When I come to the end of the letter, Sam asks, “Do you think this Joe speaks Sze Yup? I don’t want her to marry someone outside our dialect.”
“Who says he’s Chinese?” May asks.
That sets us to twittering like birds.
“They’re in a Chinese organization,” Sam says. “He has to be Chinese.”
“And they go to church together,” I add.
“So? You always encouraged her to go to church outside Chinatown so she could meet other kinds of people,” May says, and three accusatory pairs of eyes glare at me.
“His name is Joe,” I say. “That’s a good name. It sounds Chinese.”
As I stare at the name written in Joy’s even hand and try to decide exactly what this Joe might be, my sister—forever my devilish little sister—ticks off other Joes. “Joe DiMaggio, Joseph Stalin, Joseph McCarthy—”
“Write her back,” Vern interrupts. “Tell her Commies are no-good friends. She’ll get in trouble.”
But that’s not what I write. What I write is not at all subtle: “What’s Joe’s family name?”
In mid-May I receive Joy’s reply.
Oh, Mom, you’re so funny. I can just imagine you and Dad, Auntie May, and Uncle Vern sitting around and worrying about this. Joe’s family name is Kwok, OK? Sometimes we talk about going to China to help the country. Joe says we Chinese have a saying: Thousands upon thousands of years for China. Being Chinese and carrying that upon your shoulders and in your heart can be a heavy burden but also a source of pride and joy. He says, “Shouldn’t we be a part of what’s happening in our home country?” He even took me to get a passport.
I worried about Joy when she left us. I worried about her when she got homesick. I worried about her hanging out with a boy when we had no idea who or what he was. But this is something different. This is truly scary.
“China’s not her home country,” Sam grumbles.
“He’s a Commie,” Vern says, but then he thinks everyone’s a Commie.
“It’s just love,” May says lightly, but I hear worry in her voice. “Girls say and do stupid things when they’re in love.”
I fold the letter and put it back in its envelope. There’s nothing we can do about any of this from so far away, but I begin a chant—something more than a prayer, something more like a desperate plea: Bring her home, bring her home, bring her home.
Dominoes
SUMMER ARRIVES AND Joy comes home. We bask in the soft music of her voice. We try to stop ourselves from touching her, but we pat her hand, smooth her hair, and straighten her collar. Her auntie gives her signed movie magazines, colorful headbands, and a pair of purple ostrich mules. I make her favorite home-cooked foods: steamed pork with salted duck eggs, curried tomato beef lo mein, chicken wings with black beans, and almond tofu with canned fruit cocktail for dessert. Every day Sam brings her one treat or another: barbecued duck from the Sam Sing Butcher Shop, whipped-cream cake with fresh strawberries from Phoenix Bakery, and pork bao from the little place she likes so much on Spring Street.
But how Joy has changed these last nine months! She wears pedal pushers and sleeveless cotton blouses that nip in at her tiny waist. She’s lopped off her hair and styled it into a pixie cut. Inside she’s changed too. I don’t mean that she challenges us or insults us as she did in her last months before she left for Chicago. Rather, she’s come back believing that she’s more knowledgeable than we are about travel (she’s been to Chicago and back on the train, and none of us have been on one in years), about finances (she has her own bank account and a checkbook, while Sam and I still hide our money at home, where the government—or whoever—can’t get it), but most of all about China. Oh, the lectures we hear!
She slaps her paws at the gentlest among us, her uncle. If the Boar—with its innocent nature—has a fault, it’s that he trusts everyone and will believe almost everything that’s told to him, even by strangers, even by swindlers, even by a voice on the radio. Years of listening to anti-Communist broadcasts have forever colored Vern’s opinions about the People’s Republic of China. But what kind of a target is he? Not a very good one. When Joy proclaims, “Mao has helped the people of China,” about all her uncle can do is say, “No freedom there.”
