by Lisa See
I let go of my pouch and wipe my sweaty hands on my skirt. I’m anxious—who wouldn’t be?—but I can’t let myself worry about how what I’m doing might affect my mom and aunt. I love them both, but I’m mad at them and afraid of what they’ll think of me too—and just like that, I know I’ll always call May my auntie and Pearl my mom. Otherwise I’ll be more confused than I already am. If Hazel were sitting next to me, she’d say, “Oh, Joy, you’re a mess.” Fortunately, she’s not here.
ABOUT A BILLION hours later, we land in Hong Kong. Some men roll a set of stairs to the plane, and I get off with the rest of the passengers. Waves of heat shimmy off the tarmac, and the air is stiflingly hot, with humidity that’s even worse than when I left Chicago in June. I follow the other passengers into the terminal, down a dingy hall, to a big room with lots of lines for passport control. When my turn comes, the man asks in a crisp British accent, “What is your final destination?”
“Shanghai in the People’s Republic of China,” I answer.
“Stand to the side!” He gets on the phone, and in a couple of minutes two guards come to get me. They take me to the baggage area to retrieve my suitcase, and then I’m led down more shadowy hallways. I don’t see any other passengers, only people in uniforms who stare at me suspiciously.
“Where are we going?”
One of the guards answers my question by roughly jerking my arm. Finally we reach a set of double doors. We push through them and back into the horrible heat. I’m put in the back of a windowless van and told to keep quiet. The guards get in up front, and we start to drive. I can’t see anything. I don’t understand what’s going on and I’m scared—petrified, if I’m honest. All I can do is hang on as the van makes sharp turns and goes over bumpy roads. It pulls to a stop after a half hour. The guards come around to the back of the van. They talk for a few minutes, leaving me inside to worry and sweat. When the doors are opened, I see that we’re on a wharf where a big boat is taking on cargo. The boat flies the flag of the People’s Republic of China—five gold stars on a red background. That same mean guard yanks me out of the van and drags me to the gangplank.
“We don’t want you spreading communism here,” he practically yells at me as he hands me my suitcase. “Get on the boat and don’t get off until you reach China.”
The two guards stand at the bottom of the gangplank to make sure I board. All this is a surprise—an intimidating and unsettling surprise. At the top of the gangplank, I see a sailor. No, that’s not what he’d be called. He’s a crewman, I think. He speaks rapidly to me in Mandarin, the official language of China and a language I don’t feel confident about in its pure form. I’ve heard my mother and aunt converse in the Wu dialect—Shanghainese—my whole life. I believe I know it well but not nearly as well as I do Cantonese, which was the common language in Chinatown. When talking to my family, I’ve always used a little Cantonese, a little Shanghainese, and a little English. I guess I’ll be giving up English entirely from here on out.
“Can you say that again, and maybe a little slower?” I ask.
“Are you returning to the motherland?”
I nod, pretty sure I’m understanding him.
“Good, welcome! I’ll show you where to bunk. Then I’ll take you to the captain. You’ll pay him for your ticket.”
I look back down to the two guards still watching me on the wharf. I wave, like an idiot. And then I follow the crewman. When I was younger, I worked as an extra with my aunt in lots of movies. I was once in a film about Chinese orphans being evacuated by boat from China during the war, and this is nothing like that set. There’s rust everywhere. The stairs are narrow and steep. The corridors are dimly lit. We’re still docked, but I can feel the sway of the water beneath my feet, which suggests that this might not be the most seaworthy vessel. I’m told I’ll have a cabin to myself, but when I see it, it’s hard to imagine sharing the claustrophobically small space with anyone else. It’s hot outside and it may be even hotter in here.
Later I’m introduced to the captain. His teeth are tobacco stained and his uniform is grimy with food and oil. He watches closely when I open my wallet and pay for my ticket. The whole thing is kind of creepy.
