The People’s Republic of Desire

by Annie Wang

  For years since the divorce, my father lived by himself. He's a man with good taste, from clothing to people. Now that Jean is his final choice, I believe he must have his reasons besides Jean's model looks. She was my father's secretary. For years she had been reliable and loyal.

  Not long ago, Jean decided that she wanted to study English in the United States. She found a language school in Manhattan and has rented an apartment close to her classes for $2000 per month. She is due to leave China in one month.

  "You can learn English in China by hiring a native English speaker. You don't have to go all the way to the Big Apple to do that," I tell her on the phone. "By the way, isn't it crazy to give up your home and leave your husband?"

  "Niuniu, I haven't told you this before, but I'm pregnant." Jean almost whispers on the other end of the line, as if some unauthorized person might be listening in.

  "It's even crazier. You should avoid too much travel for the sake of the baby." I don't see the connection between Jean's pregnancy and her New York trip.

  "Niuniu, can't you see that I'm doing everything for the sake of the baby? Do I have to explain to you that my language learning is not serious; my real goal is giving birth to the baby in the States!" Jean shouts at me, completely forgetting her previous attempt at secrecy.

  "Oh, I see, you want my half-brother to have a meiguo huzhao, a U.S. passport!" I finally get it. Many nouveaux-riches Chinese want to give birth to their children in the United States. In order to trick American Immigration, the mothers often visit the United States on a business or a student visa when they are two or three months pregnant.

  Jean replies, "Yes, exactly, girl. You know, having a Chinese passport sucks. It's such a hassle every time I walk out the door, especially that time I went to Brazil with your father. Your father's American passport met no problem; he got a visa straight away. But when it came to mine, the local guide said, 'You have a Chinese passport. You should put twenty dollars in the cover of your passport, otherwise they will give you trouble getting the visa.' I thought, both your father and I look Chinese. How can a Chinese passport and an American passport be treated so differently? I didn't put in that twenty dollars. I didn't get the visa. In the end, I had to straight-up hand the cash over to get through Immigration.

  "Another time it was even more humiliating. I was on a tourist visa traveling to the States. Another Chinese person and I were the only two who were searched by customs. The customs officer opened my suitcase and went through everything in there, including two new frilly bras I'd bought for a special occasion! My suitcase was a mess, but he wasn't satisfied. He asked me if the Rolex I brought was real. I said yes. I spent ten thousand dollars on this watch. He also asked me how much cash I had brought with me. I said, 'Nine thousand dollars.' He asked me to show him the money and count it for him. I hid the money in the pocket of the special underwear I wore. You know, most Chinese carry our money this way. I didn't know what to do. I said I could do that only if he found a female officer to replace him. He left. While he was gone, I quickly took off my pants to get the money out. Just as I was putting on my pants, he came back to the room with a big woman. I was so embarrassed since I was only half-dressed. Later, I swore to myself that my baby has to be a U.S. citizen, so he will be able to travel anywhere in the world freely and never endure the humiliation I have experienced. I'm not an American, but at least I can find a way to be the mother of an American."

  Jean is not the only Chinese obsessed with snagging an American passport. Good or bad, the Chinese have tried for over a hundred years to leave China. In the eyes of many Chinese, an American passport is not just a passport; it's an ideal to be held up, a status symbol, a safeguard of freedom.

  "But my father is an American citizen; his baby will automatically be one," I say.

  "But I was told that American-born adults can be candidates for American presidents," says Jean.

  "I didn't know you were so ambitious!" I tease her.

  "You never know. I just think that being American-born will be a nice thing for my child. But even if my baby does get U.S. citizenship, there are other things that bother me, too."

  "What else?" I ask.

  "His future education. I wanted him to get educated in the United States. But I was told that K – 12 education in the United States is very lax. Some of my friends' kids can't keep up with the math classes in Beijing after studying in the States for a few years. I am also worried that if my baby is a boy, he will be beaten up by white boys and won't be able to find a girlfriend there. Plus, American English isn't authentic English." Jean sounds like a typical overprotective Chinese parent.

