How Sweet the Bitter Soup

by Lori Qian

  After leaving the doctor’s office that day, we walked back to the marriage certificate office. As we went, I thought out loud about the possibility that he actually had tuberculosis:

  “I mean, I guess it’s not so impossible. I just have never heard of it as being something people still get. I thought the disease didn’t even exist anymore, or if it did, only in remote places.” I paused. “Then again, you are from a remote part of a third world country. You’ve spent your whole life being exposed to things that I haven’t. Some of the diseases rampant in China are those that Western countries automatically vaccinate for. In America, I think they just automatically do certain vaccinations when you’re a baby or when you enter kindergarten.”

  He looked so surprised. “Wow! They just do that automatically in America? So people are protected from those diseases?” It was as if the thought had never occurred to him—like it was a novel concept. I didn’t realize that to him and many people in China, it was a novel concept.

  At that moment I wanted nothing more than to give William a magical shrinking potion, stick him in my pocket, and take him to America. He would go to a clean hospital with carpet on the floors and paintings on the wall. There would be magazines on the table for him to read while he waited, and maybe soft music playing in the waiting room. He’d sip on a soda and look out the window at a well-manicured lawn. All of the things that had never mattered to me before suddenly took on significant meaning. I thought of the dingy grey hospital we’d just visited and the filthy air and surroundings outside of it. How different from home. I’d been in poor hospitals in the States, like the Veterans Hospital in Chicago; I was painfully aware of how bad things could be there. But even compared to some of the best hospitals in China, that place was paradise.

  All the love I’d had for China disappeared. I felt intensely angry. I don’t know whom my anger was really directed at, but I was mad that William had this awful disease. I was mad that this country was so dirty and that people’s lungs got so dirty as a result. Why hadn’t anyone thought of this?

  I suddenly felt very grateful to have been born in America. There are so many things I had taken for granted. But so many things that were just automatic in America were unheard of in China. I was mad, overwhelmed, and just very, very sad.

  William was dispassionate about the whole thing. I think he was more worried than he let on, but he also didn’t know much about the disease. And according to him, many people in China had tuberculosis.

  I couldn’t help thinking how unfair this was. William, of all people, did not deserve this. I thought back upon all the stories he’d told me about his childhood and I marveled at what he had survived and how extraordinary he was. He grew up never being full. He and his friends once gathered together all the money they could find in order to buy one small piece of steamed bread to share among the four of them. When his father was little, his parents both worked about six hours away. They, like many people of the time, earned their daily rice by working on a reservoir. For a day’s work, his mother and father each got a small amount of rice, of which they would eat only what was necessary to maintain their strength. The rest they would put aside in a small bottle and save for their son. They would let the rice accumulate for about a week and then William’s grandfather would make the six-hour journey back to his son to give him the rice. William carried his father’s memories, and his own childhood memories, of hunger with him, and I could see the hurt in his eyes when I threw away food or balked at accepting anything used. It physically hurt him to be wasteful.

  We had plans to see lots of William’s friends and former classmates that day, and I wanted William to have a good time with them and to be happy, so I tried hard to put thoughts of his illness out of my mind. It was hard, though. Between my worries about his sickness and our marriage certificate, I was emotionally exhausted.

  William was so kind, attentive, and good to me and to his friends that day, and I was basically kind of a jerk. He didn’t often get to see his classmates, and I should have been more patient. The day started out okay. We had lunch with Zheng Jin and a few other friends and then we went to see the Yangtze River. We walked across a really long bridge, one that had been started by the Russians and finished much later by the Chinese. We went to a temple and then to dinner.

  Later that evening, we visited another friend, and when his girlfriend joined us, I felt my “wench” button switch on. She was a sweet girl, but I was not in the mood for sweet. It was as if she had just studied a long list of English vocabulary words—all related to sports—and was dying to practice them. I thought her questions would never end.

  “Do you like tennis?” she asked.

  I thought it was an odd question, since it came out of nowhere, but I figured maybe she liked tennis and wanted to talk about it, so I said, “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you like baseball?”

  “Um . . . sure, yeah, I like baseball.” Where is this going?

  “Do you like football? Do you like swimming? Do you like. . . .”

  I squeezed William’s hand under the table, begging him to save me before I asked her if she would like to shut up. It wasn’t her fault. She had never met a foreigner before and was excited to use her English. Another time, I might have been more patient, but right then I felt worlds away from this girl. She wanted to do karaoke and party down and I was praying for William’s life.

  We then went to visit another of William’s former classmates in her dormitory. The room held two sets of bunk beds and four desks. It was long and narrow and there was hardly enough room for an aisle between the beds. This girl was nice, and very quiet, which was a welcome change after Little Miss Sports Authority. It was an interesting experience to meet her because I could tell that she had once had feelings—perhaps serious ones—for William.

