I Love a Broad Margin to My Life

by Maxine Hong Kingston

  Curious Monkey waves the Burlingame Treaty

  under the noses of officials at every checkpoint,

  and is let through. I, though, am nervous

  at Passport Control. When I was arrested

  for demonstrating at the White House, I couldn’t

  find my I.D., couldn’t be booked

  properly. “Overnight in the big cell

  for you tonight.” I phoned Earll in California.

  He tore the cover off my passport,

  and fed it through the fax. I watched

  the copy arrive at Federal prison—an illegible

  dark zigzag mackle. I’ve glued

  the little book back together along

  its stitched spine. Crossing any border,

  I’m nervous, it’ll fall apart. I’m nervous,

  I have relatives in China. My actions and words

  can endanger them. And I have relatives who

  work at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory;

  you lose your job if you have foreign family.

  Wittman is all-American; no

  relatives anywhere but the U.S.A.

  Goodbye, Husband. Goodbye,

  Wife of almost all my life.

  Goodbye, my one and only child.

  Now, they are in my arms.

  Now, I turn, they go. Zaijian.

  Joy kin. Ropes, veins, hairs

  of chi that root the leaver to home pull,

  stretch, attenuate as we move apart.

  The red string—I can feel it. Can’t

  you feel it?—has tied us espoused ones

  ankle to ankle since before we met,

  before we were born, and will connect

  us always, and will help us not to miss

  each other too much. Westward East.

  Facing west from California’s shores,

  Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,

  I, a child, very old, over waves, toward the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar,

  Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled …

  Wittman is going to China for the first time.

  I have been 12 times, counting

  Hong Kong and Taiwan as China.

  Long having wander’d since—round the earth having

  wander’d.

  Now I face home again—very pleas’d and joyous.

  (But where is what I started for so long ago?

  And why is it yet unfound?)

  But I did not wander, never

  wandered, and never alone. I have responsible

  work to do, the teaching, the writing. I

  am writing right now on an airplane,

  above thick clouds. I’ve taken the window seat.

  Upon the dragon clouds, Mother’s soul

  walks toward Father’s soul. He’s holding open

  a shawl; he’s hugging her in it. They’re happy,

  they’re home, ancestors all around.

  The clouds dispel. Ocean and sky on and

  on and on. Land. Mountains. Circles

  of irrigated fields, squares of plowed

  fields. From on high, human beings

  and all the terrible things they do and make

  are beautiful. Loft your point of view above

  the crowd, the party, any fray. All

  is well. All always well. Land,

  Chek Lap Kok International. Hong Kong.

  The soldiers at Passport Control do not

  say Aloha, welcome, dear traveller, welcome.

  But then, no such hospitableness anymore

  at any border-crossing on earth. (Once,

  at the supermarket in Ann Arbor, in America’s

  Heartland, the butcher called out

  to an Asian-looking man and woman, “Where

  you from?” The man of the couple answered, “Seoul,

  Korea.” The butcher said, “Welcome, sir. Ma’am.

  Welcome to Michigan.”) Wittman took the train,

  got off in Central, and alighted tomorrow in the Land

  of Women. Women everywhere—the streets, the parks,

  the alleys, the middle of streets. All the city

  was closed today, Sunday. Women on sidewalks,

  curbs, stairs up and down hills—

  everywhere women. Women of his very

  type, beauties with long black hair

  gathered up or cascading down,

  naturally tan skin, dark eyes

  the warmest brown, lashes like black fans.

  The women were of one generation—no matrons,

  no little girls, no crones.

  Thala-a thala-a-a. The one

  man, knapsack on his back,

  stepped—delighted, curious, englamoured, happy—

  among, around women. Women picnicking,

  drinking sodas and juices. Women

  playing cards. Women combing and trimming

  their sisters’ hair. Painting emblems and charms

  on fingernails and toenails. A solitary

  is reading a book. Another writing a letter.

  Mostly the women converse. The sound of their language

  is like hens cluck-clucking. They talk, talk,

  listen, listen, listen. For them, the city

  stilled. Women walked and lingered on streets

  meant for cars. What are they saying about life,

  about love, these Peripatetics from the Pilippines?

  Wittman circled este grupo, ese

  grupo. No woman paid him look

  or heed. Standing on a box in an intersection,

  a sister raised Bible and voice to the crowd

  and/or to God. Sisters (and brother

  Wittman) tarried and stared, then floated away

  on the wavery heat of the tropical sun. They passed

  expensive stores, passed luxury hotels—

  five stars all. (My mother

  on her way to catch the S.S. Taft,

  fled the police soldiers by running inside

  one of these hotels.) A bronze sign on

  a movable stand placed mid-sidewalk

  says:

  IN CONSIDERATION FOR HOTEL GUESTS,

  PLEASE DO NOT BLOCK

  ENTRANCEWAY.

  The women sat at the curb, like hippies.