On my way back to my cabin, I remind myself this is what I wanted. Run away. Adventure. Find my father. A joyful reunion. Although I only just found out that Z.G. Li is my father, I’d heard about him before. He used to paint my mom and aunt when they were models back in Shanghai. I’ve never seen any of those posters, but I did see some of the illustrations he did for China Reconstructs, a propaganda magazine my grandfather used to buy from under the table at the tobacconist. It was strange seeing my mother’s and aunt’s faces on the cover of a magazine from Red China. Z.G. Li had painted them from memory, and he did so many more times. By then he’d changed his name to Li Zhi-ge, probably in keeping with the political changes in China, according to my mom. My aunt liked to pin the magazine covers with his illustrations to the wall above her bed, so I feel like I already know a bit about him as an artist. I’m sure that Z.G.—or whatever he wants me to call him—will be very surprised and happy to see me. These thoughts temporarily alleviate my concerns about the soundness of the boat and its strange captain.
As soon as we leave Hong Kong harbor, I go to the galley for dinner. It turns out the boat is primarily for returning Overseas Chinese. A different boat leaves Hong Kong every day, I’m told, taking others like me to China. Twenty passengers—all Chinese men—from Singapore, Australia, France, and the United States, have also been brought directly to this boat from other flights and other ships. (What does Hong Kong think will happen if one of us stays overnight or for a week?) Halfway through dinner, I start to feel queasy. Before dessert is served, I have to leave the table because I feel so nauseated. I barely make it back to my room. The smells of oil and the latrine, the heat, and the emotional and physical exhaustion of the last few days hit me hard. I spend the next three days trying to keep down broth and tea, sleeping, sitting on the deck hoping to find cool air, and chatting with the other passengers, who give me all kinds of useless advice about seasickness.
On the fourth night, I’m in my bunk when the rolling of the ship finally eases. We must be passing into the Yangtze River estuary. I’ve been told it will take a few more hours before we veer onto the Whangpoo River to reach Shanghai. I get up just before dawn and put on my favorite dress—a shift of pale blue dotted swiss over white lining. I visit the captain, hand him an envelope to mail when he returns to Hong Kong, and ask if he can change some of my dollars into Chinese money. I give him five twenty-dollar bills. He pockets forty dollars and then gives me sixty dollars’ worth of Chinese yuan. I’m too shocked to argue, but his actions make me realize I don’t know what will happen when I land. Am I going to be treated like I was in Hong Kong? Will the people I encounter be like the captain and take my money? Or will something entirely different happen?
My mother always said China was corrupt. I thought that sort of thing went out with the Communist takeover, but apparently it hasn’t disappeared completely. What would my mom do if she were here? She’d hide her cash, as she did at home. When I get back to my cabin, I take out all the money I stole from her can under the sink and divide it into two piles, wrapping the larger amount in a handkerchief and pinning it to my underwear. I take the rest—$250—and put it in my wallet with my new Chinese money. Then I pick up my suitcase, leave the cabin, and disembark.
IT’S EIGHT A.M., and the air is as thick, heavy, and hot white as potato soup. I’m herded with the other passengers into a stifling room filled with cigarette smoke and pungent with the odors of food that’s spent too long without refrigeration in this weather. The walls are painted a sickly pea green. The humidity is so bad that the windows sweat. In America, everything would be orderly, with people standing in lines. Here, my fellow passengers crush forward in a throbbing mass to the single processing kiosk. I linger on the edges because I’m nervous after my experience with passport control in
Hong Kong. The line moves very slowly, with numerous delays for reasons I can’t see or intuit. It takes three hours for me to reach the window.
An inspector dressed in an ill-fitting drab green uniform asks, “What is the reason for your visit?”
He speaks Shanghainese, which is a relief, but I don’t think I should tell him the truth—that I’ve come to find my father but I have no clue where he is precisely or how to locate him.
“I’m here to help build the People’s Republic of China,” I answer.