  The emotion I felt upon realizing this wasn’t jealousy, because I knew William’s heart, and I didn’t feel insecure about his love for me. However, I did think she might be the kind of girl he would have ended up with had he not met me. She was sweet, beautiful, smart, and classy. I was very glad to meet her. It occurred to me later what a tremendous blessing it was to have no jealousy in my heart. In past relationships, I’d often experienced that emotion. Not with William. I never doubted his feelings for me or his commitment to our relationship. I promised myself that this was something I would never take for granted.

  We finally said goodnight to everyone and went back to the place Zheng Jin had arranged for us to stay. Once we were alone, we had a really good talk. I told William how worried I was about his health and how I didn’t want him to wait until we got back to Guangzhou before seeing a doctor. He talked to me about his fears too, and we agreed that we would get through Spring Festival and then begin treatment in Guangzhou. I knew that night, as I had known before, that this wonderful man would be my everything. I felt incredibly lucky.

  chapter 28

  It seemed like just days before that I’d lost my dad. Time wasn’t making sense, and all the scenes in my life were running together. As I was about to land in Wuhan on the flight back from Guangzhou, it hit me just how exhausted I was—not just physically but also emotionally. This process of getting our marriage certificate had been so much harder than I had anticipated, and it had really just begun.

  It was only that morning that I’d left William, but I was thrilled to know that in just a few minutes I would see him. I had the precious paper from the consulate safely tucked inside my backpack (on which I had a death grip, knowing the consequences if I were to misplace it). So many documents were in my backpack now—there were so many pieces of paper to keep track of—all with the purpose of proving we were who we said we were so that we might get approval to get our marriage certificate. Tomorrow we would be off to William’s hometown, but for tonight I just wanted to see my husband-to-be and get some sleep.

  The next morning, after a breakfast of mantou and porridge, we boarded the bus for Huang Mei. We had a mile-long list of
documents that we needed to retrieve from William’s hometown, all of which we hoped to bring back to Wuhan before the officials took their Spring Festival vacation. We knew if we didn’t get our marriage certificate before that day, there would be not be enough time to get it before our return to Guangzhou the following week.

  I took a deep breath and was grateful for William’s squeeze of my hand. He seemed to know what I was thinking and was calmly reassuring me that we were in this together. I laid my head on his shoulder and thought about what lay ahead. I was actually getting nervous, as well as excited. With all that had gone on, those intense but depressing days in Wuhan, I hadn’t even had time to think about the fact that I was about to meet William’s family.

  What would they be like? He’d said they were poor, but what did that mean? Would his mom like me? Would it matter if she didn’t? Would I be able to understand two words they were saying? Would I do something to offend them? Would they look at me and feel sad that their son hadn’t fallen in love with a Chinese girl?

  Countless scenarios ran through my mind as I looked out the window. It was a sunny day and for that I was grateful, because my heart felt anything but. I had begged William to stay one more day in Wuhan so he could see a doctor. Having learned that he had tuberculosis had changed everything. I wanted to drop all our plans and focus on getting him better. In his mind, however, it was Spring Festival, a time of happiness and family, and he didn’t seem nearly as worried as I was about having received this news. He also felt strongly that it was better to wait until we got back to Guangzhou, since that’s where he would begin his treatment.

  It seemed insane to me that, although we had just learned that he had a life-threatening illness, we were not going to do anything about it. We were just going to go to Huang Mei as planned and pretend we had a reason to smile, to think about the future. I could barely find the strength to breathe, let alone muster the energy to act happy and make good first impressions. All that kept going through my mind was that I’d found him—I’d found the one, my soul mate—and before I could even become his wife, I’d learned I could lose him.

  We arrived in Huang Mei before dinnertime, just as the sun was beginning to set. As we got off the bus, I had such a feeling of excitement, and it was clear that William did too. It was also clear as we rounded up our luggage that we had stepped into a different world. A crowd was already beginning to gather; people were catching their first glimpses of blond hair. William had warned me that he didn’t think a foreigner had ever been to this county, and based on everyone’s reaction, it was obvious he’d been right.

  William took my hand with his right hand and waved the crowd aside with his left, leading me toward a taxi. Everything seemed very loud and rushed. The bus station was a sea of people, all of them returning home for Spring Festival, and I marveled at William’s ability to maneuver his way through the throngs of people. I kept my head down and maintained a tight grip on his hand, just hoping to get to the security of a taxi, where I could finally breathe.

  As William told the driver where to go, it occurred to me that he was no longer speaking Chinese, or at least what I knew as Chinese. He’d told me that people in his hometown spoke another language, and sure enough, there it was. It was so different from Mandarin! I couldn’t understand a word. Suddenly, I felt like I was in a foreign country within a foreign country. William kept squeezing my hand, smiling, and looking as though he might jump out of his seat. He was genuinely happy. He was home for Spring Festival.

  I’m not even sure what was so different about William’s hometown to me—it’s not as if we were in the countryside, and even if we had been, I’d certainly experienced China’s countryside before. But my stomach was doing flips as I looked around and tried to take in as much as I could. I was looking at everything and thinking about him coming from this and how strange it was that he’d ended up in Guangzhou.

