Memoirs of a Eurasian

by Vivian Yang

  Together we walked the streets of this city, circling central parts of her, caressing her tar-paved surfaces with our rubbery soles. My rubbery soles, to be exact. They bore the trademark Huili, pidgin for jai-alai, a handball game played with a curved wicker basket. Banned since Liberation, jai-alai’s former stadium was converted to the Cultural Square where proletarian consciousness-raising entertainment was staged. But Huili tennis shoes’ quality survived, as did the durability of Uncle Fly’s hand-sewn footwear from Bob’s, the originally British-owned shoemaker translated in our patois as Bobu: “plentiful” and “steps”, another instance of a happy translation akin to that of ximengss for Simmons mattresses. Communism notwithstanding, Shanghai had so subtly retained bits and pieces of her “Paris of the East” reputation that only eyes like those of Uncle Fly could discern them. At his prodding, our soles together felt hints of this fantastic past.

  Side by side we promenaded, his hands buried in the pockets of the beige trench coat, its collar turned up and tail flapping in the wind; this sight of elegance I breathed in. You could find us on Huaihai, Yanan, and Nanjing, the parallel boulevards of central Shanghai formerly known as Joffre, Edward VII, and Nanking.

  In early fall evenings, the sidewalk cicadas would chirp and shrill bearing witness to us stepping on one yellow globular fruit after another, generating muffled popping sounds. They were the fallen flowers from the parasol-shaped French plane trees known locally as wutong: large flat leaves; broad palmate lobes. Once crushed by human heels, the small, round heads would leave their mark on the pavement as pulpy yellowish green trails. Eventually the westerly wind would ease and the sun would shine. The pulpy mess would dry up and turn into a yellow powder the texture of curry.

  Uncle Fly told me that they had been imported decades before, bundles of wutong seedlings piled atop the trans-Atlantic freight vessels from Lyon. A “no-landing allowed” stopover would have been made along the Mekong River, then part of French Indochine and now our Communist brethren the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Over half a century ago, the cityscape-planning-obsessed French had made sure that the part of Shanghai they administered would reflect the appeal of Paris. They held that marks left by them should be indelible.

  “That’s why you’ll always know whether or not you are in the former French Concession,” said Uncle Fly. “These wutong indicate its borders even today.”

  That fall afternoon in Fuxing Park, Uncle Fly said, “Before you came along, I used to park my bicycle outside the gates and walk around. It’s the closest thing to being actually in le Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris, after which this was modeled, and significantly scaled down, of course.”

  He referred to the site of our rendezvous as “le Jardin de Changhaï of yesteryear.” Soaring French wutong and Chinese lindens flanked the winding paths. Sweet gum trees surrounded the flowerbeds with concentric water fountains. Cast-iron chairs scattered around, with large umbrellas coming out of the thick glass tabletops. Despite the revolutionary slogans written on top of the umbrellas, Fuxing Park remained for us a rare urban oasis: bucolic, poetic, and romantic.

  It was during my sojourn in Hong Kong sometime later that I would hear a joke about the park’s name, which used to be spelled Fu Shing (rejuvenation) following the demise of the French Concession after WWII. When China re-opened to the West in the early 1980’s, Fuxing Park got some press and was quite a tourist attraction. Western writers did not realize that x had replaced the sh sound in China’s new Pinyin romanization system. In English, when u and x are together, they sometimes carry a hint of k, as in luxury. Word got around among the first batches of “yellow feverish” Westerners that this prettily laid-out park was oddly called Fuk-sing. In one of his travelogues, a backpacker-type dubbed the Shanghai park “a Parisian-style open-air petite mort arena.”

  I failed to be amused by the joke. Fuxing Park would forever be tied to my sentiment towards Uncle Fly, especially that windy autumn afternoon we shared there. The air was damp and sultry. A weak ray of sunlight would break through the clouds periodically. We were sitting on a cast iron framed wooden chair. Across the path was an oval-shaped flowerbed with roses nestling to bud. Uncle Fly had been staring absently at it with rueful eyes. The leafy canopy of the plane trees cast patchy shadows on our torsos. Before us, the pink flowers swayed in the breeze, emitting a delicate fragrance. “This is perhaps the only rose garden left in Shanghai.” He sighed. “You deserve to be in a place where a flower bud can bloom.”

