Baba parks out the front. The outer restaurant décor is over-the-top, a bright green pagoda supported by thick red columns and ‘Jade Palace’ in that tacky brushstroke font. The sign still says ‘CLOSED’ in the glass above the door, with our opening times stencilled in peeling gold.
MONDAY TO SUNDAY: 11 am—10 pm
As Baba unlocks the door, I spot the new addition to the storefront. ‘What’s that?’ I point to the A4 paper scrawled with black marker. Help Wanted. Weekend only. Local. Must own car. Good English. No Chinese is okay.
‘We need delivery,’ he says. ‘Ah-Jeff has to be in the kitchen more now.’
‘But Baba, you won’t recruit people that way. Why don’t you join UberEats or something?’ I try to explain the food app, but Baba just stares at me blankly.
‘No, no app. App is tax. This way, I pay cash.’
I sigh. There’s no arguing, because in Baba’s world, cash is king. I try not to think about what kind of dodgy maths are involved with those declarations.
Miss Chen is folding oversized red napkins into bright fans for the place settings. ‘Good morning, lou5 baan2,’ she greets him in Cantonese. Boss. ‘Wah, Anna, it’s been so long! What luxury. Wait, don’t tell me your father is taking the day off?!’
‘No. I’m here to help. It’s school holidays,’ I explain.
‘Trial. You’re here on trial. We’ll see,’ Baba warns.
‘Wah. How wonderful to see her!’ Her clapping is too enthusiastic. ‘And she’s so pretty, too, must take after your wife!’
She addresses me in accented English. ‘Hey girl, you have boyfriend yet?’
Sucking up to the boss is a common part of the Chinese restaurant code and I know it extends to the boss’s family. But I still squirm with embarrassment, especially when Baba replies.
‘No boys,’ he says gruffly. ‘She’s too young.’ I want to throw one of those giant cloth napkins over my head.
‘Of course. Good idea. Study hard. Go to good university and you meet rich husband.’ She waves a napkin fan in the air enthusiastically, her heavy glasses sliding down her nose.
I smile and nod awkwardly. I have never figured out how to speak to older Chinese adults, especially when they all think they have the right to proxy-parent you. Miss Chen is a bit younger than Baba and Ma, but she’s never been married. ‘Leftover woman,’ Ma always says.
Baba goes to his office to make calls to suppliers and leaves me to find my way to the kitchen to help with prep. I find Ah-Jeff standing at the workbench holding two bottles, about to empty the contents of one into another.
‘Wait! Ah-Jeff, be careful,’ I call out. ‘That’s chilli oil, not vinegar.’
‘What?’ He holds the label up to his nose and squints. Ah-Jeff is short-sighted, despite his thick glasses. ‘Zan1 hai6 wo3!’ That’s really true.
‘Here.’ I pick up the black vinegar bottle. ‘I can do it.’ He scoots down the bench to give me room. Out of all of Baba’s staff, Ah-Jeff is my favourite. He’s super kind and much older, about retirement age. He doesn’t have kids at home, so every year he gives me, Lily and Michael New Year’s money. And his English is near perfect.
Without a question, Ah-Jeff is Baba’s most loyal employee. Ten years ago, he moved his young family to Australia and had started working at a Chinese building company in Tuggerah. But after suffering a shoulder injury on the job, he was dismissed. He wasn’t a citizen at the time and couldn’t make claims for workers comp or insurance, so his wife went to work instead. And then six months later, she left him and took their young daughter with her. She married the dentist that she had been a receptionist for.
Poor Ah-Jeff was miserable and alone when Baba took him on as a kitchenhand. He was limited in what he could do around the kitchen—the heavy wok work was out of the question. But he worked incredibly hard and was a fantastic charmer. Baba used to have him at front of house to greet customers the way Miss Chen does, but he was too nice and kept giving extra things for free. Now he helps with odds and ends in the kitchen and delivery. He eventually remarried, but didn’t have more kids. A couple of years ago, when he celebrated his 60ish birthday, I asked him if he would ever retire and he said, ‘Never. Jade Palace is my life.’
‘Ginping, what are you doing back in your father’s kitchen?’ he asks me now.
I grimace. ‘Ah-Jeff, no one calls me that except po4 po4-2 on Skype.’ Grandmother.
He looks surprised. ‘But it’s such an important part of who you are. Did your mother and father tell you what it means?’
I make a face. ‘Feminine algae or something.’ I’d looked it up in the past, using my bad knowledge of Chinese radicals, and I figured out ‘water’ and ‘plant’. For a while, I thought I was a waterlily, until some freshie Chinese ex-pat in Year Eight told me otherwise. I didn’t much care for the name after that.
‘It’s a beautiful waterweed, delicate and strong. Just like you.’ I pull another face and Ah-Jeff laughs. That’s another thing I like about him—he’s always in good spirits. I often wonder what he’s like outside the restaurant. But Baba has strict rules about us socialising with the staff, so I’ve never met anyone’s families.
‘Okay, Anna, what are you doing back in your father’s kitchen? I thought you wanted to go to uni and become the first Chinese-Australian in space.’
‘Wow, that was when I was nine.’ I can’t believe he remembers that. ‘Besides, they don’t have those kinds of astronauts anymore. The Americans stopped the programme.’
‘Doesn’t mean you can’t do it.’ He pushes his glasses to the top of his head. ‘Study hard, you can do anything. You do alright in school?’
I shrug. ‘School’s okay. But I’m not a genius like my sister is.’
He waves this aside. ‘Doesn’t matter. It’s not about the brains, it’s about the mind.’ He points to his head to demonstrate. ‘Look at me. Dumb as a knob of wood, but my mind is strong and I’m stubborn as an ox to push through anything. You remember that for your school, okay?’
I nod. Unlike Miss Chen, I don’t mind his style of proxy-parenting. It actually makes sense.
‘You study what? Maths? Computer?’
‘I have a big assignment in English coming up.’ My insides lurch just thinking about it.
‘English? But your English is perfect,’ Ah-Jeff exclaims. ‘You’re a regular Aussie girl.’ The way he says ‘Aussie’ sounds like o1 si2, which means to take a dump in Cantonese. I used to correct him, but now it’s kind of an inside joke between us.
‘They don’t think of it that way, Ah-Jeff. It’s more than speaking and writing. You have to talk about meaning and analyse other people’s work.’
‘Just tell them meaning is no meaning. And other people’s work is their own business, not yours. Done. A-plus.’ He smiles with satisfaction.
I smirk. ‘I don’t think that’s how it works.’
‘My daughter says that a lot. “That’s not how things work in business.” She thinks all I know is restaurant. But she doesn’t realise, her old man has seen a thing or two.’