“Mao wants the peasants and workers to have the very chances that Mom and Dad want for me,” Joy presses adamantly. “For the first time, he’s letting people from the countryside go to colleges and universities. And not just boys. He says women should receive ‘equal pay for equal work.’”
“You’ve never been there,” Vern says. “You don’t know anything about it—”
“I do so know about China. I was in all those China movies when I was a little girl.”
“China isn’t like the movies,” her father, who usually stays out of these disagreements, says. Joy doesn’t smart-tongue him. It’s not because he tries to control her as a proper Chinese father should or that she’s an obedient Chinese daughter. Instead, she’s like a pearl in his palm—forever precious; to Joy, he’s the solid ground on which she walks—forever steady and reliable.
Sensing a momentary lull, May tries to put a final stop to Joy’s line of thinking. “China isn’t like a movie set. You can’t leave it when the cameras stop rolling.”
This is one of the harshest things I’ve ever heard my sister say to Joy, but this most mild of reprimands acts like a nettle in my daughter’s heart. Suddenly her attention focuses on May and me—two sisters who have never been apart, who are the closest of friends, and whose bond is deeper than Joy could ever imagine.
“In China, girls don’t wear dresses like you and Auntie May want me to wear,” she tells me a couple of mornings later as I iron shirts on the screened porch. “You can’t wear a dress when you’re driving a tractor, you know. Girls don’t have to learn how to embroider either. They don’t have to go to church or Chinese school. And there’s none of that obey, obey, obey stuff that you and Dad are always bugging me about.”
“That may be so,” I say, “except that they have to obey Chairman Mao. How is that different from obeying the emperor or your parents?”
“In China, there are no wants. Everyone has food to eat.” Her response is not an answer, just another slogan that she picked up in one of her classes or from that Joe boy.
“Maybe they can eat, but what about freedom?”
“Mao believes in freedom. Haven’t you heard about his new campaign? He’s said, ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom.’ Do you know what that means?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “He’s invited people to criticize the new society—”
“And it’s not going to end well.”
“Oh, Mom, you’re so …” She stares at me, considering. Then she says, “You always follow the other birds. You follow Chiang Kai-shek, because people in Chinatown do. And they follow him because they think they have to. Everyone knows he’s no better than a thief He stole money and art as he fled China. Look at how he and his wife live now! So why does America support the Kuomintang and Taiwan? Wouldn’t it be better to have ties to China? It’s a much bigger country, with a lot more people and resources. Joe says it’s better to talk to people than to ignore them.”
“Joe, Joe, Joe.” I sigh wearily. “We don’t even know this Joe and you’re listening to him about China? Has he ever been there?”
“No,” Joy grudgingly admits, “but he’d like to go. I’d like to go too one day to see where you and Auntie lived in Shanghai and go to our home village.”
“Go to mainland China? Let me tell you something. It’s not easy for a snake to go back to Hell once he’s tasted Heaven. And you are not a snake. You’re just a girl who doesn’t know anything about it.”
“I’ve been studying—”
“Forget that classroom business. Forget what some boy told you. Go outside and look around. Haven’t you noticed the new strangers in Chinatown?”
“There will always be new lo fan,” she says dismissively.
“They aren’t the usual l
o fan. They’re FBI agents.” I tell her about one who’s recently been walking through Chinatown every day and asking questions. He makes a loop that starts at the International Grocery on Spring, passes Pearl’s on Ord, and goes along Broadway to the Central Plaza in New Chinatown, where he visits General Lee’s Restaurant. From there he continues to Jack Lee’s grocery on Hill, then over to the newest part of New Chinatown across the street to visit the Fong family’s businesses, and finally back downtown.
“What are they looking for? The Korean War is over—”
“But the government’s fear of Red China hasn’t gone away. It’s worse than ever. In your school haven’t they taught you about the domino theory? One country falls to Communism, then another, and another. These lo fan are scared. When they’re scared, they do bad things to people like us. That’s why we have to support the Generalissimo.”
“You worry too much.”
