by Anchee Min
In tears Takisha described how her ancestors were sold, beaten, hanged, and burned when they tempted to escape. I wondered what that had to do with Kate.
I interrupted Takisha. I told her that when I was living in China, I was not allowed to see a doctor when sick. I was not allowed to leave the labor camp when my spinal cord was injured. I had no weekends nor holidays. I was not allowed to pursue an education. The price for dating a boy at the labor camp would be humiliation, punishment, and torture.
“Have you heard of the Chinese saying ‘Killing a hen to shock the monkeys’? It was the tactic the proletarian government adopted to keep us in place.”
I described to Takisha what it was like to witness the revolution. The poor and lower classes took over the government. It was truly the People’s Democracy. Within weeks, China’s economy shut down completely. Factories, schools, hospitals, and other public service buildings became ghost towns. Even in remote villages, peasants quit farming to join the rebellion.
Being illiterate became glorious. It was exciting to challenge China’s five-thousand-year-old tradition. Peasants took over hospital operating tables. They believed that anybody could perform a doctor’s job. All one needed was to stock his mind with Mao quotations.
It didn’t take long for factions to form. Rallies to consolidate greater power were held in stadiums, which often ended in bloody battles. Every day there were funerals in Shanghai. The city’s walls filled up with photos of “new martyrs.”
“My parents warned us to stay off the streets because people who had access to large trucks were looting weapons from military compounds. We could hear gunshots in the middle of the night.” I told Takisha about the day a group of Red Guards from Beijing came to my house. “They received a tip from our downstairs neighbor saying that we were capitalists and had money. The Red Guards started to loot, but they quit in a few minutes.”
“Why?” Takisha asked.
“They discovered that we were so poor that there was nothing to loot. Our downstairs neighbor had always been jealous of us for having a larger space than theirs. Eventually our neighbor drove us out of our home.”
“Are there good things about poor people being in control of their power?” Takisha asked. “Did their life improve?”
“I wouldn’t say so. Most people had to get up before dawn to go to the market,” I replied. “We had to stand in long lines to buy food. People became irritable and violent after standing in lines for hours in heat or snow only to be told to go home because everything was sold out. I fought with other kids over rotten cabbages and potatoes. Some people simply turned into thieves.”
I told Takisha that my parents sent us to my grandparents on my father’s side in the summer. The village town was located in Jiangsu province by the Yangtze River. We thought we would escape the Red Guards, but no, they were there, too. When we arrived, a denunciation rally was being held against my grandpa, who lay on his bed suffering from a stroke. The Red Guards couldn’t get any response out of the old man. My grandpa was a retired schoolmaster. The Red Guards were mad at my grandma, because she wouldn’t cooperate either. She was deaf and mute. She had bound feet and was barely able to walk. She couldn’t tell the difference between the new and the old society.
{ Chapter 8 }
“Good morning, Sunshine!” I found these palm-size notes on my door from Kate. It was her way of teaching me English. She made me feel welcomed in this country. “Have a nice day!” “Come over after dinner!”
I enjoyed hanging out with Kate. The more Takisha tried to stop me, the more curious and rebellious I became. What seemed “weird” to me was that both Takisha and Kate shared the same passion for what they called “pop music.” They were both crazy about a singer named Michael Jackson.
I was unfamiliar with Michael Jackson’s music. I also had no idea about another favorite star named Mick Jagger. The music they played stirred my insides. I no longer looked at the Sears Tower and heard the Chinese gongs. Michael Jackson’s electrifying beats pushed the Chinese opera tunes out of me. I imitated Takisha and Kate and let my body rock and sway to the music. I walked along Lake Michigan Avenue to the rhythm of “Beat It.”
One day Kate called me to her room and introduced me to her new favorite. His name was Prince.
“Prince? A prince-in-the-castle Prince?” I asked.
Kate smiled, passing me the album. The cover had a photo of a black man in a purple suit that was wrapped with jewelry. This was the first time I had seen a black prince.
