China | Speaking of China

Chapter 47: A Picture of My Chinese Boyfriend’s Family

My Chinese boyfriend's family, at their countryside home — Even as I shot a photo of John's family, I still didn't see have the entire picture of his family -- until I showed them pictures of my own.

In China, they call a family picture 全家福 (quanjiafu), which literally means happiness for the entire family.

It is happiness if you can have the entire family together to take a photo. And, in John’s family, this happy day usually comes during Chinese New Year, when the whole family returns home to celebrate.

The whitewashed facade of John’s family home reflected the filtered sunshine that afternoon of Chinese New Year’s day, brightening the yard like backdrop lighting in a photography studio. It was a perfect spot for the family photo, where John’s father and mother sat in front, holding baby Kaiqi, with the three brothers and sister-in-law standing behind. I stood before them all, digital camera in hand, as I framed the family through the lens for the perfect photo. I snapped several shots, including one of just Da Ge, his wife and baby Kaiqi.

Even as I finished taking the photos, I still didn’t have a clear picture of John’s family. No photo is complete without the stories behind it. I didn’t know the real stories from John’s family, because we hadn’t truly connected since my arrival. Instead, my time there, up until that afternoon, was like an unnarrated slideshow, where the outside observer could only guess what was happening.

But, sometimes, to get the full picture, you have to give a full picture in return. Continue reading “Chapter 47: A Picture of My Chinese Boyfriend’s Family”

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Chapter 46: Cold Nights in the Chinese Countryside

Western woman in Chinese countryside, during Chinese New Year — I never felt such a bitter cold until I went to my Chinese boyfriend's hometown in the countryside -- because I was too embarrassed to say I needed more warmth at night.

“The worst cold I ever knew was winter in Hong Kong.” I didn’t understand those words, spoken by a woman who taught English there before China opened up. She shared her experience in China with me as I prepared for a year of teaching English in Zhengzhou. But as I smiled and nodded, the idea nagged me — how could Hong Kong, on China’s Southern coast, be so cold?

The thing is, any place can feel bitterly cold in China — if there’s no warmth in the home.

John’s family home in the winter was fast becoming the worst cold I had known. The house, with most of its doors and windows cracked or wide open to the elements, had no central or room heaters. We spent our hours huddling around giant woks filled with hot coals to fight off the nip of near-freezing temperatures, which felt even more frigid because of the moisture-laden air of this humid climate, South of the Yangtze River. I wrapped myself my long down jacket all day — indoors and outdoors — just like everyone else, as I remembered how, back in the US, people would have thought me strange or even impolite not to take my jacket off, as a guest.

But, most of all, those parental misgivings of months before seemed to chill my heart: “It’s okay to be friends with a foreign girl, but not to date her.” No matter how many warm vegetarian dishes they placed before me, or how much money they stuffed into my hongbao, I remembered the reality — John defied them in bringing me here. And if I complained or troubled them too much, I might just be left out in the cold, never to be John’s girlfriend, and never to return. Continue reading “Chapter 46: Cold Nights in the Chinese Countryside”

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Chapter 45: Paying Respects and Pondering Family

paying respects to Chinese ancestor, at their grave — I followed John, my Chinese boyfriend, and his two older brothers as they paid respects at their ancestor's grave. As I stood aside and took pictures, I wondered just how close -- or how far -- I was from their family.

The afternoon after I arrived at the family home of John, my Chinese boyfriend, for Chinese New Year, we needed to visit his grandmother. John and his two older brothers — Da Ge and Er Ge — prepared a basket with three fried dishes, rice, bottled water and fruit, as well as a little money, firecrackers, candles and incense. I followed them along with my camera and curiosity — because this grandmother was dead.

John’s family continued a Chinese tradition perhaps as old as the Chinese themselves — to show reverence for their ancestors, especially during major holidays. Even the entranceway to John’s home told the story of ancestors. Three framed black-and-white portraits — John’s paternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, and paternal great aunt — hung solemnly above a day-glow painting of Huangshan, where John’s ancestors are from.