  "Then send him to Great Britain to learn the Queen's English!" I suggest.

  " England is a very conservative society that doesn't welcome immigrants. I'm afraid that my baby will lose his self-confidence there, like your friend CC," Jean whines.

  "What about Australia or Canada? Both of those countries are nice to immigrants," I say.

  "But the schools there are not as prestigious as American or English schools. It'll make my kid look inferior compared to the other kids who are sent to the United States." Jean, apparently, is picky.

  "I can't believe you are so snobbish!"

  "It's not me that is snobbish. It's Chinese society. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the mainland, they're all the same!" Jean cries.

  "What's wrong if my little brother or sister stays in China?" I ask.

  "You grew up in China and you know that the competition in Chinese schools is savage. Plus, my baby has to speak English like a native speaker."

  "What about kindergarten in England so that he can be immersed in the Queen's English, primary school in an international school in China so that he can have a solid foundation for math, junior high school and high school in Canada and Australia to make friends with other immigrants in those countries, higher education in the United States to gain the prestige and the vainglory you want," I suggest.

  "Yes! Perfect!" Jean takes what I have said seriously, "Niuniu, you're so smart. Such an arrangement will make your brother a global citizen. I watch news on TV. The other day, President Hu Jintao was talking about cultivating global talents. See, I'm a good Chinese citizen who follows the CCP's policy closely!"

  POPULAR PHRASES

  XIAORENDEZHI: "Small people finally grab their chance": the triumph of the little man. Closest English translation is probably "Every dog has his day."

  MEIGUO HUZHAO: Beautiful country's documents of protection; American passport.

  26 A Cool Mother

  I think to myself, "Gee, Jean is so demanding that she's just like my own mother. Father must like the same type of women."

  "What's Mei been doing lately?" Jean calls me to pry out information about my mother. "She's just at home."

  "I heard she is organizing a Sino-American forum on women in the twenty-first century," Jean says.

  "Why wasn't I told about that?" I am surprised.

  "There are always a lot of rumors about her," Jean says.

  "Really? So many people are concerned about her!"

  "That's right. She's always working on something. I can't believe that she could stay at home and do nothing but watch the children. She is probably cooking up something big."

  "Really?"

  "Yes. I recently learned that when Mei was young she looked like the pop star Faye Wong," Jean announces.

  "Really?"

  "They are both tall, with dark eyebrows and almond-shaped eyes, and they both have a bit of Beijing ruffian about the m, and a mysterious, unfathomable spirit. I guess this kind of woman is most attractive to men."

  "Jean, why are you so interested in my mother?" Jean seems to have an ulterior motive for calling.

  "Sometimes, I think, perhaps your father still loves her," she finally admits.

  "Don't be silly, my mother now has three children. And you? Young and pretty and well educated – there's no need for you to be jealous of her."

  "It's
not jealousy. It's pure admiration. I know that your father will never love me the way he loved your mother. Every time he speaks of her, he has such an admiring tone. He doesn't hold any grudges against her at all. I feel just like the famous architect Liang Sicheng's second wife, always living in the shad ow of his first wife, the beautiful and popular Lin Huiyin."

  "How can my mother compare to Lin Huiyin? My mother was one of those schoolgirls who were sent to learn from workers and peasants; she didn't go to college in China. In the States she didn't study for a degree, she had a child, and looked after her child, me." I try to make Jean feel better.

  "Don't start. She doesn't have a college degree, but she speaks English just like an American, and for that alone, I am impressed. I took the TOEFL how many times, but as soon as I speak to a foreigner, I tremble."

  "So she's got a talent for languages! That's it."

  "Every time I see your stepfather John, he tells us, 'Without Mei, I don't know how I could go on living. She really is a gift from heaven,' and so on."

