Under Red Skies

by Karoline Kan

  I warned my parents: “Don’t ask about his salary or his parents’ savings account balance. Don’t stare at him as if he’s an animal in the zoo. If you want to look at him carefully, I’ll send you his photo. If he says he had enough food, don’t push him to eat more.”

  And I told Yunxiang specifically, “Don’t push Christian to drink too much baijiu. When he says he doesn’t want any more, he means it.”

  “What should I say to people when they ask if you are getting married?” my mom asked.

  “Oh, please. Come on, Mom!”

  I warned Christian: “Please be prepared; they’ll ask you awkward questions.”

  “Okay, no worries.”

  “And I hope you don’t mind that they’ll ask when you plan to buy an apartment for us, the wedding date, and other crazy things.”

  Christian was prepared. My family was prepared. But I was nervous.

  * * *

  Christian and I took the 7 a.m. bus to Ninghe, the name for the larger region of my hometown, including the areas of Chaoyang and Caiyuan villages and Lutai town. The bus was full, and before we boarded some passengers sat perched on their luggage or on the station floor.

  I had told Christian a lot about where I had come from and how I had grown up, about the beautiful villages, the harvest in the autumn, the old people gossiping under trees, the many street dogs napping in the sun, the persimmons hanging on the trees like orange lanterns, and about my mom’s cooking, which was the best in the world. When we drove out of Beijing, and along the deserted land, I began to see the journey and the countryside through Christian’s eyes. The version I had described looked different from what we were passing along the way. I noticed tall, rusty-looking buildings, swampy, polluted-looking rivers, and plastic bags swirling around over farmland. I closed my eyes with embarrassment.

  “We’re here!” I woke Christian when we arrived at Lutai bus station.

  He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, shrugged on his backpack, and grabbed the bottle of baijiu he had bought as a gift.

  “This is where I was born,” I said as we made our way off the bus. “I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

  “Of course not,” he said, looking around. I knew he must be shocked by how different it was to the station in Beijing, where there were vending machines and benches. By comparison, Lutai station seemed really just a pile of gravel and broken bricks.

  We took a taxi to my parents’ house, where my brother, his wife, and my little nephew were waiting for us at the dinner table. I introduced Christian and we immediately sat down to eat. I was so nervous I could not look my parents in the eyes. I could tell they were on their best behavior, afraid to make mistakes in front of the young white man—oh, gosh, I wanted to run out of the room!

  “Eat, eat” was all Mom said, over and over again. Because Christian was a vegetarian, she felt he must be hungrier than the rest of us. “Do you eat fish?” She moved the plate of braised silver carp closer to him and then picked it up to spoon some out for him.

  “Sorry, I don’t eat anything that has a face,” Christian said shyly.

  Mom stopped in midair, the plate still in her hand, and gently set it back down.

  “Eating vegetables is good,” Baba interjected, trying to defuse the awkward moment. “We don’t know what the pigs are fed today.”

  I wanted to explain that Christian was an advocate for animal rights, but I knew nobody would be interested in that, or possibly even understand.

  “Let’s drink,” Baba said, opening bottles of beer instead of the baiju.

  Christian looked at me in defeat. I feigned a smile. I felt sorry for him. He looked totally overwhelmed.

  When it was time for bed, my parents pulled me to the side to explain the sleeping arrangements. Yunxiang and Christian would sleep in one bedroom, my sister-in-law and I in another.

  “Of course not,” I chuckled. “Christian and I can sleep together, and Yunxiang and his wife can sleep together.”

  “What if other people hear about it?” Baba asked. “You’re not married.”

  “Don’t worry, nothing will happen. I will keep a distance from him, and no one will hear. But, please, it’s strange if Yunxiang and Christian sleep in the same bed.”

  My parents looked at each other.

  “And Yunxiang snores,” I added. “Christian won’t sleep well.”

  I had found a good excuse, and Mom made up the bed with two big quilts separated for each of us like sleeping bags.

  “Wow, she really figured out how to keep us apart,” Christian said when she left. We laughed, and I threw them together and locked the door.

  The three days at home were full of dinners to celebrate the Spring Festival, which also marked the beginning of the Chinese new year. At one point, forty or so family members gathered in a restaurant set up with different tables—not one long one.

  All the young couples had to approach the table of the elders and propose a toast for the New Year. One of my cousins, Hui, and her fiancé, Lai, went first.

  “When are you getting married?” Aunt Zhirong asked them.

  “This year, in August,” she announced cheerfully.

  “Great, great,” everyone cheered, raising their glasses again. “That’s good to hear.”

  Next was my turn. Hui and her boyfriend had been dating pretty much as long as Christian and I had, but I wasn’t sure if I should do it myself or with Christian. I thought about running away, and pretending I’d forgotten, but my parents would have killed me. I waited for everybody else to finish, stood up, and turned to Christian. “Just follow me.” He was confused and looked like a deer caught in the headlights, his face turning beet red.

  “Happy New Year!” I said, without checking to see if Christian had arrived by my side.

  My parents looked glad but nervous. They liked Christian, but my relationship with laowai was now public. It would be a big deal if we broke up. If you marry a foreign man, it’s glorious, but if you break up with one, it stains your reputation worse than ever.

  But I wasn’t afraid anymore. We were often met with unfriendly stares from Chinese people on the bus, in the streets, the supermarket, everywhere, and I stared back. I had the right to choose whomever I wanted to be with.

