The Cooked Seed: A Memoir

by Anchee Min

  I told her the stop seven blocks away would save me a quarter from the bus fare. “A dollar twenty-five is my budget,” I said. “I can save five dollars per month.”

  When Margaret wanted company, she took me to her job at a client’s home on the north side of Chicago. During the ride Margaret would put an Aretha Franklin tape into the cassette player and begin to sing along. Over the years of our friendship, she would be my guide not only to the best American pop music, but also to art, architecture, design, and fashion. In my eyes she was everything I wanted to be. In her company, I felt grateful and privileged.

  Margaret never made me feel inadequate or small. If I made a mistake, she let me find out on my own. She earned my respect and trust for what she chose not to do. She understood my sensitivity and awkwardness as a new immigrant. Most Americans I encountered treated me with kindness and respect, but they generally didn’t have any interest in me either. Fried rice and fortune cookies were about as much as an average American knew, or was willing to know, about China. I had never met anyone like Margaret. She was sincerely interested in China. She loved Chinese culture, art, philosophy, and architecture. Her favorite book was Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. Since childhood, she fancied that her former life was as a Chinese peasant.

  Our friendship blossomed. One day I invited Margaret in after she dropped me off. I was glad that Nick hadn’t produced his stink that day. In her Armani suit, Margaret entered my little storage room. I heard her draw her breath. “Oh, you make me feel so guilty!”

  I admired the fact that Margaret had no trouble speaking her mind. As a Jewish American, she believed that I was wrong to judge Jerome, the young man who had attempted to hang himself in class.

  “Are you not flawed?” Margaret questioned me. “You call Jerome’s act selfish and foolish, but what do you know about him as an individual and his situation? Do you have any idea of his background? What kind of childhood he might have had? Were his parents abusive? Does he have mental problems that he fights to control? Shouldn’t you try to wear his shoes and walk his path before you criticize?”

  I loved Margaret for these questions. Through her, I learned my own narrowness and smallness. One thing she said that stuck with me was, “You think you were deprived because you suffered under the Communist dictatorship, but you had your parents and their love. The real deprivation is being betrayed by your own parents. It’d destroy the core of a child if he was abandoned and abused by people he trusted the most. Can you imagine being raped by your mother’s boyfriend at a young age, being blamed for it, and beaten by your mother? Can you imagine the devastation, hurt, and confusion?”

  Margaret humbled me. She put seeds in my head and they sprouted inside me. Margaret was my enlightenment. I wanted to know more about her and learn from her. I concluded that until I met Margaret, I had been wasting money and time at the school.

  Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Margaret had been adopted by a middle-class American family as an infant. She didn’t know her birth mother—who, as she found out later, was deaf and blind. Margaret would not have children for fear of passing on her damaged genes. When she met me, she had been married, divorced, engaged, and disengaged three times. She was an extremely attractive woman. She described herself as part of the “baby boomer generation.”

  I asked what it meant when Margaret talked about “Woodstock.” I wanted to learn about the period, especially the “sex, drugs, and revolution.” Years later Margaret would recall that period as my “age of innocence.” She adored who I was then. “Bright-eyed and not yet corrupted.”

  Through Margaret, I glimpsed an intimacy that I hadn’t experienced for a long time. I became more attentive to Margaret than ever and did everything I could to spend time with her. My loneliness had finally found a balm. I pursued Margaret as if she were my lover. I was fascinated by the way she attracted men, and I wanted to learn from her about that, and everything else.

  I visited Margaret’s office. It was a small interior design firm. Margaret was surprised to see me. She was more surprised when I asked if I could help. “I’ll work for free. Just for the experience.” My real thinking was: This could be an opportunity—I had to start somewhere.

  “If you like,” was Margaret’s response.

