The Chinese divine matchmaker Yuelao stood beneath the moon and unraveled a red string of fate that would connect men and women to their destiny. For those in Ancient China, this was marriage. In contemporary Australia, the sky is the limit.
“You think that the stars are our ancestors. Factually, they’re fiery balls of gas.”
Jia buries her head in her phone and plants her feet firmly on the ground, fortifying her reality with facts to fend fable.
“Think about it on a spiritual level. If each star in all that darkness symbolises a life of our ancestors, then what we’re seeing is our past and our future. They’re watching us. I can feel it.”
Tian lives to look up, to cleave herself from the clutches of the earth and weave the wind into sails, charting herself a path to the sky.
“Let’s just hope they can’t hear you. Your Chinese is trash.”
Tian shoves her little sister away. She smirks as Jia dodges a group of students charging over to a stall selling Lababus and Sonny Angels of questionable quality. Jia rolls her eyes, dragging Tian past them as she mutters, “Sheep, I swear. It’s all just the Western capitalisation of Asian products.” Sometimes Tian feels exactly like that, caught between the pull of the West and the grasp of the East. With a Chinese name pronounced flat on the tongue of Australians.
Tian wanders between the stalls of Chinatown marketplace, stopping to appreciate the scent of steaming buns and sweet fruit drinks. Jia glances at items here and there, fingers clutching and crinkling Tian’s sleeve as they wind through the crowd. She drags her feet across the littered ground as Tian approaches her “last tent” for the fourth time.
Jia paces behind Tian impatiently. “You said we have to go home. To study, remember?” Jia’s lips pinch into a line as her white shoe contracts pink gum. She leans on Tian’s shoulder as she aggressively wipes her shoe on the dirt, attempting to clean her sole before stepping away.
“Don’t look so serious, gu niang.” The two sisters look up, meeting the gaze of an older Chinese woman watching them from within the store. “You freeze your face in a frown.”
Tian grins, glancing behind her shoulder to watch Jia’s face go from sour to sensitive. She immediately softens her expression when the woman continues to inspect her, growing uncomfortable under the weight of her gaze. Tian feels it turn towards her before she even looks away from Jia. She meets the lady’s eyes. They’re deeper than the crinkles on her porcelain skin. Red lipstick paints her thin lips, a stark contrast to the shoots of white that pepper her tightly curled black hair.
“You smile too big.” The woman assesses Tian before returning to arrange her stock on the table, laying out an elegant hairpiece she has only seen in the C-dramas.
“No frowning or smiling?” Jia whispers into Tian’s ear, “Where have I heard that before?”
Tian shrugs her off, carefully picking up a traditional-style hairpin. Forged with the earth’s silver, embellished with crisp green gems, it resembles her sister in all her graceful pragmatism.
Tian turns to hold it up to Jia’s black hair. “What are these called again?”
Jia swats Tian’s hands away, side-stepping a second attempt, “I don’t care. Can you hurry up? It’s too loud here. And it smells.”
Tian could never make Jia understand these delicate moments. She treasured them in her hands, immortalising them in objects, while Jia complained about the scent of dusty cloth and incense.
“No-no-no-no, give to me.”
The sisters turn to face the stall owner, a jade bangle hanging from her wrist as she extends her hand, waiting for Tian to return the hairpiece.
“Great,” Jia mutters as she shakes her head and steps away from the table. “You touched it, you pay for it.”
“Not correct fan-zan. Gold one.” The woman hands Tian a different hairpin. The design is simple. The end is fashioned into the shape of a fan, peony detailing carved across it.
“Your sister – her skin is white. Like royal family. Gold is for royal, it auspicious, meaning earth.” The woman puts her hand to her heart. “She must wear gold.”
Jia inspects the hairpiece with a subtle smile. “I guess the flowers are pretty.”
“Peony is not pretty.” There is a note of reprimand in the woman’s voice. “Peony is beautiful. Our people look to her for wealth, prosperity, and honour. She is soft but stronger than her skin. She live 100 years, watching children forget their elders, and elders die with only their jade. Their stories.”
Wealth, prosperity, and honour. What once was simple beauty bloomed in times of need, becoming the values of a culture. The expectations of a family.
They really should be getting home.
Jia momentarily leans into Tian with pinched brows, “All that for a flower?”
“Girl,” Jia pulls back at the store owner's command. “What I say about face? Your skin white, but if you smile and frown so deep, you will not look like peony or royal.”
“I’ll take it for half price.” Jia turns away from the owner's assessment towards her sister, muttering in criticism. “You’d think a businesswoman would act nicer.”
The owner scowls, “Aiyah, so cheap, girl.” She looks at Tian, shaking her finger towards Jia in disapproval, “Tā xūyào gèng hǎo de zūnzhòng (She needs better respect).”
Tian looks at Jia, eyes tracing smile lines that remind her of infectious laughter, of fallen forts, and a secret language known only to them. A language they’d built together when Jia struggled to understand their grandparents. Spoken in moments when the other voices were so loud, they could hardly understand their meaning.
