by Andrea Cheng
“So many hats!” a lady says, holding them up one at a time.
“Such beautiful colors,” another one says.
“Many students at my school made them. A teacher, too.” I show them the picture of CAT and wish so much that Andee and Sam and Simone and everyone else were here with me.
One lady picks out a blue hat with a yellow pompom and puts it onto a baby’s head. I think it is the hat that Sam knitted, because some of the stitches are too loose. Then they all start putting the hats on the babies. A lady laughs. “Like little snowmen,” she says.
I clear my throat. “My school also raised money for the babies.”
“We have everything,” one lady says.
I look around the room. It’s true, they have stacks of diapers and cans of formula and small cribs with sheets, but in the whole room, there are no baby toys.
I reach for my backpack, take out the envelope with the money, and hand it to the young lady. “Please buy toys or whatever you need for the babies,” I say. “A present from my school.”
The lady doesn’t understand.
“At my school we had a bake sale,” I say. “This money is for the Lucky Family Orphanage.”
I’m not sure she understands what a bake sale is. But she understands that the money is a gift. “Xie xie,” she says. “To all the students and the teachers.”
I want to tell her about CAT and the fortune cookies. But I cannot possibly explain all that in Chinese. Plus the babies are starting to get fussy. They need bottles and diaper changes and songs.
Just when the guide says it is time to leave, I remember Kaylee’s drawing and take it out of my backpack. “Bao Bao drew this for you,” I say, giving it to the young woman. Then I hand her the photo album. “So you can remember my sister.”
Chapter Eighteen
A Fever
When I get back to the hotel room, the Sylvesters are not there. They left a note on my bed: Hope the visit went well. Gone out for a bit, back soon.
I know I should write down everything that happened at the orphanage, but I feel exhausted. I open my backpack to take out a bottle of water. Then I see that one baby hat must have gotten stuck in the zipper. Should I give it to the guide and ask her to take it to the orphanage? But she would have no reason to go back.
I feel too tired to write or read, so I reach for the blue envelope and carefully unfold the eleventh fortune cookie, which is white:
There is a picture of a house and the Chinese characters hui jia, “back home.”
It’s true. In just a couple of days, we will be on the plane again, this time with Jing. I lie down on my bed, close my eyes, and watch the colors swirling behind my eyelids, red and blue and pink and green, like millions of baby hats and pompoms and traffic.
Suddenly I remember the oral history project. In all my excitement about the orphanage, I forgot to actually interview anyone. How could I have forgotten something so important? What will I tell Ms. Remick and Mrs. Smith?
I wake up many times during the night and I hear Jing, but then I fall asleep again. When I look at the clock, it is almost two thirty a.m. I can hear Mr. Sylvester snoring in the other room. Jing moves in her baby bed. I reach for my flashlight and open my journal:
All night I dreamed about the orphanage. I cannot stop thinking about it. I wonder who will adopt the other babies. If nobody does, where will they go? I forgot to ask the ladies so many things. And I forgot to interview someone for the oral history project.
I wish I could magically just be home in my own bed. I miss everybody so much. And I don’t feel very good.
I put the notebook down, and the room is spinning. My throat hurts. I turn toward the wall and close my eyes.
Day and night are the same and the room is hot and Jing cries and stops and cries and stops. Mr. Sylvester snores and Ms. Sylvester brings me water that is cool on my dry lips, but it hurts to swallow. I’m thirsty, so I have to drink, and I have to sleep to make the room stop spinning.
In the middle of the night, I open my eyes and everything is still. My stomach feels empty. There are a few crackers next to my bed, so I eat those and wait for six o’clock, because that’s when they put out the breakfast downstairs in the hotel.
I get dressed as quietly as I can, take my journal, and tiptoe out of the room and down the stairs. The breakfast is out but there is nobody in the room except me. I have a bowl of hot soup and an orange.
Fan sees me and smiles. “I missed you.”
“I was sick yesterday.”
“I know. Your teacher told me.”
I swallow the soup. “I feel better now.”
“Soup is good,” she says, watching me eat. “My mother’s chicken soup is the best.”
“My mother makes soup too.”
“You speak very well now. Better than before.”
“That’s because you are a good teacher,” I say.
Fan smiles. “I wish I could be a real teacher.”
“Maybe you can.”
Fan sighs. “For a migrant, there are not many choices.” She watches me slurp the soup. “Most Chinese girls that visit here from America are adopted. They’ve come to see their first home. And they don’t know any Chinese at all.” She picks up a section of the orange and chews it slowly. “You are a different kind of American girl. So what is it like in America?”
I’m not sure how to answer. In some ways, China is really different from America. In the United States, the streets are not crowded like China, where they are full of people and bicycles and cars and buses going every which way. But in some ways, it’s the same. Friends visit each other in their homes. If Fan comes to our house in Cincinnati, my mom will give her a bowl of steaming noodle soup.
“There are lots of big houses,” she says.
I nod.
“How many rooms do you have?”
I count in my head. “Seven, not counting the bathroom.”
