All In

by Jerry Yang

  Unless the other players had snuck into the Pechanga or Lake Elsinore casinos and watched me in my local weekend tournaments, they didn’t have any notes on me beyond their observations during the World Series of Poker.

  I’d played at the same table as some of them, giving them a read on me and vice versa. However, one’s style of play and approach to the game are different at the final table than they are in the earlier rounds.

  The fact that I’d watched Lee Watkinson play final tables on television gave me just a little more information about him than he had on me. And when it comes to Texas Hold ’Em, sometimes a little extra information can make all the difference.

  I didn’t sleep much better the night before the biggest day of poker of my life. The children spread sleeping bags out across the suite’s living room. One or two may have crawled between my parents in their bed.

  Sue and I managed to keep everyone out of our room. It was our first chance to really talk since I’d come to Las Vegas twelve days earlier. For most of the night, we talked about how our lives were about to change.

  “Mommy, no matter what happens, you’ll be able to be a stay-at-home mom just like you’ve always wanted. Even if I’m the first one out, we’ll be able to pay off everything and live on my salary alone.”

  I cannot tell you how long I’d dreamed of being able to make that happen.

  I also talked poker strategy, which she didn’t understand, but that didn’t matter. It helped me just to have her listen.

  Sue caught me up on everything that had taken place at home since I’d left for Vegas. With six children, there’s always something happening in our house.

  We discussed who we wanted to keep the children while I played poker the next day. I needed Sue in the Amazon Room with me. Most of our extended family either had already arrived or were on their way to Las Vegas. We had plenty of babysitters to choose from.

  And we talked about giving one-tenth of whatever I won to a very good cause. Both of us knew we must use the money for something bigger than ourselves.

  Sue and I talked and talked some more. We’d been apart too long. Both of us eventually drifted to sleep in the middle of our conversation.

  Before I knew it, the alarm rang. Six o’clock had come so quickly.

  Even before my feet hit the floor, the adrenaline was pumping. Perhaps I should have been more nervous. A queasy feeling hit me, but I also felt incredibly calm as I contemplated the day ahead.

  No one ever anticipated I’d come so far. No matter what happened, I was already a winner. Yet I knew in my heart of hearts I didn’t want to settle for ninth place any more than I’d wanted to settle for the experience of having played in the World Series of Poker on day one.

  “Mommy, I truly believe I can win this thing. I think I can do it.”

  “I know you can, Daddy. I know you can.” She gave me a look, one different from the one she’d shot across the room two short years earlier. I could see in her eyes she truly believed what she said. I was ready, not merely to play but to win.

  19

  Landing in Paradise

  The bus ride from Ban Vinai to Bangkok turned out to be less fairy tale and more like the life we Yangs had come to expect. About halfway there, the bus in front of us braked for a narrow bridge. I don’t know if our driver wasn’t paying attention or if he simply wasn’t looking at that moment, but he didn’t slow down and our bus slammed into the one ahead. No one was hurt, but the force of the collision knocked out our windshield.

  Not long after that, a heavy rain began to fall. Since we were on the front row, my brother and I rode the rest of the way with the wind and rain blowing over us. By the time we finally arrived in Bangkok, both of us were on the verge of getting sick.

  My father didn’t want to take the chance of a cold delaying our trip the rest of the way to the United States, so once we settled into the dorm-like room in Bangkok, he pulled out a needle and said, “Xao, Xay, come over here and lie down.”

  I knew what he was going to do: a traditional Hmong healing technique that I hated, though it always seemed to work.

  My father had each of us sit on the floor next to a warm bowl of water. He dipped his hands in, clapped them, then pushed on our stomachs and out toward our arms. Back and forth he went, from the stomach to the arm, pushing the bad blood away from the core of the body. He then tied a string around each wrist and applied pressure up each finger. Finally, once all the bad blood was concentrated in the tips of our fingers, with a needle he poked below each fingernail and squeezed the blood out. Once all the bad blood was out, he dipped our fingers into the warm water. Finally, he scraped off the top layer of each nail with a knife and sent us to bed. I don’t know how one might explain it medically, but the procedure made me feel a lot better.

  This was not the last time I was poked with a needle while in Bangkok. For the next three days, teams of doctors and nurses poked and prodded and peeked into every part of my body. Even though the medical staff at Ban Vinai had given us many immunizations through the years, apparently the United States required even more. My arm felt like a pincushion. They also ran tests on us to make sure we didn’t have diseases like TB or worms.

  The day of testing lasted forever. To make matters worse, they didn’t allow us to eat until they were finished.

  Oh, I was so hungry. Just think, Xao, soon you’ll land in America and have all the food you want.

  On our third day in Bangkok, a bus pulled up in front of our dormitory.

  “This is it,” my father told us. “We’re going to the airport to get on an airplane for America.”

  I’d never seen a plane up close. The nearest I’d ever come was watching the MiG fighters buzz over our village in Laos.

  From the outside, the airport looked like all the other buildings we’d been herded in and out of the past few days. The Thai officials led us through the ticketing area and security as a group, then into a room to wait. For three days we’d played a variation of this game, moving from room to room, waiting to be told what to do.