He asks for my papers, and his eyes widen when he sees my U.S. passport. He looks at me and then back at the photo. “It’s good you came this year instead of last year. Chairman Mao says that Overseas Chinese no longer have to apply for entry permits. All I need is something that shows your identity, and you’ve given me that. Would you consider yourself stateless?”
“Stateless?”
“It’s illegal to travel in China as a U.S. citizen,” he says. “So are you stateless?”
I’m nineteen. I don’t want to seem like an uninformed and ignorant runaway. I don’t want to confess that I don’t exactly know what stateless means.
“I’ve come to China in response to the call for patriotic Chinese from the United States to serve the people,” I say, reciting things I learned in my club in Chicago. “I want to contribute to humanity and help with national reconstruction!”
“All right then,” the inspector says.
He drops my passport in a drawer and locks it. That alarms me.
“When will I get my passport back?”
“You won’t.”
It never occurred to me that I could be giving up my rights should I ever want to leave China and return to the United States. I feel a door swing shut and lock behind me. What will I do later if I want to leave and I don’t have the key? Then my mother’s and aunt’s faces flash before me and all the tumultuous and sad emotions of our last days together bubble up again. I’ll never go back. Never.
“All personal luggage for Overseas Chinese must be searched,” the inspector states, pointing to a sign that reads, CUSTOMS PROCEDURE GOVERNING PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF PERSONAL LUGGAGE ACCOMPANYING OVERSEAS CHINESE. “We’re seeking contraband items and clandestine remittances of foreign currency.”
I open my bag, and he paws through the contents. He confiscates my bras, which might be amusing if I weren’t so surprised and scared. My passport and bras?
He gives me a stern look. “If the matron were here, she’d take the one you’re wearing. Reactionary clothing has no place in the New China. Please throw out the offending item as soon as possible.” He closes my suitcase and shoves it aside. “Now, how much money have you brought with you? You’ll be assigned to a work unit, but for now we can’t let you enter the country unless you have a way to support yourself.”
I hand him my wallet. He takes half of my dollars and pockets them. I’m glad I have most of my money in my underwear. Then the inspector scrutinizes me, taking in my dotted swiss shift, which I now realize may have been a mistake. He tells me to stay where I am. When he leaves, I worry that this will be a repeat of what happened in Hong Kong, except where would they send me now? Maybe Joe and my uncle were right. Maybe something really bad is about to happen to me. Sweat begins to trickle down the small of my back.
The inspector returns with several more men dressed in the same drab green uniforms. They wear enthusiastic smiles. They call me tong chih. It means comrade but with the connotation that you are a person of the same spirit, goals, and ambitions. Hearing the word makes me feel much better. See, I tell myself, you had nothing to worry about. They huddle together with me in the middle so our picture can be taken, which explains the delays earlier. Next they show me a wall with framed photos of what they tell me are some of the people who’ve entered China through this office. I see mostly men, a couple of women, and a few families. And they aren’t all Chinese. Some are Caucasians. Where they’re from, I can’t tell, although from their dress they don’t appear to be Americans. Maybe they’re from Poland, East Germany, or some other country in the Eastern Bloc. Soon my photo will be on the wall too.
Then the inspectors ask where I’ll be staying. That stumps me. They see my uncertainty and exchange worried—suspicious—looks.
“You need to tell us where you’ll be staying before we can let you leave here,” the chief inspector says.
I tilt my head down and peer up at them, suggesting I’m innocent and helpless. I learned this expression from my aunt on a movie set years ago.
“I’m looking for my father,” I confide, hoping they’ll feel sorry for me. “My mother took me away from China before I was born. Now I’ve come home to my right place.” I haven’t lied up to this point, but I need their assistance. “I want to live with my father and help him build the country, but my mother refused to tell me where to find him. She’s become too American.” I crinkle my face at that last word as though it’s the most detestable thing to be on earth.
“What kind of worker is he?” the chief inspector asks.
“He’s an artist.”
