American Panda

by Gloria Chao

  Instead of trying to make sense of the confusing mix of envy and sympathy fomented by his words, I simply nodded.

  My mother exited the bathroom, her makeup the same as before, as far as I could tell. Ten rapid steps brought her to the table, and she stuck a hand out with a polite, “Hello, I’m Mrs. Lu.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Darren.”

  “Darren . . . ?” She waved her hand in a circle.

  “Takahashi.”

  Her lips pursed to the side, then returned to a demure smile as she stepped to the left to clear him an exit path. “Nice to meet you. Have a great day.”

  If he was bothered by the send-off, he didn’t let it show. I, for the record, was very much bothered but also knew it could have been worse. My mother not asking for his SAT scores or views on divorce was an improvement over her past record.

  “Mei, it was a pleasure meeting you. I hope I see you around campus.” He winked, making me freeze.

  I managed another hip-level wave before he was out of sight.

  My mother folded herself into the seat and placed her hands on the table, one over the other. My radar pinged—I was going to hate the next ten minutes.

  “He’s Japanese, Mei.”

  “And?”

  “They murdered our family. Orphaned my mother.” Her voice caught as it always did whenever she spoke of the war.

  “He didn’t kill them. Please, don’t make a thing of this. He saw my MIT shirt and came over to introduce himself. He probably won’t remember me in a week.” I hoped that last part was a lie.

  My mother raised an eyebrow. “I saw how he was looking at you. You know the rules. No Japanese boys.”

  Or white, black, or Hispanic. Only Taiwanese, and a doctor to boot. I had been so excited about finally being allowed to date that I had overlooked the restrictions. Until now.

  “I already found your husband, Mei. Eugene Huang. Dr. Eugene Huang. Búyào tuō kùzi fàngpì”—that is, Don’t take your pants off to fart, the Chinese idiom my family used for, Don’t waste your time doing something extraneous. In this case, dating.

  “Oh my God, Mǎmá.” I dropped my head in my hands, the flush from my cheeks warming my palms.

  My mother fetched the dreaded comb from her purse. It looked like a normal, innocent comb, but I knew it was made from a dead cow’s foot. “Do you have a headache? Come here. Let me guā yi guā your neck.”

  The cuteness of the Chinese phrase is deceiving—it means to scrape away, as in skin and blood, not toxins as the ancient healers once believed (and my mother still believes). I shuddered thinking about her sanding my neck until it looked like I had measles.

  I did, in fact, have a bit of a headache, as any seventeen-year-old would upon hearing that her mother had already picked out her future husband. But I wasn’t letting that bacteria-covered hoof near me.

  I knew from experience not to fight this one with logic, which only instigated tongue clicks and guilt, my mother’s number one weapon. You dishonor your ancestors. Our medicine has been around longer. How can you, a future doctor, not understand that the practice of guāshā lets out bad energy?

  Instead, I pasted a smile on my face and lied. “I feel great. Don’t bother with the cow’s hoof. Búyào tuō kùzi fàngpì, right?”

  My mother smiled and the tension waned. Nothing like using her own wisdom to lighten the mood. Sometimes I just had to whip out my Mandarin. I pulled another trick out of my xiùzi. “I saw on Facebook that Amberly Ahn has a new boyfriend.”

  My mother bit the hook. Gossiping was harder for her to turn down than a soup dumpling is for me. “Ah, thank goodness.”

  As she chatted on and on about all the horrible things Amberly and her mother have done—Mrs. Ahn betrayed me, wanting Eugene for Amberly. Hunh! As if Mrs. Huang would want Amberly’s tiny hips instead of your child-bearing form—I felt a (very odd) sense of security wrap around me, a blanket of comfort. Even though some—okay, most—of the things she was saying were gross, even though I didn’t really want to meet Eugene, there was some kind of twisted pride in there.

  And Chow Chow was my second home, my Taiwanese home away from my Taiwanese home. I knew its calligraphy wallpaper and ceiling lanterns as well as the plastic wrap covering my parents’ furniture.

