There’s an old journal somewhere in my grandmother’s house filled with pages written in Chinese. My mom says that my grandmother, when she was alive, would talk about the journal. She was proud and sad. The beautiful penmanship. The detail of the prose. I was eight and full of potential when I’d written those lines. And now what? So much has been emptied out.
I remember one entry in particular, because I had written it with the intention of showing off. I’d described a trip to the zoo and each animal I’d seen. How the turtles’ eyes were like sesame seeds (a simile stolen from somewhere else) and how the ponies’ braided tails whipped back and forth like clockwork to keep the flies away. Or maybe it had been a trip to a temple and the descriptions were about the buildings, the incense, and the Buddhas carved into the walls?
I thought I had retained at least this, the memory of what had been written, and only forgotten the medium, the language. In trying to remember, however, what’s frightening is that it’s become clear I’ve forgotten both.
That same labmate shared with me his theory that the world will end due to increasing levels of stress. People will compete and never relax and always try to innovate and achieve until they are so high-strung that the world collapses. A place like this—he pointed down at the lab’s shining linoleum floors. This breeds stress. Take care of your boyfriend. Then he walked off.
The details of such an ending were sparse in his telling. I doubt it will happen like that. Much more likely, a drug-resistant bacteria takes us down, or rising sea levels and heat render the earth uninhabitable. But it’s an interesting theory, hustling toward death.
When I tell J, after he is finally done with work, he says, “I think he meant stressed people hate each other and it causes conflict, like war.”
“Is that how you feel in the program?”
“Not yet, no,” he says. “But I see people like that all of the time.”
It seems fitting that I should talk to you about peace, because my nation is the only one in the world which has lived up to your doctrine. Perhaps it is fitting, too, that a woman should talk to the peace delegates, because it is woman who has kept man from becoming altogether a brute.
—Yamei Kin to Peace Congress in New York City, October 1904
Some mornings he says goodbye, but often he forgets. Some days I’ll text, You didn’t say bye and he replies, I thought you were sleeping.
And many nights when he returns, he is the first person to whom I’ve spoken that day. Sometimes I try calling, but he is too busy to talk. So when he is home, what I want to do is talk and talk. I want to hear voices, his and my own. But he has spent a long day working and interacting and talking with people in lab. So when he is home, what he wants to do is cook and listen to his podcasts and rest. So neither of us is much satisfied with the other. Or maybe it’s mostly me who is not.
“What do you think?” I ask the sleeping dog.
He lifts his head to look at me.
“I’m sorry to wake you, but you can’t just sleep all day and ignore me.”
He tilts his head, a sign of intelligence.
“I know, it’s not fair, is it? Sometimes you want attention and I’m busy. And now I want attention and you’re asleep. But look, I’m making up for it.”
I massage his whole body, like the dog trainer taught us. It relaxes and soothes them, the trainer said.
“See. We understand each other just fine.”
I have located a three-hundred-page biography of Yamei Kin, compiled by an institution called SoyInfo Center, which touts itself as “the world’s leading source of information on soy, especially soyfoods.” Their tagline is “Soy from a Historical Perspective.” Their book on Yamei is one of dozens about various regions, figures, companies, and ingredients important to soy. But I’m less interested in that than I am in Yamei’s life. Here’s what I’ve gathered so far:
Yamei Kin and Hippolytus Laesola Amador Eca da Silva married at the British consulate in Yokohama, Japan. He was a musician and a linguist. A year later, they move to Hawaii, where she works as a doctor, and they have a child, Alexander. A year after that, she leaves Hawaii for San Francisco with Alexander in tow. No husband. But the husband follows two months later. Then Yamei leaves with her son for Los Angeles, where she gives her first lecture on missionary work in Japan and China.
The Los Angeles Herald reported in February 1902:
The women of China are supposed to represent a type of the oldest and least progressive women of the civilized countries. But even in China the new woman is slowly but surely gaining a recognition. Recently the empress dowager gave a reception to the ladies of the foreign legations in Pekin and the wife of Minister Conger delivered a spirited and telling speech. And now courtesy may be returned in kind, for we have a real Chinese new woman in our midst. To be sure, she is partially a product of our American life and institutions, but nevertheless it is to the Flowery Kingdom that credit should be given for having furnished us this entertaining and unusual illustration of what the Chinese new woman may become.
As for Hippolytus, there is little mention beyond stating that Yamei, “weary of her husband,” leaves her son in the care of a friend and takes a six-month work trip to Japan.
To pass the time, I click around the map on a travel site, searching for the cheapest plane tickets to various locations. I’ve saved up enough money from aggregating to afford a last-minute trip to nearly all of Europe, and most parts of Asia, including China, if I find cheap or free places to stay.
In J’s rare spare time, we do have one new shared hobby: going to estate sales and antiques stores, of which there are many in the area. At one, the man showing us around tells us about his dead mother.
