by Suzanne Ma
Mao’s mouth hung open as he watched his sister leave the room. As soon as Pei had gone, Fen spoke up quietly. “Maybe there is just too much pressure,” she said. “Her temper has been so bad these weeks.” In bed, Pei continued to brood. Normally, she fell asleep within minutes of turning off the lights, her body heavy with fatigue. But that night she was weighed down by a force so strong, she felt a choking sensation in her throat. “I can’t stand being treated like a child,” she said. Her words escaped from her lips in small bursts of fog that drifted out into the cold room. “Everyone just dismisses my concerns. They call me a child, but this is a designation I cannot accept.” Pei’s parents had not called her a child that night, at least not in my presence. But her failure that day provoked a rare display of indignation that had long been swelling inside of her. What galled her the most, Pei told me, was not being treated like an adult despite the immense responsibilities imposed on her. She was the one who went to work at the bar, the one learning Italian, the one learning to drive.
Then she told me something I thought I’d never hear her say: “I regret coming to the mushroom farm,” Pei said. “Lia said working at the farm would help improve my Italian, but it has actually gotten worse. In the farm, I am blocked off from the rest of the world. It is very isolating. I feel . . . as if I was tricked into coming,” she sighed. “Nothing can be gained with your fingers in the dirt.” She wanted to share these feelings with her parents, but she didn’t know how. With the Chinese Lunar New Year fast approaching, Pei was hoping for a lucky break. In China, the New Year is more commonly known as the Spring Festival. It is a time of renewal and celebration, a time when families gather together to usher in good fortune into their homes. They wish family and friends happiness and luck, and they pray to the god of wealth for prosperity in the coming year. Pei pulled the pink covers up to her chin and lay back, trying to sleep. This was a bitterness that had become too hard for her swallow. For the first time in a long time, she felt as helpless as that barista I met in Solesino all those months ago.
8
A New Year
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
—Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2
A fine white powder coated the hands and faces of everyone crowded into the church kitchen that Saturday afternoon. Women fastened aprons around their waists, rolled up their sleeves, and stood shoulder to shoulder along the counter, kneading sticky mounds of dough. Thin blue veins bulged in their pale arms as they plunged into the gooey heaps with the heels of their hands, pushing and prodding and reshaping it. When they were satisfied, the women nipped off small bits, which they flattened with long wooden pins, rocking back and forth as they chattered to one another.
Pei and Mao stood a few feet away next to a metal cart where several glass bowls were filled with ground pork mixed with minced garlic and chopped bok choy and seasoned with soya sauce and Chinese rice wine. They joined a group of younger volunteers who spooned dollops of meat onto small doughy circles rolled out by the assembly line. Pei expertly folded the sides together in the shape of a crescent moon, crimping the dough to seal the contents inside. She and everyone else in the church’s kitchen were dumpling connoisseurs. In one afternoon they wrapped a total of two thousand dumplings, called jiaozi in Chinese. The jiaozi were then placed on long, rectangular steel trays and stored in a large freezer. They would be pan-fried and served at the church’s annual Chinese New Year dinner the following week.
In China, all families, from the youngest to the oldest family member, sit around the dinner table and wrap dumplings for the New Year. Dumplings are typically filled with ground meat and vegetables and are wrapped in the shape of ancient Chinese silver and gold ingots, which symbolize wealth. One tradition is to put a gold coin in one dumpling. The person who gets that dumpling is said to have good luck in the coming year. Pei and Mao grew up with these customs. Faces dusted white, hands crusted with dough, the juices of freshly smashed garlic on their fingertips—these were the flavors of a traditional Spring Festival.
I could have sworn we were back in China when I saw how many Chinese people were crammed into the kitchen that day. I was brought back to reality when Maria Chiara, the nun with the kind brown eyes, breezed into the kitchen and rolled up her coffee-colored sleeves. She stood next to Pei, picked up a dumpling wrapper, and placed it on her open palm.
“Show me how to do this,” she said in Chinese.