“The singer calls himself Prince,” Kate explained. “In America you can name yourself anything. Queen, King, Princess, or Prince.”
“Does it matter that he has no royal blood?”
“Nope.”
I couldn’t imagine calling myself Princess, or Queen. If a man named himself after Mao Zedong in China, he would be sent to a mental institution.
Kate’s friends that night were people of all different races. They played music and swung their hips from side to side. Their eyes were half closed as if in ecstasy. Holding a hair curler in her hand as a microphone, Kate kicked off her shoes and sang along to Prince’s album.
I don’t want to stop
Till I get to the top
Woo—
Kate and her girlfriends fell onto the beds and rolled on the floor, laughing. They told me that Prince’s song was about sex.
Handsome young men came up from their floor. They told Kate that they were stopping by to “check out what was going on.” They didn’t leave. Their enthusiasm encouraged the girls. They spun around and their long hair danced in the air.
A young man looked at me with a beer bottle in his hand. “My name is Don.”
I was flattered, but didn’t know what to say.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
I told him my name, but he frowned. “Ho Chi Minh? Are you from Vietnam?”
“Not Ho Chi Minh,” I replied. “Anchee Min. It spells ‘A-n-q-i’. It’s from Pinyin. Have you heard of Chinese Pinyin system?”
“Nice meeting you, Chi Minh,” he responded, and walked away.
I realized that I was too old for this crowd—a twenty-eight-year-old among eighteen-year-olds. Instead of feeling excited and entertained, I felt out of place and lonely.
I was unable to let myself go wild with the crowd. Watching the girls drive the boys crazy and enjoy themselves, I was reminded of my debt, of what limited time I had to save myself.
I didn’t intend to offend Takisha when I drew a picture of Ronald Reagan in my sketchbook. “Reagan is a dog!” Takisha yelled. “And I hate him!”
I explained that I picked Reagan not because I worshipped him like I had Mao. It was to test the accuracy of my drawing skills—if I was successful, people would recognize what I drew.
“I have never learned to draw,” I told Takisha. “I’m afraid of getting kicked out of the art school that issued me the I-20. I was looking for something to copy and happened to find a Time magazine with Reagan’s picture on the cover.”
I didn’t tell Takisha how shocked I was when I heard her call her president a dog. In China, calling Mao a dog would result in a death sentence. In fact, the moment I heard Takisha, I charged to the door and looked out. I wanted to make sure nobody had heard her.
Closing the door, I asked Takisha to explain her hatred for President Reagan. She didn’t have much to say except, “He is a Republican and an evil white man.”
I wished that I could have shared Takisha’s feelings. But I was allowed to enter the United States when Ronald Reagan was its president. I’d forever be indebted to the kindness of America, kindness that Mr. Reagan represented.
Kate and I walked along the snow-covered campus paths and entered a lecture hall where hundreds of students gathered. I enjoyed the atmosphere tremendously. Although I didn’t understand a word of the lecture, I was happy to sit among the crowd. It was a class on marketing techniques. A film clip was played on a big screen. It was a McDonald
’s hamburger commercial. I found myself humming the McDonald’s jingle as I walked out.
Kate said that she would like to be the first to introduce me to McDonald’s. I was excited. She said that we would take the subway to downtown Chicago. I asked if I needed to dress up. Kate said that she would help me dress like an American girl. She took me to a local dress store, where everything was too expensive for me. Eventually I paid ten dollars for a clearance item, a zebra-striped black-and-white nylon top. I thought it would make me look wild. For the first time, I was in a mood to be wild.
Kate made up my face. She fixed my hair and applied hair spray. She loaned me her necklace, clip-on earrings, and a bandanna. Everybody in the room cheered when Kate finished. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I was disappointed. Blue shadows and black eyeliner circled my eyes and my skin was caked with foundation. The bright red lipstick reminded me of a prostitute in a Chinese propaganda film.
