How Sweet the Bitter Soup

by Lori Qian

  Neither of us could believe that it had only been three weeks since we’d left Guangzhou. All the trips back and forth to Wuhan, my one-day trip to Guangzhou and back, all the tribulations in getting those blasted red stamps, learning of William’s illness, and becoming his wife—all of this happened in about twenty days. The next morning, we would be off to Guangzhou. I was looking forward to getting home and setting up our life together as husband and wife. I had very high hopes for the year 2002. It had begun with an adventure, and I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

  chapter 34

  The train ride home would take about twenty hours, and I knew I would have plenty to think about along the way. I was happy and exhausted at the same time. It had been such an intense few weeks. I was now a married woman. We were going back to our bubble existence at Clifford School, in Clifford Estates, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Overall, I was just happy to be by William’s side.

  As we found our seats on the train and got settled in, I started to let my mind wander through all the events of Spring Festival.

  I remembered the night that William went out to meet friends and I opted to stay home. He had asked me to come, but I was so tired and really wanted to relax and write in my journal. His mom got such a kick out of me always carrying my little journal and pen around the house and almost everywhere else. I don’t think any of his family knew what to think of me. I’m sure they wondered what on earth I was writing—and, more to the point, why I was doing it. It was such a novel concept to them, especially to Mama, since she had never even had the chance of learning how to write her own name.

  That night, it was only she and I in the house. Well, my niece was there too, but she was sound asleep. Jung-A and Ting Fen had gone out to work, and Baba was at the store. Mama sat working on her knitting. I found it so complicated even to watch. I couldn’t keep track of the yarn and which direction it was going in among her three needles. She worked so quickly and precisely, as if she had been doing this her whole life—which, in fact, she probably had.

  I purposely stayed in the living room with Mama that evening so it felt as if we were spending time together, even though we weren’t really talking. I hadn’t made much effort to converse with her since we’d been there. She was most comfortable using the local dialect she’d used her whole life, and I had not yet learned any of that language. For some reason, though, that night I decided to try to use my limited Mandarin to talk with her.

  She had gone to the kitchen and peeled an apple for me, which she presented with both hands. I thanked her, put down my journal, and began to eat. She went back to her knitting. I began to talk.

  “I’m writing about my father.”

  She looked up and stopped knitting. “Shen me?” She smiled.

  I repeated my sentence and gestured toward my journal, which was now sitting on the stool beside me. “Wo de baba . . . wo zai xie ta . . .”

  She understood my words, but she didn’t understand what I could be writing about him. First she just said “oh” and did not resume her knitting but kept looking at me.

  I told her that my father had died a few months earlier; I knew she knew that—William had told her—but I said it anyway. I told her that I was writing as much as I could about his life because I didn’t want to forget all the stories and all the things that he had taught me. She let out a little laugh, but not as if to make fun of my idea. She just didn’t know how to take it—me, writing stories about my father.

  I took the chance to ask her something about her own life. She laughed when I asked her. I guess that was even more incomprehensible to her, that I would be interested in her life, in her stories. She had the sweetest dancing eyes when she smiled, but those eyes looked terribly tired, disappointed, and overwhelmed when she was not smiling.

  People have asked me if I was nervous about meeting William’s mom. The truth is that I really wasn’t, and I attribute that to William’s attitude. He had made it clear before this trip, both to me and to them, that he loved me, and I guess that was all his parents needed to know. I think his mother loved me before she ever met me. This is the way it should be, I guess. I often hear these stories of someone’s parents not approving of the person their child has chosen to love, but William and I were very blessed in a couple of ways. One, we had a strong love; even though it was new then, we knew how we felt and that we would pursue a life together no matter what. Second, we had families who trusted us and showed their support by simply deciding that they would love whomever we had chosen to love.

  Mama’s childhood had been hard, but was not that unusual for the times she grew up in. Her family were peasants and they all worked hard, with nothing ever coming easily. At one point, she had the chance to attend elementary school for a short time, but eventually she had to quit in order to help her family. The unusual thing was that her sisters didn’t have to quit; they got to continue their education. Of course, none of them had the opportunity to go to college or even finish high school, but the basic education they did receive was enough to make a difference in their lives. Mama, in contrast, had simply been working her whole life. She had never looked past the next meal and the next chores in front of her. This made me unbearably sad. I watched her go about her life and I wondered if she ever thought about it, about why things turn out the way they do.

  My thoughts drifted to those of my own mother. These two women had had such different lives, but in many ways their experience had been similar. My mother had not had anything come easily either, and I knew that in many ways, her life had been a series of disappointments.

  I remember her not having enough money to go to the doctor when she was having health problems, and her being in tremendous pain as she got ready for work and headed out the door before the rest of us had gotten up. She was afraid she’d lose her job if she let her employer know how exhausted and sick she really was. So when most people in her condition were resting and going to doctor’s appointments, Mom was working full time, taking care of three energetic kids, and cleaning house. She’d come home in the evenings to see what mess Dad had gotten himself into on that particular day and then she’d begin her work in her own home. It went on like this for years. This was her life.