“Maria Chiara, watch me,” offered a young volunteer who spooned some meat filling onto the dough and deftly pinched the ends together. The nun observed for less than a minute before trying it herself. When she presented her creation, a round ball of dough pleated like a drawstring purse, the volunteers marveled at her fine work.
“Maria Chiara, you are a natural!” they exclaimed.
“I may look Italian,” she said in Chinese. “But it’s not what is on the outside but what is inside that counts, am I right? I must have a Chinese heart.” Maria Chiara giggled. The group continued to chitchat as they wrapped more dumplings, and Pei listened to the conversation as it flowed effortlessly between Italian and Chinese, hoping she could one day do the same.
Chinese holidays and festivals usually bring on homesickness. Within China, no matter how far migrants wander from their homes, they always make an effort to go back at least once a year. It is considered the largest annual human migration in the world. More than three billion trips are made within China during the forty-day period surrounding the holiday, according to the Chinese government. The Chinese pack onto trains and buses and travel in suffocating discomfort for days just to be with their families for the Spring Festival. During this time, children receive “lucky” money in red envelopes. Windows and doors are decorated with red paper couplets blessing the house with good fortune. Families spend days preparing a feast. Sticky glutinous rice cakes symbolize a cohesive family. Long and pliable noodles signify a long life. Peanuts represent health, and fruits like peaches stand for immortality. There is always fish on the dinner table—a pun for abundance in the new year. The loud crackle and boom of fireworks are believed to ward off evil spirits. In Pei’s hometown, people spend a small fortune on fireworks, lighting up the skies and blanketing the streets in a smoky haze. Thunderous explosions send shockwaves through town, setting off car alarms and making babies cry. Ash drifts down from the sky like hot snow. Alas, this is not how Chinese New Year is celebrated in Italy. Pei and Mao lamented how they would be getting no red pocket money, no family feast with relatives and friends back home, and Pei grumbled about having to work on New Year’s Day, something even workaholic migrants in China didn’t do. Despite their complaints, this was the first time in more than seven years the family would be together for the Spring Festival. Even though they had immigrated to Italy the previous year, they had spent the holiday apart because Pei had been working at the bar in Solesino and her father was cooking for factory workers in another town.
It took some convincing to get the Ye family to attend the church’s Chinese New Year party, which was scheduled for a Saturday night.
“My mother and I have to work,” Pei muttered.
“Heavens, you have to work on Chinese New Year?” Father Tong said. “What time do you get off?”
“It’s not always the same time,” Pei said. “Usually by noon.”
“That’s no problem.” Father Tong smiled. “I’ll come pick you up in the early afternoon!”
“We also have to work the next day,” Pei griped.
“Chinese New Year comes but once a year!” Father Tong insisted. That Saturday, Fen and Pei worked a morning at the farm, then rushed home to shower and change. Pei stood in front of the mirror drawing sparkly liner across her eyes and dusting her lids with a light blue shadow before going to her mother’s room to help Fen get ready. She powdered her mother’s face and then brushed out her thick hair, gathering a few strands above her ears and
pulling them back into a loose ponytail. As a finishing touch, she clipped her mother’s jeweled brooch—the one Fen often wore on her days off—in an elegant half up-do. A few days earlier, Pei had her own hair dyed a deep cerise and now she combed her shiny locks back into a stylish bun. When they heard the crunch of Father Tong’s car tires on the gravel driveway, mother and daughter pulled out matching white coats, each with a fur trim collar. The last time Pei wore her coat was the day she visited Venice.