  “Are you comparing me to a rose? You said yourself that Robert Burns was a genius to have compared his love to ‘a red, red rose’ but a second man who did so …”

  “… was a fool -- like me.” He finished the sentence self-mockingly and turned to look at me. There was a conflicted expression in his eyes. Snapping out of his mood with a tap on my shoulder, he stood up and said, “Come, let me take you to Le Carrousel.”

  “Really?” I asked for a reply, excited by the prospect of riding on the only merry-go-round in Shanghai, a replica of the one in the Luxembourg Gardens. It had only recently been reopened, having been shut down at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution after failed attempts to replace “decadent” French cabaret music with the tune of “We Are the Red Guards from the Prairies”. The cost – several times that of the park entrance fee – meant that there were few patrons.

  After we mounted two colorful horses next to each other, Uncle Fly remarked most unexpectedly: “With a riding helmet, you’d look like an equestrian straight out of a painting.”

  A gust of wind hit us just as the ride commenced. I instinctively bent over, encircling the neck of the stud to cover my face. A burning exhilaration propelled me as I joined others in a joyous shriek as the menagerie of elegant creatures launched into a wavy charge.

  Later we traversed out of the park and meandered in the direction of the former International Settlement, passing clusters of frayed but still charming Art Deco mansions. As we veered off onto Nanjing Road West, Uncle Fly said, “Commander K’s is right up the street. We’ll get you a cake if you can tell me its original name.”

  “Kiessling’s Café, right? They have the best whipped-cream cake in town!”

  “Not bad. How did you know about it?”

  “Easy. I love food and pay attention to references of it whenever I can.”

  As we strode out of the famed Western-style bakery, I was so struck by Uncle Fly’s gait while holding the cake box that I said, “You look so gallant.”

  “Funny that you used the same word.”

  “Who else used it?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Tell me!”

  He glanced at me. “Used to come here … She’d make me carry a stack of her shoeboxes in one hand and a Kiessling’s cake in another. As the clattering of her heels hit the concrete, I would trail behind and she would laugh and say that’s gallantry.”

  I stopped walking. With the tip of my shoe, I wrote the character Ai over the mustard-colored crumbs on the street. Then I stamped the heart part.

  Once. Twice. Thrice.

  He looked on, not moving his feet despite the dusty cloud of dirt landing on his Bobu shoes. “I see you’ve soiled your Huilis,” he said coolly.

  “Mind your own business!” I croaked. “Why don’t you go carrying boxes for your dear widowed friend in Hong Kong? One can go there again now as long as he has a financial sponsor, right?”

  “Look, you persisted and I complied, so stop being childish and making a scene out here. You don’t realize that I …” his voice suddenly faltered.

  I remained motionless, my eyes fixated on my Huilis.

  “I’m torn, too …”

  “Over what?”

  He didn’t reply but cast a skyward look. “I’ll need His guidance. Now, let’s get going while the cake is fresh.” He reached over and held up the cake box at his arm’s length the way a Chinese houseboy would his mistress’ lantern. “At your service, your ladyship.”

  “Oh plea
se!” I couldn’t help but to break out in a smile.

  After kicking some more powdery mist in his direction, I trailed him home.

  The aroma of coffee greeted us as we entered his pavilion room. “Good, Ah Fang has gotten everything prepared already,” Uncle Fly said, putting down the cake box next to a stack of blue-on-white plates. They featured a pair of lovebirds kissing over a weeping willow, three men on a bridge, a sampan, and a scholar looking in the direction of several pagodas. A cake knife and silverware lay by their side along with two highball glasses, cream, and a bottle of sorghum wine.

  “You like baijiu, too? My mother used to drink it as a substitute for vodka with our Russian meal.”

  “Unfortunately we’ll have to use it the same way here -- as a substitute for Smirnoff. I’ll show you how to mix some pseudo-White Russian here to go with the cake. Of course we’ve got no Kahlua, either, so you’ll just have to make do with a hot one from our Yunnan beans. We can transport some of the whipped cream from the cake to top it off.”