  I had a feeling that if I ever got William’s mother and my mom in a room together, they would recognize each other as kindred souls.

  chapter 35

  The train ride back to Guangzhou was bumpy, to say the least, but I was still able to sleep. I kept waking up to the sound of someone hacking and spitting, but I was able to fall right asleep again. I was obviously tired from all that had happened.

  I had been dreaming about part of my childhood. It was that era in which I felt more carefree than I had ever felt in my life. We lived out in the country, on about three acres, in Wisconsin. We had chickens and a garden, but we weren’t exactly farmers. Dad worked in town as a janitor, and these were the days when Mom worked at Head Start. She had started volunteering when my sister was enrolled and two years later, they’d given her a job.

  During winter months, there were serious snowstorms, and there were days when nobody went to work or school. Those were simply the best days.

  We had a wood-burning stove in the living room, on the top of which my mom’s bread would sit, waiting to rise. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world to be inside that warm house while looking out at the deep snow. Chrissy and I would play together with toys I could never have let my girlfriends at school know I still played with, things like Barbie dolls and Cabbage Patch Kids. Junior high seemed far away. I was safe in my home with my family. My mom spent her time baking or playing with us. Dad chopped wood for the fire and passed it through the window to us so we could put it in the woodbox. Sometimes we’d go outside, completely bundled up, and play in the snow. Dad would come with us and Mom would watch from the kitchen window.

  When I heard the terrible sound of spitting, it mixed in with my dream for just a moment, but then I remembe
red where I was.

  Since those days, I have begged William to never make me take the hard seat trains again, especially during national holidays. It is another world—a world in which people are literally piled on top of each other, in the aisles and on the backs of seats. The railways are the cheapest way to travel in China, and during Chinese New Year especially, everyone goes home. This means that all the peasants, workers, and people just trying to save money (as we were) are all stuffed into the train car together. At least we were lucky enough to have seats; many people, who had paid as much for their tickets as we had, did not. They stood up and leaned on each other the whole time.

  With that many people in the car, the body odor was atrocious, and when it was mixed with the stale smell of cigarettes—well, I felt sick the whole time. The bathroom on these long trips absolutely defied description. I tried so hard not to drink or eat anything so that I wouldn’t have to use it at all, but this was hard to do, and eventually I always had to use it.

  William was great at keeping me involved in conversation to pass the time, though. We still laugh about some of the funny things we witnessed on that train. One guy across from us, in particular, kept bumping his head. He was trying so desperately to sleep and wanted a comfortable position for his head. We watched him bunch up his coat and place it behind his head, but when he laid his head down he missed the coat and bumped his head right on the window ledge. We both winced, knowing that it must have hurt. The odd thing was, he did it again, and then again. By the third time he did this, we could not control our laughter, though we tried to hold it in.

  We stood out so much on this train ride. People around us didn’t know what to think about this foreign woman with the Chinese guy. Like the people in William’s hometown, many of the people on the train likely had never even seen a foreigner before.

  Other than laughing and people watching, we talked about our goals for the future during that train ride. They weren’t so clearly defined then, and we didn’t look very far ahead. Mostly, we looked at the upcoming year. William wanted to get a job in a business situation rather than continuing to teach, but we weren’t sure when he would be able to make that change. We talked about whether or not I should continue to do administration the following year.

  When we returned to school, we would be starting a new semester. Our talk turned to how people would react to our having gotten married. We also talked about facing the doctor when we got back to Guangzhou.

  chapter 36

  We arrived in Guangzhou on Thursday and went to the doctor on Friday morning. I wrote the events of that day in my journal.

  Right now we are sitting at the tuberculosis hospital. We’re waiting for the results of William’s X-ray to confirm whether or not he has this disease. Then, we’ll figure out what to do about it. So many people in this country have this disease. What is it? Where does it come from? Why haven’t I heard about it in America? I am so grateful to be from America and so sad and angry that William may have this condition. It is shocking and overwhelming and it scares me so much. I hope it won’t hurt him and I pray we can treat it. I hope it won’t stop him from pursuing his dreams, and our dreams. He truly is pure, and good, and kind. There is nobody like him on this earth. His heart is pure. He wants good and noble things in life: a strong marriage, a happy family, a goodjob, and a safe home. I am tremendously blessed to even know him, let alone be his wife. He has changed everything and I never, ever want to be without him. Please, God, take good care of him. He is my life.

  For the next several months William went through torment. He was on nine different medications that, while killing the active tuberculosis, were also wreaking havoc on his general health. He had no appetite and lost a considerable amount of weight. He was almost too weak to hold his head up sometimes. He was sick to his stomach and often vomited or suffered from severe diarrhea. It was all he could do to get through a day of work, and as soon as he got home, he went to sleep. He went to the doctor almost every week, worrying about these side effects, especially the seemingly constant high fever. On some of these days, I would go with him. I couldn’t bear to leave him alone and wanted to comfort him, but I knew that when I accompanied him to the doctor, I caused him more stress and pain than comfort.