  For the first week, I helped clean the office. I learned to use the coffeemaker. I ran errands in the downtown area. The second week, I became exhausted because I had to carry on with my other jobs and schoolwork. The third week, Margaret began to feel bad and tried to get me to leave. Hoping to learn on the job, impress Margaret, and possibly get hired, I signed up for an interior-architecture course at the school. The professor threw me out because I was unable to follow.

  “I need a trained draftsman,” Margaret said finally. “You are wasting your time here, Anchee.”

  I begged her to let me stay. “I am good at improving myself.”

  She shook her head and sighed. “I know you are after the H-1 visa. I’d help you if I could. The truth is that my firm is barely surviving. I have consulted an attorney. He told me that the H-1 visa requires a salary, and I don’t have the budget!”

  I said good-bye to Margaret and promised that I would not bother her again. Margaret pleaded with me not to be upset. “It’s been hard for me to get clients,” she said.

  I felt indebted to her. I would have done the same if I had been her. She had never promised me anything in the first place.

  Deepening my distress, I was let go as a waitress at my Chinese restaurant. The owner had decided to comply with immigration law, which forbade the hiring of noncitizen workers.

  I begged my boss at the school’s new student gallery for extra work hours. The gallery was located in the middle of the abandoned industrial area on Huron Street. “Neo-abstract Expressionism” had been the theme of most of the exhibitions. There were few visitors. I noticed that the artists had begun to incorporate paintings with installations. The works included a broken tire nailed with a worn shoe, or a bloody bed-sheet draped over a pile of trash. The artists devoted themselves to their projects with absolute dedication. I watched them labor tirelessly to install, deinstall, and reinstall.

  Opening nights were what the artists lived for. People came for the party, the food and drinks. The rest of the time during the exhibitions, I was the only soul in the well-lit but empty space. A few times I switched off lights to save electricity.

  Graduation approached and I was still without a job prospect. I tried and failed repeatedly. In a handful of interviews I got—for example, for an art-teacher position in a district nicknamed Little Saigon—the employer wouldn’t consider paying an immigration lawyer fees to change my status to H-1 visa. I learned that my bachelor of fine arts degree counted for little in the job market. To maintain my legal status and gain time, I applied for the master’s of fine arts degree and became a graduate student. Although I was temporarily sheltered immigration-wise, I lived like an ant crawling on a hottening wok. Not a day went by that I did not envision the ultimate disgrace: returning to China empty-handed.

  { Chapter 18 }

  A new face appeared at the gallery one fine morning during the spring of 1988, ten minutes before the end of my shift. The visitor was a Chinese man in his late twenties. He was slender, of medium height, and had the classically handsome look of a Southern Chinese. He had a pair of bright single-lid eyes, and his skin was so fine and smooth that it gave him a touch of femininity. His silky black hair was combed toward the back of his head. Smiling like a rose, he introduced himself.

  “My name is Qigu Jiang. It is nice to meet you. I arrived from Shanghai two days ago. I am here to take over the next shift.”

  He didn’t carry the usual fresh-off-the-boat immigrant look, nor did he appear disoriented by his new surroundings. Instantly I found myself wondering where his confidence and ease came from. His face beamed as he surveyed the exhibition. He wore a Western black silk suit and a long gray coat. Around his neck hung a bright-red scarf made of
wool. I was impressed. Later I’d learn that he had picked up his wardrobe from the local thrift store.

  I asked the meaning of his name in written Chinese. He was pleased to explain. “Qigu, as ‘unique valley.’ ”

  “This is not a working-class name,” I said, already sensing his family background.

  “You have excellent sense.” He smiled. “No, it’s not a working-class name.” He said the Jiang family had been the wealthiest in Zhejiang province until the 1949 revolution, when Communists took over China. The family was evicted from the home that had been built by his great-grandfather during the late Qing dynasty. Mao personally claimed the old Jiang mansion. The government also confiscated the Jiang family land, temples, and collections of art; these included valuable ancient scrolls of Chinese calligraphy. “It’s just another boring story,” he said. “How about you? How’s life in America? Do you miss China?”

