“You don’t like our guest speaker either?” I asked, a bit nonplussed.
“I hate his guts! Every time my fiancée emails me something interesting from Japan, it’s blocked. That man is my enemy; he’s the enemy of all the netizens in China.”
“We’d better leave,” I reminded him.
Without delay I left the auditorium, afraid of being spotted by the campus police. On the same day the incident became national news across the Internet. Although no student was identified as an egg or shoe thrower, there were all kinds of rewards offered to them online: Nike shoes to be shipped from Amazon, gift cards for bookstores, dozens of Alaska snow crabs, Apple iPads, one-night stands, vacations at beach resorts, porcelain toilets, whole sets of Haruki Murakami’s novels, even girlfriends and boyfriends. It was hard to tell what percentage of the offers was genuine, given that no one could claim any of them.
My colleagues and I were worried about the students’ safety. The following day the security on campus was stepped up, but fortunately the college didn’t take measures to discipline the rabble-rousers — it would be too risky to ignite another outburst of anger right before the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident.
June 4 saw plenty of police patrolling the campus, though the tense atmosphere was eased by the French Open in Paris, at which the Chinese tennis player Li Na was to play the final match with the Italian defending champion. Most students gathered in the dorms watching the game. When Li Na finally won the Grand Slam, they came out in force, lit chains of firecrackers, and played instruments and thumped drums and basins in celebration. No one ran amok, though. Some shouted “Li Na, offense!” as if she were still fighting on the tennis court. Some teachers joined the celebration as well, and the police didn’t interfere. The young people regarded Li Na as a hero, partly because she had quit the national tennis team long ago and won the championship on her own. What’s more, her victory made history — no Asian player had ever won the French Open.
In her acceptance speech Li Na didn’t thank China or any leaders. Instead she said, “My thanks to my sponsor, to the staff here, to the ball kids, and to my team.” She also took the opportunity to wish a friend a happy birthday. That was extraordinary to the Chinese and certainly grated on the bureaucracy. On another public occasion she had insisted, “Don’t talk about bringing honor to our country. I’m competing for myself.” She once cried into a mike held by a reporter, “I love you, Jiang Shan!” That was her husband, who couldn’t accompany her to the tournament. She also openly claimed she played tennis for money. Regardless, when the band started the Chinese anthem at the medal ceremony, she turned tearful and mouthed the words. To the students, Li Na embodied a rebellious, independent spirit. Hers was a new face of China, open and confident and smiling, so for the moment she became an icon, an inspiration to the young people.
At last I heard from my nephew, Benning. Evidently he and Juli had just exchanged emails, and he knew I was American and a history professor. He wrote his message in solid, effortless English, which struck me as extraordinary. Yet when I suggested meeting him in person, he became evasive, saying he was too far away from Beijing at the moment. But where was he? I didn’t get a clear answer. The more he hedged, the more curious I got.
Then one day he confessed, “I am in the United States, on the East Coast.” That was a shock, and I wanted to know more. “Don’t interrogate me, please,” he wrote. “I am sure we will spend a lot of time together in the future.”
I wouldn’t let it go at that and kept asking him. He avoided answering fully but would reveal something from time to time. I tried to form a picture of him with the scraps of information I had. He’d been in the States for more than two years, running a small business outside Boston that dealt in software and computer parts. He’d been assigned there by a Chinese company and seemed to be enjoying himself. The reason he hadn’t told his family his whereabouts was that he felt he might be called back or sent elsewhere after his current assignment; also because he came back to China for business or vacation every two or three months. I said I’d love to see him remain in the States for many years, which he said was what he wanted too. I was excited that I would have a family member on my father’s side living near me after I went home. The world suddenly felt smaller and more mysterious. If only my father could have seen his grandson in America.
1961
The Shangs were living in a quiet cul-de-sac at the end of Riverview Street in Alexandria. Their home was a raised ranch with an attached carport; a huge rock sat beside the house, and holly hedges demarcated the property. A pomegranate tree, rare in Virginia but already more than ten years old, stood in a corner of the backyard, reminding Gary of the same kind of tree back in his home province. He had paid twenty-three thousand dollars for this place, a little higher than the market price, but he loved the tranquil location, the brick exterior of the house, the living room with oak-paneled walls, and the finished lower floor, where the windows were just above the ground and where he could have a room for a study, so without haggling he had clinched the purchase. Nellie also liked the home, particularly the bay window in the kitchen and the French doors between the living room and the dining room, which made the house feel more spacious than it was. She was fond of the peaceful neighborhood too and devoted herself to taking care of Lilian and to the housework. The girl was going to be four in July, and once she started preschool, Nellie would look for a job, doing something she liked. But what did she want to do? She wasn’t sure yet, though she thought about it now and then.
Gary would mow the half-acre lawn and trim the shrubs. All the work outside the house belonged to him, including digging out the weeds in grass — dandelions, creeping charlie, mallow, clover. He hated slugs and would get rid of every one he saw. He was good with his hands and maintained their car and household appliances. Sometimes when he was free, he’d take a walk in the nearby park, where the air would quiver with scattered birdsong. He’d bring along his daughter if the weather permitted, either holding her in his arms or leading her by the hand, and once in a while he would carry her piggyback. He’d teach her some Mandarin words or phrases. To some extent he was a good family man, gentle to his family and polite to their neighbors, who were all impressed by the chrysanthemums he had planted around his house. Yet he was detached from what was going on around him and wouldn’t mix with others, except for the fact that he followed the NBA on his own and could talk with his colleagues about the games. Try as he might, he couldn’t get excited about baseball; the game was too slow for him. Fortunately, his wife never complained about their lack of social life. Rarely would the Shangs invite people over. Not until their daughter was old enough to make school friends and to hold a pajama party once a year, around Halloween, did they begin to have a few visitors.
Although Gary was calm in appearance, 1961 was a tumultuous year for him. In the spring he was naturalized. At the citizenship ceremony he pledged allegiance to the Star-Spangled Banner and swore he’d bear arms to defend the U.S. Constitution, a document he had read with great admiration for its careful attention to the citizens’ rights defined and protected by the amendments. It was like a contract between the country and the people. He went through the whole ceremony with a numb heart, though he was deeply impressed by its solemnity and forced a smile when he showed a woman official his expired Chinese passport. With a pair of scissors she cut a corner off its front cover, handed it back to him, and congratulated him on his brand-new citizenship. By now Gary could honestly say he loved some aspects of American life — the orderliness, the plentitude, the privacy, the continuity of daily life, the freedom of travel (domestically with a car and internationally with a U.S. passport or green card). Nevertheless, his mind couldn’t help but wander to the distant land where his other family was. He had decided not to have more children with Nellie, not wanting further complications. For him, happiness lay elsewhere, and he could visualize it only in his homeland and in the reunion with his original family.