How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia

by Shannon Young

  "I told my parents that we’re dating,” he said.

  His words startled me, and not without reason. My previous Chinese boyfriend never had the chance to tell his parents about us—he claimed they could never accept him dating a foreign woman. Their opposition to having foreigners in the family forced him to break off our relationship in June 2002, an experience still fresh in my mind when Jun returned on that September day.

  "So, uh, what did they say?”

  "Laoba said, ‘You can be friends with a foreign woman, but not date her.’” Jun smiled as he said it, as though he had actually returned home with his parents’ blessing.

  My heart pounded as tears welled up in my eyes.

  But Jun put his arm around me. "Don’t worry, it’s fine, I’m not leaving.”

  "No, no, it’s not fine,” I said, shaking my head as I sobbed. I couldn’t get past the parental opposition with my previous boyfriend. How would Jun and I ever get past his father?

  But in fact, we did. In the months that followed, Jun and I stayed together. And in February 2003, Jun brought me home with him to spend Chinese New Year with his family, a visit that put me face-to-face with the very man who opposed our relationship.

  If you’ve ever been married, engaged, or in a serious relationship, then you know just how nerve-wracking it is to meet your potential in-laws for the first time. But just imagine doing that in a different culture and language, with people who already have rather unflattering preconceived notions about you (in China, people often think foreign women are as loose and licentious as the seductresses and hookers in Hollywood movies). So when I walked in the door and saw Laoba, who nodded at me with a guarded smile, my stomach churned, my chest tightened, and my heart even seemed to palpitate.

  For the next few days, Laoba appeared as cold as the near-freezing temperatures in their unheated home. But then, on Jun’s suggestion, I showed his father an album of my family photos—from trips to Yosemite and Barcelona to my college graduation day. That photo album somehow magically flipped a switch within this man, and he lit up with all of the endearing wonder of a child. Soon, he started spinning tales of his childhood in Tanxia Village in the foothills of Huangshan, and shared with me his very own pencil sketches that immortalized the town he cherished as a boy. With every moment by his side, I could feel relief pouring over me like the afternoon sunshine on those winter days. How could this man, who now seemed to embrace this new relationship with me, be the very same person who had once threatened my own relationship with Jun?

  As Jun and I rode back to Hangzhou in a rickety minibus that creaked and groaned with every bump, and had barely enough heat to thaw my numb toes, the thought of how much progress I made with Jun’s father warmed me—and left me smiling all the way back.

  "I still can’t believe that was the same man who said I couldn’t date you,” I said to Jun while sitting on the bus.

  "He probably just thought, you know, all foreigners are a little luan,” or promiscuous. "But my father realized you were different, that you weren’t what he thought.”

  I had come to a similar realization when I first arrived in China and suddenly noticed all the handsome Chinese men on the streets. As a college student, I had never entertained the thought of dating any of the Asian men I met. Was it simply because I studied at an overwhelmingly white university in West Virginia with few Asians? Or did I have some subconscious bias against dating Asian men, somehow believing they weren’t attractive? All I know is I just shared cafeteria tables or cups of tea with them, and never gave them a chance to transcend the boundaries of friendship. Only when I came to China did things really change, just as only when I came to Jun’s home did his father really change his mind.

  But there in that hotel at the foot of Huangshan, the tight, uncomfortable feeling that spread through my body was more than just my growing illness and exhaustion, or some reaction to the lingering stench of dirty socks. Before when I visited with Laoba, we interacted with each other in predictable and brief moments—a talk over lunch or dinner, a short discussion in his study as he unveiled a new painting or drawing, a rooftop conversation as we watched the stars come out. I could always get him to flash a youthful grin, or break into a story about life growing up in Tanxia Village. It felt so easy to be the good, filial daughter-in-law—the antithesis of what he considered foreign women to be—when I only spent a few minutes with him here and there.

  Yet as I lay in bed with tissues strewn all around me, only moments away from denouncing Laoba’s personal hygiene, I realized just how worried I was. Would I lose my temper and suddenly yell at him, shattering the fragile image of the good, filial daughter-in-law I had worked so hard to cultivate? Would I regret that we brought Laoba along with us after all? These questions weighed upon me like my headache, and made sleep even more elusive that evening.