  The sunset that evening was beautiful; the pink of the sky looked almost red when compared with the brown of the buildings. I decided I liked this town. It was dirty, yes. It was run-down, yes. But there was something about it that I liked.

  I think I saw William when I looked around. I imagined him as a child in the faces of the kids I saw. I thought about him carrying his books and lunch to school, sometimes walking barefoot or carrying his own chair. I remembered him telling me that the students from his village who wanted to attend elementary school were required to bring their own chairs. The school provided the tables but they couldn’t afford chairs. He’d said that if the ones they brought were kitchen chairs, they carried them home every night so the family could use them for dinner and then carried them back to school the next morning. Whenever the school decided it was time to ask for money from the students, most of them silently took their chairs and went home, knowing their families couldn’t afford to pay.

  My first reaction upon hearing such stories was to feel pity. That always faded, however, as William saw only the joy in his childhood stories. When he talked about the fact that his whole village needed to share one cow, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them, but William didn’t see it that way. They were so poor, yes, but so was everyone else, so it didn’t occur to him to feel bad about it. To him, it was normal to carry his chair to school, to share a cow with the entire village, and to wash your clothes by hand in the pond outside.

  Since it was early evening when we arrived, his family was still at the little shop they owned, so we met them there. At the city limits, we had transferred from a taxi to a mao mo, which was a little contraption consisting of a box attached to the back of a moped. It had woven its way through the narrow streets of this small town and then dropped us off at the store. When we arrived, William’s brother let off a few small fireworks to welcome us.

  There they are, I thought, catching my first glimpse of them. Here was my new family. William had told me they were not “huggers,” or even hand-shakers. When I first met them, I drew the conclusion that they were not “talkers” either. I said “ni hao” to each of them and they just smiled and nodded.

  I looked around their little shop. This was how they earned their living—selling basic necessities like soap and light bulbs. The store was part wood, part tin, and looked like a strong wind might blow it right over. There were pictures of the family on the wall—mostly of me and William, pictures we had sent them from Guangzhou. I could feel their eyes on me as I walked around, trying to show interest in everything.

  After we chatted for a few minutes, William’s dad and brother grabbed our suitcases and we all began walking home. His mom stayed behind for a minute to close the store. My new sister-in-law carried our niece and we headed home for dinner.

  Home turned out to be right down the street and up seven floors. William’s family had just bought this apartment, and it was very nice. Although they were from the countryside, now that they had an apartment in town, they had running water and electricity—luxuries unheard of by some of their relatives. His dad was very proud to show me the hot water heater. When I asked William why he was so proud of it, he told me they had bought it for me, so that I would be able to have hot water for bathing while I was there.

  It occurred to me that it was strange they’d gone all these years without such a luxury and suddenly could afford to buy the heater.

  “Hmm. . . .” I whispered teasingly. “Did you maybe send them the money for that?”

  “Maybe,” William said with a smile. Of course he had. I knew that it was not an insignificant purchase for him, either, since his teacher’s salary wasn’t much. I loved the gesture. The more time I spent with this man, the more I truly loved him.

  That night, after the sun went down and the frigid evening temperatures emerged, I became very grateful for the water heater. William had told me his province was much colder than Guangdong and I’d known we would have no heat, but I’d had no idea how cold it would be.

  As the days progressed, I noticed that William’s family didn’t alway
s use the hot water heater. They were accustomed to using cold water and if they did want warmer water, they heated it up on the stove first and then poured it into a big washbasin. However, I used that water heater like nobody’s business, and I was profoundly grateful for every drop of hot water that flowed from the sink. After being in Huang Mei for several days, I looked forward to my bathing rituals more than anything else. It was the one and only chance I got to warm up each day.

  Bathing in Huang Mei was unlike any other bathing experience. First of all, there was no tub, and secondly, there was no shower. What I did have were a few plastic basins, and I made the best use of those that I possibly could. It was the same routine each time I bathed, and I quickly got my method down to a science.

  The first part of my ritual was to get three of the basins ready. One was bigger than the others—perhaps two feet in diameter— and the other two were quite a bit smaller. I began by filling one basin with hot water and dumping that into the big basin. Next I carefully took my clothes off, being cautious not to get anything wet, and then stepped into the larger basin. There was enough room in the basin to sit down cross-legged, and that’s what I did. The hot water felt wonderful—and if there was no breeze coming through the window that never quite closed, the bathroom eventually began to get warm.

  As the water began to cool, I filled up the second small bin with hot water. While that was filling up, I used the first small bin to scoop out some of the cooler water and dump that down the toilet drain (which was level with where I was sitting, since China has “squatters” rather than Western-style toilets). Then I added more hot water from the sink, and began to feel warm again.

  This bathing ritual went on for a while. I could have let it go on all night; it was paradise. It had to end eventually, though, so right before I wanted to get out, I filled the basin with hot water one more time and then stood up. I dried off as best I could and then stepped into my slippers. Then I began to get dressed—a long process, given how many layers I had to pile on. If I could do all of this quickly, before any heat escaped from the bathroom, I felt wonderful.