by Lucy Tan
As a poster boy for the Communist Party, his father had never entertained the idea of working for the individual; it was always for the country. He believed that to truly promote hard work, equality, and stability, it was best to take individual gain out of the equation. But on the day Wei had gotten the Penn fellowship, his father had taken him by the shoulders and said, laughing, “Wo ye jiu shi ge nongmin.” I am just a farmer. It was the only time Wei had ever heard him speak modestly about the power of the proletariat. It was also the only time Wei had ever heard his father speak of himself in connection to Wei’s achievements, and that was how he knew Zhen Hong was prouder than he’d ever been. He understood his father’s words to mean If even I can raise a son like you, a son invited to study abroad, what can’t our country accomplish? For the son of a farmer to succeed academically was a win for the common man; for him to be invited to study mechanical engineering in America was also a win for China. He could still remember the words his father made him recite from Mao’s Little Red Book, an address to China’s youth: The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours. You young people, full of vigor and vitality, are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is placed on you.
America! The ultimate symbol of wealth and achievement. Back then, some of the older cadres were still skeptical of Western education, afraid that their children would come home infected with capitalist and imperialist thoughts, but most parents in the country wished their own children would have a chance to go abroad. What would they have said if they’d known that in fifteen years, China would be the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury bonds? And how could Wei have known just how powerful America’s pull really was? He would graduate and get a job and have a child and not go home—not once—before the call came, ten years later, notifying them of their parents’ deaths. He was thirty-two years old; those ten years were almost a third of his life. Ten years of his relationship with his parents carried out on an international calling plan.
He hadn’t always wanted to leave China. Once, Wei had just wanted to do something that mattered for humanity—build planes, maybe, or work in astronautics. Take China to the moon and back with better technology than the Americans and the Russians had. He imagined that his life’s work would be to reach other planets. That would have been something his father would have considered progress. What had Wei done instead with his fancy degree? He had handed out some jobs. Created a reality-TV show. Helped bring American industry to China, which wasn’t much of a contribution if you considered how much the U.S. made off Chinese buying power. Qiang was right. He had spent the past two years studying Chinese herd mentality in the marketplace, its susceptibility to established Western brands, and then he’d gone ahead and placed companies like Nike, Coach, and KFC leagues ahead of every domestic competitor. Deep down, Wei wondered if his homecoming wasn’t a way of paying his respects to his mother country, as he had wanted it to be, but an act of betrayal. Had he turned into the imperialist the old revolutionaries had feared their children would become?
In leaving home, Wei felt as though he had acquired a debt. He felt he owed the country something, and he wasn’t sure how to repay it. The China he’d found upon his return was not the same one that he had left. Economic reform over the past few years had been successful, but Wei feared that China was getting too rich too fast and that the new policies had set the country up for volatility. There were underground blogs where people were being vocal about the government, but Wei didn’t know where to find them. The only way he knew to get real, uncensored news and opinions was to jump the Chinese firewall by switching on a VPN that was routed to a server in the States. But the thought of stealing Internet from America in order to understand what was happening in China made him feel even more like an outsider.
Instead, he found himself scrolling through ChinaSmack, an English-language website featuring news stories that showed the frightening psyche of modern China without pointing any fingers at the government. In those thin morning hours when he couldn’t sleep, Wei read article after article: “A Beggar That Netizens Named Brother Sharp Becomes Internet Fashion Sensation.” “Foxconn Employees Jump Off Buildings to Protest Low Pay.” “Microsoft China’s President Discovered to Have Faked His Diploma.” “Man Sells Kidney to Buy iPhone.” “Boyfriend Commits Suicide After a Six-Hour Shopping Trip by Jumping Off Fourth Floor of a Mall.” “Man Sues Wife for Lying About Having Had Plastic Surgery.”
Who were these people, and what had the years done to them? Had the moral fabric of their nation been so eroded by political upheaval that it had simply ceased to exist? Wei studied the lao bai xing captured in the background of these pictures, onlookers who could have been his uncles or cousins or aunts. It was still only a small percentage of the population that had money to spare, but still—lao bai xing could be rich now too. If he held the right property, for instance, an ex-farmer could wear fur and eat three-hundred-yuan softshell crabs and buy a Porsche with Swarovski crystals embedded around the logo. Some of the more educated types could go abroad and buy property in San Francisco and New York City. They could send their kids to NYU, to Berkeley, to the University of Michigan, and this younger generation would live in luxury apartments, walk to classes wearing designer backpacks, and have thousands a month in the bank for expenses.
This was not a nation that had lived up to its promise. His father would have wanted better for them all. The nation was finally getting its turn. The yuan was growing. The whole world was watching China as it turned into the powerhouse it had always had the potential to be. “Meet the Middle Class,” one of the website’s headlines read, and there they were: a group of thirty-somethings standing in line for the new iPhone. Hundreds of people held captive by their portable screens. The few that faced the camera did so with uncertainty, as though somewhere in their past, they had inflicted damage they could neither name nor quite forget.