“She lets me know she’s here from time to time,” says the man. He’s wiry and thin. He has the kind of sun-damaged face that makes it hard to pinpoint an age, and a sharp desperation to his speech, like we’re the first people he’s seen in days. A real possibility. “After she died in the fire—you see, the store used to be three times the size, now we just got the little storefront for the fancy stuff and this barn for everything else—after she passed away, I didn’t leave the house for seven years. I couldn’t step outside, not even to get the mail. You want that coffee table there? That’s a nice one. I’ll carry it down for you. I got it. I got it. I’m stronger than I look. My mom, she keeps watch over me. She flickers the lights to let me know she’s in here. Dad doesn’t believe me, but I know it. I know she’s speaking to me. She’s watching over me.”
We offer twenty dollars for the table, but the man says he only wants fifteen. He tells us to stop by anytime. He’ll show us around the local farms and places, he’s got the time.
“We will,” I tell him.
“We are not going on a tour with him,” J says back in the car.
“What? Why not?”
“Dude, that guy was crazy.”
“He seemed nice. And he could show me around, since I have no friends.”
“You don’t want to be friends with a crazy person,” says him.
“Maybe he’s just sad and lonely.”
“You always think crazy people aren’t crazy.”
“Maybe then that means I’m crazy.”
He laughs and pats my knee. “Oh, Jing Jing.”
“Don’t condescend,” I say.
This bee has been hovering by the bedroom window for three long minutes. Does it badly want to get inside? Why? There’s nothing going on in here. I tap the glass to scare it away, but it is not deterred. Perhaps it is studying me as I am studying it.
On Instagram, another one of my former coworkers, this time the younger-than-me Business reporter, stands in front of a wall with the words THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: DIGITAL NETWORK. Accompanied by an obnoxiously long comment that begins with “Some personal news” and goes on to detail his new reporting position, how much hard work it took for him to get there, and the many, many thanks to the many, many people (appropriately tagged) who helpe
d him get to where he is today. Forty-seven minutes ago, seventy-eight likes.
I close out the app. Yes, I should unfollow them all. I should not spend so much time on other people’s lives. Instead, I spend the afternoon looking up journalism job listings in New York City. Just to look, I say to myself.
Another tech reporter with whom I’m acquainted, but whom I never liked—he was the type to push his way to the front at a product announcement, as if being a few minutes ahead got him the scoop—sends me an email asking if I can talk about the aggregation work I’m doing. He wants to understand why the company has decided to use humans, instead of algorithms, and how this affects what shows up on the feeds. He says he’s heard from some that it’s a biased process, that certain topics and sources are off-limits. Is it true? He’s working on a feature. Can I talk? Can I answer some questions? Provide some insight?
I read the email a couple more times, but do not reply. I don’t want to be his source and it bothers me that he has found me doing something I’m not especially proud to be doing.
The tea bag says: The purpose of life is to know yourself, to love yourself, to trust yourself, to be yourself.
By when is one meant to achieve this purpose?
The SoyInfo Center biography is lengthy and dense, a collection of nearly five hundred documents compiled over thirty-five years. In the index, under “Important Documents #1,” is a short list of page numbers. I go through to check each one for more about Yamei’s personal life, but they are all about her work in relation to bringing soy and other agricultural plants from China to the United States. In one letter, she writes on pai ts’ai: “It is especially prized for its sweet ‘buttery’ flavor which I have heard characterized of certain varieties of lettuce. It is not eaten raw or for salad purposes: but when dropped into boiling hot water after being cut up in fairly large pieces it makes a staple green vegetable. The rapid growth struck me as being valuable, for if in the same time as is necessary for growing lettuce, one can obtain a good green cabbage, it will be undoubtedly as popular here as it is in China.”
At the museum I watch the decades-old computer boot up its home screen pixel line by pixel line. I have not seen anything like it since the ’90s, or maybe ever. Rebecca has left a folder of receipts on the desk, with a sticky note: Please tape these on individual pieces of paper for the accountant. Thanks! Sticky note is her preferred mode of communication.
The inefficient and antiquated process of it all drives me mad.
My recent major accomplishments have been to teach the dog to lie down and leave it and where’s J? If J is home, then the dog runs straight to him. If J is not home, the dog runs to the window and stares outside.
In the yard, busying myself. Do the weeds know they’re dying when they’ve been pulled out? Or are they unaware as they slowly wither? Technically, they’re still alive when they’re in my fist.
She is typically Chinese in appearance. There are the pale complexion, the dark hair, the small dark eyes twinkling with fun. Small in stature, but alert and active in body and mind. Dr. Kin wisely retains her Chinese dress.
“I am a pioneer,” she says, “and know a pioneer’s difficulties.” But her example has made the way easier for others to follow. . . .
“You must make your own plans and carry your scheme to success.”
—Altoona Mirror, 1911
There had been many other plans and goals. As a kid, I’d have fantasies of playing flute concerts in front of thousands of people, being applauded by them all, though I was a shit flutist. Same goes for pretty much every activity I tried. Brief obsessions that lapsed when I realized I would not succeed. Tennis, guitar, gymnastics, ribbon dancing, watercolor, swimming, or whatever else I thought had potential. I was also very into parrots at one point, but I didn’t know how to be “the best at parrots.”
Now a text from the reporter, who has gotten my phone number from somebody: Did you see my email? I just have a couple questions.
Again, I do not reply.