  I told him that I missed everything Chinese, especially reading.

  “That’s strange,” he responded. “Most would say that they miss Chinese food.”

  “I have been avoiding speaking the mother tongue for years.”

  “Why?” he looked at me intently. “How can you?”

  “It is the only way to learn English. Survival depends on my ability to communicate.”

  He smiled and said that my English sounded excellent.

  “You are not bad yourself,” I complimented him. “Where did you learn to speak English?”

  He told me that he had learned English at the Shanghai Teacher’s College, where he had earned his bachelor’s degree. He passed the TOEFL test with a score of 540. I asked why he came to America.

  “Because there is no freedom of expression in China,” was his reply.

  “You think you can find it here?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought the newcomer would soon find out otherwise. I didn’t mean to be rude or blunt, but I couldn’t help myself. “Without a green card, there is no freedom in America.”

  “That’s not what I have heard,” he responded.

  “Unless you have money,” I said. “Have you?”

  “Two thousand dollars is all I possess,” he said. “But I don’t worry.”

  “Where do you live?” I asked.

  He told me that he was temporarily staying with an old college friend. “A few blocks south of Chinatown.” He had a work-study scholarship.

  “You’re going to experience difficulty with people pronouncing your name.” I smiled.

  “What kind of difficulty?”

  “Well, when Americans see a ‘Qi,’ they pronounce it as ki instead of chi.”

  He said that he had already experienced difficulties in almost everything, beginning with finding the bus stop. He couldn’t read the signs at the supermarket, either. He made me laugh because he kept pronouncing supermarket as “shoe-per-market.” He told me that he was already tired of correcting people who mispronounced his name.

  “When I tell them I am Qigu, like Chico, they tell me that I have a Mexican name. I figure I should give myself an American name.”

  In days to come I’d hear people call him David Jiang, John Jiang, Sy Jiang, and Cy Jiang in addition to Chico Jiang. He told me that he picked different names just to “try them out.” So far, none struck the right cord. He decided to live with all the different names to see if one would stick.

  I found myself laughing with him. His lightheartedness lifted my spirit. I was impressed that he was able to meet a difficult situation with humor.

  When Qigu told me that Chinese ink painting was his soul passion, I warned him that I could not be fooled. “I practiced Chinese ink painting myself for ten years,” I said. “And I got nowhere.”

  He asked for an opportunity to demonstrate his talent. “I’ve never failed to charm people with my abilities. All I need is to be discovered and recognized.”

  I told him that I had never met anyone who was so “full of booloony.” I had to explain to him what “boo-loony” meant. He didn’t mind and insisted that he was blessed with a gift. I offered him a brush, ink, and water. The exhibition in the gallery was being taken down—there was plenty of wall space. “Show me,” I said.

  He took the brush and dipped it into the ink. With his eyes closed, in a single motion and with one stroke, he created a Michelangelo figure with hair-thin lines.

  The image took my breath away.

  The next time, Qigu came with his entire portfolio. He arrived a little before we switched shifts. He made a show of his elegant black case, which was made in China. I was stunned by the poetry in his work. Besides human figures, he painted my favorite subjects—bamboo, creeks, flowers, leaves, geese, hills, and clouds.

  We began to chat in Shanghai dialect. Since I felt as if I had been living inside a pressure cooker, I asked him about his seeming tranquility.

  It was then he revealed that he was a practitioner of Taoism and Zen.

  “I know Taoism and Zen,” I said, “and all the rest of the Chinese stuff. But don’t you worry about survival in America? Money, security, and a green card? It is the first concern of every newcomer.”

  “Of course,” he replied. “I just won’t let it chew me up. It’s the mind that kills the living.”

  “Easier said than done,” I responded. “I used to, and still do, envy the American homeless. I consider them rich because they are blessed with citizenship. They have the right to work, and they already speak English.”