* * *
The sky had grown dark. Wei knew without having to check the time that it was too late to join Lina and Qiang for dinner, and although failing to show up would mean another mark against him, he felt relieved. Most of his employees had left for the day. It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten lunch; in Conference Room South, someone had ordered food, and a few empty Styrofoam boxes lay open, out of view of the cameras. When he stepped farther into the room, he found Karen and Sunny huddled in the corner, asleep. “Time to go,” he said softly. Karen opened her eyes and raised her head from Sunny’s shoulder. As he extended a hand to lift her, he noticed that her cheeks were an unnatural shade of pink. Was she ill? Had he left them alone for too long? Just as he pressed his hand to her forehead, Sunny woke too, and he saw that her cheeks matched Karen’s in color. They were fine; they had only gotten into the makeup artist’s cosmetics.
It was nearing nine o’clock when they arrived home, so Sunny cooked a quick meal she knew how to make with the limited ingredients in the refrigerator: noodle soup with tomatoes, egg, ground pork, and cilantro. But when Sunny placed it in front of Karen, she complained of a stomachache and went to lie down in her room. Sunny was about to remove the bowl from the table when Wei stopped her.
“What are you planning on eating?” he asked.
“The same thing as you, Boss,” she said.
“Well, why don’t you sit down?”
Sunny hesitated but then untied her apron, draped it over the back of the dining chair, and sat across from him. Wei watched her dress her soup with the condiments sitting on the table between them—sesame oil, chili flakes, and soy sauce.
“You like it spicy,” he said. “Almost as spicy as I do.”
She nodded.
“How come you don’t cook any spicy dishes?”
“Taitai says Karen has a weak stomach.”
The woman had a talent for ending conversations quickly without being impolite. She was private, to say the least. That morning when she’d tried to convince Karen to go to the Expo was
the only time Wei had ever seen her betray emotion.
“I didn’t mean to keep you so late. If I had known Karen wasn’t going to eat, I would have just picked up something quick for myself. Or we could have gone out—”
“It’s no problem,” Sunny said. “She’ll be hungry later. It will be good to have something in the house.”
“A shame about the Expo,” Wei said. “We still have those tickets. Maybe later in the month we’ll find a time for the three of us to go.”
She reddened. “Too many people there on Friday anyway.”
Had he embarrassed her by showing that he knew how much she wanted to see it? It was hard to tell when she refused to look him in the eye.
“How do you like it here with us? Are you comfortable?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s better than I thought it would be.” Then she shook her head quickly. “I mean the work as an ayi in general. Not working for you.”
“You’ve never worked as an ayi before?”
“No.”
“Why not? You’re good at it.”
“I’m good at housekeeping too.”
The confidence with which she said this surprised them both. Boss Zhen was impressed. Few young women in China claimed their own worth so readily. Part of what Lina and Karen liked about Sunny was that they could relax around her, but she had the opposite effect on Wei. He felt he had to rise to the occasion, and that was because she was a fellow perfectionist, someone used to holding herself to a higher standard than those around her did. He felt the need to win her respect.
Outside the elevator that morning, he had thought Lina and Qiang entitled. But wasn’t he just as guilty of that? Here was a woman with so much potential, one whose capabilities outstripped her circumstances by a long mile. Compared to her, Wei had had every opportunity, and yet he’d never known what it meant to be satisfied, to curb his expectations. He didn’t know how it felt not to always think he deserved more.
“What do your parents do?”
“They farm a little. Sell produce.”
“Xin ku a. That’s a lot for older folks to manage.”
“They do all right. I’ve got uncles who are out working too. My parents will retire soon.”
It struck him that she’d known his family for years now, but he’d had no information about her background until tonight.
“Do you have any family here?”
“No. That’s the main reason I send so much of it home. It’s just me, so I live simply. Most of the money I save up, I use for taking trips back.”
“Your parents are lucky to have you. Not all children think that way.”
“Most do.”
Was that true? Did Chinese youth have such small imaginations? Or was it that they were not as coldhearted as he was?
“After moving to America, I let ten years go by before I came back to visit,” Wei said. “And when I did, it was only because there’d been a train accident. Both my parents and Lina’s died very suddenly.”
He hadn’t planned to tell her this, and yet it felt imperative that this woman—this relative stranger—know exactly what kind of person he was.
She stared at him. “That’s horrible,” she finally said.
“I know. I bet you can’t even imagine not seeing your family for ten years.”
“I meant the accident,” Sunny said. “I’m sure your parents understood how hard it was for you to travel back.”
Who knew how much longer he would have stayed away if the accident hadn’t happened? At first they’d put it off because they had loans to pay, and then it was because Wei had gotten busy with work. He had told himself that waiting meant saving more money to send to his parents. He liked the idea of them receiving a big wad of cash and thinking how successful their son had become in America. But if he was honest with himself, the money stood for more than his pride. The more he made, the easier he’d be able to justify his career switch from engineering to marketing. This is what I sent you to America for? he could almost hear his father saying. To do work you can barely explain?
