Another time, a friend took me with him on a job at a local university; they needed two Americans to record audiotapes to accompany their English conversation books. After taping a few practice lines, the woman in charge claimed my American voice was "exactly” what they needed. She left to retrieve our payment, but then returned with the school director a few minutes later and suddenly rescinded her offer, claiming my speech on the tapes had a Chinese accent. I was flabbergasted: my accent is as neutrally American as they come (so I’ve been told by many a Brit and Aussie), yet she was letting my appearance affect how she heard and interpreted the sound of my voice.
Dating in Asia also opened up new opportunities for judgment. When I hung out with platonic male friends who happened to be Caucasian, there were times I was mistaken for a hooker or scammer trying to target a Westerner. After I met my (very pale and ginger) British fiancé, whenever we traveled together I could see the sneering looks, the staring accusations, all screaming, gold-digger. We are constantly being judged, and the ten-year age gap between us doesn’t help: people assume I’m only with him because I’m after his bank account and a green card.
My Caucasian friends in China complained frequently about being stared at in public, singled out by touts, and overcharged by vendors; they always voiced their desires to blend in like I did. It’s a classic grass-is-greener argument. Maybe it’s just my ego speaking, but I’d prefer being put on a pedestal than being looked down upon.
All of the judging, the assumptions, the condescension, the racism—it’s all very tiring and leads to a major identity crisis. In slang terms I’m referred to as a "banana,” or someone who is "yellow on the outside and white on the inside.” However, there are still a few Chinese characteristics and cultural traditions I’ve inherited from my parents, so I very much feel like a first-generation American, not someone whose identity has been firmly cemented in the country for decades or centuries. Yet I’m definitely American enough that I do not feel like I could be called Chinese; with my mindset, attitude, and habits, I do not fit in in China. So I’m too Chinese for Americans, too American for the Chinese—where do I belong?
People often ask me why I moved abroad at such a young age and why I love it so. Why do I insist on moving to a new country every other year? Why don’t I have any immediate plans to return to the States—especially considering the stress that being on my guard against racism puts upon me? The US is the only place where I’ve felt accepted without question, so why don’t I just go back?
Some days, I don’t know the answer to that question. But one large reason to stay is the nature of the expat. The expatriate life attracts a certain type of person. Moving abroad, especially to Asia, requires an open mind, and that lifestyle appeals to the type of person who knows better than to jump to conclusions or stand by stereotypes. Living abroad forces someone to throw any preconceived notions they had out the window; an expat in Asia learns not to be fazed by many things, least of all a person who comes from mixed cultures.
So in each city I move to, I always end up finding at least a few friends from similar backgrounds, who can relate to my story—from Chinese-Australian to Swedish-Lebanese—or friends who at least aren’t confused by their friends’ mixed heritages, and are who understanding and patient when we experience the occasional identity crisis. No matter which city I live in, I always find friends who don’t see me as Chinese or American; they see me as a combination of everywhere I’ve been, everything I’ve done, and everything I’ve learned up to that point. They just see me as Edna.
After that first year in Dalian, I went on to live in Shanghai, and then moved to Singapore after graduating from university in 2010. After spending a total of three years in Asia, in 2012, I moved to Paris (where the racism persisted, but in a totally different and in some ways even more condescending manner). Moving to Europe made me realize that Asia is my true love; I long to wake up each day surrounded by the sounds and the smells, the colors and the chaos of Shanghai, of Singapore—yet each time I consider moving back, I wonder if I’m ready to face the judgment and presumptions again, the daily battles with taxi drivers; if I’m prepared to have my guard up at all times, to once more be on the defensive with loud phone calls and large English books. But I think about all the friends I’ve made over the years in Asia: other children of immigrants, of mixed heritage, of dual nationalities, who know their identity does not define them. I think about all the friends I’ve met who could not care less where someone is from. And I know the answer.