  "Americans love to exaggerate. You know that." Being surrounded by so many insecure modern Chinese women has made me an expert at reassurance.

  "Anyway, for a woman to be like her, to make so many men adore her, is amazing! Niuniu, you should learn from her!"

  Yes. I should. Already in her late forties, mother of three children, Wei Mei is still popular and looks like she's in her thirties.

  Everybody says that I have a cool mother. She always knows exactly what she wants. Mother is rarely confused. She is mixed Han Chinese and Manchurian. She has that kind of healthy, hard-working, hardship-enduring proletarian natural beauty that was popular in China in the 1950s.

  During the Cultural Revolution, my grandparents were both revolutionary opera performers who followed the Gang of Four, and were among the intellectuals in favor with the party. When everyone else her age had been sent down to the countryside or to join the army, Mother relied on my grandparents' connections to obtain a job working as a shop assistant in a cooperative in Beijing 's West City district. At the time, this was one of the most comfortable jobs. Later, she worked as a cook's assistant in the kitchen of a city jail. Still, the job was located in the city and she always had enough to eat, not bad at all for that time.

  I've heard from Grandma that toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, Mother had become one of the famous Beijing "hooligan girls."

  When I ask Grandma what punk girls meant at that time, she says, "Well, punk girls were just girls who had a little more guts than others, wore more colorful clothes, and dared to speak to boys. In those days that was a really big deal. Your mother was just like that.

  "She was careless and uncalculating, dared to wear her hair in bangs. At that time, it was a sign of petit bourgeois sentimentality – and she liked talking to boys, so naturally she was branded a punk girl. "

  My grandparents were busy "struggling with people" all day and didn't have time to take care of their only daughter.

  Before the Cultural Revolution had finished, Mother managed to leave China. At that time, she had married Fan Wen, who had suffered during the Cultural Revolution. Grandma has told me that Fan Wen's father, Fan Yingchun, was a nobleman from a wealthy old Chinese family, who at the end of the 1930s went to the States to study metallurgy. There he met Fan Wen's mother, Marguerite, a Frenchwoman who was studying there. This girl was interested in Asian culture, she herself was half Chinese, and she adored Fan Yingchun. They gave birth to Fan Wen in Minnesota in 1945.

  After the People's Republic of China was established, Fan Yingchun, his head full of revolution and idealism, said he wanted to return to China to serve the motherland. His wife refused, but Fan Yingchun was determined. He left his wife for his country and returned to China, taking his little son Fan Wen, who at the time could speak only English and French.

  During the Cultural Revolution, Fan Yingchun, returning from overseas and with a mixed-blood child, was accused of being an American spy. He was beaten up every day by Red Guards. Having suffered too much humiliation and filled with grief, he abandoned all hope and committed suicide. He electrocuted himself.

  He had given up everything to make revolution for a new China, but in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, he gave up his own life!

  Without his father, timid Fan Wen was an orphan and drifted around Beijing. He was beaten and cursed, suffered cold and hunger, was dirty and decrepit, cast himself here and there, but his Chinese improved day by day. One day, he went to the cooperative to buy some tea, and there he met Mother.

  Grandma says that she was surprised that Mother fell for Fan Wen. "Your mother was unrestrained and fearless. Fan Wen was timid and quiet, soft-spoken, scruffy and clumsy, and much older than your mother. I didn't approve of the marriage, but your mother was a rebel. She ran away. Now, you're just like her, a little rebel!" Grandma points at my nose.

  "Tell me more." I beg her.

  Deng Xiaoping came to power, policies were relaxed, and Fan Wen left, taking his new bride, Wei Mei, to find his mother in the States. At the time, Fan Wen knew only that his mother's name was Marguerite. He didn't know what she looked like.

  Marguerite had remarried. Her new husband was a successful Irish psychiatrist. They had three children, two boys and a girl, all of whom were grown-up. They lived in wea lthy Tiburon, in northern California near San Francisco.

