The Chinese New Year Cat

I am Cong, the intelligent, and I live in an alley behind a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I have lived here for almost two years, and it is from here that I rule my little kingdom. My kingdom is this alley, the restaurant and the shops on either side of it. My kingdom is also the other cats that live in the alley. There are ten other cats here, including my best friend An, the peaceful, and the lovely Mai Xing, the beautiful star. Well, she is certainly the star in my eye, this slinky little minx of a Siamese cat. Purrrowl. The others come and go, as cats will, but these two remain always by my side.

We live well here, eating the remains from the restaurant and stalking mice in the shops. We are all sleek and round and thoroughly pampered. And we live happily here, communing with the shop owners and preying on the tourists, who are happy to give us treats and toys. The only bit of darkness on our horizon are the Animal Control trucks, and the do-gooder groups who are always trying to catch us and put us in homes where we can have better lives. Better lives? Surely nothing could be better than this.

So far I have been smart enough to escape these humans and their better life. Like the ultimate survivor on my favorite TV program, I have managed to outwit, out play, and out last all of them. But one day while I was playing Bat the Can with An and Mai Xing, I grew careless, and the next thing I knew, I was in a truck and headed for a no-kill shelter. I was beside myself with terror and with anger. I threw my considerable weight against the iron bars of my cage over and over. I hissed and growled, and fluffed my fur up, hoping to fill my captors with the terror that I felt, but to no avail. The cages were firm and solid, and I was firmly and solidly trapped in one of them.

Soon we came to a small building where our cages were unloaded into a stark and antiseptic room. Here they did terrible things to us. I was knocked out with a foul-smelling gas, and I awoke to find myself in great pain. I had no idea what they had done to me, but I had a feeling I was not going to be happy, whatever it was. After this horror they took us into another room filled with cages of cats.

I was placed in a cage next to an old cat. The cage was nice and the room was warm and pleasant. I made myself as comfortable as possible and settled down for a nice long catnap. I awoke the next morning feeling better and quite hungry. Just as I wondered whether or not they planned to starve us into submission, a white human came in. She opened each cage and placed a bowl of food in it.

“Eat up, little friends,” she said, but I couldn’t understand a word. I wished now that I had spent more time learning the language of the tourists, like An and Mai Xing had. But I had never felt the need to.

“Eat up,” the old cat in the cage next to me said. Fortunately I had no trouble understanding him, as Catonese is a universal language.

I looked at the stuff in my bowl and stuck my nose up. It was the most horrible, gummy, brown mess I had ever seen.

“Eat up,” the old cat said again. “It really is good, and it is all you will get here.”

Well, he didn’t seem to be suffering as he tucked into his food, and by now I was starving. I took a small bite, although I longed for fish-head soup and rice. Before I knew it, the bowl was empty.

Endless weeks passed, and I fell into the routine of the shelter. The old cat, whose name was Frank, and I became good friends. Each day he and I and the other cats in our row were taken into the playroom for an hour or so. We went in shifts, row by row each day. This was so that we would have plenty of room in which to exercise and play. This became my favorite time of the day. I loved the freedom of being out of that cage. I missed the freedom of the streets. We were also groomed daily, and fed the same brown food and kibble each day. While it was not my first choice of food, it was adequate. The vet looked in on us once a week, and made sure that we were all healthy. And on rare occasions humans would come and take one of us away.

I asked Frank about this, and he said that the humans were adopting the cats. Taking them to beautiful forever homes. Homes where they would be loved and cared for the rest of their lives. I wondered why he had never been adopted, but he said it was because he was so old. No one wanted an old cat. This shelter was his forever home.

Well I was not anxious to be adopted by these white humans either. So when they came, I cringed down in the back of my cage, and tried to look as old as possible. It wasn’t that I didn’t want a forever home. But I wanted the kind of humans I was used to.

Then one day a short brown man and woman with a little girl came into the shelter. My ears quickly picked up the sibilant sounds of the only human language I knew. I looked up with interest. Maybe these were my forever home people.

The old man kept trying to explain that they wished to adopt a cat, but the receptionist did not understand. Finally the little girl bowed briefly to him, and then spoke to the receptionist in the tourist’s language.

