Daughter of Good Fortune: A Twentieth-Century Chinese Peasant Memoir

by Chen Huiqin

  The one-story hotel had a metal roof. When it rained at night, the raindrops made a lot of noise, so we did not sleep very well. The next day, we complained to the travel agent, who moved us to another hotel. This one was in a building that had four stories and we stayed on the second floor.

  We did a lot of sightseeing during the three days inside the national park. We visited the place where Chairmen Mao held an important meeting in the 1950s. We saw a lake with pavilions in it, surrounded by mountain peaks. One day, the van that was taking us sightseeing had a flat tire. We had to get out of the van while the driver fixed it. We were already high up on a mountain; yet we saw still higher mountain peaks surrounding us.

  In 2000, we went to Hainan, a very southern place. There, I saw several things that I had never seen in their natural environment. One of them was coconut. Coconuts were growing everywhere we visited. We learned to eat the fruit while there. After we bought one, we had to crack it open and then use a straw to drink the liquid. Our tour guide told us that the thick layer of white flesh inside the coconut was also useful. The coco flakes we could buy in grocery stores came from that white flesh.

  I saw a large field of pineapples. I had never seen pineapples growing in fields. When I first saw them in a field from a distance, I thought they were turnips, but the local tour guide assured us they were pineapples.

  When we were visiting Hainan, one of the things that tourists were eager to buy was anything made of sea turtle shell (daimao). We were told that sea turtle shell has medicinal effects: it can lower blood pressure and clean the body of bad elements. My husband and I did not totally believe this, but we still bought a bracelet and two rings made of sea turtle shell. My husband wore one of the rings for some time, since it was supposed to help lower blood pressure. We gave the other ring to my husband’s sister. We did not use the bracelet; it was just a souvenir.

  Our trip to Hainan was in March, but it was already hot there. So when we packed to come home, we put away our heavy clothes and wore only shirts. When we arrived in Shanghai and got out at Hongqiao Airport, we felt really cold, for it was still spring in our hometown.

  NOTES

  1 The “official age” is used here to distinguish it from the local way of counting one’s age.

  13

  Crossing Borders and Leaving the Ancestral Village

  IN the old days, when my grandmother walked to Shanghai, she was considered an exceptionally daring woman. Most people, particularly women, in Wangjialong never visited Jiading Town in their entire life. My mother was an example. Other than being accompanied to see a doctor in West Gate, Mother never went to urban Jiading in her entire life.

  When I visited Shezhen, who worked and lived in the New England region of the United States, my children told me that I was going to the other side of the earth. In terms of distance, they told me, I was going the farthest anyone could go from China.

  My husband had always wanted to visit Shezhen in the United States, but I was worried about his health. He was diagnosed with high blood pressure and coronary heart disease when he was in his fifties. In the winter of 1997, during his forty-five-day hospital stay, his doctors, having observed his extremely irregular heartbeat and high blood pressure, told me that his heart could stop any time and we the family should be prepared for the worst. After that hospital stay, doctors prescribed medication for him, but they were not able to figure out what caused his irregular heartbeat. I had observed that any lack of sleep or irregularity in his life had an effect on his blood pressure and irregular heartbeat. I knew traveling to the United States involved long plane rides and a huge time difference and would upset his life in a significant way.

  But my husband was determined. After Shezhen got her green card, we obtained our passports and began to apply for visas to enter the United States. The application for visas was complicated. Shezhen sent us all kinds of materials, including bank statements, tax returns, and a letter from her university. Shezhen said the materials were to show to American consuls that the intention of the trip was to visit our daughter and that our daughter could support us while we were there. We also prepared our documents showing our ownership of a house, our bank account, and the fact that we had a son, another daughter, and grandchildren in China. Our documents should demonstrate to American consuls that we had many reasons to return to China.

  Shezhen knew from experience how difficult it was to get a visa to enter the United States. When Zhou Wei worked in Hong Kong, one year he decided to use his Chinese New Year holiday to visit Shezhen. When he applied for a visa, the American consulate in Hong Kong refused to give him one.

  In addition to documents, Shezhen also suggested that we bring a family photo with us when we went to the consulate for the interview. She said that we wanted the American visa consul to see that we had a large family, and that many of them were living and working in China. We took Shezhen’s advice.

  In March of 2001, my husband and I went to the American Consulate in Shanghai. We were very confident that we would get the visas. I said that I only wanted to go and see the place Shezhen worked and the home she and Zhou Wei had established there. If I could do that within one day, then one day would be enough. We never thought of staying in the United States for an extended period, let alone becoming immigrants. Since neither my husband nor I knew any English, we decided to make the trip in the summer when Shezhen was not teaching and could spend time with us.

  While waiting for our number to be called, we saw people being called to the windows to meet with American consuls and many were denied visas. Then we were called. We went up to the window and were greeted by an American consul who spoke very good Shanghai dialect. He asked us a few questions and we answered them. Then he said that he could not give us visas because he suspected that we intended to immigrate to the United States. We both were very surprised and wanted to say something, but he had called the next person to the window.