“I said the same thing to my mother, but she was right and I was wrong. Bad things are already happening. You just don’t know about them because you’ve been gone.” I sigh again. How can I make her understand? “While you were away, the government started something called the Confession Program. It’s all across the country, probably in your Chicago too. They’re asking, no, trying to scare us into confessing who came here as paper sons. They give people citizenship if they report on their friends, their neighbors, their business associates, and even their family members who came here as paper sons. They want to know who earned money bringing in paper sons. The government talks about the domino effect. Well, here in Chinatown, if you give one name, that also creates a domino effect, which touches not just one family member but all the paper partners and papers sons and relatives and neighbors you know. But what they want most are Communists. If you report that someone is a Communist, then you’ll get your citizenship for sure.”
“We’re all citizens. We aren’t guilty of anything.”
For years Sam and I have been torn between the American desire to share, be honest, and tell the truth to Joy and our deeply held Chinese belief that you never reveal anything. Our Chinese way has won, and we’ve kept Sam’s and my status, as well as that of her uncles and her grandfather, a secret from our daughter for two very simple reasons: we haven’t wanted her to worry and we haven’t wanted her to say the wrong thing to the wrong person. She’s much older than she was back in kindergarten, but we learned then that even the smallest mistake can have bad consequences.
I put Sam’s ironed shirt on a hanger and then sit next to my daughter. “I want to tell you how they’re looking for people, so you’ll know in case anyone approaches you. They’re looking for people who sent tea money back to China—”
“Grandpa Louie did that.”
“Exactly. And they’re looking for people who’ve tried—legally—to get their families out of China since it closed. They want to know where people’s loyalties lie—in China or in the United States?” I pause to see if she’s following me. Then I say “Our Chinese way of thinking doesn’t always apply here in America. We believe that being humble, respectful, and truthful will give us a better understanding of every situation, prevent others from being hurt, and result in an all-good end. That way of thinking could hurt us and many other people now.”
I take a deep breath and tell her something I was afraid to write to her. “You remember the Yee family?” Of course she does. She was great friends with the oldest girl, Hazel, and spent plenty of time with the other Yee kids at our union gatherings. “Mr. Yee is a paper son. He brought Mrs. Yee in through Winnipeg.”
“He’s a paper son?” Joy asks, surprised, maybe impressed.
“He decided to confess so he could stay here with his family, since the four children are American citizens. He told the INS he had brought in his wife using his false status. Now he’s an American citizen, but the INS has started deportation proceedings against Mrs. Yee, because she’s a paper wife. They still have two children at home who are not yet ten years old. What will they do without their mama? The INS wants to send her back to Canada. At least she won’t be going to China.”
“Maybe she’d be better off in China.”
When I hear this, I don’t know who’s talking—a silly parrot who must repeat everything this Joe has told her or from somewhere deep inside an eruption of her blood-mother’s deliberate childish stupidity.
“That’s Hazel’s mother you’re talking about! Is that how you would want them to feel if I was sent back to China?” I wait for an answer. When she doesn’t give me one, I get up, fold and put away the ironing board, and go check on Vern.
That night Sam carries Vern out to the couch so we can have dinner and watch Gunsmoke together. The evening’s hot, so dinner is cool and simple—-just big wedges of watermelon made as cold as possible in our Frigidaire. We’re trying to follow what Miss Kitty is telling Matt Dillon when Joy starts up about the People’s Republic of China all over again. For nine months her absence felt like a hole in our family. We missed the sound of her voice and her beautiful face. But during that time we filled that hole with the television, with quiet conversation among the four of us, and with little projects that May and I did together. After Joy’s been home for two weeks, it’s like she takes up too much space with her opinions, her desire for attention, her need to tell us how wrong and backward we are, and the practiced way she has always divided her auntie and me, when all we want to do is find out if the marshal is ever going to kiss that Miss Kitty or not.