  *

  When we arrived at the foot of Huangshan the following morning, the mist of rain that clouded the forest canopy somehow echoed the exhaustion that seemed to cloud my body. I shivered even though I wore a raincoat with a fleece jacket and long-sleeved shirt underneath it. My symptoms now included a sore throat and clogged sinuses—worsened, no doubt, by a restless night of tossing and turning.

  "I don’t think I can climb it. I feel too sick,” I said.

  I felt a pang of regret and let a tear go. In the past, I had ruined many a family vacation when I balked at climbing to the top, including on New England’s White Mountain and at the granite cliffs of Yosemite Valley. Before, I had always claimed I felt too tired and lacked the strength to move on. Yet a part of me knew that, deep down, I probably could have climbed anything if I believed I could. Still, as we stood at the foot of Huangshan, I had to admit that my illness sapped me of something—strength or will, I couldn’t tell.

  "Don’t worry, we’ll take the cable car.” Jun soothed me by rubbing my shoulder and smiling, more concerned for my health than our vacation plans gone awry.

  But Laoba said nothing in response, and my nerves remained unsettled. Had I ruined his journey to Huangshan? What did he think of me now, a daughter-in-law who was robbing him of the opportunity to finally climb his beloved mountain?

  Those worries followed me as we waited for nearly an hour in the serpentine queue for the cable car, which most tourists rode up the mountain. I stood nearly catatonic in that line as I listened to Jun and his father chatting away in their local language, a Chinese dialect I still struggled to understand. The mist clung to Huangshan with tenacity, translating into a visibility of only a few yards at best. Our one day to summit the mountain and the heavens responded with the worst-possible viewing conditions. Was this a sort of punishment for all my unfilial moments, when I had privately chastised my father-in-law over those socks?

  The three of us, along with a handful of other tourists, finally squeezed into the cable car, which quickly glided up into the air. Fifty feet up, a hundred feet up, and beyond: it soared into the sky, dangling from the cable. Below us sat the mountain fringed in clouds like a cotton-candy trim. Here and there, jagged spires—which looked like pale yellow sandstone—poked through the clouds, dotted with trees whose trunks seemed no larger than toothpicks from our vantage point.

  As I gazed down at the scenery and realized the actual height of our car, I felt a wave of nausea, and my heart started to pound. My fear of heights, something that hadn’t kept me from ascending Shanghai’s Jinmao Tower a little over a year before, suddenly paralyzed me in that cable car. Worries flooded my mind: What if the car snapped off the cable? What if we tumbled onto those sharp ridges below us? What if this was the last thing I ever saw? My breaths became more shallow and hurried, and my palms started to sweat.

  "Oh god, this is too high up!”

  "Don’t worry, it’s okay, you’re safe,” said Jun. But Laoba stood between him and me, and so many other tourists packed the cable car that Jun couldn’t put his arm around me or hold my hand.

  Suddenly
, two hands reached out for mine. "No problem, you’re fine!”

  Laoba. When I looked up at him, he flashed me an avuncular smile, one that reminded me of my father when he wanted to soothe my fears. And he even stroked my hands in an attempt to comfort me.

  Whenever I saw Laoba at the family home, he never touched his wife, children, or any other relatives in public—not to kiss, not to hold hands, not even to suggest the affection that he held for them in his heart. Yet he held my hands without concern for what anyone else in the cable car thought about it.

  I could feel my heart hammering against my chest. I had no idea if it was the height or the shock that Laoba held my hands.

  "Duibuqi,” I said to him—sorry in Mandarin—as I felt a tear fall down my cheeks. Sorry for making a spectacle of myself in the cable car. Sorry that I forced us to take this cable car in the first place. Sorry for ruining the vacation—a vacation that, in some of my worst moments, I actually believed he had ruined for us. Sorry for not being the daughter-in-law he had hoped for.