  We were very disappointed. It had taken us several months to prepare all the materials. We had to get up very early that day and waited for several hours outside the consulate and then inside the waiting room. And we had worked up our emotions and expectations. I was most concerned about the impact the denial would have on my husband’s health.

  But my husband was pretty calm. He said that we had done our best and that the result was beyond our control. He said he had given up, and I was relieved. When we returned home, we called Shezhen to tell her that we had been denied the visas and that we had decided not to pursue the trip any further.

  Shezhen refused to accept the result. She told us that she had gotten support and help from her American friends and that she and her friends and colleagues were writing letters to American congressmen. These letters said that Shezhen was using her job to vouch that her parents had no intention of immigrating to the United States. At the same time, she decided to come back and visit us that summer.

  When her semester was over, Shezhen came back. Those days, we did not have an Internet connection in our house, so she went to check e-mail at her sister’s house one morning. That morning my husband answered a phone call from the American Consulate in Shanghai. The caller said we could get our visas to enter the United States at our convenience.

  We could not believe what had happened. We knew what Shezhen had done, but we did not expect any success. We did not know that Americans also depended on connections in order to do things. My husband waited at the window to tell Shezhen the news. When she returned, her father told her the news through the window before she entered the building.

  A few days later, Shezhen accompanied us to the American Consulate in Shanghai. We again stood in a long line outside the consulate, then waited inside, and finally were called to a window. Without asking us any questions, the consul granted us the visas. With the visas in hand, we immediately bought our plane tickets. On July 10, we flew to the United States with Shezhen.

  When we landed in San Francisco, I said to my husband, “We
should follow Shezhen very closely now.” We did not know a word of English and were not able to communicate with anybody. We were really in a foreign land.

  From San Francisco, Shezhen took us to Salt Lake City, where she had earned her master’s and PhD degrees. At the airport, Keith, Brown Beard’s father, came to pick us up. We had seen him in many photos Shezhen had sent us, but this was the first time we met him in person. He and his wife had treated Shezhen as if she were their daughter. After Shezhen introduced us, he gave each of us a big hug. We felt very warm in this foreign land.

  Shezhen was very familiar with the city and asked Keith to take us to a hotel. After we settled into the hotel, Shezhen took us out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. We walked to the restaurant. I remember we saw a lot of construction. Shezhen said that the city was constructing a light-rail. After dinner, Shezhen paid the bill and gave a tip. I said that the tip would have bought the dinner if we were in Jiading. We took a taxi back to the hotel because it was already dark. It was only a short distance, for we had walked there, but it cost us twenty-three dollars. Then Shezhen gave a tip of seven dollars, when she gave the driver thirty dollars and told him to keep the change. So the cost of that short taxi ride was thirty dollars. At that time, an American dollar was worth eight Chinese yuan. When I did the math, I realized how expensive the American life was. Shezhen had told us about her income, her expenses, and other aspects of life in the United States, but we were very unprepared. Shezhen said that eating in a restaurant and taking a taxi were not regular parts of her everyday life.

  I was worried about the impact of the jet lag on my husband. Right after we returned to the hotel, he was the first one to take a shower and went to sleep immediately. He slept like a log until the next morning. He said he did not feel the time difference. That was quite a relief to me.

  The hotel provided a free breakfast in its lobby. There were tea bags and we made our own tea. We liked the bread that had a hole in the middle. There were also sweet breads.

  After breakfast, Keith came to our hotel and drove us to his house. There, we met Elizabeth, Brown Beard’s mother. We talked with them through Shezhen. We said that our hearts ached when we heard that their son, Brown Beard, had passed away.1 We said that we were very fortunate to have met him in our home in Jiading. We learned more about Shezhen’s life in Salt Lake City. They told us how hard she worked as a student and how much they liked her. We were very glad to have the opportunity to thank them in person for the care they and their family had given to our daughter. We had lunch at their house. Elizabeth cooked a meat-and-vegetable soup for us. With the soup there was also warm bread. Shezhen said that Elizabeth made the bread in her own oven.

  Then we met Annina, a meeting of old friends. She took us to her house and invited us to stay. Shezhen accepted her invitation and so we moved to her house from the hotel. She took us out to a Chinese restaurant in Salt Lake City the first night we stayed with her. The following day, Shezhen took us to a Chinese grocery store and we bought Chinese things such as rice and vegetables. We cooked our own food in Annina’s house. That was much better because we were not very used to American food.

  We stayed in Salt Lake City for four nights. Shezhen took us to visit the University of Utah by bus. She showed us the two apartments she lived in when she was a student. When she pointed to a small window in the attic of a big house and said that she used to live there, tears welled up in my eyes. I thought of the loneliness she must have felt living in such an alien place, far away from family. She showed us the beautiful campus and the buildings in which she had an office when she was a teaching assistant.

  One day, a big party was arranged for us at Leslie’s house. Leslie was the daughter of Keith and Elizabeth. Her house had a big backyard and the party was late in the afternoon. There were chairs arranged on the green lawn in the backyard. Another son of Keith and Elizabeth also lived in the city. He came to the party with his wife and children. Elizabeth’s sister also came. There were a couple of Chinese people from Beijing. They were friends with Shezhen and Annina. Annina cooked a chicken dish in her house and brought it to the party. Shezhen explained that Elizabeth and several other people also cooked and brought food to the party.

