Member of the Wedding

After 40 years of working in New York restaurants, Wat Kam-san, 60, went back in January to the China he had left as a teenager. Bachelor Wat was in for a jolt. Although he had dutifully sent money to the home folks for 40 years, he had overlooked someone. The someone: his wife.

Summoned into Hong Kong's magistracy court, Wat protested that he had never seen or heard of the woman, Chan Kam, 53, who was suing him for maintenance and claiming they had been married for 26 years. The woman admitted that she had never before laid eyes on Wat. But Wat's sister-in-law, Yip Wan-tai, testified that before Wat's mother died in 1932, the mother had instructed her to marry Wat to Chan, then 28. The ceremony was duly carried out: the bride wore red, and Wat was represented, said Yip, by a rooster. No one ever told Wat about the wedding, said Yip, "because the whole family depended on him, and I didn't want to upset him with the news."

Under Chinese law and customs, which are binding in Hong Kong courts, proxy weddings are legal, and senior relatives may sponsor them. But under cross-examination last week, sister-in-law Yip admitted that she had not really used a rooster as Wat's proxy. Yip explained that she feared that the rooster would die before Wat returned--certainly an ill omen for Wat's marital bliss with Chan. Therefore Wat had been represented at the ceremony by a more durable cakebox.

Wat's lawyer hopefully contended that substituting a cakebox for a rooster was highly irregular and invalidated the ceremony. But Magistrate Hin Shing-lo ruled that because of Yip's superstition, the cakebox was legal; he ordered Wat to pay $17.50 a month maintenance henceforth to his lawfully wedded wife. His lawyer urged Wat to appeal, but Wat had had enough. He accepted the court's ruling and next day boarded a ship--alone--for the unmysterious West.

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