“We wish to adopt a cat”, she said.

“Come right this way,” the receptionist replied. “We have a lovely assortment of cats. I am sure you will find the perfect one.”

I jumped up and stood in the very front of my cage. I purred and mewed. And when the young girl came over, I delicately reached a paw out to her. She looked at me and smiled, and I knew I had won her over.

Before I knew it, I was saying goodbye to poor old Frank, and was headed for my forever home. I was so excited! My young human talked to me softly all the way home. She told me she was a girl scout, and that her troop was learning to care for pets. She had talked her mom and dad into letting her adopt a real pet. She told me that they would be celebrating the Chinese New Year in a few days, and that her troop would be marching in the parade with their pets. I could hardly wait. I loved the Chinese New Year. I loved the crowds, and the noise and the firecrackers. And I loved all the special foods.

Soon we arrived, and I found that my forever home was a small apartment over a restaurant in Chinatown. Oh, it was lovely. It was the first day of the fifteen day celebration of the Chinese New Year. When I arrived at my new forever home the house was already decorated with flowers. There were plum blossoms, and bamboo and pine sprigs in every room. Now this was more like it. This was a proper house. I dined on fish-tail soup and rice, and went happily to sleep on a red silk pillow on my new human’s bed. The next day was considered the birthday of all dogs.

And even though I was a cat, my young human Ming took the day quite seriously, as a proper young Chinese girl should, and I was feasted royally. I wasn’t fond of the dried sweet fruits that were on the Tray of Togetherness, or the platters of oranges and tangerines, but I did especially like lychee nuts, and I ate a good many of them, along with more fish, chicken and rice. Lychee nuts were said to bring strong family relationships, and I expected this relationship to last a very long time.

Next I helped Ming write poetic couplets of happy wishes on red paper, and hang them over all the doors in the house. I wrote a special one which said “Together we’ll be forever, you and I.” I then signed it with my paw print, and hung it carefully over my human’s bedroom door. Ming had to go to school the next two days, but Po Woo fell on a Saturday. The whole family stayed at home and honored the god of weather. Sunday dawned bright and beautiful, and I went with the family to the temple. Then we visited their many friends, taking each a bag of oranges and tangerines and Lai See. These were red envelopes filled with a dollar, and were meant to bring good luck.

I received several myself, and they did indeed bring me good luck. I discovered my old friend An at one of the houses where we visited, and soon I found my sweet Mai Xing too. She had been adopted by a family that lived only a few blocks away. I was beside myself with happiness. This was turning into the best Chinese New Year ever.

The seventh day of the celebration was the birthday of all humans. I spent part of my good luck money to buy Ming a red-feathered bird on a stick. She was delighted, and placed it carefully in the vase of flowers along with the bamboo and sprigs of pine, which sat on her dresser. It gave the bouquet a certain dash. Then the whole family sat down to a dinner of noodles and raw fish. The noodles were said to impart longevity, and the raw fish would give the family success. I only knew that the meal was delicious.

The tenth, eleventh and twelfth days of the celebration the family invited all the friends they had visited to their home. Ming invited other members of her girl scout troop, and they all carefully planned what they would do in the parade. I was surprised to find that most of the others only had stuffed animals to care for. This made me feel very special.

On the thirteenth day of the celebration the family ate only rice congee and choi sum, which are mustard greens. And the next day they spent making the final preparations for the parade and Lantern Day.

I could hardly wait. I was to be in the Chinese New Year’s Day Parade. I groomed myself carefully and allowed Ming to tie a red bow around my neck. Then I sat carefully and proudly on her shoulder and held my head high as Ming and the rest of the girl scout troop marched just behind the great dragon who led the parade. As she walked along I nodded graciously to the crowd. And I purred with joy as firecrackers went off all around me, chasing away all of the evil spirits of the year before, and ringing in the new year. I knew the evil spirits in my life had all been chased away, and that I would live happily ever after.

And so I did. The end

Note: Featured in the 'For Authors Newsletter' 1/6/16. Thank you Vivian