How Sweet the Bitter Soup

by Lori Qian

  I appreciated those baths so much. They gave me strength to face more cold.

  In this part of China, most homes and businesses didn’t have heating. People seemed to just manage during the cold months. During Spring Festival it was about twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit most days, which is cold for most of us, yet people routinely went about their business despite the frigid temperature. William had tried to prepare me for this change, and we had brought lots of sweaters and long underwear, but there really are no words to describe the ever-present chill.

  After almost a week of constant cold, I became crabby, to say the least. One day, after having had diarrhea for three days, my body aching with cold, and going through withdrawal from my Diet Coke, which could be found nowhere in the entire province, I lost it.

  I had said nothing when a live chicken was walking around the house hours before it was served up for dinner. Nothing when William’s mom put huge chunks of frog and eel in my bowl at dinnertime. Nothing when his niece pooped on the floor with no one but me thinking it was disgusting. Nothing when we spent hours upon hours visiting relatives who spoke a language I could not understand, and nothing about how freezing I was. But enough was enough, and I finally snapped.

  “Are people here just crazy, William?” I demanded. “I mean, does it bother nobody else that we’re sitting in here with six layers of clothing and I’m still freezing!? I’m so cold my body aches and my toes are numb. We are inside the house and I can see my breath. This is not normal! I cannot get warm no matter how much I jump up and down. I am miserable and I want a freaking heater!”

  I wasn’t proud of my outburst but I wanted someone to give me credit, to recognize that I was existing in an alternate universe, experiencing things that other foreigners—and even many Chinese, in fact—would never believe.

  William didn’t seem to know what had hit him. He listened to my outburst, my ranting and raving, without uttering a word. Then he pulled me toward him and hugged me. I hid my face in his chest and took deep breaths, trying not to cry. As he stroked my hair, he whispered, “Do you remember that day in Siqao when we tasted the bitter soup?”

  How could I forget?

  “Yes,” I whispered, not getting the connection.

  William continued to hold me, squeezing me even tighter, probably hoping I would figure it out for myself. Finally, feeling the security of his hug and the humility in my own tears, I remembered the bitter soup. I remembered everything.

  It was shortly after we had started dating. The concept itself wasn’t particularly new to me, but the way William shared it had touched my heart. And now, here, in this moment in Huang Mei, it was really sinking in. The bitter soup is about bad days making us appreciate the good days, the idea that there simply must be opposition in all things if we are to ever learn anything.

  On that particular afternoon, we had been running errands and decided to eat lunch in between stops. He’d suggested that we have a particular kind of soup, and he’d asked me if I was up for trying something new.

  “Sure, why not?” I said.

  Well, when I tasted the thick, black soup, I had my answer as to why not. It tasted positively awful!

  “What is this?” I asked, making a face. “It is the most bitter stuff I’ve ever tasted.”

  “That’s kind of the idea, sweetheart,” William said, chuckling. “It’s ku tang. It’s supposed to be very bitter and kind of hard to swallow.”

  “Well, mission accomplished,” I said. “Why on earth did you purposely order disgusting soup for our lunch, babe? I mean, of all the things we could have eaten?”

  “No problem,” he said. “If you want to order something else, we can, but I wanted you to try this. Sometimes we have to have the bitter so that we better understand the sweet.”

  I just sat there for a moment. Clearly, this was not about lunch. He was trying to share something with me—something that was important to him. Although I was familiar with this idea of bitter and sweet, as it is central to my own religion as well as so many others, I had never brought this concept to life in such a tangible sense. I had thought about it before. I’d studied it before. But never before in my life had I tasted it. I had never tasted the bitter soup.

  “So, what is this?” I asked. “A sort of reminder that you think I need?”

  “We all need it. Look at how sweet our life is, Lori. Think of the amazing things that had to happen in order for you and me to find each other. I believe that if we volunteer to swallow bitterness sometimes, even when things are good and we don’t need to, we’ll be more prepared for the true bitterness that always comes, usually when you least expect it. Also, by tasting the bitter we are reminded of the sweet and won’t take the good things for granted. And besides, this soup is very good for your health.”

  This man. He was always teaching me something. Even when he taught me something I already knew, he did it in a way that was new to me. I was grateful for the lesson and for all the good conversations between us that flowed from that soup.

  We’d shared that moment more than two months earlier but now, on this day in Huang Mei, I was finally beginning to really get it. No more ranting about the temperature, the food, the toilet, and the fact that there was no Diet Coke in the entire province; I needed to swallow this bitterness. I needed to remember that a lot of people—my soon-to-be in-laws, in fact—lived like that every day. Nothing was easy and not too many things were pleasant. Everything was about work, about necessity, and about surviving. They were doing all they could to make me comfortable, showing love to me before I even deserved it. It was a really good thing they didn’t understand English, because I would have been even more embarrassed, even ashamed, at my outburst if they did. His loving family was doing so much to make me comfortable and happy.