“What did she say?” Jia whispers, looking down at her feet as she shies away from the woman’s attention.
“She said she respects your boldness.”
Tian dissects the slight pucker of Jia’s brow, crinkled like leaves beneath the wind. She treasures the flush of her sister’s pink cheeks, soft despite the blemishes of age. If peonies see 100 years, then they are not without the marks of a lifetime.
“Smile as much as you like,” Tian pets Jia’s face, “But I’d hate to see you with frown lines.”
The store owner places the gold fan hairpiece in front of Jia on the table, allowing her to pick it up as she turns to Tian. “You are not the same as sister. She is royal, you are…”
“A peasant.”
Jia bows her head in apology when the lady snatches the hairpiece from her hands, wincing as she bends across the table and twists it into her hair effectively. She’s left with her dark waves pinned into an elegant bun, the golden hairpiece protruding from the top. The seller returns her attention to Tian with a contemplative smile as Jia looks for a mirror.
“You girl, look like eternity.”
Jia scoffs, pacing in circles around the booth in search of her reflection.
“Eternity mean love. You love mei mei even though she zìsī. You love her in the next life, too. Your face is pretty – loyal. You need red one.”
Tian smiles as the lady hands her a red string bracelet with red beads and white jade. Held together by a gold clasp, a butterfly hook secures the ring of jade to the band.
Jia lays her chin on Tian’s shoulder, eyeing the jewellery. “Oh, that’s pretty.”
Zìsī…self-serving.
The woman swats Jia’s hand away from the bracelet, handing her a small mirror to inspect the fan-zan.
Tian slips the red string of gold and jade onto her wrist, where it dangles delicately. In the reflection of the clasp, her skin is smooth as it contorts over the band. She wishes for a moment that it would heighten her nose bridge, deepen her eyes, and pinch her ears inward. In the gold, she can’t see the scars from her damaged skin or the tanned tone of her face. The blush she’s packed onto her cheeks bleeds away, and the shadow she’s used to sculpt her eyes doesn’t do anything to change the almond shape. It accentuates them. In this reflection, the blackness of her hair is stark, framing her curious face and kissing her sharpened cheekbones. She looks away, meeting the inquisitive eyes of the store owner.
“Āyí, I really don’t need this.”
She frowns as Tian removes it from her wrist. “Listen to me. This one name yīnyuán hóngxiàn. Red string of fate. You wear it, trust it, and it take you to your destiny.”
Tian’s destiny had been predestined long ago. She was born into a family with nothing. Configured with skilful hands turned down, instead of trembling hands turned out like they had been the generations before her. Down to earth. Down to work. Her hands were trained since she was young to hold a pen in one, and a legacy in the other. In dark nights of doubt and isolation, her fingers itched to pick up a different kind of tool and paint her world in vibrant red and gold. Tian had spent a lifetime looking up at the sky, but her favourite time of day was when the sun split the horizon and washes of warmth chased away the blue.
She looks at the bracelet, running her fingers over the gold clasp heated by her hand. Tian had spent a lifetime looking up at the sky, but this was the first time she’d ever been able to grasp the string of fate that seemed to hide behind the clouds.
“This will help guide me?”
“Yes! You’re fate is good.” The lady takes Tian by the hand, petting it affectionately. “Find good man to marry. Have plenty of children! And when you die, you find him again in next life. In your face, I see eternity. I see this!”
Jia smothers her laugh, backing away with her hairpin. No red strings attached.
“Āyí, I’m too young to marry.” Tian’s smile is bright. She can feel her future untangling before her. “I am going to do great things before any of that.”
The shop owner frowns deeply, shaking her head and placing the bracelet into a small paper bag, pressing it into Tian’s palm.
“Take it, take it. You need this.”
Tian concedes with a smile, looking at Jia, who purses her lips with suspicion. “Half price. No less.”
“What are your names?” The shopkeeper ignores Jia’s attempt to bargain.
Jia removes the pin from her hair, looking down at it with fondness. “Fine, 40% off.”
“Tian. This is Jia.”
The woman pauses, her gaze carved with intrigue. “You know what your names mean?”
The shop owner is met with silence.
“You are sky, Tián. The sky is eternal. It is strong, standing between heaven and earth. It rain and it shine but it always there when you look up.” Tián glances upward, beneath the expanse of darkness where her ancestors watch over her in constellations of light. The sensation of belonging is foreign.
“Mei mei,” The shop owner smiles at Jia. “You are home, Jiā. An empress makes a home for her people. She takes the protection of the heavens; in return, she protects her people.” The owner motions to Tián.
Jiā turns to her sister and hopes the space between them never unravels far.
Tián links arms with Jiā, collapsing the room between them as she smiles at the woman and paints her features into her mind. Her wisdom that transcends the barriers of language, and her knowledge that finds a home in her bones. Through her words and her trust, the shop owner lays the seeds of the past in the minds of the young. Burying it in their earth, protecting it under their sky.
“I hope you come again, girls. That will be $55.”
