Year of the Rat

by Grace Lin

  I followed Becky’s pointing hand across the playground. Yes, there was an Asian boy. Kurt and Rich were with him. Kurt and Rich were always trying to be funny and would pick on people. They would yell “Fire” at Jenny Hansen’s red hair and say it burned them or call Joe Elly “Smelly Elly” and pretend he smelled bad. When we were in kindergarten they used to stretch their eyes with their fingers and chant pretend Chinese at me. I never said anything, and after a while it got boring for them so they stopped. No one remembered that now. Except for me.

  Dun-Wei was an easy target. It wasn’t just because he was new. He did look weird, though I wasn’t sure why. He didn’t have strange hair or crazy clothes, but there were all these small things that weren’t right. His pants were a little too short and his socks just seemed too white. His jacket matched brand-new sneakers and he carried a lunch box instead of a brown paper bag like everyone else did. These were just little things, but somehow, all those little wrong things made him stick out like a big mistake. Even though I had been ready to hate him because he had taken Melody’s house, when I saw him I didn’t feel that way.

  “Dumb-WAAAY!” Rich called out. “Which way is the dumbest way?”

  Kurt joined in and a lot of the boys started laughing. Dun-Wei took a look at them and his face turned red. He wasn’t dumb at all. He knew they were making fun of him. He shouted something back which no one understood and just made them tease and laugh harder.

  Even though we were far away, I could tell something bad was going to happen. As the laughter grew louder, the scowl on Dun-Wei’s face grew blacker. He tightened his grip on his lunch box and started swinging. BANG! He hit Rich! BANG! He hit Kurt! The boys stopped laughing and they jumped on him.

  “FIGHT! FIGHT!” everyone started yelling.

  Luckily, a whistle cut through the air and a recess teacher ran over and stopped everything. We watched her march all three of them into the school. When they passed us, I saw Dun-Wei look at me with surprise and hope, but I turned away as fast as possible. I felt all mixed up—confused and ashamed and guilty and scared. Even if he was the enemy, I knew the whole thing wasn’t right. But I didn’t want people to think I was like him—odd and strange and all wrong. I didn’t want everyone to think that we were the same because we were both Asian.

  “Wow, that was a fight,” Charlotte said. “Kurt and Rich are going to get in trouble.”

  “Yeah,” Becky said. “Those boys are so bad. Doesn’t Rich have the cutest smile, though?”

  I looked at Becky and Charlotte in surprise. They seemed excited and almost happy about the fight. Even though they chattered on about how bad Rich and Kurt were, I could tell they were thrilled by them. They didn’t think about Dun-Wei at all; it was almost as if he didn’t even matter. The fear I felt before seemed to turn into an icy wind howling in my stomach, and suddenly I knew there was one thing I was not confused about. I didn’t want to be like Dun-Wei, without friends and easily forgotten.

  “Hey,” I said to Becky, interrupting their conversation. “I changed my mind. I’ll be a third partner. I want to make that candy boat with you guys, after all.”

  Chapter 15

  Fresh off the Boat

  DUN-WEI, RICH, AND KURT WERE PUNISHED FOR fighting by getting an “in-school suspension.” That meant they still had to come to school, but had to do all their work in a separate room away from their classes. They weren’t allowed to see anyone and no one saw them. But everyone talked about them.

  Becky and Charlotte talked about Kurt and Rich the most. I knew they would like it if Rich and Kurt liked them. And I kind of understood why. Rich was cute. And if he liked you and was nice to you, that would mean you were special because you would be the only one he’d be nice to. Somehow, him being mean to everyone else except for you would make you special. But even though that made sense, it still seemed backward to me; sometimes I felt like my head hurt from trying to figure it out. The whole thing made me feel strange. I just wanted to forget about it, but the next day at dinner I knew that wouldn’t be possible.

  “Pacy,” Mom said. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a new Chinese boy in school?”

  I shrugged.

  “The school called me up today and asked me to talk to him and his family,” Mom said, “since they just came from China, and Dad and I speak Chinese. His family invited us to come over for dinner. Pacy, I want you to be friends with him.”