  How sweet the bitter soup. With that, I went to my suitcase and grabbed another sweater.

  chapter 29

  The importance of stamps—rubber ink stamps—in China cannot be overstated. Surely, there must be some folklore from the Tang dynasty having to do with the reverence and awe of the beloved stamp, stories that have found their way into present discourse.

  Despite my initial resistance to recognizing the validity of a little red stamp, by the end of my time in Huang Mei, I, too, was in awe of its power. After all, I had seen firsthand that a stamp is a passport to almost anything—in particular, a marriage certificate.

  On a cold February morning, we began the process of getting our stamps. When I saw William’s uncle Shi Mu (“mother’s younger brother,” in the local dialect) approaching us, I knew I liked him right away. Wearing a suit and tennis shoes, he was full of purpose. Against the dirty streets and rundown buildings, his suit and tie made him stand out. He was walking quickly, taking gigantic steps, and when he saw us he flashed a huge and genuine smile. He had his mobile phone in one hand and was motioning toward the cigarettes on the shelf of William’s parents’ small store with the other. William took the cue and began packing cartons of cigarettes into his backpack.

  The cigarettes were for the purpose of guang xi. It’s a little Chinese word that has huge implications. It literally means “relationship,” but anyone who has ever tried to do anything in China knows it’s much more than that. It exists at every level of Chinese culture and is used in every context imaginable. Among other things, it can mean offering a cigarette while you’re asking a favor—or even asking someone to do his job! The unspoken rule seems to be that a person needs just a little extra incentive to get the job done.

  This is most definitely the case when dealing with government officials, although it wouldn’t be fair to say that all who use it are dishonest. It is simply how things get done in China. Knowing someone in a powerful position makes getting anything accomplished much easier. If that’s not an option, offering a cigarette and displaying the right amount of respect is a start.

  In order to get our stamps, we needed to engage in a little guang xi. Shi Mu knew this and, fortunately for
us, he knew a few people. This didn’t guarantee an easy time, but it meant a foot in the door.

  Our first stop would be the school where William used to teach. They had his hu kou, residence book—something that’s very important in China. This is the government’s way of keeping track of its citizens. In the days before the Cultural Revolution, a person’s work unit would hold the card, thereby giving the unit the power to decide if and when a person could move to another location. To some extent, this was still the case today, although William had gone to Guangzhou without getting his. In order to get married, though, it was absolutely necessary to have his hu kou in hand.

  In addition to this, we needed the first stamp on our marriage application form, and this stamp could only be given by the principal of the school where William had worked. So much was riding on this.

  When we pulled up to the school, the gate was locked. Shi Mu and William got out and went in while uncle number two and I waited in the car. He was friendly and tried to chat with me, but he was using Huang Mei Hua rather than Mandarin and I couldn’t understand enough of what he was saying to hold a conversation. Besides, I was too busy praying in my head that we could accomplish what we needed to with these stamps to think about chatting with this guy.

  Finally the gate opened, and we went in.

  The first order of business was to find the principal, who was in a meeting. Did we let that stop us? No. Uncle one got a cigarette ready, and we all walked over to where the meeting was being held. Sure enough, a bunch of teachers were sitting around a makeshift table when Shi Mu walked right in and asked to speak to the principal.

  When the principal walked out, I immediately tried to size him up. Would he help us? Would he try to make things difficult for us? Going through this process had taught me to do this—to judge people in an instant. It was so crucial to know what sort of person everyone was so that we knew how to proceed. Would he require extensive flattery and deference? Would he make us sweat it out? Initially I wasn’t sure about the principal, but I soon realized he would help.

  He led us to his office, where he got the stamp out of his desk. There was some discussion about which stamp to use and where to use it, but finally he finished the task. Then he took another cigarette and went back to his meeting.

  Our next step was to get William’s hu kou, but the man who had it wasn’t there. We waited a while, until we realized we were wasting precious time. The problem was that every other step depended on this one, so it wasn’t as if we could work on another part of the process and then come back. However, we decided to try.

  We left our phone number with the man’s wife, hoping he would call us soon—and as we drove out of the gate and turned onto the dirt road, who should approach on his bicycle but the very man we needed. What timing! It was wonderful for me to watch William through all this. He was nervous but was handling the stress of the situation so well. There was so much hope in his eyes and he was trying to play the game, yet in his own honest way. He just wanted people to do the right thing and give us the stamps and information we needed. He was just so purely good—I saw that again and again, and with each time I just loved him that much more.

  William and Shi Mu jumped out of the car and walked with the man back toward the school. Uncle one and I reversed the car and followed them. This man kept all the official documents for teachers, both past and present. We followed him to his office and William gave him a cigarette. The man looked in his desk, in the cupboard, under piles. I was not exactly confident in his filing system. As he looked here and there, he chatted casually with William and his uncles, as if it didn’t matter much whether he found the residence book or not.