  I hated the hospital and in particular the little exam room where William had to do his checkups. The first time I entered, I was struck by the dull, low-hanging light bulb, which cast a dark shadow over what should have been a bright, sterilized exam room. The walls were not painted—or, if they were, the shade was concrete grey. The sheet on the exam table was stained, and its shade of yellow matched the doctor’s coat. I could smell antiseptic, a half-hearted attempt at cleanliness, but that smell was mixed with the sharp scents of mildew, urine, and other unexplained sources. My shoes stuck to the floor as we entered, and the window was covered with something blurry so you couldn’t see clearly outside. I could hear loud voices and Cantonese words and phrases coming from the waiting room. The volume seemed so inappropriate and disorderly for a hospital. What was it about the language that made me feel that everyone speaking it was angry? The eight tones of Cantonese all sounded doubtful, scared, and mad, which is kind of how I felt.

  That exam room angered me, just the sight of it. I hated the workers. I hated their dingy medical robes. I hated all those patients whom I feared would make my husband worse. I hated the system. I think I may have even hated China. I cringe as I write that, but it’s true. At the time, I couldn’t separate everything I loved about China from this disease and the low standard of health care my husband was receiving. I was certain all the doctors were incapable and nothing could be accomplished in this filthy, backward, horrible place.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t keep these thoughts to myself. Oh no, as poor William was practically hobbling along from one nurse or doctor to another, I was complaining and mumbling under my breath about how we were stuck in this God-forsaken place and how I wanted nothing but to get him to America, where he could get proper treatment.

  Of course, we couldn’t go to America to get better treatment, because having active TB disqualified William for immigration. We had no choice but to seek treatment right there in Guangzhou.

  I did all the research I could and finally found an SOS clinic for expatriates. I thought surely they would be able to help him. All this time, though, William kept telling me that he had faith in his doctor and that just because the conditions were poor didn’t mean he couldn’t get better right here in China, right at this hospital. I begged him to at least talk to a doctor at the expatriate clinic, just to see if what the Chinese doctors were doing was right.

  This was one of the first times that we strongly disagreed with each other. Both of us were sure our position was right and that the other person was well intentioned but simply wrong. It would cost us three hundred American dollars just to have the visit, and William couldn’t see the point in that. The thought of wasting all that money when he already had a doctor seemed absurd. On the other hand, I would have given my right arm, let alone three hundred dollars, to go to a clean, “normal” medical building where I had faith in the medical staff. To me, it seemed absurd not to give it a try.

  We went back and forth for the next few months, arguing about it and I didn’t give up on trying to convince him. Still, he refused.

  chapter 37

  William had transferred to the secondary school in February, after we had returned from Spring Festival. We were both fine with the change, as it would be more challenging for him. However, there was this assumption from a small minority of people that it was not only good to move William for his own sake but because it would have been a conflict of interest for him to stay and continue working with me.

  The thought made me want to laugh. The mere idea that I would somehow show favoritism to William was ridiculous. I directed the language program in which he was a teaching assistant. He worked directly with the teachers, not with me. How on earth this could possibly be a c
onflict of interest? Did they think we might revert to an eighth-grade mentality and sneak in a make-out session between classes? Would I blow kisses to him during staff meetings? Would I allow him an easier job, saying, “Oh, sweetie, you can just sit in the office and do no work today” or some idiotic thing like that?

  We had learned early on, though, to pick our battles, and that even well-intentioned people could sometimes do hurtful or dumb things. There were plenty of thoughtless comments, and even discriminatory actions, following our return home.

  At first, coming back after Spring Festival was a honeymoon—literally—except that we were back at work. Other than dealing with William’s illness, we were happy. Every day was just fun. We were together. We made the biggest deal of doing even the most trivial things, and we established a routine very quickly and naturally. We left the house just after seven each day to walk to school—past the market where the farmers were bringing in the vegetables to sell, past the park where the older people were practicing their tai chi, and eventually to the school gate. We always walked hand in hand, never in a hurry, always with something to talk about.

  The guards made a habit of smiling and saying, “Zao shang hao,” and we always replied in turn. We would pass the cafeteria and then William would head to his classroom and I would make my way to my office.

  I was also learning every day just how kind, considerate, and loving my new husband was. One day, we were at a sports meet at school, watching the kids run their races and do the high jump. The weather was particularly sunny and hot that day, and I had been holding a paper at my brow so as to keep the sun off my face and see the kids more clearly. Suddenly, I realized that William had switched positions. He had been standing on my right side, facing the same direction as I was, and now he had turned his body so that it was angled to the left. It was a bit awkward, because now he had to turn his head to the side to watch what was going on. I wasn’t sure what he was doing—and then I realized: The sun wasn’t hitting me anymore. It was hitting him instead. And he had not made a show of it or said, “Oh, let me block the sun for you.” He had done it purely for my comfort, not in order to have me notice and be impressed with his chivalry.