  After about an hour, our hosts herded us through a long hallway into another room with small, round windows and rows of three chairs on each side and of another five or six in the middle.

  Our escort seated us in the middle section, which meant I couldn’t see out the window. The chair, however, was quite comfortable, much more so than those in all the other waiting areas.

  Voices came through the intercom, but I didn’t know what they were talking about. A short time later, my chair began to rock just a little. The windows were too small for me to really view much, but it looked like we were moving.

  A nice woman in a uniform said in Thai, “Please buckle your seat belts.”

  “What?”

  She reached down, pulled the belts from both sides of my seat, and buckled them together.

  I thanked her, then said, “Is this room moving?”

  She smiled. “Why, yes, it is. The pilot just pulled away from the gate. We should be in the air soon.”

  “This is the airplane?”

  “Yes, of course.” She left to assist other passengers.

  I wanted to run to the window to see what was really happening, but I couldn’t because of the seat belt. The plane made a rumbling, and I found myself pressed against my seat. Finally, the shaking stopped and the noise around me changed.

  “Are we flying?” I asked my father.

  “Yes, Xao, we are flying.” He laughed.

  A short time later, a bell dinged.

  “You can get up now,” my father said to me and my brothers.

  Most of the seats on either side of us were empty. My brothers and I jumped up and rushed to a nearby window.

  “Wow,” Xay said, “can you believe this? We’re on top of the clouds.”

  I laughed. “I know. I never dreamed you could look down on the clouds. This is so cool.”

  We stared out that window forever. Well, until the flight attendants came with food. I
didn’t want to miss out on the food!

  I know people used to complain about airplane food, back when airlines still served meals, but to me as a twelve-year-old boy who’d spent his entire life hungry, eating half-rotten food in a refugee camp for years, airplane food was gourmet dining at its best.

  Still, something on my plate didn’t look edible. It was red but clear, and it jiggled with the rocking of the plane.

  When the flight attendant came by, I asked, “What is this?”

  “Jell-O.”

  “Is it food? I don’t think I should eat it.”

  She laughed. “Oh, yes, it’s food. Try it. I think you’ll like it.”

  I scooped up a little on my spoon. It looked even stranger close up. I sniffed it. Hmmm, it smells kind of fruity. Then I tasted it. Oh my. Where has this been all my life? I love this Jell-O stuff.

  To wash everything down, I had a small brown carton with some liquid in it. I was reluctant to try it and had no idea how to open it.

  On her next pass through the cabin, the flight attendant noticed my hesitation. “It’s okay. Here, let me open it for you.”

  As with the Jell-O, I sniffed the drink first. Then I took a swig. “Wow, what do you call this stuff?”

  “Chocolate milk.”

  “It feels like a party in my mouth.” I nudged my brother. “Xay, this is it. We’re going to eat like this from now on. If this is how they eat there, I think I’m going to enjoy America.”

  My brother’s mouth was half full of Jell-O. “Meeeee tooooooooo.”

  Our flight from Bangkok to San Francisco lasted over seventeen hours. Thankfully, with so few passengers on board, my brothers and I were able to stretch out on the seats and sleep.

  A few hours into the flight, I needed to go to the bathroom. My oldest brother had gone earlier, so I asked him, “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Down this aisle toward the back. It’s a little room. You will see it.”

  I found it all right, but when I walked in and closed the door, I wasn’t sure what to do. The hole was up off the ground, and the board covering it didn’t look stable. This doesn’t make a lot of sense, I thought.

  This was the first of many culture shocks awaiting me.

  The plane felt as if it was slowing when the pilot’s voice came through the intercom to announce in Thai that we would soon land in San Francisco. My brothers and I pressed our faces against the window and looked at the most glorious sight I’d ever seen. The Bible book of Revelation describes heaven as a city with streets of gold. Looking down on the Golden Gate Bridge and the Transamerica Pyramid, along with the brilliant green grass and the rolling hills leading to the bay below, I thought this had to be what the Bible had in mind.

  “So beautiful,” one of my brothers said.

  “I can’t wait to see it up close.” I grinned.

  After we’d landed, our escorts led us through the terminal to a waiting shuttle bus.

  Wide-eyed, I looked at all the people in the airport. They were all so tall, the ladies so beautiful. I couldn’t get over the first blonde woman I saw. I’d never imagined anyone could have that hair color.

  The shuttle took us to a hotel where we stayed while our paperwork was processed. Our hosts led us into a banquet room, where a buffet awaited us.

  Xay and I walked toward a large pot filled with noodles covered in some sort of red stuff with lumps of meat sticking up. “Xay, look at that. They covered the noodles in blood. That’s disgusting.”

  “It doesn’t smell like blood,” he said. “Look, the Americans are already eating it. We should give it a try.”

  “I will if you will.” With that, I took my first bite of spaghetti and meatballs. “Hmmmm, this isn’t bad at all.”

  The staff also served us salad and fruit. I recognized the bananas and oranges but didn’t know what to make of the orange-sized fruit with the smooth, red skin. I took a bite and liked it. Later, someone told me it was an apple.