The nuns and a crew of young volunteers had hung red lanterns and strung red streamers across the gymnasium of the Chinese-Italian Center, where the church ran their after-school programs for the children of Chinese immigrants. For more than a decade, the church had organized a Chinese New Year dinner and show for the community. Cafeteria tables were covered with red tablecloths and the paper plates and napkins came in red too. In Chinese culture, red is the color of prosperity and joy. More than one hundred people packed into the hall, most of them Chinese church parishioners. Everyone bowed their heads when Father Tong walked to the front of the room, cleared his throat, and began to sing a hymn in Chinese. His voice carried across the room, and many people joined Father Tong in song. Pei and her family shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Even though the hymn was sung in Chinese, not one of them had ever attended a Catholic mass before and this form of prayer was very foreign to them. When the people around them murmured, “Amen,” young volunteers burst into the gymnasium balancing large platters of food. The dishes cooled quickly in the drafty space, and Pei and her family picked at soggy spring rolls, limp noodles, sticky spare ribs, and pan-fried dumplings that were lukewarm by the time they arrived at the table. By nine o’clock, the hall was emptying out. Pei and her family followed the revelers who walked toward a nearby theater for a special New Year performance.
The heat was on full blast inside the Teatro Moderno. Pei and her family settled into plush red seats near the back just as the lights were dimming. Pei yawned and sunk low in her chair. Not used to the heat, she fluttered her eyes and rolled her head back. Then the voices of children filled the auditorium. She sat up in her chair just as the little ones moseyed on stage in pink tutus, waving their arms in unison to Chinese folk music. Next, a group of teens performed a peppy dance sequence to a frenzied techno beat. Their act was followed by an older Chinese woman who sang classic songs from the homeland. A guest from Myanmar brandished a guitar and strummed melodies he had composed in his native Burmese. Later, a Chinese artist from Turin performed tai chi, and a young Chinese student from Parma plucked the four strings of a pear-shaped instrument called the pipa, a kind of Chinese lute. For the grand finale, all of the performers gathered on stage and held their heads high as they sang a song called “Big China.” Soon, those in the audience joined in, too:
We have a home, and China is its name
We have lots of brothers and sisters there
The scenery is beautiful
Our big China; our big home
Bless you, China
You are forever in my heart
In the dark theater, I leaned forward in my seat to see Fen’s and Shen’s faces illuminated by the glow of the stage lights. Their lips were moving ever so slightly as they mouthed the words to the song: Bless you, China, you are forever in my heart . . . As the finale came to an end, people rose to give the performers hearty applause, and when the theater lights came back on, people were already streaming out the doors. We heard a hiss and a crackle—the unmistakable sound of fireworks.
“The fireworks won’t wait for us!” Pei shrieked, grabbing my hand and hurrying outside where a crowd had already assembled in the town square. Every head was raised expectantly to the sky. A flare sizzled and exploded, and Pei hooted as it sprayed the sky with color and light. The last time she had seen fireworks was more than two years ago while she was still living in China. “Happy New Year!” she exclaimed, her face softening for the first time in weeks until it wore a look of wonder and innocence. The last time I had seen that face was the day Pei visited Venice. A flicker of orange lit up the skies. Never did she imagine she would be celebrating the Spring Festival in a piazza so far away from home.
Almost as soon as the last sparkle fizzled out, heavy, wet snowflakes poured from the night sky. Father Tong’s car skidded and stalled on the icy roads all the way back to Pei’s home. Exhausted from all the excitement, Pei fell asleep in the backseat. Fen leaned forward and made small talk with Father Tong, as he switched on the car’s emergency blinkers, gripped the steering wheel, and inched along the slick pavement. By the time we arrived home that night, it was too late and too cold to take a shower. Pei climbed into bed at 1 a.m. and set her alarm. In less than five hours, she and her mother were getting up to start another workday.
In the moonlight, the two women slogged down the rutted road toward the farm. The women typically had Sundays off, but their schedules were sometimes hard to predict because work hours were ultimately determined by how many mushrooms were ready to be harvested. That weekend, the mushroom harvest was in full swing. It seemed like only a few minutes had passed after Pei’s heavy head sunk into her pillow when her cell phone called her awake that morning, vibrating and lighting up in the dark room. She instinctively reached over, fumbling to snooze the alarm. It was her mother’s voice from the other side of the wall that roused her. “Ah Bai,” Fen called, using Pei’s nickname in Qingtian dialect. “Time to get up.” While the two women were at work, Shen lay in bed as he made his weekly long-distance calls to China, shouting greetings into his phone until the sun crept over the horizon. He then spent the entire day at home in the kitchen. Shen was a savvy chef who relished preparing his mother’s recipes for the family to feast upon. An intoxicating smell of food flooded the entire house as he pickled daikon radishes, braised beef tendons in a spicy broth, and prepared po—a classic Qingtian braised pork dish eaten only during the New Year. Po is similar to pulled pork, except it is marinated in a sweet soy sauce and steamed for hours until the meat stews in its own juices and fat. That evening, the family sat down for its first New Year’s dinner together in seven years, and everyone agreed the food was far more delicious when cooked and eaten at home.