  But Laoba smiled as if I had never needed to apologize for anything—as if he couldn’t have been happier than to be sitting right next to me, holding my hands. "Ai, don’t be polite.”

  Jun once told me that no one ever said "thank you,” "you’re welcome,” or even "I love you” in his home. These things were implied and understood, because you were part of a family and that’s what you did for one another. And somehow, the way Laoba took my hands in his, the way he smiled at me—despite everything I had done—said everything I needed to know.

  So I leaned on Laoba’s shoulder, closed my eyes, and rested for the remainder of the ride up to the summit.

  *

  "Laoba, did you leave your socks in the bathroom?”

  We had just checked into a guesthouse at the foot of Huangshan. It was one day after our cable car ride to the summit, where we spent the night before walking down by foot and catching a bus to this guesthouse. It offered one of the most comfortable rooms of our trip—soft maroon comforters and clean beige carpeting in the bedroom, and glistening marble countertops and white tiles in the bathroom. But I felt certain that a damp—and rank—pair of grey socks next to the bathroom sink didn’t come standard with the booking.

  "Ai, I washed them.” Jun’s father called out from the bedroom, where he had been lounging on one of those soft comforters while watching the news channel on China Central Television.

  "But did you use soap?”

  "No need!”

  I had lived long enough with his son—who had inherited the very same penchant for smelly feet—to know that I needed to dispense with the politeness in this moment. "If we don’t wash these with soap, I think the odor will make me faint.”

  Laoba giggled with embarrassment—a giggle that sounded a lot like Jun whenever I teased him about his feet—as he wandered over to the bathroom. "I’ll wash again.”

  But before he could pick up the pair of grey socks, I snatched them away. "No, I’ll wash them.”

  "Aiya, no need. It’s trouble!”

  I met his glance with a smile—the smile of a daughter-in-law who didn’t mind holding some of the most disgusting grey socks she ever encountered in her bare hands. "No trouble. Now, go, get out of here! Watch the news!”

  I shooed him out of the bathroom with my free hand until he retreated to the bedroom. Maybe it was a little rude to throw him out like that. But as I looked at the grey socks in my hand—and the bar of soap on the counter that I would use to scrub them clean—I realized that, even if it was rude and the socks were crude, I had never felt closer to Laoba.

  Jocelyn Eikenburg is the writer behind Speaking of China, a unique blog focused on love, family, and relationships in China which was inspired by her own marriage to a Chinese national. Her essay "Red Couplets” was published in the anthology Unsavory Elements and other true stories of foreigners on the loose in China. A Cleveland, Ohio native, Jocelyn discovered her passion for the written word while living and working in China, and has resided in the cities of Zhengzhou, Hangzhou, and Shanghai.

  THE RAINIEST SEASON

  By India Harris

  "What the hell is going on here?” I shout, slamming my dive bag onto the welcome mat of our small rental house in the Philippines. My American husband and Filipina housemaid stare down at me from the loft bedroom, surprise flashing across their faces. Why are they hanging the master bed sheets on the indoor clothesline together?

  "What would possess you to wash the sheets in the middle of the afternoon?” I direct the question at Edward, for I can never bring myself to yell at this ditzy maid. The queen-sized sheets, the only ones we own, drip water onto the living room floor. Does she not have the sense to spin them dry? And why on earth would she do laundry during a brownout? What does this stupid girl think we will sleep on tonight?

  I dislike this maid, cringing at her careless rattling of my plates in the kitchen sink and the sight of her mop whirling in circles that always seem to be within earshot of private conversations. Is there a reason why my favorite ceramic dishes are now chipped and cracked? Does she resent our refrigerator full of food? Hate me for a closet bursting with clothes? Sense my antipathy? Or does she simply not care?

  Baby has been with us for three months, hired initially to clean up during my family’s five-week visit from Canada earlier this year. Now I’m stuck with her, my days carefully regulated by gardening or cooking projects—how can I lie on the sofa reading novels while Baby crawls across my floors, scrubbing away our dirt? I freely admit that my cleaning skills are no match for the geckoes, spiders, ants, beetles, and tree frogs that seem as enthralled with our tropical house as we are, but I would dearly love to fire this woman who raises every hackle along my neck.