  Marguerite treated Fan Wen and Mei very well. She told Fan Wen without misgivings that after all those years, in her heart she still loved Fan Wen's father Fan Yingchun. She had cried for him for a long time.

  In order to make up for Fan Wen's suffering in China, Marguerite rented a house for her son and his wife, Mei, who had never received a formal education and could not speak English, and enrolled them in English classes at an adult educational school. She also deposited $10,000 in their bank account for Fan Wen to attend university or start a business.

  Mei and Fan Wen led a typical new-immigrant lifestyle. They studied, worked, adapted, struggled, complained, cursed, and resigned themselves to their fate.

  But everything changed that Christmas.

  During the 1970s, it was very rare to meet a mainland Chinese person in the United States. Marguerite's three children returned to their parents' home in Tiburon for Christmas, and met their half-brother Fan Wen for the first time. Marguerite's second son, Mark, even brought his Taiwanese colleague, Dr Chen Siyuan, a professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, so that Fan Wen and Mei could meet some Chinese friends. I have never met my Uncle Mark, but there meet him and thank him someday.

  Mei was always a good cook. She cooked a Chinese and American – style Christmas banquet for Marguerite's whole family, which everyone complimented profusely. Her apple pie and fried dumplings, as well as her beauty and generosity, left a deep impression on everyone.

  Especially on Mark's friend Chen Siyuan, who loved gourmet food. Perhaps the Chinese saying "To win a man, you have to win his stomach" has some validity. It has never been a problem for Mei to find a man. Perhaps I should improve my cooking skills? No – Lulu enjoys making soup, but still has so much failure in love. Perhaps it's Mei's strength that Chen Siyuan fell for. Chen Siyuan is a meek man. Until this day, it is still difficult for me to imagine that he pursued Mei while risking being branded a wife-stealer. What was the force behind this? Chen Siyuan has told me that he is simply enamored of the straightforward manner of northern women. It was something he hadn't seen in those bashful southern girls. Mother was the first northern Chinese woman he had met. He said later, "Northern Chinese women are strong and they let you know what they want, not like other girls, who love to play games and keep you guessing all the time."

  Mei told me that Fan Wen and she had grown apart after they had come to the United States. Fan Wen always wanted her to take charge. Whenever he ran into difficulties, he always hid behind Mei. He took driving lessons for months but never passed his driving test. But Mei, after being behind the wheel for eigh
t hours, had obtained her license, and started working as a delivery driver for a Chinese restaurant. Much of the time, Mei was the man of the house.

  Because Fan Wen progressed more slowly than Mei, he was often angry with her over small matters. Although the handsome and erudite Chen Siyuan moved Mei with his sincerity and affection, she could not bring herself to leave the pitiable Fan Wen.

  Finally Marguerite's son Mark discovered their secret. He supported their love and made a special trip home from MIT to reassure his mother, Marguerite. When Marguerite saw that Mei no longer loved Fan Wen, she could only agree. Fan Wen talked with his mother for three days and three nights. He nearly went crazy, but finally he agreed to a divorce. That was how Mei became Mrs. Chen. In 1977, I was born, a child of passion. In 1983, Father was posted to Beijing as the representative for Hewlett-Packard.

  We returned to China when I was five. In Beijing, Mother helped foreign companies set up in China, organized cultural events for foreign embassies, and established sister-city relation ships between Chinese and American cities. TV presenters, diplomats, chief representatives of foreign businesses, and cultural attaches often came to visit our home. Mother was always busy and was considered quite a mover-and-shaker. The Chinese government even presented her with an award, naming her a cultural ambassador between the East and the West. I really admire her for her energy, yet I haven't inherited either her ambition or her social ability.

  Compared to Mother, I might have had more sexual relationships with different men because my generation is more sexually liberated than the previous one. But I don't have Mother's complex life experience. Len, just one man, has already disrupted my smooth-sailing life. Mother never let men and their love control her life.