Sam, usually accepting of whatever comes out of his daughter’s mouth, finally can’t take any more and asks in Sze Yup in his quietest and calmest manner, “Are you ashamed of being Chinese? Because a proper Chinese daughter would be quiet and let her parents, auntie, and uncle watch their show.”
It is the absolute wrong question, because suddenly terrible things pour out of Joy’s mouth. She mocks our frugality: “Being Chinese? I don’t see why being Chinese means having to save gallon-size soy sauce containers to turn into waste bins.” She makes fun of me: “Only superstitious Chinese believe in the zodiac. Oh, Tiger this, Tiger that.” She hurts her aunt and uncle: “And what about arranged marriages? Look at Auntie May, married forever to someone who … who …” She hesitates as we all have from time to time until she settles on “never touches her with love or affection.” Her face rumples into an expression of distaste. “And look at how you all live together.”
Listening to her, I hear May and me twenty years ago. I’m sad for how we treated our parents, but when Joy starts hurting her father …
“And if Chinese means being like you … The food you cook in the café stinks your clothes. Your customers insult you. And the dishes you make are too greasy, too salty, and have too much MSG.”
These words hit Sam hard. Unlike May and me, he’s loved Joy without regret, without conditions, without once holding back his heart.
“Take a look in the mirror,” he says slowly. “What do you think you are? What do you think the lo fan see when they look at you? You’re nothing but a piece of jook sing—hollow bamboo.”
“Dad, you should speak to me in English. You’ve lived here for almost twenty years. Can’t you speak it yet?” She blinks a few times and then says, “You’re just so … so … so FOB.”
The silence in the living room is cruel and deep. Realizing what she’s done, she tilts her head, ruffles her pixie cut, and then smiles in what I immediately recognize as May’s from long ago. It’s a smile that says, I’m naughty, I’m disobedient, but you can’t help but love me. I see, even if Sam can’t, that all this has less to do with Mao, Chiang Kai-shek, Korea, the FBI, or how we’ve chosen to live our lives these last twenty years than it does with how our daughter feels about her family. May and I once thought Mama and Baba were old-fashioned, but Joy is embarrassed by and ashamed of us.
“Sometimes you think you have all of tomorrow ahead of you,” Mama often said. “When the sun is shining, think of the time it won’t be, because even when y
ou’re sitting in your house with the doors shut, misfortune can fall from above.” I ignored her when she was alive and I didn’t pay enough attention as I got older, but after all these years I have to accept that Mama’s foresight is what saved us. Without her hidden savings, we all would have died right there in Shanghai. Some deep instinct motivated her and kept her going when May and I were nearly paralyzed with fear. She was like a gazelle who, under hopeless circumstances, still tried to save her calves from the lion. I know I have to protect my daughter—from herself, from this Joe boy and his romantic ideas about Red China, from making the kinds of mistakes that so dampened May’s and my choices—but I don’t know how.
I’M GOING TO Pearl’s to pick up takeout for Vern when I see the FBI agent stop Uncle Charley on the sidewalk. I pass the two men—with Uncle Charley ignoring me as though he doesn’t know me—and enter the café, leaving the door wide open. Inside, Sam and our workers go about their business while listening as hard as they can to what floats through the door. May comes out of her office, and we linger by the counter, pretending to talk but watching and listening to everything.
“So, Charley, you went back to China,” the agent says suddenly in Sze Yup in a voice so loud I look at my sister in surprise. It’s as though he wants not only to have us hear what he’s saying but also to let us know that he’s fluent in the dialect of our district.
“I went to China,” Uncle Charley admits. We can barely hear him, his voice quavers so. “I lost my savings, and I came back here.”
“We hear you’ve said bad things about Chiang Kai-shek.”
“I haven’t.”
“People say you have.”
“What people?”
The agent doesn’t answer that question. Instead he asks, “Isn’t it true you blame Chiang Kai-shek for losing your money?”
Charley scratches at his rash-covered neck and sucks on his lips.
The agent waits and then asks, “Where are your papers?”