Where do I belong? I belong wherever I want to belong, because those taxi drivers don’t define me, just like my looks and my passport don’t define me. I know this is a battle that won’t be resolved in my lifetime; there are still far too many preconceived notions to fight. I know that whenever I do decide to move back, it won’t be easy. I’ll still get compliments on my English; I’ll still get frustrated and angry. But I can hope that eventually, one day, just saying, "I am American” will be good enough.
Edna Zhou is an American sports journalist and serial expat who first moved abroad at 18, then just kept moving. She has lived and worked in China, Singapore, Paris, and Italy, and is always thinking about the next place to call home. She writes about her adventures at www.expatedna.com.
NINETY MINUTES IN TSIM SHA TSUI
By Susan Blumberg-Kason
I froze in front of Hankow Center. As if in a trance, I stepped into the building’s open-air ground floor. There I found the directory, in the same place it had been sixteen years earlier when I lived in Hong Kong. My eyes scanned the names: J, K, L… and there she was, my former doctor. Seeing her name again pulled me back to a place I had tried to escape long ago. I blinked back tears.
It had been a Saturday in October, the day warm and dry, as it always is that time of year in Hong Kong. My doctor, a British woman named Sally, had placed her hand on my shoulder while I stood in a daze in the middle of her office. Even now I could still hear her words.
"You have an infection that is usually sexually transmitted. Please know that in Chinese culture husbands might cheat, but it doesn’t mean they don’t love their wives.”
It felt as if Sally had punched me in the stomach. Tottering back against the examining table, I softly asked, "Could I have gotten it from something else? Swimming or a toilet seat?”
"I suppose that’s possible, but it’s not common.”
No, it couldn’t have been Li. It must have come from the YMCA where I swam most mornings. Maybe I had unknowingly placed my suit on an infected area in the changing room. Just twenty-six then and going on my second year of marriage, I not only wanted to stay married to the mainland Chinese man who had wooed me during my first semester in graduate school, but I also couldn’t imagine leaving Hong Kong. I hadn’t planned to stay there for just a couple years while I studied; I wanted to spend all of my adult life there. When I confronted Li over the phone a couple days later—he was in China for a few months to extend his student visa and passport—I believed him when he insisted that he didn’t have a girlfriend. For years after that I kept quiet, fearing that my family, friends, and doctor would convince me to return to the US if I allowed it to become real. It was easier to be in denial than face the ramifications of the truth.
For a moment, staring at the white letters that spelled Sally’s name and office number on the black directory board, I pictured taking the ramshackle elevator upstairs to see her. I could wait in the reception area, flipping through Hong Kong gossip magazines just like old times, until she had a few free moments. My new husband Tom was napping back at the hotel and wasn’t expecting me for an hour or two. But instead of walking toward the elevator, I found myself turning away from the building, from the cramped jewelry stores and bank branches on the ground floor, in the same zombie state I had been the day Sally told me that Li had cheated.
Sally probably wouldn’t remember me. It had been so long ago, a year before the Handover. And if she did, what would
I say? I was in the neighborhood and thought I would say hello. You were right all those years ago. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you then, but wanted to tell you that I’m happy now, a mother of three and married to a man who treats me as an equal. Thank you for trying to talk some sense into me.
But it seemed silly and sentimental to go back there after all this time, not just to see Sally, but also to revisit the pain I had kept inside for years until I finally gained the courage to leave Li. Since my divorce, I had learned to stand up for myself and trust my instincts. Or so I thought. For the last decade, my interactions with him—by phone, by email, or in person—were all conducted in America. I had been back to San Francisco a couple times since I left Li there, and had lived in Chicago for the twelve years since our divorce came through. But this was the first time I had returned to Hong Kong or anywhere in Asia since I had left my expat life—still married to Li—a decade and a half ago.
After I returned to the US, I often wondered if I would ever make it back to Hong Kong. The city wasn’t just a fleeting stop. It was where I had come of age, arriving as an innocent college student who had never had a boyfriend, and leaving as a married woman, pregnant with my first child. When I repatriated to San Francisco at twenty-seven, I was hopeful for my future. Now at forty-one, I still had hope, but also security and the knowledge that my bills would be paid on time and that my kids were safe in Chicago. I didn’t have to worry that their father would whisk them off to another country without telling me.