As the rain fell like the tears of graveyard mourners, John, his two older brothers and I hiked through muddy terraced fields, up into the hill where his grandmother’s grave was. It looked like a tiny marble throne, with flourishes on the top and sides, and the grandmother’s name, date of birth and death, and a listing of all the generations that followed her. Continue reading “Chapter 45: Paying Respects and Pondering Family”

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Chapter 44: Finding Comfort In a Strange Chinese Countryside

Standing in front of my Chinese boyfriend's countryside home, with his mother — I felt like an anachronism visiting my Chinese boyfriend's countryside home for the first time, with everything so strange to me. (Pictured: me in front of the home, with his mother)

By the end of January, 2003, I had lived in China for more than two and a half years, spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese, and had John, my Chinese boyfriend. It’s easy to believe you know China, that it feels familiar and comfortable when you settle in one place, and have close loved ones by your side.

But the Chinese know better. Lin Yutang once wrote that the happiest thing for a Chinese is to return to his hometown, and speak in his local dialect. Outside of their home region, even a Chinese could feel like a foreigner, lost in a world where no one speaks their home dialect, or eats the local delicacies they loved as a child. Sometimes, you only have a cross a mountain or two in China to find yourself in a completely different world.

John and I crossed many a mountain to reach his village in the countryside of Tonglu, and I couldn’t have felt more strange. I was already a stranger to his parents. But I also faced a home and village that was like nothing I’d known before — even in China. Continue reading “Chapter 44: Finding Comfort In a Strange Chinese Countryside”

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Chapter 43: Going to John’s China Hometown

Mountains in the countryside of Zhejiang Province — John's ancestors come from the area near Huangshan -- one of China's most impressive mountains. But his family lives in a countryside ravaged by economic development, worlds away from what his ancestors knew. (pictured: me before the fields opposite John's home, Chinese New Year 2003)

“五岳归来不看山，黄山归来不看岳” — After China’s Five Sacred Mountains, you needn’t see another mountain; after Huangshan, you needn’t see China’s Five Sacred Mountains.

John loves this expression, and has told it to me many times in our relationship. There is truth to it. Huangshan is an impressive mountain, and has a greater scale than China’s Five Sacred Mountains — Songshan, Hengshan, Hengshan, Huashan, and Taishan. But many would argue that the Five Sacred Mountains have their own beauty, and a beauty worth seeing, even if you have visited Huangshan. I don’t mention this to John, because I know his words say more about him than Huangshan. He loves Huangshan, because his relatives lived in the shadow of its enormous spires. His people are mountain people, and come from a mountain that claims to overshadow the rest.

Though he didn’t grow up at the feet of Huangshan, he was born and raised in the mountains just southeast of Huangshan. On the top level of a double-decker bus, on a sultry summer evening in 2002, he turns to me and speaks of the beauty of the mountains in his hometown. “My hometown is a tourist destination,” he says proudly. He tells me it is Tonglu, but I have never heard of it. “We have mountains, rivers, and caves,” he says. And then he smiles gently and adds this: “You’re welcome to visit anytime.”

I don’t visit his village until six months after that — during Chinese New Year, 2003. Continue reading “Chapter 43: Going to John’s China Hometown”

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Chapter 42: New Clothes for Chinese New Year

Chinese tangzhuang silk jacket — I wanted a new beginning in Chinese New Year. So, I made an outfit to make a good impression on John's parents, and, later, a new job.

In Chinese New Year, wearing new clothes means a new beginning. Before Chinese New Year in 2003, I desperately needed a new beginning — because I’d lost my job at the Chinese Internet Company, and I was about to meet John’s parents.

After the remark from John’s father — that foreign women make good friends, not girlfriends — I needed something to make a fresh start with his family. That’s what I told Caroline, my Chinese friend, days before John and I would travel to his countryside home. We had just had dinner together that evening, and on our post-meal stroll, came across the tiny, brightly-lit store of a tailor I knew all too well.

My eyes twinkled like a child before the tantalizing toys in a Christmas store window display. “She’s the one who made my qipao.” The same qipao I wore for my birthday celebration the summer John and I fell in love. “Let’s go inside and take a look.” Continue reading “Chapter 42: New Clothes for Chinese New Year”

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Ask the Yangxifu: Getting US Immigration Help Online for Chinese Loved Ones

US Embassy — The US immigrations process for your Chinese loved ones can be an intimidating source of questions (such as on Communist Party Membership). Fortunately, there's a "light" in the dark -- on the internet -- for anyone in this situation.