  The one fruit that really caught my eye was small and round and came in bunches. Some were red, some black, some green. I pulled off a red one and ate it. It tasted like candy— the best I’d ever had. I grabbed another and stared at it a moment. “What kind of fruit is this, and why is it so sweet? Do they soak these in sugar?”

  “No,” I was told through an interpreter, “they’re naturally sweet. They’re called grapes.”

  I ate grapes until I felt sick, and then I kept on eating them. Pure joy swept over me. This is the America I dreamed about. I also ate more Jell-O. Lots and lots of Jell-O. For dessert, I had my first ever chocolate chip cookie. I’m still a big fan.

  After our meal, my father went to take care of our paperwork while our escort took Xay, Kham Dy, and me to our hotel room. We stayed in one room; our parents and two other brothers stayed in another.

  Before we left the banquet room, I overheard the escort tell my father, “You’ll stay here tonight. Tomorrow you’ll fly to your destination to meet your brother.”

  My father seemed anxious to get back on an airplane and fly to Nashville right then.

  Me? I didn’t mind having to spend the night in San Francisco. Not if they planned to keep feeding us like this.

  When the escort opened the door to our hotel room, I thought we were at a palace. “Wow, can you believe this place?”

  “No,” Xay said.

  Without a word, Kham Dy jumped into the middle of the king-sized bed and went right to sleep.

  “Look, a television,” Xay said. Neither of us had seen one up close before. “I wonder how you get it to work.”

  “Let’s find out.” I started turning knobs.

  “You’re going to break it.

  You should just leave it alone.”

  “No, I won’t. Besides, I once saw a policeman watching Jackie Chan on a television in the security shed at Ban Vinai. Don’t you want to watch Jackie Chan?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  After I turned one or two knobs, the screen lit up and sound came out.

  The two of us sat back on the bed and stared in wonder. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Jackie Chan.

  “What is this?” I said.

  “I don’t know. It looks like some kind of game, but it’s the craziest one I’ve ever seen.”

  On the television, oversized men in heavy pads and helmets lined up, then ran into one another.

  “Why don’t they go around?” I said.

  We watched, but neither of us could figure out the point of the game.

  After a few minutes, I said, “I’m going to see what else is on.”

  “No, Xao, don’t mess with it. Just leave it here or turn it off.”

  The Tom Sawyer in me ignored my brother, and I turned knobs until something happened. Somehow, I managed to change the channel.

  Instead of athletes, a puppet came on the screen. Apparently he was about to go to bed, just like Xay and me. The puppet walked to the window, shivered, and shut the window.

  “Close,” he said, then climbed back into bed.

  Another puppet came into the room, also dressed for bed, and walked to the window and raised it. “Open.”

  Then the first puppet shut the window and said, “Close.” The second puppet raised the window again and said, “Open.”

  The puppets, who called one another Ernie and Bert, gave us our first English lesson. Sesame Street sure beat football.

  To this day, my brother and I still joke about Bert and Ernie and “open” and “close.”

  After my brother and I went to bed, I sympathized with Bert. This was my first time sleeping on an actual mattress. The bed was amazing, but neither my brother nor I could figure out how we were supposed to sleep under the sheets. The hotel maid had tucked them in so tightly that we couldn’t squeeze between the covers. Instead, we slept on top and shivered all night.

  The next morning a shuttle bus arrived to take us back to the airport.

  “Next stop: Nashville,” my father said.

  “And Gr
andmother?” I replied.

  “Yes, and your grandmother.” He smiled.

  I was so excited that I could hardly contain myself. I did manage to eat breakfast, another meal of firsts, in which I discovered Corn Flakes, bacon, and sausage. I had yet to try a food in America I didn’t like.

  The plane from San Francisco to Nashville was much smaller than the 747 we’d taken from Bangkok. After everyone had boarded, one of the flight attendants introduced herself. She knew we were moving from the other side of the world to Nashville and was assigned to take special care of us.

  I looked up at her in amazement. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, she looked like an angel. And her nose. I could not stop staring at her nose. All the people I’d known had short or very flat noses, but this woman’s was long and shaped just right.

  Once the plane was in the air, this flight attendant brought my brothers and me some chocolate milk along with some coloring books and crayons.

  I opened the book and laughed. “Xay, remember these guys?” Then I spoke my first English words: “Open, close.”

  Xay laughed. “Ernie and Bert must be big stars in America. They’re everywhere.”

  Halfway through the flight, I was tired of coloring, so I drew the mountains of Laos with a river flowing down. During my time in school in Ban Vinai, this had been my favorite picture to draw. When I was finished, I gave the page to the flight attendant with the beautiful nose and tried to explain that this was my village where I’d grown up.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t speak Hmong, Lao, or Thai, and my English was limited to “open” and “close.” She smiled and took the picture as if she understood.

  From the sky, Nashville looked different from San Francisco. It was October, which meant many of the trees we could see from the air had multicolored leaves: reds, yellows, and oranges. What amazing trees.

  Once we were finally on the ground, I couldn’t wait to get off the plane. An escort led us up the long, narrow hallway and through a door.