Not too long after our divorce, Li had moved back to Hong Kong for a few years. During that time, the territory was plagued with SARS, bird flu, and swine flu; there always seemed to be a reason to stay away. It wasn’t until my youngest child was two that I thought Tom and I could sneak away for a quick trip to Hong Kong while my mom watched the kids. Li had returned to China and was remarried, too.
*
Drifting away from Hankow Center, I found the underground walkway to cross Kowloon Park Drive. When I reemerged on dazzling Canton Road, I saw that it had transformed over the years from a street of electronics and souvenir shops to one packed with European and American luxury boutiques. I made my way to a Hong Kong home ware and clothing shop that I’d hoped to visit on this trip. While I perused the store for almost an hour, the emotions that had welled up in front of Sally’s building seemed to dissipate.
But back on the street, I paused again. As throngs of shoppers strolled by, I stared across Canton Road, a street I had traversed hundreds of times during my expat years. A street where Li’s other family suddenly came to life again.
I felt as if I was back in the mid-‘90s, accompanying Li to the ferry terminal across the street. China Hong Kong City, it was called. The first time I sent Li off to southern China to visit his ex-wife Wei Ling and daughter Ting-Ting, many questions raced through my mind. How would he interact with his ex-wife? Would his daughter take to him after a three-year absence? I was doing the right thing in supporting this reunion, wasn’t I? These were heavy issues for a twenty-four-year-old newlywed.
I had wanted to greet Li at the terminal when he returned that Sunday, and thought the two of us could stroll along Canton Road toward the MTR station, perhaps stopping in our favorite food court in the Tsim Sha Tsui district before boarding the train back to our campus apartment up by the China border. I usually ordered a large bowl of Japanese udon soup and Li a Chinese-Western hybrid dish like thin pork chops served over white rice, topped with a ladle of gravy. But Li had insisted I wait for him in our dorm room. He didn’t want to trouble me.
"It’s no trouble,” I said. "You know I love going into Kowloon. We could hang out there a bit. It’d be a nice change of pace.”
Li wouldn’t hear of me schlepping forty-five minutes to meet him. At the time, I just thought he didn’t want me to take out two hours from studying to travel to the ferry pier and back. Later on I would gradually realize that Li preferred to compartmentalize his life, including me in some things and not in others. As he was getting ready for his first trip to see his daughter, I didn’t want to make a big deal about it and agreed to wait for him in our dorm room.
When he arrived home from that trip, he seemed refreshed and encouraged by his reunion with his then six-year-old daughter. I sat next to him as he pulled out a small album of prints he had developed at a one-hour photo store in Zhuhai. Ting-Ting looked bashfully at the camera and to my surprise, resembled not Li but both of his parents. That was all the more apparent when Li flipped the page and I came face to face with Wei Ling, her almond eyes and gentle smile illuminating the page. His rundown of the weekend confirmed that Ting-Ting took up his attention in Zhuhai, not Wei Ling. I felt secure enough to see him off a couple more times to visit his daughter and ex-wife, trips where again I accompanied him to the ferry pier but went no further.
*
Looking around Canton Road, I could almost picture the day I spent with Wei Ling and Ting-Ting. Any one of the red taxis cruising down the street could have been the one we shared all those years ago.
When Li learned that Wei Ling and Ting-Ting would be passing through Hong Kong after a group tour to Thailand, I volunteered to take them out to lunch. He would already be back in China because of an expired Hong Kong student visa, a month before we were to move to San Francisco. I was four months pregnant with my oldest son and only child with Li. Nervous and afraid that Wei Ling would be cold and closed off, I planned to spend only an hour with them, enough time to eat lunch and give Ting-Ting a few art supplies and a money envelope from Li.