  My father strolled in and sat sans words. Upon his arrival, the waiter brought over our favorite appetizer: “open-mouth” dumplings with steam pouring out the sides. Fitting, since I was sitting with my mouth open and some drool spilling out. My mother clucked her tongue at me and my jaw snapped shut.

  As I was about to dig in, my father cleared his throat—a thundering noise that always made me sit up straight and lower my eyes. “Mei, a few words.” He paused for effect. “MIT is your first step to a good life. Work hard, get good grades, get into a good medical school, and make us proud. Don’t worry, we will be watching every step of the way. We will see you here, at Chow Chow, every Saturday, to check in.” A decree, not a request.

  My mother gave me the eyeball, and I knew she was telecommunicating, You also need to marry Dr. Eugene Huang and pump out a litter of Taiwanese babies.

  I wanted to enjoy my newfound freedom and cut the umbilical cord, but with these words I realized it would never be severed, only stretched.

  When my parents raised their soy milk and plum smoothie in the air, I needed a moment before I could lift my pink mush in return.

  Voicemail from my mother

  Remember Amberly Ahn? She had eyelid surgery and it turned out great. We should think about doing that for you. Maybe we can tattoo your makeup on at the same time. Remember, there are no ugly women, only lazy women. Repeat that three times every morning.

  And don’t forget, “měi” means “beautiful” in Chinese. Live up to the name I chose for you.

  Oh, and it’s your mǔqīn.

  CHAPTER 2

  BB-HATE

  WHEN I OPENED THE DOOR to my usually empty dorm room, a gorgeous girl with olive skin and wavy hair (that I was immediately jealous of ) was rearranging the furniture.

  Guess she was the replacement for Leslie, who MIT’s roommate-pairing algorithm had originally thought to be The One for me. But they hadn’t accounted for Taiwanese politics. Upon seeing my chopstick-straight hair and black-as-bean-paste eyes, Leslie had asked, before I even knew her name, “Where’re you from?”

  Given her similar hair and eyes, her question had startled the words right out of me. I was used to being asked this, but not by other Asians, at least not in that tone. I gave her the answer I gave everyone: “Massachusetts.”

  She shook her head at me, annoyed, same as everyone else. I rubbed my eyes in case her Chinese-ness was somehow a hallucination.

  Nope.

  Instead of asking all the questions flooding my brain—Why does it matter? Well, where are you from? What the hell is your name?—I said, “I’m Taiwanese,” hoping to move past the awkwardness so we could start the lifelong friendship promised me by books and movies.

  “Thank God,” she said. “I was worried you were from China.”

  Well, that was weird. And a first. “If I were, then would we not be friends?”

  She furrowed her eyebrows at me for a second. Then the realization dawned on her face and she sighed, not bothering to hide her exasperation and perhaps even exaggerating it. “That means your parents aren’t native.”

  When I stuck my chin out, silently asking what she was talking about, she clarified. “Your family came to Taiwan in 1949, during the Communist Revolution.” A statement, not a question. Then she said the sentence that would haunt me for years to come. “Your family killed my family.”

  I gaped. Just stood there with my eyes wide, mouth open—completely incapacitated by the bomb she’d just set off. Finally, I managed to squeak out, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Figures. Learn your own history. When your people”—she practically spat the word—“invaded our home, you massacred us—my grandpa—for no
reason.”

  “I—I’m sorry,” I stuttered, so overwhelmed by the venom in her voice, as if I had personally wielded a gun in that war.

  “And you all covered it up like they always do.” She repacked the T-shirt she had just unpacked. “You don’t get to call yourself Taiwanese. You’re not. And you’re not Chinese either, since your grandparents fled from there. You don’t belong anywhere.”

  I was used to being shunned by others for my different-tinted skin, different-shaped eyes, and my parents’ difficulty with ls and rs, but this was completely new. I guess to Leslie, we weren’t the same either. Shortly thereafter, her bed was empty, a constant reminder of how much I didn’t belong.

  So even though the new roommate intimidated me with the confidence exuding from every cell of her long, lean, stupidly perfect body, there was no way this could go any worse.

  I paused at the door and waved, a nervous grin on my face.

  She wiped her hand on her tank top—what was on there?—and stuck it out to me. “Nicolette.”

