyard. How can Bei Xiong have two women, and one of them a huanna at that, under the same roof? "Shameless," they whispered. The man was truly descended from some northern barbarian. And many of the lannang stopped patronizing Bei Xiong's eatery. In the beginning they looked at Li Hua with pity but soon enough with disgust.

Clarita in fact grew big and Bei Xiong was never happier despite his diminishing profits. Li Hua too felt a sense of fulfillment. She was happy for the huanna girl and despite the ugly talk Li Hua had never been more at peace. She helped Clarita bathe, brushing the long, lustrous hair, marveling at her bloated belly. She was witness to life seeking expression and the sense of grace and power returned to Li Hua's hands, if only for moments.

Clarita and Li Hua taught each other their respective languages. They sang each other songs and shared stories. Clarita learned to cook and Li Hua to embroider. Li Hua began to feel that she at last had a family. And as the months passed the shared convictions between the two women grew stronger that this was in fact their child to be born and that the man in their lives was but an accident of fate.

But Clarita stopped growing, the time of her child's birthing came and nothing happened. Bei Xiong panicked. He took her to the herbalist who felt the woman's pulse and said she could not detect the child's heartbeat.

Must be a weak infant, she consoled, and gave Clarita some medicine. Weeks passed and they took Clarita to the huanna doctor who pried into the woman and told everyone that Clarita had never been pregnant. A rare case, she admitted, but some women who desperately wanted to can in fact exhibit signs of pregnancy without being so. Bei Xiong flared up. He called the doctor a liar and had to be hauled away by the police. That night the man's anger leapt from him as a wounded tiger. How could such things happen to him? Bargaining away his rice wine for an idiot girl and then picking up this huanna witch, this mad woman who could bloat her belly with nothing but air and lies. What evil had he committed in his past life to deserve such fate?

Lia Hua could feel her own skin break as Bei Xiong beat Clarita. Her heart leapt as blood trickled from Clarita's lips. For a moment she wanted to rush to the girl's defense but at once feared for her own life; Bei Xiong had once nearly killed her. Bei Xiong dragged the girl out into the streets and threw her clothes at her. He told Li Hua to move back into their room and when he came for her she could only remember the blood, the knives, and the pig.

II

The huanna girl exuded an air of unreality. Her eyes were opaque and unreadable. The old man often had to strain to feel her presence. But when he looked hard enough her skin shone with a pained luster. He could tell from the way she carried herself that the girl was not born of a good woman. "She has bad bones," Bei Xiong said to Li Hua once. But he could see how the older woman had taken to the girl. "Anna," he could hear Li Hua calling out in the kitchen, "Your steamed chicken is getting better." Indeed the first time he saw the huanna girl, Bei Xiong felt a hungry worm boring down his spine. Her round bloodshot eyes reminded him of another girl whose wolfish look had struck fear in his heart inside that outhouse ages ago. And he knew that some indescribable evil had once more entered his household.

Since the time he threw Clarita out of his house, Bei Xiong had little interest for women. He came to Li Hua less and less and until, he finally decided to partition their room. He had given up on anyone bearing him children and was revolted at the suggestion of adopting some huanna orphan. It had dawned on Bei Xiong that he was fated to live a solitary existence, that he and Li Hua lived almost entirely separate lives bound incidentally by strangers who came for their food. It was but a matter of time before one of them dropped dead and their dilapidated building was torn down by some Taiwanese developer bent on remodeling Chinatown.

But the girl had brought with her a vitality that seemed to rub off even on their customers. People liked her and Li Hua doted on her. The old woman commented upon her every action-admiring her meatballs, criticizing her chicken soup-acting as though all of it truly mattered.

