留學生的故事: 銀龍奨學金 (一) / Visa Student Story: The Silver Dragon Scholarship (Part 1)

(這故事未經考究,是真是徦,或有巧合,全由讀者定斷。)

話說某年某日,在加拿大西部的某個華埠,有間叫『銀龍』的歺館,老闆是台山阿伯,他年輕時離鄉別井,過洋來楓葉國,投靠親戚開的歺店,初做洗盤碗(又叫洗大餅),後來升做「巴士仔」(即是收拾碗碟,開茶奉煙的後生),鹹水英文畢業合格之後,升做「企枱」,他將每日辛苦賺來的時薪和「花利 」,全部放入『來佬銀行』,那時『孿宝电話公司』專利,長途电每分鐘收三加元,等於港幣十八元,故此他連打個「喊線」返鄉下的費用也不捨得用,懷鄉想念家人深切時,就靠紙、筆、墨寫他的心声,貼上平郵士担,放入郵箱,船期巧合的話,寄後兩星期到達彼岸家人,收啟後答覆回郵又是兩星期,一來一回, 就是一個月只能通訊一次了。

... 下續 Part 2


(This is a story that has not been verified and it's up to the readers to decide whether it is true, fictitious or just a coincidence.)

It was told on a certain day and a certain year, in a certain Chinatown out west, there was this Chinese restaurant called "The Silver Dragon". Now the present owner was an old timer called Albert from the Chinese town Toi-Shan. He had left his home village when he was young and came over to Canada working for a close relative, the previous owner. He started from the bottom as a dishwasher, then worked his way up to become a busboy, then finally when his "Chinkish" (sorry about the racial slur, but the story was set in the bad old days) became passable, he was promoted to become a waiter. He put every cent of his hard earned wages and tips into the Royal Bank. At the time, Ma Bell still had an iron grip on the long-distance business and it cost about three Canadian dollars a minute to call home, which would be equivalent to eighteen HK dollars. Albert never called home and when he felt really homesick, he would pick up a pen and a piece of paper, wrote, put a stamp on the envelope and mailed his message home. If he was lucky, the next slow boat to China would deliver his letter in about two week's time to his family. It would take another two weeks for the reply to come back to him. Each "instant" message had a turn-around time of one month !!

.... to be continued / click here Part 2