  After exhausting the search in his office, the man got his keys and went to another room, which he searched in the same manner as he had the first. Finally, he returned to his office, got his bamboo ladder, and climbed up to a little makeshift attic above his office. We paced and prayed and waited until finally we heard him shout, “Zhao dao le!” (I found it!)

  Shi Mu and I smiled in relief, and William practically skipped into the room to get it. This was his official ticket to a marriage certificate, and we now had it in our hands.

  The four of us piled back into the car after having given this man a whole pack of cigarettes. William was absolutely beaming.

  “Getting that card and the first stamp were the hardest steps,” he said, “and now they are behind us.”

  Feeling completely exhilarated, we went in search of stamp number two.

  We sat at the security bureau, watching several government officials argue back and forth about which stamp was needed as the second stamp. When that argument was settled, they began to argue about whose responsibility it was to give William the stamp. None of them wanted to risk being the one to give the wrong stamp, and although they clearly resented us for imposing on their newspaper reading and tea drinking—the activities to which they seemed accustomed—they also seemed to want to make the most of this unusual situation. After all, they had never seen a foreigner before, and the fact that I wanted to marry a Chinese man from their hometown was causing quite a stir.

  Shi Mu, uncle two, William, and I sat there, helpless, as eight officials gathered around one desk and shouted back and forth, pointing at the paper on which we needed to put the three precious stamps in order to obtain permission to get married. Even the man who appeared to be the janitor was in on the discussion at one point.

  Finally, when it was clear these eight men would never agree, someone decided to call the man whom we would forever call “Second Stamp Man.”

  As we were waiting for that man to come, one of the officials noticed a problem with one of William’s documents. The third character in his name was written incorrectly on his hu kou. The official informed us that without the two names being consistent, it was impossible for us to get the second stamp. Just when I thought things could not possibly get more complicated, they were getting ridiculously muddled.

  Knowing that every second was precious, we quickly piled into the car and sped off toward the civil service office. The fact that we had use of a car for the day put us into a different category completely. In this small town, only people with very high government positions had cars, and even then they shared them. It was virtually unheard of for someone there to have his own car.

  Earlier that morning, we’d wondered how we were going to accomplish the task of getting to and from all these places in order to get the stamps. Taxis weren’t a possibility, since the security bureau was outside the city limits. We were almost at the point of jumping on the back of a tractor when Shi Mu was struck by an epiphany. How would it look if we pulled up to the security bureau in a tractor? How seriously would they take the three of us dusting hayseed off our clothes and smelling of the animals with whom we had shared the ride? And if we took buses or taxis or walked, we wouldn’t have enough time to get everything done and nobody would take us seriously. With this in mind, Shi Mu got on the phone and called another uncle of William’s who just happened to work as a driver. Fifteen minutes later, uncle two sped around the corner and we jumped in the car. He had somehow gotten use of a car, and we didn’t bother to ask how—we were just grateful that he had.

  Like Shi Mu, uncle two was clearly doing his best to help us by looking the part. He had a tie dangling around his neck and was shaving his face with an electric razor as he drove.

  When we arrived at the office, which was a one-room building, I noticed that the official was a woman. In the past, this would have caused me immediate relief—I would have thought that a woman would always be more cooperative in matters of the heart. After all, we were trying to get married. Now, however, after having dealt with both male and female officials in China, I had learned that in general, the attitude of a government official transcended gender.

  William explained our situation to her, and I silently prayed that she wouldn’t make this difficult. We were incredibly short on time. If we didn’t get thos
e stamps today, we would have to wait until after the Chinese New Year, at which time William and I would be back in Guangzhou, and all of this would be for nothing.

  The official listened to William and then, without changing her expression in the slightest, walked to a shelf behind her and pulled down a huge book. There were about one hundred of these books, each containing registration information for the local residents. She told him matter-of-factly that he would need to find his page in order to prove that the name on the registration card was wrong.

  As she handed the book across the counter, William and his uncle both grabbed it and began flipping through the pages as quickly as possible. We needed to find this page, have the official change the name on his registration card, and get back to the security bureau before Second Stamp Man left for lunch. I felt helpless as I watched them flip through the pages looking for William’s information. Shi Mu would begin to turn the page, at least separating it from the one below it, and William would then actually turn it. This is how much of a hurry we were in— they were actually helping each other turn the pages.

  The tension during this process was so strong that it seemed the four of us could barely breathe. When they finally found William’s page, Shi Mu and I exchanged huge smiles. We were bonding over this, even though we couldn’t say two words to each other due to the language barrier. I thought William might begin to weep on the spot—we were all absolutely overjoyed.

  He showed his page to the official and she slowly took his registration card and walked toward the computer. William squeezed my hand. She wouldn’t have taken the card in her hand if she weren’t going to do anything with it. She was going to help us. We breathed a collective sigh of relief.