When I put on my bell-bottom jeans, Kate told me that it was 1985. I didn’t get what she meant. Kate explained that bell-bottoms were out of fashion. They were a seventies style. I told Kate that I didn’t have another pair of jeans.
We took a subway downtown and got off at Chicago station. I followed Kate into the McDonald’s near the Water Tower. Kate ordered me a hamburger, french fries, and a Coke. I fell in love with the taste. I only wished that I could afford it.
Kate was unable to provide answers to my questions about why fried sliced potato was called “french fries” and tomato sauce “catch up.”
In the middle of the night, the phone rang. Takisha picked it up and started to scream. I asked, “What happened?” but she wouldn’t answer. Takisha stayed on the phone for hours, and she wouldn’t stop crying. I turned on the light and found her curled into a ball on her bed.
Finally she got off the phone. I asked again, “What happened?” She told me that her younger sister had been raped.
“Was it by a white slave owner?” I asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “My sister and mother are in bad shape.”
The next morning Takisha left without her backpack and textbooks, which were scattered on her desk and bed. She returned two days later looking distracted. She said that she didn’t feel like talking.
I remained quiet.
Takisha continued to attend her classes, but she didn’t do her homework. In fact, I had never seen Takisha do much homework. Given the subject of Takisha’s study, medicine, I assumed that she would have had loads of homework.
A week later Takisha brought a cat she’d found on the street into the room. “I’m adopting it,” she announced. She asked me to keep this a secret “because the dorm rules don’t allow pets.” Takisha fed the cat with milk from the cafeteria. She spent time patiently grooming, cuddling, and talking to the cat. At bedtime she called her mother in Alabama and stayed on the phone for a long time.
Before the semester ended, Takisha announced that she had decided to change her major. She no longer was going to be a doctor. Instead she would major in nursing. Still, I never saw her do homework. One day she told me that she was ready to give away her adopted kitten. She took the cat downtown and returned with a young black man. Takisha introduced him to me as her boyfriend, and said that he was a photographer. Later, I discovered he wasn’t a real photographer when they borrowed my camera. Takisha called to ask me to give instructions to her boyfriend on how to load the film into the camera.
Takisha seemed so happy that she glowed. At lunchtime, the pair took off together. From then on, Takisha no longer returned to the dorm to sleep.
One morning Takisha reappeared. She told me that she was there to say good-bye and collect her stuff. She was going back to Alabama. What surprised me was that she didn’t seem a bit upset about not getting her medical degree.
I thanked Takisha for her kindness, smiles, and friendship. I told her that she’d be missed.
A middle-aged white lady approached me as I waited at the bus station. She was bundled in a snow coat and carried a book. It was so cold that she couldn’t close her lips in order to make the M sound. Instead she said, “… erry Christ-ahss.”
I found my lips had the same trouble closing when I tried to say “Merry Christmas” back.
“Would you like a Bible story?” the lady asked.
Before I could say no, she began. I wished that I could tell her that Communism used to be my religion, and Mao my God. His Little Red Quotation Book had been my Bible. I felt bad leaving in the middle of the lady’s story. But several buses had come and gone. I was running out of time. I would be late for my class.
When the next bus arrived, I jumped on. To my surprise, the lady followed. Keeping a smile on her face, she sat down next to me. She asked how much I knew about the Christian God. I told her that I was confused between the Virgin, Mary, and Madonna. The lady said she would help me learn. I realized that I was trapped.
“I have a cold,” I said. “You don’t want to catch cold, do you?”
The lady replied, “I live to honor our Lord.”
“I used to live to honor my Lord too,” I told the lady. “Do you know the Chinese Jesus Christ? He was a soldier-martyr named Dong Chunrui. He was given an assignment by our Lord to blow up a bridge where the enemy had its firepower. When Dong finally reached the bridge, he couldn’t find anywhere to secure his pack of explosives. He utilized his body as a post and completed his mission. That’s how he honored our Lord, Mao.”
The lady asked if I was afraid of demons.
