"I can't believe you are so snobbish!"
"It's not me that is snobbish. It's Chinese society. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the mainland, they're all the same!" Jean cries.
"What's wrong if my little brother or sister stays in China?" I ask.
"You grew up in China and you know that the competition in Chinese schools is savage. Plus, my baby has to speak English like a native speaker."
"What about kindergarten in England so that he can be immersed in the Queen's English, primary school in an international school in China so that he can have a solid foundation for math, junior high school and high school in Canada and Australia to make friends with other immigrants in those countries, higher education in the United States to gain the prestige and the vainglory you want," I suggest.
"Yes! Perfect!" Jean takes what I have said seriously, "Niuniu, you're so smart. Such an arrangement will make your brother a global citizen. I watch news on TV. The other day, President Hu Jintao was talking about cultivating global talents. See, I'm a good Chinese citizen who follows the CCP's policy closely!"
XIAORENDEZHI: "Small people finally grab their chance": the triumph of the little man. Closest English translation is probably "Every dog has his day."
MEIGUO HUZHAO: Beautiful country's documents of protection; American passport.
26 A Cool Mother
I think to myself, "Gee, Jean is so demanding that she's just like my own mother. Father must like the same type of women."
"What's Mei been doing lately?" Jean calls me to pry out information about my mother. "She's just at home."
"I heard she is organizing a Sino-American forum on women in the twenty-first century," Jean says.
"Why wasn't I told about that?" I am surprised.
"There are always a lot of rumors about her," Jean says.
"Really? So many people are concerned about her!"
"That's right. She's always working on something. I can't believe that she could stay at home and do nothing but watch the children. She is probably cooking up something big."
"Really?"
"Yes. I recently learned that when Mei was young she looked like the pop star Faye Wong," Jean announces.
"Really?"
"They are both tall, with dark eyebrows and almond-shaped eyes, and they both have a bit of Beijing ruffian about the m, and a mysterious, unfathomable spirit. I guess this kind of woman is most attractive to men."
"Jean, why are you so interested in my mother?" Jean seems to have an ulterior motive for calling.
"Sometimes, I think, perhaps your father still loves her," she finally admits.
"Don't be silly, my mother now has three children. And you? Young and pretty and well educated – there's no need for you to be jealous of her."
"It's not jealousy. It's pure admiration. I know that your father will never love me the way he loved your mother. Every time he speaks of her, he has such an admiring tone. He doesn't hold any grudges against her at all. I feel just like the famous architect Liang Sicheng's second wife, always living in the shad ow of his first wife, the beautiful and popular Lin Huiyin."
"How can my mother compare to Lin Huiyin? My mother was one of those schoolgirls who were sent to learn from workers and peasants; she didn't go to college in China. In the States she didn't study for a degree, she had a child, and looked after her child, me." I try to make Jean feel better.
"Don't start. She doesn't have a college degree, but she speaks English just like an American, and for that alone, I am impressed. I took the TOEFL how many times, but as soon as I speak to a foreigner, I tremble."
"So she's got a talent for languages! That's it."
"Every time I see your stepfather John, he tells us, 'Without Mei, I don't know how I could go on living. She really is a gift from heaven,' and so on."
"Americans love to exaggerate. You know that." Being surrounded by so many insecure modern Chinese women has made me an expert at reassurance.
"Anyway, for a woman to be like her, to make so many men adore her, is amazing! Niuniu, you should learn from her!"
Yes. I should. Already in her late forties, mother of three children, Wei Mei is still popular and looks like she's in her thirties.
Everybody says that I have a cool mother. She always knows exactly what she wants. Mother is rarely confused. She is mixed Han Chinese and Manchurian. She has that kind of healthy, hard-working, hardship-enduring proletarian natural beauty that was popular in China in the 1950s.
During the Cultural Revolution, my grandparents were both revolutionary opera performers who followed the Gang of Four, and were among the intellectuals in favor with the party. When everyone else her age had been sent down to the countryside or to join the army, Mother relied on my grandparents' connections to obtain a job working as a shop assistant in a cooperative in Beijing 's West City district. At the time, this was one of the most comfortable jobs. Later, she worked as a cook's assistant in the kitchen of a city jail. Still, the job was located in the city and she always had enough to eat, not bad at all for that time.
I've heard from Grandma that toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, Mother had become one of the famous Beijing "hooligan girls."
When I ask Grandma what punk girls meant at that time, she says, "Well, punk girls were just girls who had a little more guts than others, wore more colorful clothes, and dared to speak to boys. In those days that was a really big deal. Your mother was just like that.
"She was careless and uncalculating, dared to wear her hair in bangs. At that time, it was a sign of petit bourgeois sentimentality – and she liked talking to boys, so naturally she was branded a punk girl. "
My grandparents were busy "struggling with people" all day and didn't have time to take care of their only daughter.
Before the Cultural Revolution had finished, Mother managed to leave China. At that time, she had married Fan Wen, who had suffered during the Cultural Revolution. Grandma has told me that Fan Wen's father, Fan Yingchun, was a nobleman from a wealthy old Chinese family, who at the end of the 1930s went to the States to study metallurgy. There he met Fan Wen's mother, Marguerite, a Frenchwoman who was studying there. This girl was interested in Asian culture, she herself was half Chinese, and she adored Fan Yingchun. They gave birth to Fan Wen in Minnesota in 1945.
After the People's Republic of China was established, Fan Yingchun, his head full of revolution and idealism, said he wanted to return to China to serve the motherland. His wife refused, but Fan Yingchun was determined. He left his wife for his country and returned to China, taking his little son Fan Wen, who at the time could speak only English and French.
During the Cultural Revolution, Fan Yingchun, returning from overseas and with a mixed-blood child, was accused of being an American spy. He was beaten up every day by Red Guards. Having suffered too much humiliation and filled with grief, he abandoned all hope and committed suicide. He electrocuted himself.
He had given up everything to make revolution for a new China, but in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, he gave up his own life!
Without his father, timid Fan Wen was an orphan and drifted around Beijing. He was beaten and cursed, suffered cold and hunger, was dirty and decrepit, cast himself here and there, but his Chinese improved day by day. One day, he went to the cooperative to buy some tea, and there he met Mother.
Grandma says that she was surprised that Mother fell for Fan Wen. "Your mother was unrestrained and fearless. Fan Wen was timid and quiet, soft-spoken, scruffy and clumsy, and much older than your mother. I didn't approve of the marriage, but your mother was a rebel. She ran away. Now, you're just like her, a little rebel!" Grandma points at my nose.