“I see that in the movies.” She looks down, then back up at me. “Do you think you are Chinese or American?”
I don’t know what to say. When kids in the United States stare at me, I feel Chinese. When I am in the taxi in China and I cannot understand what the driver is saying, I feel very American. And when I am sitting on a park bench in China or on the floor at a CAT meeting, I feel . . . just like me. “Both,” I say.
“That’s good,” she says. “Two is better than one.”
Suddenly I have an idea. “Can I interview you for a school project?”
“I am not somebody important,” she says quickly.
“You are my teacher and my friend in China,” I say. “That is important.”
“What do you want to know?” she asks.
“Can you tell me about the place where you used to live?”
Fan speaks slowly so I can understand most of her words. She grew up in a village many hours away from Beijing. She came to the city with her parents so they could work and earn money to send to their parents and other relatives. “I want to study someday,” she says. “But it is difficult for migrants.”
“What is a migrant?”
“A person who is not from Beijing.”
“What do you want to study?” I ask.
“I like to study poetry,” she says. “Chinese poetry.”
I try to take notes in English, but I keep sticking Chinese words in. I can always translate them later.
“What do you like to do in your free time?”
She smiles. “I like to go out with my friends. We walk around and we talk.”
“I like to talk to my friends too,” I say. Suddenly I want to show her the paper fortune cookies from Andee. “Wait,” I say. “I want to show you something.” I run up and get the blue envelope.
“So funny,” she says, reading each fortune. “Your friend is clever.”
I explain to her about fortune cookies in America. I’m not sure if she understands. “When you come to America, I’ll show you.”
She glances at the
clock on the wall. “I have to go now.”
“Can I take a picture of you?” I ask.
She smooths her hair. Then I realize I left the camera in my room. “Here, you can take it on my phone and I’ll send it to you.”
“Thank you,” I say, holding her phone and snapping a picture.
In the afternoon, we go to buy gifts for everyone in the United States. Ms. Sylvester carries Baby Jing in a front carrier and we wander up and down the rows of little kiosks that line the streets. Mr. Sylvester buys key chains for his coworkers, and Ms. Sylvester buys baby books for Jing. I decide to get slippers with bunnies on them for Kaylee. For Ken, I get a kite that we can put together and fly from the top of the hill by the playground. For Mom and Dad and Grandma I get their favorite Jasmine tea.
What should I get for Camille and Laura and Andee? There are blouses with embroidered collars and small purses and endless rows of key chains. Finally I see small notebooks with embroidered covers. I get Laura one with dogs, since she’s crazy about them. For Camille I decide on one that has the character for “happiness” on the front. But what about Andee? I still don’t know her that well, so I don’t know what she would like. Then I see one with two children, one tall and one short, which reminds me of Andee and her mentee. I hand the three notebooks to the vendor.
“Wu kuai qian,” she says. Five kwai.
I give her the money and she hands me the gifts.
Jing is sound asleep in the front carrier with her little head flopped forward and her hair sticking up.
“She’s so cute,” I say.
“Hard to believe that this is our last day in China,” Ms. Sylvester says. “I feel kind of sad that we’re leaving.”
“Me too,” I say. “I miss everyone at home so much, but when we leave, I will miss China.”
“One thing I won’t miss is the coffee,” Mr. Sylvester says.
“Oh, Roy.” Ms. Sylvester looks around. “I feel like . . . I feel like this is Jing’s first home, and we are taking her away from it.”
Jing opens her eyes for a minute, looks around, and then closes them again. I pat her head.
When we get back to our hotel room, I sit down on my bed and write a note to Fan:
Dear Fan,
I am so sad to say goodbye to you. My home address is 3926 South Meadow Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45229. You have my email address in your phone. Thank you very much for being my teacher and my friend and my big sister in China. I hope that someday you can visit me, and that someday I will come back to China to visit you with my family.
Yours,
Anna Wang
Then I borrow Ms. Sylvester’s scissors and cut out a circle. On a slip of paper I write a message.
I stick the fortune into the paper cookie and fold it shut.
Chapter Nineteen
Goodbye to China
The hotel lobby is crowded with all the couples and babies and suitcases. The guide is trying to shout above the noise.
“The van is waiting,” she says. “Please give your suitcases to the man and take your seats.”
I look around the lobby for Fan, but she is not there. Maybe she is off today, or she has a later shift. I should have told her we were leaving early in the morning. I give the paper fortune cookie and my note to the lady at the front desk and ask her to give them to Fan when she comes to work. As I talk, I realize that the words come easily in Chinese now, but I feel choked up. I am about to get into the van when I hear someone calling my name.
“Anna, Anna, wait.” Fan runs up to me and hands me a bag. “For you. And for your family.”
“I was looking for you,” I say. “I left you something.”
Fan grabs my hand. “Come back soon.”
“Hurry,” the guide says. “We have to leave in one minute.”
I squeeze Fan’s hand.