  “I’m Mei.” My hand remained by my side. There was an awkward pause as she dropped her arm and returned to moving her desk. I didn’t want to address the germ-conscious elephant in the room, so I didn’t say anything.

  With a smirk, she said, “You’re already better than my last roommate, Chatty Patty.” I wondered what Nicolette would have called her if her name had been Gwendolyn. “She wanted to be BFFs”—Nicolette rolled her eyes—“and none of that will be happening, got it?” She dumped shiny new polka-dot sheets, which were as cute as she was, onto the bed. I cringed at my garage-sale floral bedspread that screamed, I once belonged to an old lady.

  “Thanks to her, I’m stuck with you and you’re stuck with me now, k? Sorry to change your single into a double.” She emptied her suitcase on the bed but made no move to put anything away. “Oh, and just a heads-up—I’m gone most nights, so don’t ever wait up for me.”

  I shrugged, not sure what else to do.

  She nodded. “This is gonna work out great.”

  Maybe we were matched up because even the computer knew I’d be too scared to talk to her, just like she wanted. My age alone suggested I was a maladjusted, socially awkward introvert.

  Or maybe the computer just sucked.

  I felt foolish. I had never been able to show anyone what was really beneath my skin—why had I believed the roommate-pairing algorithm could find the one person to unlock my secrets? Oh for two now.

  “See ya, Mei.” Nicolette brushed out of the room, and I had a feeling those would be the last words between us for a long time.

  Laughter streamed down the hallway and in through my open door, filling my ears and taunting me. I practiced a friendly smile in the mirror (it was fake and a little creepy), straightened my clothes (still wrinkled and smelled like stale drawer), then slunk down the hall with as much confidence as a Bachelor contestant.

  Don’t mention your age, I reminded myself. There was a strange (and often detrimental) human need for the familiar, and that extended to age. In high school, after multiple negative reactions to my being younger—which included some form of slapping an “immature” label on me like a huge I on my forehead—I started avoiding the topic, even awkwardly so, making the situation worse than if I had just answered them. Why won’t you tell me your age? they would ask, worried I was a weirdo, and then, when I didn’t respond, they’d ignore me for the rest of the time because, you know, I was a weirdo.

  Maybe college was different, but why risk it? MIT did have their fair share of young phenoms, but I didn’t want to be lumped in with them. I just wanted to be Mei, whoever that was.

  The laughter embraced me as I walked into the common room, and my hope soared and straightened my spine. My plastic smile turned genuine as I looked from one pair of bright eyes to another.

  Seven students of various ages, races, and genders were spread among the four tattered sofas, separate but together. Almost everyone was wearing apparel featuring TIM the MIT Beaver, and for once I fit in.

  “Hi! I’m Mei,” I yelled—well, I thought I yelled. The actual scratchy sound that came out was lost among the chatter. I waved—large, dorky, and in a huge awkward circle in front of me. Not wanting to see their reaction, I lowered my eyes and folded myself into the corner of the closest armchair, the one with the multicolored stains splashed across the pilly fabric. I tried not to think about the parade of people who’d probably had sex there through the years.

  The cute girl in the I MY BEAVER T-shirt leaned over and filled me in. “We’re having a debate: C-3PO versus BB-8.”

  “What’s a BB-8?” I asked without thinking.

  They all stared at me as if I had just asked, What’s pi?

  I thought about adding just kidding, but I didn’t have a chance. One girl started laughing immediately. Her neighbor swatted her elbow and hissed, “C’mon, Valerie,” but she just laughed louder.

  Suddenly I was six years old again, wearing traditional Chinese garb complete with knotted closures, trying to hold my shaky chin in the air as I was laughed out of the school picture line. Forever the outcast, even at this school of nerdy outcasts.

  One boy turned to me. “Don’t pay any attention to her.”

  Beaver Lover leaned in again. “BB-8,” she repeated, as if that was all I needed. When she saw my blank stare, her wide eyes mirrored mine. “Star Wars? Have you never seen Star Wars? How is that . . . ? But you’re at MIT. . . .” She shook her head as if she finally heard what she was saying. “Sorry. I mean, that’s totally fine. I was just a little surprised.”