But the moment I met Wei Ling, my feelings changed. She seemed nothing like the plain, selfish woman Li had described over the years. Instead, Wei Ling had big brown eyes and a petite, slender frame. Her warm smile and soft-spoken words had a calming influence on me that day.
After lunch at a hotel buffet in Mongkok, Wei Ling turned to me. "Would you have time to go with us to the ferry pier? We could talk a bit more in the taxi.”
"That would be wonderful,” I said, relieved to hear this. I was just getting to know Wei Ling and Ting-Ting, so it seemed premature to end our afternoon together quite yet.
Once we arrived on Canton Road, I playfully argued with Wei Ling over who would pay for the cab ride. I won in the end, with Wei Ling promising to pay next time. Next time, I told her, perhaps we would meet in San Francisco.
"It would be great if Ting-Ting could visit us after we have the baby and settle in,” I said, presuming the latter would come true.
Wei Ling peered up at me sheepishly. "Thank you. That sounds like a great idea. Being a single mother is so tiring.”
As an overhead announcer called for their boat to board, I understood that Wei Ling would accompany Ting-Ting on the long flight when the time came, at least on that first trip. And that was fine with me. It was a weird relationship, I knew, but Ting-Ting was Li’s daughter. Plus, I liked Wei Ling. I hugged her tightly and turned to Ting-Ting to do the same. After we let go, she waved as she and her mother headed for the door that led to the boat ramp.
That meeting turned out to be the only time I saw Wei Ling and Ting-Ting. Settling into San Francisco never happened, and Li and I never followed up with Ting-Ting about visiting us. That day I met Wei Ling, neither of us spoke much about Li. Over the years I wished I had asked her about her marriage to him. But I knew if I had, I would be admitting that mine had problems, too.
Now back on Canton Road after all these years, I wished I could go back and freeze time. Shoulder-to-shoulder shoppers crammed the streets, their faces and bodies a blur. Even so, for the first time in years I could see my twenty-six-year-old self. She might appear confident on the outside, but inside she was struggling to stay afloat in a complicated, confusing marriage for which she was ill-prepared. Yes, if I could stop time, I would embrace her tightly because no one had done so for me back then. That was because I never confided in anyone, not my best friends, my mother, or close coworkers. And when Sally tried to warn m
e, I refused to listen. Now I longed to go back and tell my younger self to have confidence, trust your instincts, and put yourself first.
I felt tears fall down my cheeks, but made no effort to wipe them away. In true Hong Kong fashion the passersby left me alone, either letting me save face or perhaps not even noticing me. It was only now at forty-one, back in Hong Kong, in Tsim Sha Tsui, on Canton Road that I remembered how alone I had felt back then.
How could I have been so naïve to think that these memories were just a thing of the past? Just because I had moved on from Li didn’t mean I had reconciled my issues with my twenty-something self. The choices I made, the problems I ignored, the stories I told myself to sustain my marriage to Li—they all resurfaced here on the tip of the Kowloon peninsula.
There was still time before Tom and I were to meet a friend for dinner. While I had planned to stay out a bit longer, wandering through the narrow streets in Tsim Sha Tsui as the sun went down and the neon signs illuminated the area, that all seemed trivial now. Tom was back in the hotel room and I wanted nothing more than to crawl under the covers next to him until dinner. I finally wiped my tears and rushed back to the hotel, putting to an end that part of my past once and for all.
Susan Blumberg-Kason is the author Good Chinese Wife (Sourcebooks, 2014), a memoir of her five-year marriage to a musician from central China and how she tried to adapt to Chinese family life as a wife, daughter-in-law, and mother. She is also the books editor of Asian Jewish Life magazine and can be found online at www.susanbkason.com. Remarried, Susan lives in suburban Chicago with her husband, three children, and a clingy cat.
HERE COMES THE SUN
By Leza Lowitz
First Meeting
Hiroo Orphanage is a pink industrial-looking building in a posh section of western Tokyo. The emperor founded this orphanage after the war. My husband Shogo and I are going there to meet our son.
How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia Page 24