  Unfortunately, we are Baby’s only source of income. Abandoned by her husband, she is the sole provider for their seven-year-old daughter, so without a legitimate reason to let her go, I must continue to use more glasses and saucepans and cutlery than necessary, manufacturing chores to keep her busy day after day.

  "Relax, sweetheart,” Edward says, smiling at my angry face. "Is this any way to greet your long-lost husband?”

  *

  The next five days pass quickly, Edward and I cooking elaborate meals together, walking our silly, energetic puppy along the beach, enjoying quiet time in our pretty white house on the edge of the jungle. I am very much in love with our life here.

  Since we sailed into the resort town of Puerto Galera on our ten-meter yacht three years ago, I’ve grown very attached to this beautiful island, its good-natured people, and the thriving garden I created with my own hands—the sensation of earth under my feet an enormous pleasure after seven years of floating on the back of the Pacific Ocean.

  Though I wish he would stay longer, Edward is leaving in the morning for Subic Bay on the main island of Luzon—a seven-hour trip by ferry and car, including a drive through chaotic Manila—where he has spent most of the past two months overseeing minor repairs and general maintenance on Feisty Lady. I miss him when he’s not here.

  Tonight, as chicken bakes in the oven, we sit at the dining table, Edward drinking rum and mango juice, a drink that never bodes well for me.

  "How long do you think you’ll be away?” I ask.

  "I have no idea. A while. Subic is a great place to get work done.”

  I remind him of my upcoming visa trip to Malaysian Borneo. Foreigners must leave the Philippines at least once a year and my year will end in two months.

  Four years ago, over a romantic dinner on a South Pacific island, Edward suggested that we climb Borneo’s Mount Kinabalu. It intrigued him, the idea of climbing the tallest mountain in Asia outside of the Himalayas. I had wanted him to join me on this trip and do the climb together, but he is no longer interested. Tonight I tell him that a friend has invited me to visit her in Brunei, which will add a few extra days to my trip, and of course, more money. Is that okay? Yes, it’s fine. In the
past he’s always begrudged me any time away from him. I’m thrilled that he’s allowing me to go on this holiday, which will be nearly four weeks long. I’m also grateful that he’s being so uncharacteristically generous with his cash.

  "Thank you!” I gush.

  "Oh, by the way,” he says, "I was talking to Baby and she has some sort of painful back problem. I told her she can come with me to Manila tomorrow and see a decent doctor, probably at Asian Hospital. I’ll send her back here by bus.”

  She’ll see a doctor on a Saturday? Well, I wasn’t aware that Baby has been having any back problems, but the prospect of being rid of her for a day or two makes my spirits soar.

  But Edward should not be spending money on a maid.

  "Have you forgotten Bing?” I ask. Edward loaned our previous maid enough money to buy new front teeth. Truthfully, I hadn’t noticed that hers were missing—I just thought she was too dour to smile. In the end, not only did Bing renege on the loan, she ran off to another island with a married tricycle driver, taking along our spare propane tank and one case of San Miguel beer.

  "Once they start expecting handouts, it’s the beginning of the end,” I remind him. "I can’t believe you’re going to pay for Baby to have tests at Asian Hospital. Why would you do that?”

  "Because she’s poor and the fucking doctors on this island are useless. Unlike you, I don’t mind helping people out. God, you’re such a selfish bitch.”

  I am shocked at the resentment etched on his face.

  *

  In celebration of my forty-first birthday, I dive with friends, the four of us on a quest to spot sea horses. Two days have passed since Edward and Baby left. I have no idea how Baby’s back is, but she called in sick this morning, a wonderful start to the day.

  As I drift through the warm sea, I find it impossible to concentrate on the dive. My mind is on Borneo and climbing that damned mountain; I don’t want to do it alone. I decide that I will invite my good friend Isabel to join me on the climb. She is the extremely athletic and adventurous Filipina who taught me to scuba dive eighteen months ago. Yes, Isabel would be the perfect companion.