  I forced my gaze to meet the rest of theirs as I explained, “I don’t watch many movies.” Only a few, snuck in during the rare moments my parents were out of the house. I went for the most scandalous ones I could find on TV. American Pie. Grease. Tiny acts of rebellion, done mostly to try to prevent incidents like these.

  The Caucasian boy across from me nodded along. “Were you sheltered because of your Asian upbringing?”

  I squirmed, not liking where this was going. He was completely right, and it seemed he was trying to understand, but something felt off. I shrugged.

  “Did your parents, like, make you play an instrument? And you had to go to Harvard or MIT? Practice SATs every weekend? My ex was Korean. We had to date in secret.” He looked down his nose at the rest of us, as if his past made him cool.

  I may not have taken practice SATs every weekend, but I did have to take it three times until I got a perfect score. And I played the piano. But I didn’t want to reduce my parents to shallow stereotypes. They may have done versions of what he was implying, but not in the same tone. Since it was all too hard to explain, I simply said, “It wasn’t quite like that.”

  A boisterous student in an MIT CREW cap swept in with leftover Bertucci’s pizza from the Student Center. As everyone swarmed the free food, I ducked out. The only thing I knew for sure was that no one there remembered my name.

  Not wanting to return to my room since it didn’t feel like home, especially not with Nicolette’s lacy push-up bras and Untameable nail polish everywhere, I tiptoed around the dorm, secretly hoping to bump into someone. Maybe a potential friend.

  On the floor below mine, I walked past the library, then saw them. Double doors, shut, unwelcoming, the opposite of the library’s open glass doors on the other side of the hall. I was drawn to the mystery, the secrets behind the metal.

  They creaked, signaling their long disuse, and for a moment I worried I would get in trouble. But they weren’t locked. I inched forward into the darkness, then emerged into an expansive room lit by floor-to-ceiling windows.

  The dusty tables pushed into the corner and the tray-size tunnel in the wall told me this was Burton Conner’s now-defunct dining hall—the Porter Room, I recalled from the dorm booklet that had arrived with my acceptance letter. (Nerd alert: Of course I had read it cover to cover.)

  The emptiness and extra-shiny floors called to me. Something stirred deep i
n my soul, the mix of excitement and awe that happened when you felt like the stars were aligning even though you didn’t believe in fate.

  I kicked off my shoes, one flick of the ankle, then another, and the second my socks met the floor, my movements morphed. I was always a dancer—that was a part of me, not something that could be separated—and alone in this vast space, I stopped holding back.

  My pointed feet slid across the linoleum as if they were already intimately acquainted. My curved, extended arms swept through the air, and I leaped, spun, and pas-de-chat–ed my way to the other side of the room.

  I had found my safe space. It was worth having to disinfect these socks now. And it was worth having to withstand the disapproving Mǎmá Lu in my head with her pinched lips and hands on her hips. Dancing instead of studying, Mei? Each step is a stomp on my heart. God, she was always so dramatic. I pushed her out and focused on the breeze through my hair, the swishing of my feet, the energy flowing from my fingertips to my toes.

  Even though I was exerting myself, my breathing was easier here. Natural. It was the one place I could express myself, be completely me. If only I could find another who spoke dance.

  Voicemails from my mother

  12:01 p.m.: Mei! Why aren’t you picking up? Where are you?

  12:08 p.m.: Maybe you’re in class. Good girl. It’s your mǔqīn.

  1:34 p.m.: Mei? How come you’re still away? I saw on the news a girl was kidnapped right out of her dorm room. Call me when you get this!

  2:10 p.m.: You need to give me your schedule so I know when you’re in class and when I need to worry because you don’t pick up.

  3:27 p.m.: Mei! Are you in trouble? Eating drugs? Pregnant? KIDNAPPED? Call me!!

  CHAPTER 3

  LIQUID NITROGEN

  I HAD STARTED DANCING AT age six under my parents’ coercion as a tactic to make me stand out on college applications. Because, horror of horrors, perfect Kimberly Chen—who was captain of the debate team, an academic decathlon champ, and salutatorian—“only got into NYU” since she was “too much like every other Asian out there.” So dance was to be my “in” to the “top” colleges.