  Later, as we enjoyed the Commander K’s cream cake with our makeshift cocktail, Uncle Fly said, “Someday soon I hope to see you being served the real McCoy somewhere.”

  Since our graduation in the summer, Wang Hong had been hanging out with Condiments’ circle of friends. One afternoon, I saw her loitering around the vegetable stand where we used to meet as if waiting for someone.

  “Hello there,” I called out. “Long time no see.” She looked away and proceeded to pick out some cucumbers.

  “What’s the matter? You mad at me?”

  She tossed the gourd back and said, “I wouldn’t dare be, my Renaissance Shanghainese Princess?”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. We are just friends. I know lots of things have happened, but I haven’t forgotten about you. Why is it that you don’t come here anymore?”

  “Why do you suppose I have been standing by this stall?”

  “You’ve been waiting for me? Thanks, and by the way, you look different … and nice.” Her hair, still in bangs, appeared shinier. Her cheeks were red as ever but the dirt-caked skin she used to have was now apple-smooth. “You’ve got blush and lipstick on!” I cried out.

  She grinned finally. “Genuine Japanese brand. Do you like it?”

  “Definitely. How …?”

  “While you’re busy getting even more sophisticated, I’ve got myself an exit visa to Japan. That’s what I was going to tell you.”

  “Wait, wait, you’re going to Japan?”

  “Yes, Tokyo! Got my visa yesterday so all I now need is another one-thousand yuan for the plane ticket to Narita Airport. Willing to help out?”

  “Where on earth can I get that kind of money? My mother is just a school teacher and I …”

  “And you are the girlfriend of the rich and regal man.”

  I blushed in spite of myself. “No I’m not … and even if I were – I’d not use him that way.”

  Wang Hong shook her head. “Forget it. I knew it’s unlikely but no harm trying. Anyway, our sponsor in Tokyo already sent us the ticket and the applications to Japanese language schools in Shinjuku, so I’m all set to go.”

  “Wait … who else is going with you?”

  “Condiments, of course. It’s through his connections that we got our sponsor. But we’re not going to be in the same school.”

  “You’re kidding! You’re just about the last person I know who wants to go back to school.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, right? But that’s the only way for people like us to go to Japan, according to Ryu Hideo, our sponsor.”

  “Didn’t realize that Condiments wanted to go to Japan. Are you two …?”

  She interrupted me. “He’s not what you remember him anymore. He looks so different now, tall and handsome, and his hair is all spiky with Japanese gel for men. He was the one who gave me the makeup products as presents. Nice of him, right?”

  Right, I thought to myself. The boy who called me a Soviet mutt and got Uncle Fly in trouble has reinvented himself and won Wang Hong as a girlfriend and they’re going abroad. “How did Condiments know a Japanese?”

  “You mean our sponsor?” Wang Hong cupped her hand and talked directly in my ear. “He’s actually Chinese and Ryu Hideo is his fake Japanese name as he’s there illegally. But he’s very powerful and well-connected. He is only in his early thirties but already extremely successful.”

  “This is so sudden, though. Are you sure you want to go to Japan with Condiments?”

  “Of course. Condiments says this is the opportunity of a lifetime. Japan is so much wealthier than China and it needs cheap labor for its booming economy. Many student-visa holders simply work and make money. And unlike the U.S., where you have to take English tests to apply for schools, anyone can go to Japan to study.”

  “If I were you, I would still aim at an English-speaking country.”

  “I’m not a genius like you who has taught yourself the ‘belonging to the sewers’ language, nor was I born in Hong Kong. You could go back if you wanted to. In fact, why don’t you? Everybody I know has caught the ‘going abroad fever’ and is trying to leave ASAP.”

  “I know that, and it’s not like I haven’t thought about Hong Kong,” I said, thinking of Uncle Fly’s remark that I belonged in a place where I could truly blossom. “But I still need financial sponsorship so that I don’t become a burden on the public. It’s the same for the United States.” I told her about what happened to Mother and Popov and had her promise not to broadcast this.