“Ah, good,” he says. “A cultural worker.” The men rapidly discuss the possibilities. Then the chief inspector says, “Go to the All-China Art Workers’ Association. I think they just call it the Artists’ Association now, Shanghai branch. They supervise all cultural workers. They’ll know exactly where to find him.”
He writes down directions, draws a simple map, and tells me that the Artists’ Association is within walking distance. The men wish me luck, and then I leave the processing shed and step onto the Bund and into a sea of people who look just like me. Los Angeles Chinatown was a small enclave, and there weren’t that many Chinese at the University of Chicago. This is more Chinese than I’ve seen altogether in my life. A wave of pleasure ripples through me.
I stand on a pedestrian walkway that seems almost like a park edging the river. Before me is a street filled with masses of people on bicycles. It’s just noon, so maybe everyone is on lunch break, but I can’t be sure. Across the street, huge buildings—heavier, grander, and broader than what I’m used to in Los Angeles—sweep along the Bund, following the curve of the Whangpoo. Turning back to the river, I see Chinese naval ships and cargo ships of every shape and size. Dozens upon dozens of sampans bob on the river like so many water bugs. Junks float past with their sails aloft. What seems like thousands of men—stripped to their waists, with light cotton trousers rolled up to the knees—carry bundles of cotton, baskets filled with produce, and huge crates on and off boats. Everyone and everything seems to be either coming or going.
I glance at the map to get my bearings, adjust my suitcase in my hand, make my way through the crowds to the curb, and wait for the bicycles to stop to let me cross. They don’t stop. And there’s no streetlight. All the while I’m being bumped and pushed by the ceaseless flow of pedestrians. I watch others step into the herds of bicycles and daringly cross the street. The next time someone steps off the curb, I follow close behind, hoping I’ll be safe in his wake.
As I head up Nanking Road, I can’t help making comparisons between Shanghai and Chinatown, where most of the people were from Canton, in Kwangtung province in the south of China. My family’s originally from Kwangtung too, but my mother and aunt grew up in Shanghai. They always said the food was sweeter and the clothes were more fashionable in Shanghai. The city was more enchanting—with clubs and dancing, late night strolls along the Bund, and one more thing: laughter. I rarely heard my mother laugh when I was little, but she used to tell stories of giggling with Auntie May in their bedroom, exchanging jokes with handsome young men, and laughing at the sheer joy of being in the exact right place—the Paris of Asia—at the exact right moment—before the Japanese invaded and my grandmother, mother, and aunt had to flee for their lives.
What I’m seeing now certainly isn’t the Shanghai my mother and aunt told me about. I don’t see glamorous women walking along the streets, perusing department store w
indows for the latest fashions sent from Paris or Rome. I don’t see foreigners who act like they own the place, but Chinese are everywhere. They’re all in a hurry, and there’s nothing stylish about them. The women wear cotton trousers and short-sleeved cotton blouses or plain blue suits. Now that I’m away from the river, the men are better dressed than the dockworkers. They wear gray suits—what my dad derisively called Mao suits. No one looks too thin or too fat. No one looks too rich, and I don’t see any of the beggars or rickshaw pullers that my mother and aunt always complained about.
There’s only one problem. I can’t find the Artists’ Association. Shanghai is a latticework of streets, and soon I’m completely twisted around. I turn down byways and into alleys. I end up in courtyards and dead ends. I ask for directions, but people shove past me or ogle me for the stranger I am. They’re afraid, I think, to talk to someone who looks so out of place. I enter a couple of shops to get help, but everyone says they’ve never heard of the Artists’ Association. When I show them my map, they look at it, shake their heads, and then ungraciously push me out their doors.
After what seems like hours of being rejected, pointedly ignored, or jostled by crowds, I realize I’m totally lost. I’m also starved and woozy from the heat, and I’m starting to get scared. I mean really, really scared, because I’m in an unfamiliar city halfway around the world from anyone who knows me and people are staring at me because I look so alien in my stupid dotted swiss shift and white sandals. What am I doing here?