  I looked up, alarmed. “Do I have to?”

  “Why not?” Mom said.

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled, looking down at my plate. “He’s kind of weird.”

  “Weird, how?” Mom pushed.

  I didn’t know what to say. I looked at the grains of rice sticking to the end of my chopsticks in mushy clumps. If I squinted my eyes, I could pretend they were mashed potatoes.

  “Aww,” Lissy said, breaking in. “Don’t make Pacy be friends with him. It’s hard enough fitting in without being friends with someone fresh off the boat.”

  “What’s that mean, fresh off the boat?” Ki-Ki asked.

  “You know, fresh off the boat,” Lissy said. “That’s what they call people who just came here from another country and don’t know how to be American yet.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you call them that in a nice way,” Mom said. “It seems like people say that in a mean way.”

  “I guess so,” Lissy said, considering, “because they are the ones everyone thinks are nerds and looks down on.”

  “Well, that’s wrong!” Mom said sharply. We all looked up, surprised. Mom rarely spoke like that. She looked at us seriously. “It’s very hard to come to a new country, and it’s even harder when others judge you harshly. You feel ashamed, in a way that you can never forget. I know I’ll never forget my mistake with the canned meat.”

  CANNED MEAT

  Even though Dad and I had studied English for six years in Taiwan, when we came to the United States it was as if we knew nothing. Every day in my college class, I was so confused. I could never understand what the professor was saying; his words seemed to fly by me like sparrows, and if I could catch one or two, it was like grabbing feathers in the wind.

  I was desperate to do better. So I decided that I would pack myself two meals and spend the whole day in the library studying. But even the simplest things, like making myself food, were hard.

  Buying food in Taiwan was different than in the United States. Our supermarket in Taiwan was a building with hundreds of vendors with their own stands inside, each one calling out for people to buy their goods. It was always full of people crowded together, like the pearls in tapioca pudding. There was always someone smiling and talking, trying to show you the best fruit or the best deal. In America, the grocery store was big and cold and empty, with aisles full of food that seemed to go on like a maze.

  And I didn’t know what to buy. Everything was packaged differently and I had a hard time reading the words. I needed to buy something that would be easy to bring with me and also inexpensive, because Dad and I didn’t have that much money.

  I finally stopped in an aisle where there were all kinds of canned meat and fish. It was so cheap! In Taiwan, canned fish was a treat—an expensive delicacy. I was eager to try this American kind. But there were so many brands. I wasn’t sure which one to get. Finally, I chose the brand with a tiger on it. In Taiwan, there was a “Lucky Tiger” brand of meat; I thought maybe this was the American version.

  So the next day, I got up very early and went to the library to study. There were some students in my class sitting at the table across from me, but they didn’t talk to me, so I sat alone. At lunchtime, I took out my canned meat, opened it, and tried some with my chopsticks. Yuck! No wonder it was so cheap; it tasted horrible.

  But then I heard a loud noise of disgust. I looked up and saw one of the girls from my class looking at me like I was a dirty cockroach. She closed her book loudly, pulled at her friend’s sleeve, and turned around to leave, as if she couldn’t bear the sight
of me. While I couldn’t understand the English of my professor’s lectures or salesclerks at the store, her words were clear in my ears.

  “That’s so gross,” she said to her friend. “Those Chinese will eat anything.”

  I dropped my chopsticks, gathered my books and food, and rushed home, tears burning in my eyes like boiling oil. When Dad got home, I told him the story and we looked at the canned meat together. And slowly, we figured out why my classmate was disgusted. That canned meat was cat food!

  “I was so embarrassed and horrified,” Mom finished. “I’ll never forget how ashamed I felt.”

  “You really ate cat food?” I said. It would’ve been funny if Mom hadn’t felt so bad about it.

  “Yes,” Mom said. “Things got better after that, but it took a long time. That’s why you should be more understanding of people who are ‘fresh off the boat.’ It’s easy to make mistakes and it’s hard to fit in.”

  Mom’s story made me feel sad. And I hoped when we went over to Dun-Wei’s house they wouldn’t serve us cat food for dinner.