  I thought that was a good idea. In China, when a family invites people to a dinner, it involves a lot of work for the host. The American party I witnessed that day involved less work for the sponsoring family.

  The way to eat the food at this party was also very different. We took a paper plate, got some food from each dish, brought the plate of food to a chair on the lawn, and then sat there to eat the food. It was very casual and the host/hostess did not pressure you to eat more.

  Another day, two of Shezhen’s friends came and took us to their houses. They and their husbands had held a huge party to celebrate Shezhen’s graduation when she got her PhD degree. Both women lived in big houses and their houses were beautiful inside and outside. Inside, there were soft carpets and comfortable sofas. They were very clean and tidy houses. Outside, they had planted flowers everywhere. When we admired their flowers, they decided to take us to see another house in the neighborhood, because that house was famous in the neighborhood for its flowers.

  Indeed, there were so many flowers. The woman who owned that house showed us the flowers around the house. When we came to admire a particular kind of flower, she said that those flowers were perennials and they had been growing there for at least fifty years. I thought to myself: fifty years ago, we did not have enough food to eat, let alone grow flowers.

  We left Salt Lake City for Boston by plane and landed in Boston in the afternoon. When the plane flew into Boston, I saw big areas of dark green color on the ground. I asked Shezhen what they were. Shezhen said that they were wooded areas. After we landed, we took an airport shuttle to a place where Zhou Wei met us. He drove us to their house. On the way, we passed many wooded areas. I was impressed. At home in Jiading, there had been a strong effort to plant trees and flowers. What we had in Jiading were human planted trees and flowers along the highways, while in the area where Shezhen and Zhou Wei lived, trees were naturally preserved woods.

  Shezhen and Zhou Wei lived in a clean house and a quiet environment. They invited us to sleep in a big bedroom with its own bathroom. They slept in the other bedroom, which was also Shezhen’s office. There were only two bedrooms in the house, but there were three bathrooms in it. The whole house was carpeted except for the bathrooms and the kitchen. The carpet was very thick and soft. My husband said that walking on the carpet required more effort because it was so soft.

  Every day, my husband and I took a walk in the residential complex. There was a swimming pool in the complex. In the afternoon, we saw a few older people swimming and resting in the sun by the pool. When we met people, they were all very polite. They would say “hello” and “good morning.” My husband learned “good morning” and used it a few times. I walked on a wooded path one morning and was startled by a long-tailed squirrel which suddenly jumped right in front of my eyes from one tree to the next. After that, I avoided that path when I walked.

  Zhou Wei worked every weekday but Shezhen was home most of the time because it was her summer vacation. She was writing a book at that time, so my husband and I tried not to talk to her during the day. On weekends, they took us out to see places. We went to a local folk festival in the city where Shezhen’s university is located. That was the only time we saw many people on the streets. There were all kinds of shows, but we did not understand them. Shezhen ran into people she knew, and she introduced us to some of them.

  Another weekend, Zhou Wei and Shezhen took us to Boston. We ate at a dim sum restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown. They showed us the famous places in Boston. We shopped in a big Chinese grocery store. Only there did we see many Chinese vegetables and live and fresh fish and poultry. But Shezhen’s house was far from Boston’s Chinatown, and it was impossible for them to shop there every day.

  Speaking of food, I found
the variety to be lacking in the supermarkets near Shezhen’s house. There were no jiangdou, jiaobai, penghao, or other ordinary vegetables we ate every day in Jiading. There was tofu, but it was expensive and there was only one kind. There were no live fish or shrimp. Seafood, however, was very good and fresh. We ate live lobster, fresh cod, and other kinds of seafood.

  Shezhen also gave us a tour of her campus. She showed us her office, the classrooms she taught her classes in, and the library. One day, Shezhen was to teach a special summer class for a day. We went with her and sat in the classroom to observe her teaching. I did not understand a word she said, but I felt so much pride. I thought, “We must have done something right to bring up a daughter who is a professor in an American university.”

  Many times when I sat on the soft sofa in Shezhen’s spacious living room or in the clean kitchen with big windows, I thought back on the forty-some years since Shezhen was born. We were so poor then, our house was so dark and crowded, we had no books in our house, I was illiterate. . . . Now this little country girl has a PhD degree, teaches in the United States, and owns this comfortable house. All of this was beyond my dreams. The greatest regret in my life is that I did not get an education. What Shezhen has achieved has brought satisfaction to me. I also thought that my father must be very proud of what Shezhen has achieved. He regretted that I did not get an education. He started to teach Shezhen to read when she was very little and was always happy when Shezhen brought home good grades from school.

  Shezhen and Zhou Wei also took us to see the mountains. That day, Zhou Wei was the only driver, for Shezhen forgot to bring her driver’s license. We had lunch in the mountains. On our way back, Zhou Wei felt sleepy and so we stopped and he took a nap in the car. Shezhen could drive, but she did not do so because she did not want to get into trouble. I liked their careful attitude in life.