Li Hua was again retreating into her own world from which Bei Xiong had once saved her. The world she would share with Ah Beng, with Clarita, and now with this huanna wench, Anna. The world beyond him, from which he was forever outcast. The woman was displaying once more the cold conceit that mocked him when she'd found common cause with Ah Beng and years later with Clarita. He could tell she was conspiring once again against him. Anna had been orphaned since she was eight and her relatives had finally turned her out. Bei Xiong saw the triumph on Li Hua's face as she consoled Anna and offered to take her in. The old woman's eyes were steeled as she stared down an incipient protest from a surprised Bei Xiong; they assailed him, mocked his aloneness and sterility. And when she spoke in that loathsome, gentle manner to the distraught girl, he heard the voice of a mother.

No, she had no right to be a mother, Bei Xiong raged mutely. She was barren like Clarita and all the women in his life who had failed to bear him progeny, to bear him the son who would be his joy and comfort in old age-the mirror of his own youth. A youth long lost and irredeemable. The land of the huanna had not been a land of rebirth and sustenance for him. Here was the same barrenness and death that had haunted him in the old country. He was the last of his line and his line was doomed. A proud and noble line of warriors, once honored by the Tang emperors, which would perish in this barbarian earth feeding grimly laborers and unlettered merchants.

In the beginning, fear had bound Bei Xiong and Li Hua. The alien night drove them into each other's arms. But soon their profits grew and became a wall of silver insulating them from the wiles and wherewithal of the huanna . Policemen, revenue collectors, immigration people all dropped in regularly for their favorite meals and shares of their profit. Life was difficult but more bearable than in the old country and for sometime Bei Xiong imagined he would grow into an old, wealthy patriarch of a large clan in this country. But the woman had given him no offspring, had deceived him, and poisoned those closest to him. She had seduced Ah Beng and made him-Bei Xiong, who had saved her-a cuckold. Yes, he could tell by their looks that night when he returned that the twain had betrayed him.

He had been forgiving but her treachery was boundless. She would deceive Clarita-the only woman who would have borne him children-and turn her against him. Bei Xiong was certain now that it was Li Hua, employing some despicable witchcraft from her village, who had sucked out the spirit of his child from Clarita's womb. And now she'd taken in the huanna girl to drive him completely out of her life, to make him a stranger in his own home.

Bei Xiong marched downstairs to the kitchen where he could hear Anna puttering about preparing the day's food stuff. She had been sleeping in the kitchen for nearly a month since weeping to Li Hua about being thrown out of the apartment she shared with foster cousins. Li Hua would still be away; it took her over an hour to haggle at the fresh food market. Bei Xiong knew he must act before the old woman returned. It was shameful but true that Li Hua's power had grown even as his own had weakened through the years. The demon, inside the woman whom he had fed and nurtured through the years, was now a monster before whom Bei Xiong often felt lost and confused. He could not look into the woman's eyes without seeing that demon staring him down. He could not remember the last time he won an argument with the woman or had his way with her. She ran every detail of their lives, from the number of dumplings steamed for the day to the amount of small change he was allowed to buy cigarettes with. But she would not bring this huanna thing into his home. She would not be a mother to this evil wench at his expense. When Li Hua returned Anna would be out of his home and his life forever.

The girl was unsteadied by the old man's voice. "You." he creaked. "Leave my house," he wanted to say, but the morning had lent vigor to her pout and he could see the outlines of her adolescent breast poke haughtily at him through her kamiseta . His belly ached.

"Come here," the old man finally quipped.

"What is it, angkong ?

Her voice seared his aged skin. "Don't call me that," he yelled. "I am not your lolo . I'll not have any huanna wench call me that."

"I'm sorry," she muttered. But it's how amah said I should call you."

The fire raced through his brain and he leapt at the girl as at a scared prey. "Don't call her that. She is not your lola , she is nothing to you and you are nothing to us. You have no business sleeping in my kitchen." He gripped the girl's thin wrists as if he were gripping his fading sanity.

Anna wanted to struggle, to hide from the rage seizing her, but she knew in a moment that the storm had trapped her inside its eye and all was futile.

"She told me I could stay."

The girl's helplessness warmed his aching belly. Her eyes begged for mercy even as the blood trickled from her bitten lips. And in that instant the old man knew she was the one he had waited for.

"Do you want to stay?" he whispered.

"Yes."

"Be quiet then."

