The Hairband Oath

The old crone lit the candle, burned the incense and set fire to the herbs and the paper money.

"Amah, if he shun the use of money in this life... why do we burn pretend paper money to our ancestors? What do they even need money for? Their dead-"

"Shh quite, you don't know. They need a lot of money and we give them this pretend money then they give us the good luck and we get real money. Then we don't have to think about money or worry about using money. Be quiet and do the ritual. You! you take off the hair band." She said pointing at me, "You take off the hairband," She said pointing at the other girl.

The other girl didn't say much, but I think she understood more of what was going on then I did. We were supposedly cousins. My parents just dropped me off to live with Amah for the summer. i vaguely remember her from when I was very little. Phone calls, things like that. She was my grandmother or something. But we never did anything like this before.


"You say,"I am sorry sister that I could not be born on the same year and same month and same day as you... so I only wish that I will die on the same year same month same day as y-"

"Wait I don't ant to die." I complained

"Not now, they are saying in the future." Said the crone. 

"But how old are you?" I asked the other girl who still didn't say anything. The thing is, she was taller than me and looked more grown than me in other ways too. I just felt like maybe I was getting gypped because if I was born after her and I died on the same day as her then my life would be shorter. She just looked around and sighed. I began to wonder if she spoke English. She looked more white than Asian, though I was mixed too... but really I hadn't heard her say anything in any language at all.

"You SAY IT!!!" Amah shouted looking like she might have a stroke or die in some other way. If she did... I had no idea where this house was really. I mean I guess I could look it up on the phone. But it seemed it would be a better situation overall if Amah lived so I said it.

The other girl then said something in Chinese... Cantonese... I think. And what she said kind of flowed better. And I realized she had said what I just said.


We exchanged hairbands and hand wraps, the kind people use for boxing.

Not that I had ever boxed. I had just put this hand wrap on.... and now I was taking it off again. It took a really long time and Amah kept saying how stupid I was.

In the end we went upstairs. Amah chopped up a chicken which this older boy, maybe even a young man had delivered. Amah was like super nice to him, along with some other food. He waved at us and the other girl actually smiled. We ate... and then me and my new "Sister" sat outside on te trampoline while Amah did something or other in the house.


"We'll start training tomorow." Said the other girl in English.

"Oh..." was all I said for a while, and then, "My name is-"


But she interrupted me and said, "You'll be called Yongfu"

She said it quietly and offhandedly but it seemed so final, mainly because she had hardly said anything before. I suddenly really wanted her to like me and be my friend. After all, there was nobody else here besides Amah and I got the feeling she was crazy. I had thought this girl was crazy too or that something was wrong with her... but maybe it was just because Amah was there.

As if sensing that I wanted to ask, she said, "You will call me Mangfu"