Wei was no better, no less selfish or cowardly, than Qiang had been, and ultimately their parents had died with neither son by their side.
He shook his head. “All I meant to say was that your parents are lucky to have you.”
Sunny laughed uneasily. “I don’t think they feel that way.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not normal.”
He waited for her to go on.
“I don’t want what other women want. I don’t want to get married, I don’t want to have a baby. Really, I should have been a son.” She made a clucking noise with her mouth and shook her head. “I’m the firstborn, you know. They wanted their first child to be a son. And I’ve done everything a good son would have done—gone out, made money—except I’m not male. Isn’t that funny?”
“You don’t want to have kids?” Wei asked. The moment Sunny’s face changed, Wei knew he had said the wrong thing. He worried that she would clam up again, but it seemed some long-held grievance had broken loose inside her.
“My cousin was pregnant a few years ago. Everyone was pleased when we found out. Her husband’s family had all these superstitions around the birth. They chose the luckiest name, looked up the luckiest day to have the baby. That day turned out to be ten days before the baby was supposed to be due. The next suitable day was a month after that. So they wanted to take the baby out early, under the knife.”
“A cesarean,” Wei said.
“Yes. My cousin was terrified. We were all terrified. I couldn’t imagine what a procedure like that would be like. Later, I found out that the doctor had asked for a hundred yuan extra for anesthesia, and she didn’t have the money. She didn’t want to ask her in-laws for it. My mother wanted to give it to her, but our family couldn’t come up with it fast enough. So we put her under the knife with nothing but a washcloth between her teeth. She had a fever for three days afterward.”
The horror Wei felt must have been clear on his face, because Sunny didn’t finish the story.
“Now my sister is pregnant and I’m supposed to be happy for her. We have more money than my cousin’s family did, but still. My mother says it’s silly to be nervous about it. Giving birth is a natural thing for a woman to experience. I guess she’s right, but it isn’t just giving birth that makes me scared to stay. It will always feel too small for me to be in that town. I can’t help feeling that I got lucky by never getting pregnant. I don’t want to bring a child up in a world with those kinds of old rules. I had an opportunity. So I came here.”
Sunny looked to be about thirty—her parents must be around fifty, Wei guessed. They were younger than his own parents would have been, and yet their beliefs—or the beliefs their community shared—were more backward than he’d expected.
“Do you like it here?” he asked. “Is it better?”
“It’s better because I can make more of my own choices,” she said. “But that’s about the only thing better about it.” The rims of her eyes had reddened, and she sniffed fiercely.
He didn’t know what else to say. He wanted to erase the pain on this woman’s face, but he didn’t understand it enough to even try. If Lina were here, she would know what to do. How presumptuous he’d been to think he understood Sunny, to feel they had something in common.
The broth in Wei’s soup had gone cold, but he wasn’t hungry anyway. He dropped his napkin on the table and sighed.
“Let me warm that up for you,” Sunny said.
“I meant to tell you earlier, there are always people at my office asking for referrals for good ayis. Why don’t you leave your number with me? I’ll pass it along. Just to make sure you have something…long term.”
Sunny sat back in her seat. “Taitai has already offered to help me find another family to work for once this summer is over—”
But Wei was determined. “Hold on. Let me get something to write with.”
He was grateful for the
chance to escape to his study, which he entered without turning on the lamp. In the moonlight, Wei found paper and pen. Just as he was about to leave, he noticed the envelope full of cash Lina had set aside for Sunny’s first week of work. Lina had been planning to give it to her on Sunday, but Wei decided on the spot to pay her early.
Wei came into the dining room just as Sunny did, carrying his reheated bowl of soup. She set it on the table and wiped her hands on her apron before accepting the money, pen, and paper. “Thank you,” she said, and she wrote down her phone number in large, blocky print. Then she handed the paper to him and folded her hands in her lap.
“Let me call Little Cao to take you home,” he said, seeing that she had finished her food.
“That’s all right. I’ve got my motorbike.”
“It’s late. Leave it here. I’ll tell him to pick you up tomorrow morning too.”
Sunny rose again and started to clear the table, but Wei waved her off. “Please. I’ll take care of it. See you tomorrow.”
Finally, the woman nodded and collected her things. Then she was gone, and Wei was left with the rest of the night before him.
17
Lina had chosen to wear a silk blouse dyed cherry-tangerine, a color so rich that it made the fabric look textureless. It was cut to the length of a tunic but designed to fit like the top half of a traditional qipao. The Hong Kong clothier Shanghai Tang made modern takes on Chinese classics, and that was just how Lina wanted to be seen, modern but classic, as she stood with one hand held across her brow, taking in the expanse of the Expo grounds.
It wasn’t until she leaned over the railing of the Expo’s raised entranceway that she stopped picturing herself and started seeing the crowd. There were thousands of people below—shuttle buses driving off to pavilions beyond view, elderly visitors wearing visors in wheelchairs, and children holding spray bottles topped with spinning Styrofoam fans. Beside Lina, Qiang opened his map and laid it against the railing so they could trace a route. “Are we starting with the UK pavilion?”