Buzzing, buzzing, my stupid phone. I hold it close to my face and see a missed call from a long string of digits, my dad’s Chinese phone number. It is two in the morning. I put the phone back on the side table. A few minutes later, the buzzing again. J grumbles beside me. This time I pick up.
“Call me back,” my dad says, and hangs up. He never calls because it costs much more for him than the calling card does from my end. It must be an emergency. I put on my glasses and get out of bed.
“What’s going on?” J mumbles.
“Nothing,” I say as I walk out.
In the office, I dial the calling card number, then the account number, then my dad’s number, but get an error message. The number does not exist. I hang up and try again. And again. When my dad picks up, I speak quietly into the phone. “What’s wrong, are you okay?”
“Hi, Jing Jing,” he says. He sounds cheerful, too cheerful. “I was just thinking I hadn’t heard from you in a while. I was walking back from the store with my case of beer—you know they said they can deliver now, straight to my door? And it doesn’t cost extra. I might take them up on it. Save me the trip. I was walking back and I thought, How long has it been since I heard from Jing Jing? It’s been longer than usual, right? How’s the weather there? It’s starting to get cold, isn’t it? The leaves must be changing colors, yes?”
“Daddy, it’s two in the morning here.”
“Oh, it is? Sorry, sorry. I must have calculated the time difference wrong. Ha ha, sorry, you know I’m getting old. Sometimes I can’t think straight.”
I strain to hear background sounds, but there is nothing to distinguish his location. “Are you sure you’re okay? Where are you right now?”
“I’m fine. I’m in my apartment. Don’t worry about your old man.” I can hear him gulp and swallow something. “Have you met real New Yorkers yet?”
“What? Daddy, is something going on?”
“I said I’m fine! You’re the one who sounds sick. What, are you catching a cold?”
“No. It’s the middle of the night. You woke me up.”
“Oh, right, sorry. Sorry to bother you. Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”
“Okay. Can you please just take care of yourself?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he says. “I’m watching this TV program now about the Tang dynasty. You know, that was the most progressive dynasty, especially for women. I would say it was my favorite dynasty.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“‘Okay, Daddy,’” he imitates. “You sound so grumpy. What, you’re not happy to talk to me?”
“I just want to go back to sleep.”
“Okay, okay. Let me ask you this. Are you proud to have a father like me?”
I close my eyes. I can feel a headache starting. I try to take even breaths.
“Hello? Did you hear me?”
“Yes,” I say. “Sure. I am.”
“Okay, good. Say hello to your bonehead for me. Love you. Sleep well. What did you used to say as a kid? See you later, alligator.”
“Right. Bye, love you.”
“Don’t love me too much,” he says, and hangs up.
I sit there for a while. Now Yamei Kin’s face on the wall looks pitying and judgmental. Really, what are you doing?
I go back into the bedroom. Light from the streetlamps outside is coming through the window. J has left the curtains open, because he likes to wake to natural sunlight. I close them, because I want to sleep in. When I get back into bed, J scoots up against me in the dark, wordless. He puts his arm around me for a while, but I can’t bear his touch. I push him off and tell him to give me some room. This wakes him. “So mean,” J whimpers. I pull the blanket over my head, curl on my side, and stay like that until late morning, long after he has left.
I was nineteen when I was able to put a name to my father’s scent. It was during a party and I pressed myself up against J. He kissed my cheek, his stubble rubbed against my skin, and the smell of him brought me st
raight back to my father when he’d kiss me good night as a child. I had always thought it was a cologne, but this on J was not cologne. It was a mixture of beer on his breath and some kind of deodorant, but mostly it was the beer breath, that warm, malty, human scent. I was torn between feeling closer to J and feeling further from them both.
It occurs to me, too, that I see J as little as I saw my dad as a kid, and the thought irritates me. What greater loneliness and longing is there than living with someone you once knew so well, and who is now hardly around?
“Where are the numbers?” Tracy Chou, a software engineer at Pinterest, asks in a blog post directed at tech companies withholding employee diversity data (including the one for which I am freelancing). How many women are working in tech, in engineering roles in particular? “The actual numbers I’ve seen and experienced in industry are far lower than anybody is willing to admit.” She offers Pinterest’s numbers: eleven women out of eighty-nine engineers. She says this is on par with the gender ratio of those graduating with CS degrees. “We have to be thoughtful about sourcing candidates and building the right culture, and we invest in deliberate efforts to connect with women in the community.”
I post it on the app’s Tech channel. A half hour later I receive an email from the contracted editorial lead: Hey, I got a complaint from HQ about that piece, so removed it. They didn’t love the critique. Plus, it’s not news, per se, and they want to keep it to hard-hitting news. Otherwise, great job with the picks today!
People like to holler at us, from across the street, from out of the windows of their cars, from their porches, or just as they walk by.
“Best-looking dog this side of the Mississippi!”
“How much did she cost?”
“Do you have a license for that wild animal?”
“Two walking works of art!”
Before I can process or respond, the hollerers speed away. I wonder if they are satisfied with the exchange. Me, not so much. The dog tugs us both forward, unbothered.
Days of Distraction Page 17