  Chapter 16

  Dinner with the Enemy

  THAT WEEKEND WE WENT OVER TO DUN-WEI’S house for dinner. I dreaded it. I tried to make excuses for why I couldn’t go, but Mom wouldn’t listen to me. Even when I said I had too much homework and needed to study, that didn’t work, and that almost always worked. Instead, all she did was fuss at us about our manners.

  “When we are having dinner, don’t play with your chopsticks,” Mom said to us as she covered a box of chocolates in ladybug-red paper. They were the good kind of chocolates, the ones with lots of nuts and crunchy toffee, and they came wrapped in gold foil. We were going to give them to Dun-Wei’s family. Lucky them! “And don’t pretend your chopsticks are drumsticks, like you do at home. That is bad manners.” “Okay, okay,” we said, bored by her instructions.

  “And only put them on your plate; don’t put your chopsticks on the table,” Mom said. “And don’t stick your chopsticks straight up in your rice bowl either.”

  “Yes,” Dad said. “That’s very bad. It reminds people of incense sticks at temples.”

  “Isn’t incense good?” Lissy asked.

  “Good for when you are honoring spirits,” Dad said. “Not for when you are honoring your stomach.”

  When we got to the house, I felt weird. It was strange going to Melody’s house with someone else living there. Everything was the same, but different. It was the same brown house, but Melody’s stained-glass unicorn wasn’t in the window and her brother’s toy trucks weren’t on the lawn. Even though a cheerful yellow light glowed from the windows, I felt like the house was abandoned.

  But the door burst open as soon as we rang the doorbell, and Dun-Wei and his parents welcomed us in.

  “Ni hao, ni hao ma,” they said, bowing as we came in. That means “Hello! How are you?”

  Dun–Wei bowed to me. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t act unfriendly either. Still, I didn’t trust it. I gave him a small bow back. You never knew what to expect with the enemy.

  “Ja-ba, bei?” Lissy said, trying to show off.

  Dun-Wei and his parents looked puzzled until Dad said something in Chinese. Then they all laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Lissy asked.

  “You just got things confused,” Mom said. “Ja-ba, bei is Taiwanese, not Chinese. The Lius didn’t know what you were saying.”

  Mrs. Liu pushed us toward the dining room, through the kitchen. Everything was different from when Melody lived there. All of Melody’s stickers had been scraped off the cabinets and the dog magnets we used to play with on the refrigerator were gone. And right near the stove, above the dull metal wok and knife with a blade shaped like a brick, a red picture hung. It was a printed picture of a Chinese man from ancient times. Underneath what I thought was a helmet with wings, he had a large white and pinkish-purple face. Later, Mom told me that it was a picture of the Kitchen God, a Chinese God that watched over the family. I could believe that; I felt like his black eyes were watching me the whole time. I hurried into the dining room to get away from them.

  The dining table was covered with food. There was fried shrimp with salt like crystals, dandelion-yellow stained chicken stuffed with rice, light brown pork buns, stir-fried vegetables and noodles, a fish with mushrooms and meat, a moon-colored soup, cotton-white steamed rice and corn on the cob.

  “Corn on the cob!” I said, surprised. I couldn’t help giggling a little. It seemed so out of place on the table full of Chinese food. “That’s funny.”

  “I like corn on the cob,” Lissy said quicky. I could tell she was afraid I was being rude. “We eat it all the time in the summer.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Liu said and nodded at her. “In China, too.”

  “Really?” I said. “I thought corn on the cob was American.”

  “But we eat it in China too,” Mr. Liu told me. “People sell it on the street—like hot dogs.”

  “Yes,” Mom said. “They do that in Taiwan, too.”

  “Really?” I said. It seemed so strange to think that Chinese and Taiwanese people ate food that I thought was completely American. But I was still glad to eat it.

  And that was what I did all through dinner. The parents laughed and talked in Chinese, so all Lissy, Ki-Ki, and I did was eat, since we didn’t understand any of it. Dun-Wei didn’t say much. Once or twice, Lissy tried to say something to him, but he just shook his head. He couldn’t understand us either.