“Not demons, but dreams,” I replied. In my dreams I was never able to secure the explosives. I had been blown into pieces hundreds and thousands of times in my dreams.
I had no place to go during holidays. I had been in America almost four months and wished that I could afford to call home. I longed to hear the voices of my parents and imagined how happy my mother would be. I imagined the lady working at our neighborhood telephone booth when the call came in. I imagined her shouting my mother’s name under her window. “A long-distance call for the Min family! Your daughter is calling from overseas! Hurry up!”
I imagined my mother abandoning her chopped vegetables. My mother would run through the narrow hallway, down the wooden staircase, and out onto the lane toward the telephone booth. What a pleasure it would be!
I wrote home, filling both sides of one sheet of paper. I printed my characters as small as I could to save postage. I told my sister to continue to hold on to my farewell letters, because I was not yet certain of my immigration status. I still hadn’t made it back to the school that issued me the original I-20 form, although I had been anticipating it since the day I arrived.
I received a letter back from my family. My mother didn’t say, “I miss you.” She believed that it would weaken me if she showed any emotion. My mind was cast back to the time when my mother abruptly ended her visit to my labor camp. She simply couldn’t face the horrid conditions I lived in. She fled despite the fact that she had just arrived. The journey had taken her eight hours: five hours standing on a crowded bus, then three more walking on rough roads. She feared that if she broke down, my own courage to go on would be affected. I remember how I wished that my mother had stayed overnight. I missed her. Her presence would have comforted me and given me strength.
Kate said she’d love to take me home to spend Christmas with her family. Although I was nervous around strangers, I convinced myself to go. It would give me an opportunity to practice my English listening comprehension. Besides, I had never experienced a real American family in their home. I also simply needed a break from my constant worry about my debt.
Kate’s parents’ house was located in a Chicago suburb. She had a big family with lovely siblings, parents, and grandparents. It was an eye-opening experience to watch them affectionately greet each other, shower each other with gifts, and eat breakfast together, all laughing and talking together. It was difficult not to miss home.
I put a smile on my face and made myself
appear interested. At the same time, I learned a loneliness that had no name. It plagued me. I felt consumed.
Kate’s family treated me warmly and kindly. They asked me if I had enjoyed myself, and if I liked the dinner. I responded with equal enthusiasm. “Thank you! It was wonderful,” I said. “I enjoyed everything so much.”
What was really on my mind was my own family back in China counting on me to save their lives.
Back at school, Kate had news for me. She wanted to introduce me to a group of students from mainland China. “Folks from your hometown!” Kate said excitedly.
It was already too late when I told Kate that I couldn’t afford to speak with people from my hometown. I couldn’t afford to speak Chinese. I would have stayed with Joan Chen in Los Angeles if I had wanted to be with someone from my hometown. I had asked Joan if she would speak English with me. She said that it’d be awkward. We were so used to speaking to each other, not even in Mandarin but in Shanghai dialect.
But Kate was right that I needed to socialize. Sitting among the students from China, I was able to drop my mask, and it felt good. The Chinese students shared the same burdens I did. We joked that we were like the roof of a bamboo hut under the weight of snow.
The Chinese students discussed visa expiration and deportation instead of Michael Jackson, Michigan Avenue, and the Chicago Bears. We shared the same homesickness, although we didn’t talk about it. Like grasshoppers at the end of autumn, we worried about the freezing winter ahead. One student told me that he hadn’t gone back home to China for years. His returning visa was not guaranteed. “An American consul in China can easily reject your reentry,” he said. “You can lose everything.”
“Practical training period” was what the Chinese students discussed the most. It meant that the graduating student was given one year, the last year, to locate a job in America, which would lead to a green card. The job had to be offered by a reputable American company with a decent salary. The job offer would qualify the Chinese student for an immigration H-1 working visa. The difficulty was that it had to be a job no American citizen would be able to or want to do. A job that might pay a minimum wage but that would require the skill of a Ph.D.