2013 was the year of the snake according to the Chinese zodiac and Pei’s horoscope was telling: Your impatience may hinder your studies. Your income is directly proportional to your authority. Without authority, your income will be flat. When dealing with people, beware of your temper and forcefulness. If you are single, consider marriage. A few months after the family’s New Year dinner, Pei took another run at the theory exam for her driver’s license. When the results came back, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She had failed again. The excitement of the Chinese New Year had long worn off, and Pei fell into another bout of gloom. Living away from home and working at the bars taught her to hide her emotions behind an eight-tooth smile. Now that she was living with her parents, she let her emotions pour out like a summer rainstorm.
“Gao bu dong!” she exclaimed in frustration one night, slamming her laptop closed. I just don’t understand! She considered giving up and told me she intended to move to Venice to find work in a bar. “That has been my dream for so long, maybe I should just go for it,” Pei said. But she was torn between chasing her own dreams and taking care of her family. Since she first set out to work at the bar in Solesino, Pei had found strength knowing her exertions were helping her parents pay the bills and move toward financial stability. She took it upon herself to do right by Fen and Shen and to support them in every possible way so they could return to China and escape the bitterness of the emigrant life. “I usually try not to say too much to my parents,” Pei said. “Perhaps my bitterness isn’t nearly as bitter as theirs. Perhaps,” she continued, “life is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“I mean maybe I think too much, that’s all,” Pei said.
R
ooting herself in thoughts of filial devotion, she pushed aside her Venetian dreams and enrolled for another round of driver-theory classes, determined to succeed on her third and final attempt. In August of 2013, she took the exam and, to her surprise, passed. “I did it!!” she howled, throwing her hands up in the air as her cheeks flushed bright red. Four months later she took a road test. Pei’s autoscuola instructor rode shotgun while the examiner sat in the back. She drove straight, turned, went through a roundabout, made a three-point turn, performed a parallel park. When she pulled into the test center’s parking lot, she was given her Italian driver’s permit right away. Pei wept tears of joy and relief. Days before Christmas she purchased a secondhand two-door Chevy coupe. She polished the car until it shone brightly in the sun and posed next it, dressed in her green work suit, in the mushroom farm’s parking lot. She proudly posted the photos on her micro-blog and wrote: “The fruits of my year-long effort.”
In Pei’s new car, Shen was able to make it to the church every week for the free Italian-language classes at Monte Tauro. The grocery store was no longer a thirty-minute bicycle ride away, and they could buy water and toilet paper, and even a case of wine, whenever they wanted to. The car brought the family to neighboring cities where they could start looking for a new house and even scout out new jobs and business opportunities. For Pei, the car let her experience a new kind of freedom. She bought gelato at the nearby mall and shopped for new clothes. She drove into the city with her brother, Mao, and gorged at a Chinese buffet. She partied at a disco for the first time in her life. Under the powerful strobe lights, Pei bobbed her head, swayed her hips to the music, and even danced with a few strangers.
The first time I saw Ye Pei in Italy was at the bus stop in Solesino. I remember getting up from my seat and bracing myself as the bus driver slammed on the brakes. I had already spotted her from a distance. Outside, the street lamps lit up her cherubic face. She was the only Chinese person waiting at the stop, and she was stretching her neck to look for me as the bus lurched to a halt in front of the town’s blue steeple. The doors flapped open, and I tumbled out onto the sidewalk into the cold night air.