III

They were a strange couple, the girl thought. The woman must be sixty though her back was always straight even when eating and she never ceased moving about. The man looked much older to the girl and often seemed weary and disinterested. His presence was almost accidental and it was more than once when the girl mistook him for a customer as he hunched over a corner table sipping tea. "Don't mind him," the old woman would tell the help whenever he grunted and bellowed about how the food was deteriorating. "His brain is rotting," she'd quip.

Anna used to call the woman "Mrs. Lao" like the rest of the girl before she moved in with them and was told to call the couple- amah and angkong . Amah was finicky about the dishes; a poorly washed plate could set off a long-wind diatribe. Her Tagalog sounded funny at times but was mostly understandable. And she could be patient too when teaching a new girl how to season roast duck or when listening to another one's latest plea for a loan. All of the girls owed her at least half a year's wages.

When Anna told Mrs. Lao that she had been thrown out by her relatives, it didn't take the woman more than a few minutes to decide on letting her move in. Anna could tell, though, that the old man was disturbed. She could not see why. They were childless, after all, and she could help with the house chores. Still, she made up her mind to move out once she had saved enough to fend for her own.

The old man hardly ever spoke. What he uttered was mostly inexplicable and he seldom waited for a response. Sometimes he'd be gone for days and then lock himself up inside his room for a week upon returning. Whenever she brought him food, Anna would see him slumped on his hardback narra rocker with an empty look on his face. Once she thought he'd stopped breathing and nearly screamed, and then he groaned and his eyes were beastly. She froze.

Anna knew the old man would soon turn her out. But she could not understand his anger when he came at her. She could not see how his frail, weary body could hide such rage. He was all over her in an instant, gripping her wrists so tightly she thought they would break. And then he was breathing down her neck uttering something into her ears. She could smell his nicotined breath as he began licking her forehead. She squirmed but he pinned her against the wall before darkness overcame her.

Bei Xiong slept like a child. Li Hua had never seen him sleeping so soundly and was almost envious of the peace that seemed to have come over him. When she returned home from the market with her load of vegetables, Li Hua had found Anna weeping inside the kitchen. Something steely ripped through her insides. Nausea clogged her throat and her heart clubbed against her chest. "What happened?" The woman managed to ask but the girl would only weep. "You must leave," the old woman quipped, swallowing hard.

"But I have no place to go."

"You must leave," she repeated.

Li Hua gave Anna some money and helped her to the door. "Goodbye, Amah ."

"Come home in a week's time," Li Hua whispered placing her golden necklace-her only piece of family heirloom-in the girl's hand.

It had been many years since she last held a cleaver, much less a butchering knife. Since her arthritic fingers began causing her pain, Li Hua had let the girls do the chopping and heavy kitchen work, content to supervise the cooking. Yet the twin knives felt surprisingly light. Bei Xiong's wrinkled skin offered no resistance as she slit the blades across his throat. The dark blood trickled and then broke out in waves. A lightness suffused her. She remembered the day of the disemboweled pig and the spirit of those wondrous blades returned to her hands. They knew exactly what to do-bleeding dry the carcass, splitting the upper torso, and expertly removing the entrails and organs. She had never been more the master of her actions and the fear flew from her as the ghosts of dead sparrows.

A few of the neighbors soon noticed Bei Xiong's absence and started asking about him. Li Hua told them he had gone home to visit his kin. But in truth, Bei Xiong had been disappearing slowly from their lives for many years and not long later, few would remember his real face. Once, a huanna cop came by to ask some questions. He later learned, however, that the Manuel Santos, who allegedly owned the eatery, had died many years ago in Pampanga. Li Hua offered the cop some tea and almond cake and after failing to obtain useful information from the neighbors, he gladly went on his way. Anna returned to the eatery and stayed with Li Hua for many years until their side of Chinatown was razed by fire. To this day, many of the lannang say that for a few days after Bei Xiong's disappearance, Li Hua's dumplings exuded an exotic, addictive flavor, the likes of which they have not tasted before or since.