  * * *

  On the last day of our visit, we gathered at my grandparents’ tombs. We brought offerings of fruit, liquor, and dumplings. Like most other village people, our family grave was a set of tombs arranged on private farmland. During the Cultural Revolution, many tombs like ours were destroyed, so the oldest ancestors ours contained were the ashes of my great-grandparents. Resting behind them were the tombs of my grandfather and his brothers.

  According to Chinese custom, the urns are buried underground and marked with a little hill of earth. My mother sprinkled some new earth atop the tombs and we all weeded and tidied the site. We were “sweeping the graves” as a mark of respect. I set down the offerings of fruit and dumplings, and then Uncle Shoukui sprinkled baijiu over the tombs of our male family members. We knelt, kowtowed, and then each took turns burning paper money for the deceased.

  The sunshine felt soft on my skin, and I inhaled the smell of the burning paper and the liquor. Uncle Shoukui spoke over the tombs, “We hope you are happy in another world,” and told them how much we missed them.

  Many things had stayed the same in the twenty years since my parents had moved us from the village to the town. Our neighbors still played chess under the poplar near the village chief’s office, and the things that mattered most were still the simplest: a sound marriage and happy, healthy children, good food, plenty of work, and being responsible for your parents.

  But many things had changed.

  In villages today, shops sell everything from clothes and cakes to scooters and cell phones; the internet is now available in most every household; every ten minutes, there is a bus going to the center of town; the roads have been paved with asphalt, and many young people own their cars, whether they n
eed them or not. These are all considered indicators of progress or a better life—the kind of life my great-grandparent’s and grandparent’s generations once dreamed of.

  In these small places, you can see the real China—its beauty and ugliness, the weird and familiar, the joyful and sad, progressive and backward at the same time. I’ve learned to cherish every ounce of it.

  I’d been to the graves only a few times since my grandparents’ burials, too busy living in the new China as it develops itself so rapidly before my eyes. My life and my country had become like a never-ending express train. We work hard to keep up and never pause to rest, feeling that the moment we stop, we would lose sight of the unknown something in the future that we're aiming to catch.

  Acknowledgments

  In the spring of 2008, at nineteen years old, I took the most important test of my life: the college entrance exam. As I memorized word after word, phrase after phrase of an alien language—English—I was motivated by my dream to become an author and tell Chinese stories to the outside world. It seemed like a fantasy. I was just a schoolgirl from a tiny town, whose life was confined to homework, the classroom, and the ten-minute walk in between.

  Ten years later, that dream has come true. There are so many people who helped me grow from that deskbound girl to a published author.

  My thanks go first to my family and childhood neighbors, who generously shared stories of their pasts and provided me with a firsthand history of what they lived through. They not only helped me understand my country and my people, but also became the material for this book. They taught me that the wisdom printed in the books I love comes first from the wisdom of real people working in the real world. To my parents, who gave all they could to provide me the best possible life, your kindness, wisdom, diligence, and optimism have supported and inspired me through hesitation and doubts. You taught me to always dream of a better life and then to make it happen. Your love is my life’s greatest treasure.

  To my primary and high school teachers, Li Shixia, Wang Yuying, and Dong Huimin, who gave endless encouragement to my writing dream. Your praise of my essays were my proudest moments at school. To my English teachers in high school and at university, Feng Quanxia, Sherry Yoder, and Mike Martucci, you showed me that English was so much more than just a language for small talk with foreigners.

  To Leslie Jones, who I worked with at That’s Beijing Magazine; to Robert Foyle Hunwick and Steve George, who trusted me to write longer and longer pieces and taught me lessons about writing that I still now am only just coming to fully appreciate. To Heike Schmidt and Edward Wong, who hired me to work at Radio France International and then the New York Times and showed me the ropes of journalism, a profession I remain passionate about and proud of.

  A big thanks to Alec Ash, who first encouraged me to write personal essays and this book. You were a huge help, from editing my first book proposal to introducing me to my wonderful agent and providing helpful comments on my first draft.

  Alec Ash’s Wish Lantern and Eric Fish’s China’s Millennials served as exemplars while I wrote my own book. Zhang Lijia sat down with me and offered great advice on how to make scenes and language vivid and beautiful. Discussions with Tim Clissold helped me see afresh just how fascinating Chinese culture and history can be. Ian Johnson, Evan Osnos, and Xinran shared sage guidance on writing about China.

  A lot of friends helped me polish my work at various stages: Amy Hawkins, Katrina Michelle, Zeben Kopchak, Oscar Holland, Gabriel Crossley, Dominique Wong, and Meredith Yang. You are great friends and editors.

  I feel hugely fortunate to have worked at the New York Times’ Beijing Bureau with talented and hardworking colleagues who are careful and close observers of China. You have provided a great service for the world in writing insightful stories about China, and I have learned a lot from you about reporting, interviewing, pitching, researching, and telling stories. The Times editors in Hong Kong and New York have taught me with great patience how to dig deeper and build a better-constructed final piece.

  I am, of course, grateful to Krishan Trotman and Mollie Weisenfeld, my editors at Hachette Books, for their insightful readings and comments. Krishan’s questions helped me understand my ideas better and to learn how to present stories in a captivating way. Massive thanks to my agent, Kelly Falconer at Asia Literary Agency, for her close reading of every word in my book, for thought-provoking comments, and for guiding a clueless first-time author through the world of publishing.

  Special thanks to Christian Shepherd, who is always my first reader. You answered many bizarre questions on the differences between our cultures and have been an (almost always) patient English teacher. Your love, tolerance, and support give me the confidence to be me.

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.

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