  “Dun-Wei,” Mr. Liu said to him once. “Try to speak English.”

  Dun-Wei just looked down at his plate. And Mr. Liu said something to Mom and Dad in Chinese. They made sympathetic noises, and I knew they were talking about Dun-Wei. He knew so, too, because his scowl was like the black ink of a squid, dark and hostile. For a moment I was scared; it looked like the enemy was going to attack.

  But Mr. Liu said, “Why don’t you kids go to the other room? We rented some movies you can watch.”

  The blackness on Dun-Wei’s face cleared away as we left the table. We went into the TV room, which used to be Melody’s Dad’s office. Dun-Wei took out the movies and held them out to me. I chose the one about a superhero. We had seen it already, but I didn’t mind seeing it again. I wondered how Dun-Wei would like it, considering he couldn’t understand what they were saying.

  But he seemed to enjoy it, because he laughed at all the funny parts with us. Maybe he knew more English then he let on. Anyway, by the time the superhero had destroyed the evil monster robot, it was time to go home. Dun-Wei got our coats and the Liu family bowed as we thanked them and said good-bye.

  As we got into the car, I yawned; I was full and tired and ready for bed. Dinner with Dun-Wei and his family hadn’t been that bad after all. In fact, for the enemy, they seemed a lot like us.

  Chapter 17

  Birthday

  SPRING AND SUMMER WERE NOW BLENDING together. The ground was no longer a mix of seaweed-colored grass and mud that felt like wet tea leaves at the bottom of a cup. The gray rain stopped and white clouds dotted the sky. It was May, and that meant my birthday was coming!

  Mom said that in Taiwan, they didn’t have birthday parties for kids, only for adults, so I knew I had to pay attention to make sure we did everything right. For my birthday this year, we were going to go see a play. The high school drama club was putting on a play called Anne of the Thousand Days, which was about the Queen of England a long time ago. All the girls in my class were going to come over to my house for cake and presents and then Mom was going to drive us to the high school to see the play. I felt like this was the right way to have my party, since I was getting too old to have a party where we played games.

  Even though I knew I could make my own invitations better than the ones they had in the store, I bought the ones with balloons on them and sent those. Mom tried to help by buying a cook-book that had recipes for cakes and cookies, but I thought it was too risky to have her make something. She never baked American things like tha
t, just Chinese food like steamed buns and taro tapioca. In fact, the only time Mom used her cake tin was when she made lo bak go, a salty radish cake that you fried and ate with soy sauce. And I couldn’t have THAT at my party. So, instead, we ordered a cake from Hemstrought’s Bakery. It had blue flowers and “Happy Birthday Grace” written in matching icing on the top. I wanted everything to be perfect.

  And it looked like I was going to get my wish. Mom got soda, caramel corn, and potato chips, and every girl that was invited came—except, of course, Melody.

  “You know how Anne of the Thousand Daysis supposed to be a love story about the King and Queen of England?” Becky asked. “Heather Smele, the girl that plays Anne, and David Williams, the boy who plays the king, are boyfriend and girlfriend in real life.”

  “Oooh, that’s so cute,” Charlotte said. “They are perfect together. They’re both blond and tall. No wonder they got those parts. They’re the cutest couple in the high school.”

  “Who do you think would be the cutest couple in our grade?” one of the girls asked.

  “Well, you and Jerry Lucelli would be cute,” Charlotte said. “You both have curly brown hair.”

  “You and Rich would be really cute,” Becky told Charlotte. “You both have the cutest smiles.”

  All the girls started giggling and we began pairing everyone up in our grade. It was fun until I heard Charlotte say she thought Alice would be a cute couple with Sam Mercer. I liked Sam! I wanted him to be a cute couple with me.

  “Who do you think I’d be a cute couple with?” I asked.

  “Hmm, I don’t know,” Charlotte said. “Maybe Dun-Wei?”

  “Dumb-Way! Charlotte, don’t say that,” Becky said. “That’s not nice. Who’d want to be a cute couple with Dumb-Way?”