  Free of husband, free of kids. Like

  on vacation abroad with girlfriends.

  Oh, let me be hippie with you.

  Just like we were last summer!

  The women and the hotel people act as if

  the other did not exist. A vendor of sweets,

  a man, set his wagon down; the women

  crowded, haggling, selecting, buying just

  the right treat—that candy for me,

  that cookie for best girlfriend.

  All people smile and laugh when anticipating

  dessert. Along another curb, a row of

  women stood in political demonstration.

  They’d appliquéd a paragraph on a long

  piece of cloth. Something about la inmigración.

  Something something derechos. Rights.

  Los derechos de criadas.

  “What is criadas?” asked Wittman.

  “Maids. Servants. Maids.” So, these masses

  of women are maidservants, and today their day

  off, Sunday. And they want their rights.

  Tell them, Wittman: “In San Francisco,

  we have inmigrante workers too.

  We want los derechos too.”

  “O-o-oh, San Francisco,” breathe

  the women, “O-o-oh, California.”

  They like you from San Francisco, and California,

  my places, and Hawai‘i, and the Grand Canyon,

  also my places. I have places the world

  dreams for, hardly knowing they’re U.S.

  “Are you organizing

  las criadas labor union? Los

  Commies a
llow unions? Commies have servants?”

  A sassy girl waved a handful of papers.

  “We want long long stay bisas

  for Pilipina maids.” I get it: visas.

  “To stay, to work. For Hong Kong to be

  safe harbor. We want health

  insurance.” “We too. We want

  health insurance too. Universal

  human derecho.” Simpático. The women told

  the man their grievances: “The bishop’s Pilipina

  maid cooked and cleaned house for eighteen

  years. She grew old, and is sick in hospital.

  The Chinese will deport her.”

  Yes, Hispanics like you get deported

  in my country too. Operation Return

  to Sender. “The bishop went to the bisa office,

  petition for her, his housekeeper. Chinese

  ask, ‘She fit or not fit for work?’

  Can’t work, must deport.

  That’s all Hong Kongers care.”

  “The other day, a maid fell four

  stories. From up there—that high

  up. Madam made her wash the windows.

  She’s alive. She’s in hospital, but who

  will pay? Who will send money

  to her husband and babies?” Wittman could pay.

  Pay for the hospital, pay for the babies, pay

  for the whole village. Rich American karma:

  Pay. Pay. Pay. (Karma is Sanskrit

  for work. Karma does not mean doomed.

  All it means: work.) From a pocket of his Levi’s,

  he pulled out the U.S.D.s and the R.M.B.s.

  “Here. Yes, yes. Take it. Please.

  For you. All yours.” He’s got more;

  he’s got enough. “Give it to the bishop’s housekeeper.

  Give it to the window-washer maid.”

  Giving away money, don’t make

  the donee feel poor, and don’t you

  be her fish. Our donator finessed

  the bills under a brick that held flyers

  down. “Use it to lobby for health and visas.

  Thank you for taking care of citizen business

  though not citizens. No, no problem.

  Thank you. Goodbye.

  Behind the great

  windows of the Bank of China (Hong Kong)—

  open but not for business—a priest

  in white and gold regalia was lifting a chalice—

  not toward any altar, his back to the congregants

  (as in Earll’s day), but toward Pilipina maids.

  Pilipina maids knelt and sat on

  the marble floor, scarved heads bowed

  and palms together, attitudes so humble,

  you could cry. They give in, they thank.

  Old Monkey would’ve jumped into the crowd,

  snatched wine and mitre, slurped up the wine,

  donned the hat, pissed in the cup. Today

  Monkey went quiet. Quiet prevailed.

  He backed out of the bank that’s church this Sunday,

  and continued his walkabout basking in the alma

  and the mana of Yin. In a bright alley, jam-

  packed with boxes, mothers and godmothers

  filled cartons with toys and dried milk

  and canned milk, and children’s clothes and shoes,

  and men’s clothes and shoes. Las madres y

  las comadres shared tape, string, scissors,

  and wrote out postal and customs forms.

  They are saviors of families, villages, populations.

  Woman’s adventure, woman’s mission.

  The lone male looking at them was no bother.

  But they hated me, a woman, seeing them.

  They looked back at me, shot me with hate.

  Turned to follow me with their eyes, hate

  firing from their eyes. They hated me.

  Hate-stares followed me though I walked

  with the attitude that I was at home among my own

  Asian sisters. In words, they’d be calling me

  names. “You fucking bitch empress. You

  make me clean your toilet. You make me sleep

  in the toilet.” Though catching stinkeye,

  a curling lip, a dissing shrug of shoulders,

  I willed a kind and pleasant mien.

  May you be happy, you be safe.

  May you make much, much money.

  May your children and family be happy and safe,

  and you return home to them soon.

  I must remind them of Madam, their Chinese employer.

  But I don’t look like a Chinese matron.