  I also told Qigu that I admired the Chinese students who majored in math and engineering. “They live lives of security and peace,” I said. “They know they will get a job offer after graduation. They don’t chase the green card, the green card chases them.”

  “Well, seemingly purposeful men but without a purpose,” Qigu said. “So many people with well-paying jobs lead miserable lives. They seek money so much that they are ruled by money. That is self-imposed slavery, in my view.”

  Qigu was convinced that unless I could free myself from my mental cage, opportunities would pass me by. “There are options and solutions in dealing with the visa issue,” he said. “For example, one can hop from one community college to another and pay the low tuition in exchange for a student visa. You can be a lifetime ‘foreign student’ without violating US immigration law.”

  Talking with Qigu relaxed me. To thank him, I invited him out for the five-dollar shrimp wonton soup in Chinatown. I insisted on paying, because I felt that I had been in America three years and was in a better financial situation. Five dollars would mean Qigu’s monthly salary in China. It didn’t occur to me that I was sending Qigu a message that I would regret.

  Years later Qigu would tell me that he thought I was hitting on him. I not only set up the date, but also paid for the dinner. During the meal, I told Qigu that I had a hard time picturing myself, as an old woman, posing as a foreign student. “What an awful life would that be!”

  Qigu laughed. “To me life is about making time to enjoy the sunshine, to smell the flowers, to have friends and tasty food—as Americans would say, ‘a good time’!”

  It didn’t take me long to discover that there were people who would pay to listen to Qigu. Margaret was one of them. She became Qigu’s instant disciple. She began to take Chinese brush-painting lessons from him. According to the Zen and Taoism philosophies Qigu preached, penniless people were better off than the wealthy. “They lead richer spiritual lives,” Qigu insisted. He firmly believed that people needed to free themselves of monetary concerns before they would be able to achieve nobility and find life’s purpose.

  “Such human beings get a lot more out of living,” Qigu concluded. “They can truly feel, absorb, and harvest what life offers.”

  Qigu made Margaret feel that going broke could be a purifying experience. “To let go of everything is the only way to gain everything.”

  Qigu and I often ran into each other at the South Halstead bus stop. In the mornings we took the same route through Chinatown and the downto
wn loop. In afternoons or evenings, when we returned from the school or work, we took the same bus. He would get off on Thirty-fifth Street and I on Forty-third Street. Besides saying hello, we shared our views, discoveries, and opinions about America, our classes, art, professors, and schoolmates.

  It was odd to me that Qigu had no intention of applying for a job in a Chinese restaurant. Instead he spent time learning about American art and artists. One day he invited me to visit his friends, who were former artists who had given up their passion in exchange for well-paying jobs in corporate America.

  I was surprised to see that these people were deeply unhappy. They called their H-1 visa status “meaningless.” With Qigu they discussed their boredom, homesickness, and their inability to feel truly at home in America.

  As if to compensate for their deprivations, they got together with Qigu on American holidays. They listened to classical music on their new, high-quality sound systems, and they cooked Chinese food. We made Shanghai-style wonton with meat and spinach. Being with Qigu and his friends made me feel less lonely, although the dread of my visa expiring was never far from my mind.

  The day before the Chinese New Year, Qigu and I rode the Halstead bus together on our way home from school. We joked about having to spend the Chinese New Year’s Eve alone. He told me about China’s new comedian stars. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a TV set,” he said. “The new broadcasting system by Central China Television is said to reach every corner in the world, including America!”

  “I have a nine-inch TV set,” I offered eagerly.

  It was too late when I realized that I had sounded too inviting. We stopped talking. The bus kept rolling. “Twenty-third Halstead,” the conductor announced. “Twenty-sixth Halstead.” “Twenty-ninth Halstead.” We sat in awkward silence. Everything was too obvious. A single man and a single woman—a convenient pair. I felt too old and too aware. There was nothing spontaneous or unexpected. Wasn’t love supposed to involve passion, not just naked needs? I felt that I was spoiling the relationship before it had a chance to begin.