I follow the Sylvesters into the van and take a seat by the window. Outside, Fan is waving, and I am waving back. The driver turns on the engine and we pull away from the curb. I feel my eyes get watery.
Inside the bag are four coloring books, a small pad of multicolored paper, a bag of candy, and a note in English. Dear Anna, I hope this books can help with your Chinese. Share with your sister and brother. Good bye from China. Fan.
I wipe the van window with my sleeve. We pass cars and trucks and bicycles and people bundled against the wind. I could be one of them, a Beijing girl walking to school or to the park or taking the bus to Fan’s house. But now I am going home.
Ms. Sylvester puts her arm around me. “Thanks for coming with us, Anna.”
“Xie Xie,” Mr. Sylvester says.
Then we see that Baby Jing is holding up her hand and wiggling her fingers. “I think she is waving,” Mr. Sylvester says.
“She is saying goodbye to China,” I say.
The Sylvesters and Baby Jing fall asleep as soon as the plane takes off. I look through my journal entries from the past two weeks. Thirteen days is not a long time, and there are still lots of blank pages in the journal. What will I write in it once I get home? Or maybe I’ll wait until my next trip to China, with Mom.
I lean back against the seat. What exactly will I do for the oral history project? I can write what I know about Fan, but she did not really tell me enough for a whole presentation.
I start doodling on the page. I sketch Baby Jing as she sleeps in her carrier. Her head is flopped back and her cheek is smashed against Ms. Sylvester’s arm. I draw the airplane windows and the seats ahead of us. I have no idea how to actually do this oral history thing. Camille is right. It’s harder than I thought. I wish I could call her right now. And Andee, too.
The plane ride is getting bumpy. Jing has her thumb in her mouth, and when the plane jerks, she sucks it a little. I wonder if she misses the orphanage with all the babies and the ladies who sang her songs and the up-and-down sounds of Chinese all around. But she seems happy with the Sylvesters. Maybe she forgot all that already.
Maybe I can do my oral history project about more than one person. I can talk about Fan and the orphanage ladies and the babies too. Nobody really knows the stories of the babies, and they are too small to tell them. Maybe I can write what I learned.
Jing wakes up and cries. Ms. Sylvester picks her up, but she doesn’t stop. “I wonder what she wants?” Ms. Sylvester asks, checking her diaper, which is still dry.
I give Jing a rattle, but she’s not interested. Mr. Sylvester gives Jing his keys. She shakes them for a while, but then she drops them and starts crying again.
“Maybe she’s cold,” I say, feeling the cool air that is blowing from the ceiling of the airplane. I reach into my backpack for the last hat. “When I went to the orphanage, one of the hats got stuck in my backpack,” I say. I pull it onto Jing’s head. “Now you match all the other babies,” I tell her.
“The other babies?” Mr. Sylvester asks.
“The babies at the Lucky Family Orphanage,” I say.
“They’re kind of like Jing’s sisters,” Ms. Sylvester says. She closes her eyes. “Maybe she misses them.”
Jing puts her arm up, feels the hat, and pulls it off. I put it back on again. She pulls it off. She starts giggling as if this is the funniest game in the world.
I look at the map on the screen in front of me. We have a long flight ahead. The plane will land in Tokyo in about four hours, and in New York City eleven hours after that. When we finally get to Cincinnati, it will be tomorrow at seven in the evening. Mom and Dad and Ken and Kaylee and Grandma will be at the airport. I wish I could just close my eyes and be home.
Outside the sky is grayish white. I look down, but I can’t see much because of the clouds. I start to write:
Oral History Project
Introduction
Now I am on the plane on my way back from China. I’m so glad that at the last minute, I finally got permission to visit my sister’s orphanage. I delivered the knitted hats that were made. The caregivers were so happy! And I helped the Sylvesters with Bab
y Jing, and I saw lots of famous places around Beijing. My Chinese got better every day. I even made friends with Fan, a waitress in the hotel where we stayed. She took me to her home, which is one room that she shares with her parents and brother. But I think the most important thing was sitting on a park bench and realizing what it means to be Chinese.
I stop writing and look around. Baby Jing is snuggling in her mom’s lap. Her dad has his arm around her mom. An ordinary family. Actually, I have no idea what it means to be Chinese, because it means something different to everyone: to Baby Jing and my sister and Ken and Camille and Andee and Fan and Mom and Dad. Being Chinese depends on so many little things that are impossible to separate. I cross out the last line and write:
I realize that being Chinese means something different to each person. To me it means not standing out. In China, nobody stared at me when I walked around, and I really liked that. But if I had lived all my life in China, I would never know what it feels like to look different. I think that’s important because everybody feels different sometimes.
The clouds are moving past the windows of the plane. Even though we’re traveling fast, they look soft and slow, but maybe from the ground, they are rushing by. I keep writing:
In China I realized that being Chinese is very important to me but so is being American and speaking English and living in my house with Mom and Dad and Ken and Kaylee and Maow Maow. I like making a snowman with Laura and talking to Camille before the bell rings and planning CAT projects with Andee and Sam and Simone.