  “That American Expert is already gone. My dad took him to Hongqiao Airport’s terminal for Hong Kong. Poor Teacher Mo. But maybe just as well, since you need English in America and it’ll be too hard to learn at her age. Unlike Japan, at least with the same Chinese characters we can guess some of the meaning. I have to go now. So many things to do.”

  I held her hand. “I would have invited you to my place again and cooked you a nice Goodbye meal but my mother has been in a horrible mood since …”

  “Don’t bother. I’m busy myself. I hear they have plenty of interesting foods in Japan – they eat raw beef and seafood and poisonous blowfish, etc. Thanks anyway.”

  I laughed. “You’re very welcome, Wang Hong. Do you realize that this was the first time since we met at four that you ever thanked me?”

  “No, I don’t, but I’ve always been thankful in my heart that you and I met and became such good friends.”

  Overcome with emotions, I pressed myself briefly against her next to the vegetable stand. “This is goodbye, then. Write me and do take care of yourself!”

  “I sure will. Hopefully when I see you again, Condiments and I will have earned so much money in Japan that we can open a store on Huaihai Road and become rich and sophisticated like you and your Renaissance Shanghainese.”

  “If that’s your goal in life, by all means go for it.”

  “Isn’t that your goal in life, too – to be rich and live well?”

  “Not that per se, but I certainly want to be the best that I can be, to achieve the most as a human being, and to not be judged by my appearance. Maybe that’s naïve of me to be so idealistic, but I’ll try my best. Let’s encourage each other and best of luck, Wang Hong.”

  “Bye-bye, Mo Mo,” she said, unaware that her farewell to me was bid in a common pidgin Shanghainese.

  13 Whether My Race Is Black White Brown Yellow or Red

  About a month after Wang Hong’s departure, I returned home one evening to find the door to Mother’s bedroom wide open. An oversized black canvas suitcase, newly acquired, lay open on her bed, the FOREVER padlock next to it. She was packing! In her crimson, form-fitting Russian dress, under the light from the flare lampshade, Mother looked striking, her silken skin translucent.

  “Come over here, Mo Mo. I have something to tell you.” She sat down on her bed and pointed at the spot next to her.

  “Has Mick Popov proposed to you finally?”

  “What made you think that? That little prick i
s history. Don’t know where in Asia he is fooling around and frankly I’ve ceased caring since he left Shanghai. I’m going abroad again myself, so there’re a few things you need to know.”

  “What? Where?”

  She gestured that I stop asking but listen. “Before I start, I’d like to tell you about myself so you can have some perspective. It’s my fault that I waited this long but it was out of necessity. Now – my life so far: you already know that I was raised at the Ziccawei Orphanage until Liberation when its management was taken over and the Western priests and nuns deported. The Soviet Union became our ‘Communist international Big Brother’ and I seized an opportunity not available to my peers.”

  Possessing Eurasian features was a double-edged sword. Young Mo Na-di knew what she had to do to survive and thrive. Never one who talked much, she forced herself to give speeches exposing “the imperialists’ atrocities against the Chinese orphans by instilling in them Christian beliefs.” She soon got noticed for “providing a living testimony against the West’s cultural and religious invasion of China.”

  “A young revolutionary half-Russian girl like you should be able to read notes and ruffle a tutu,” the female PLA commander garrisoned in the school told her. Na-di began to fumble with the pipe organ while singing songs like Dear Comrades, Let’s Meet Atop the Lenin Hills. In a School District-sponsored event, she performed the following 1930’s Soviet Union song celebrating the “international atmosphere on a collective farm”:

  Ren Men Jiao Ao de Chen Hu Shi Tong Zhi,

  Ta Bi Yi Qie Zun Chen Dou Guang Rong.

  You Zhe Chen Hu Ge Chu Dou Shi Jia Ting,

  Bu Fen Ren Zhong Hei Bei Zong Huang Hong.

  People proudly call me Comrade,

  It is more glorious a title than any other respectful ones.

  To have a title like Comrade I have families everywhere,