Friend to a Foreign Teacher asks:

You’re the first person I thought of when my fellow foreign teacher told me his problem. He is engaged to the most wonderful woman, and she’s Chinese. In July they applied for her fiancee visa to the States so that she can go back with him in summer 2010. Everything seemed to be going fine, but then last night they discovered that she is certain to get a blue card (which means a delay on the application, instead of a red which means ‘all set,’ but I’m sure you know about that!) because she is a member of the Communist Party. As I’m sure you’re aware, joining the Party is almost required if you want to advance in a lot of careers, and her involvement is basically nil.Apparently there’s still some old Cold War era law on the books making it very difficult for Chinese Party members to get a visa. It seems there *are* exceptions to this rule, but they aren’t certain, they’re hard to prove, and they can take a long time, and my coworker doesn’t know how much extra time it would take. Understandably, he and his fiancee are really worried about this.

When he told me about this this morning, you were the first person I thought of, because you and your husband have been through this process. Did your husband have a Party membership to contend with? Do you know anyone who has dealt with this problem? Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Getting US Immigration Help Online for Chinese Loved Ones”

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Chapter 41: Losing Jobs and Gaining Chinese Friends

night walk in China — Sometimes, your Chinese friends -- and exes -- surprise you. During an evening walk, after cleaning out my desk, I discovered a surprising understanding from Frank, my ex-Chinese boyfriend.

Just as I lost my job and visa, Frank, my ex-Chinese boyfriend, was being groomed for management by Mr. CEO. The company rescued his desk from the impersonal production room, and safeguarded him behind the protective, sunshine-lit walls of a small office beside his. Frank and I had long had walls between us — but now, we could finally see them.

I wanted to stay far from Frank after my job and visa crisis. I didn’t see how he would understand me. He didn’t when we dated before, letting our relationship turn bitter like a neglected glass of green tea. Now that he and Mr. CEO all but drank from the same cup, how could Frank and I ever get beyond the shards of our past?

On January 28, 2003, I visited the Chinese Internet company in the afternoon, to remove sensitive information from my computer. I ducked into my cubicle in the production room, slouching in the corner in the hopes nobody — especially Frank — would see me there. Continue reading “Chapter 41: Losing Jobs and Gaining Chinese Friends”

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Chapter 40: Negotiating For My Life in China

After Mr. CEO had massacred my job and visa, I didn’t know how to negotiate with him. In my mind, he had become another Cao Cao — the barbarous warlord of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I’d imagined our meeting on January 22, 2003 again and again — how he shot me down into a timorous, tearful woman.

But this would be different. Just as the sensitive Liu Bei, the compassionate leader of the Kingdom of Shu in the Three Kingdoms, had his strategist, Zhuge Liang, so I had John, my Chinese boyfriend. John didn’t have the arresting appearance of a warrior — but he had an arresting sense of justice. This moved him to challenge the stone factories in his hometown. Now, he wanted to help me challenge my boss.

The night before, he turned my apartment into battle headquarters, where we developed a list of demands for Mr. CEO. If I was to go to Hong Kong for a visa renewal, we wanted Mr. CEO to pay. We expected a guarantee on my company apartment, to stay until the end of February, and my salary for January. And, finally, John added what might just be the most wishful demand of all — an apology. “I’ll accompany you tomorrow, as a witness,” John promised.

Tomorrow morning, John and I advanced into enemy territory — Mr. CEO’s office. Continue reading “Chapter 40: Negotiating For My Life in China”

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Chapter 39: On the Border, at the Public Security Bureau

PRC Police Station — I was on the legal border when I went to the Public Security Bureau, after my visa had expired for two days. (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia, user Gzdavidwong)

Leaving Mr. CEO’s office, after he told me — indirectly — that I no longer had a job (and, by extension, no visa or apartment), was like a march to an exile to China’s far West, just as the country used to do for its rogue criminals. I used to be a part of Mr. CEO’s inner circle. But, now, I could have been in a border town, for all he cared.

I might need to run for the border, in fact. The morning of January 23 — one day after that confrontation with Mr. CEO — I finally retrieved my passport from the secretary, only to find it expired January 21, two days ago. I was now illegal.

When you’re illegal, you do desperate things — like leaving the workplace entirely, without informing anyone (except for my closest friend, Caroline). John, who I had called the day before, returned from his hometown the morning of January 23 just to help me. Once I received his call, I quietly dashed out of the office, down the stairs, to meet him and make the march together — to the Public Security Bureau (PSB). Continue reading “Chapter 39: On the Border, at the Public Security Bureau”

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