Suddenly one day, Mimi was driving her car along the highway to work when she asked herself, Why did all those fairy stories she read when she was a child always end with "And they lived happily ever after"? Why didn't anyone ever write exactly what "happily ever after" meant? She thought and thought, and unconsciously drove to a nearby national park. That day, she didn't go to work but sat alone in the forest for a day, until she thought of the answer.
The next day, she resigned.
The third day, she said to Lee, "I want to go and work in the third world."
Unlike many of the other Chinese returnees, Mimi did not come home looking for new business opportunities, but instead to help better the lives of her countrymen. This was something about her that I admired immensely.
"What does China mean to you?" I ask Mimi, eager to learn why she came back to China.
"That is really very complicated. I don't know where to begin."
"Then try speaking stream-of-consciousness style," I suggest.
Mimi closes her eyes, like she is being hypnotized, and begins to speak her feelings.
"Throbbing with energy, Great Leap Forward, warmth, tears, blood, quintessence, intense, natural, transforming like a demon, unknown, crossroads, anxiety, friendship…"
"I like your description, 'transforming like a demon.' It's exactly right."
"It's true. It feels like, having been overseas for nine years and coming back to China, one can see more clearly than those who have always stayed in China. You have a comparison, a contrast, with the West, and with your own impressions of China."
"Culture shock coming back to China!"
"Right."
"Do you like this feeling of looking in from the outside?"
"I really like it. There is an ancient Chinese saying; 'I can't tell the true shape of Lu Mountain, because I myself am in the mountain.' The truth is incomprehensible to one too deeply involved to be objective. So you often have to leave to be able to observe. You should do the same for the United States."
"Then what does the United States mean to you?"
"It is the crystallization of order, the rule of law, rules, credibility, reason, and justice. It is a kind of ideal, created by humankind. This piece of land gives people hope, gives people space, lets people discover their own potential. To me, the most fascinating thing about it is that it gives people a path of struggle. This path of struggle is far more stimulating and enriching than the path of enjoyment."
"You left China in the 1990s. So did I. What do you think the differences are between this generation and the generation who left China in the 1980s?" I ask, and then go on to tell Mimi about my experience with Professor Wang Xiaoyuan, and then add, "He left China in the 1980s."
"In the United States I met many people who had left China in the 1980s, and they were all like Wang Xiaoyuan, not assimilating into the country, especially the culture, and at the same time defending themselves by saying American culture was shallow. They even still sang old Communist songs like, 'The Proletariat Is Powerful.' However, our generation is different. We read books like The Catcher in the Rye and The Old Man and the Sea growing up. When we were in China, we had tasted Coke and hamburgers, and were already familiar with English songs. So after we left China, there was not such a great contrast, and we didn't have a big problem communicating with Americans. Because of this we didn't feel particularly out of place. When I was studying at UC, our chancellor was Chinese. He said, when you are with Americans, you should be an American. When you are with Chinese, you should be a Chinese. I like that. Furthermore, wherever you are, you should treat things and people with a common heart."
"True. So many people have got it the wrong way around. It reminds me of those old movie stars from the 1980s who married foreigners and went to live overseas, only to find they were lowly housewives over there. So they always felt they had to return to China to show off their superiority as overseas Chinese." I agree with her. "You just mentioned that America is an ideal. In the beginning did you leave your native land and go overseas to pursue this ideal?"
"Yes."
"Then what was it that made you abandon everything in America and return to live in China?"
"I like tension; it makes me feel like I'm alive. In the beginning I had the courage to leave home alone with only one thousand dollars and go to a strange country. Now why shouldn't I have the courage to abandon my car, my house, and other material objects and return to China? China 's changes, energy, and dynamism, I think, are just like the United States in the 1960s. I have to join this wave."
"Do you feel nostalgic for the 1960s as well?"
"Do you?"
I nod vigorously.
Mimi laughs. "It seems like we are both people who thrive on chaos. Birds of a feather flock together."
"Precisely because we thrive on chaos, we want to be in the United States one moment and China the next. We leap back and forth," I say.
It is not like a regular interview, but I have found a soul-mate. It seems that there is so much we share in common.
It takes only a few hours of talking with Mimi for me to realize more about what I want out of my life and my future as compared to all the time I have spent with my other girlfriends. Spending time with her makes the countless hours we have spent trying to decide where to go out on the weekend or talking about men seem meaningless. Mimi has the power to calm you down and make you feel focused. I would like to lead such a life: a caring husband, a stable family, a child, a rewarding job that actually helps make people's lives easier. I see in Mimi what my own life could be like someday if I am lucky.
86 The Spicy Girl
The Korean movie My Barbaric Girlfriend is a hit not only on the mainland but in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well. Young Chinese women identify with the hot-tempered, sometimes rude, yet beautiful female lead in the movie. It seems that the Confucian patriarchal Chinese society has finally come to embrace strong women. Especially among the one-child generation on the mainland, one would have difficulty finding submissive, stereotypical Asian girls nowadays.
Describing herself as the "spicy girl" from Hunan Province, Dolly considers herself a representative of the new generation. Her idol is the barbaric girlfriend who slammed her boyfriend in the face in the movie. She has watched the movie at least five times. Dolly is short-tempered and doesn't want to change in any way for any of her men. She doesn't cook. She prefers that the men cook. She likes to wear miniskirts and doesn't mind talking about orgasms in public with her friends. She even dates her English teacher, Terry, who comes from Texas.
In three months, she convinces shy, meek Terry to quit his job in China, marry her, and take her back to Texas.
Everyone thinks that the free-wheeling American lifestyle will suit Dolly. But one month after she leaves, she calls her friends from a detention center in Austin, Texas.
"I might be thrown in prison. I don't know anybody here to help me," she tells her friends in China.
"What about your husband, Terry? He can help you!" Her friends in China are all surprised that she will ask for help in China when she has an American husband on her side.
"He's the one who is suing me!" The usually tough Dolly now sounds more scared and shocked than anything else.
Hearing her situation, her friends come to me to ask for help. After all, I have been in the States and, at a minimum, can offer some advice. I call Dolly right away.
Over the phone line, Dolly pours out her story, "I tried to send a check of five thousand dollars to my folks in China, but my husband said that he didn't have a job at the moment, and didn't think it was a good idea for me to send so much money. I said, 'I'm your wife, not your appendage. I can make my own decision.'