  I don’t dye my hair black. I’m not

  wearing my gold and jade. They don’t know

  I bought these clothes at the Goodwill.

  I’m wearing shoes donated after the Big Fire.

  They don’t know, most of my nieces and nephews

  are Filipino, and 9 great-nieces

  and great-nephews, Filipino Chinese

  Americans. They don’t know me, I am like them,

  my marriage like theirs. Wife works for money;

  husband, employed or unemployed, has fun.

  Son, too, has fun. Men know how

  to play. Music. Sports. Theater. These women

  don’t know, I work 2 jobs.

  I moonlight, do the work-for-money

  and the writing. I wish I

  had thought to be a stay-at-home mom.

  (How interesting: The girl makes wishes for

  the future. The eldress, for the past.)

  I, too, send money to villages, the promise

  made to family when leaving them. My BaBa,

  who arrived in New York City when Lindberg

  landed in Paris, vowed: I will not

  forget you. I will always send money

  home. The Pilipina maids see

  me a lazy dowager, and hate me.

  Crone. Witch. Aswang. Old woman

  going about with long hair down

  like a young woman’s, but white. Normal

  in Berkeley, beautiful in Berkeley. And in the Philippines

  I’m already in costume for Aswang Festival,

  day before Hallowe’en, days after

  my birthday. Come on, fête me and my season.

  On the grass in a city park, our male traveller

  feeling his lone hobo self, laid

  his body down with backpack for pillow.

  In San Francisco, it was 2 o’clock the night

  before. Going west from California’s

  shores, jumping forward in time, he’d arrived

  at the house of maternity, the land of migrations.

  Sleeping in public, jet-lagged, soul

  not caught up with body, body

  loose from soul, body trusted itself to

  the grass, the ground, the earth, the good earth,

  and rested in that state where dream is wake,

  wake is dream. Conscious you are conscious.

  Climb—fly—high and higher, and know:

  Now / Always, all connects to all.

  All that is is good. His ancestresses—

  PoPo Grandma and Ma,

  so long in America—are here, the Center.

  Expired, Chinese people leave go of

  cloudsouls that fly to this place.

  Breathe, and be breathed. The air smells

  of farawayness. Seas. Trash. Old

  fish. The Chinese enjoy this smell,

  fragrant, the hong in Hong Kong, Fragrant Harbor.

  Yes, something large, dark, quiet,

  receptive—Yin—is breathing, breathing me

  as I am breathing her. My individual

  mind, body, cloudsoul melds

  with the Yin. Mother. I’m home. But

  stir, and the Land of Women goes. Wittman

  arose to bass drums of engines—multiple

  pulses and earth-deep throbs.
Forces

  of rushing people. Monday morning go-

  to-work people. The City. (The late riser

  has missed the tai chi, the kung fu,

  the chi kung. While he was sleeping, the artists

  of the chi, mostly women, Chinese

  women, were moving, dancing the air / the wind /

  energy / life, and getting the world turning.

  They’d segued from pose to pose—spread

  white-crane wings, repulse monkey,

  grasp bird by tail, high pat

  on horse, stand like rooster on one leg,

  snake-creep down, return to mountain.

  They played with the chi, drawing circles in the sky,

  lifting earth to sky, pulling sky

  to earth, swirling the controllable universe.

  Then walked off to do their daily ordinary tasks.)

  Wittman, non-moneymaker, fled

  the financial district. Already dressed,

  the same clothes asleep and awake, he merged

  with a crowdstream, and boarded a westbound

  train. Go deep in-country.

  Find China. Hong Kong is not China.

  The flow of crowd stopped, jammed inside

  the train. Wittman was one among the mass

  that shoved and was shoved onto the area

  over the coupling between cars. They

  would ride standing pressed, squashed,

  breathing one another’s breath, hoisting

  and holding loads—Panasonic and Sony

  ACs—above heads. The train

  started, the crowd lurched, the air conditioners

  rocked, almost fell but didn’t. Men

  prized through the packed-tight crowd,

  squeezed themselves from one car to the next,

  and back again. A man, not a vendor,

  jostled through, lugging a clinking

  weight of bottled drinks that could’ve smashed

  the upturned faces of the short people. Bags

  smelled of cooked meat. I have food,

  I can do anything. I know I can.

  I know I can. Hard-seat travel.

  Suffer more, worth more. The destination

  more worth it. The Chinese have not

  invented comfort. People fell asleep

  on their feet. They work hard, they’re tired,

  grateful for a spot of room to rest. Rest.

  Rest. A boy slept astraddle his father,

  father asleep too, 2 sleeping

  heads, head at peace against head.

  Had Wittman and his son ever shared one

  undistracted moment of being quiet?

  Though tall, he could not see above the crowd

  and their belongings. What country was rolling past

  unappreciated? The train—a local—made stops.

  More people squeezed aboard. On and on

  and on, yet on the border of immense China.