Chapter 16 American?Chinese?

American?Chinese? ——Gong Linda's story one The daughter wanted to go to China for her second marriage honeymoon, but she was a little scared: "What if they confuse me with the Chinese and don't let me go back to the United States?" I reassured her: "Don't worry. In China, you don't even need to ask, they can tell you are 'from outside'." "What?" The daughter didn't believe it.She has always liked to ask questions. "I said, you just put on their clothes, without makeup or jewelry, and they can tell that you are from outside just from the way you walk."

My daughter was very upset after hearing what I said, because the implication was that she was not like a Chinese.On her face, there was an American pain.Ten years ago, she would have been applauded for not being Chinese, but now she is desperate to be Chinese, which is fashionable these days.But it was too late for her to wake up.I've been trying to teach her Chinese for years, but she just won't listen.The only Chinese words she can speak are "thank you", "turn off the lights and go to bed", "train" and "eat".But in China, how can you rely on these Chinese words for "turn off the lights and go to sleep"?Why is she still worried about being mixed up with the Chinese?In fact, apart from her hair and skin being Chinese, her insides are all made in America.

All this is my fault: For a long time, I have always hoped to bring up my children to adapt to the American environment while retaining the Chinese temperament, but I never expected that these two things are totally incompatible and cannot be mixed . I let her learn to adapt to the American environment.What is the American environment?If you were born poor in America, it's not a permanent shame, you can get a scholarship first.If you let a roof tile break your head, don't cry about your bad luck, you can sue the owner... In America, you can change your situation anyway you want. She learned all this very quickly.But I can't teach her about Chinese temperament: how to obey your parents, listen to your mother, don't show your face in everything, don't show your sharpness...Easy things are not worth pursuing, you must recognize your true value and make yourself better ...

She doesn't listen to that, and while I'm telling her all this, she just chews gum, clicks, and blows a bubble bigger than her own cheek. "Drain your coffee cup," I said to her yesterday, "and don't leave any, sinful." "Here again, Mom, don't be so old-fashioned," she gulped down the coffee in her cup, "Stop meddling with me, I am my own." How could she be just her own?When did I give up on her? two My daughter is getting married again, so I specifically asked me to go to the beauty salon she frequents and ask her famous Mr. Lawrey.I know what she means: she's dissatisfied with how I look, she feels it's a loss of face, and it's hard to explain it to her husband, in-laws, lawyers, and relatives: people will wonder why Waverly's mother is so old-fashioned and so rustic ah!

"I can ask Auntie Anmei to do my hair." I said. "But Laurey is a famous barber, and his hair is very well done!" My daughter didn't seem to hear what I said; she continued to talk. I had to sit in Mr. Lawrey's barber chair, and my daughter started judging my hair like I was a wooden man. "Look, it's all flat, and the ripples are all gone." She criticized, "She needs to be cut and ironed. She has always done her own hair before, and has never been in a beauty salon." She looked at Mr. Lorey in the mirror, and Mr. Lorey looked at me in the mirror, professionally.

"What style is she going to do?" asked Mr. Lorry, pinching my hair as he thought I didn't know English. "Mom, what kind of style do you want?" I don't understand why, she suddenly started to translate for me, and before I could speak, she said to Laurel on her own: "She wants to have a faint wave, but don't Cut it too short or it will be fluffed up for the wedding. She doesn't like it too curly or too eccentric." Then, she turned to me and translated loudly: "Really, Mom? Don't get too curly?" I smiled, a very American smile, but to Americans it was still a Chinese face, a Chinese face they would never understand.But what filled my heart was shame.The reason why I am ashamed is because of her, my daughter is ashamed of me, but I have always been, proud of having such a daughter.

But she wasn't proud that I was her mother. Mr. Lorey continued to play with my hair, then he looked at me, then at my daughter, and said something that really upset my daughter: "Oh, it's incredible how much you two look alike! " I smiled, which is a real Chinese smile, but my daughter's smile seemed very forced.I saw Mr. Laurey snapped his fingers and said, "Shampoo! Wash Mrs. Gong's hair." When my daughter was alone by the chair, she frowned at herself in the mirror and said: "The cheeks are the same," she pointed to my cheeks, then shook her own, then pursed her lips, deeply recessed her cheeks on both sides, looked at herself in the mirror again, and compared with mine.

"The appearance of a face can tell a person's temperament and character, and can also predict the future." I said casually. "What do you mean?" she asked. It's my turn to speak.Look at these two faces, so alike!In this way, together with happiness, sorrow, good fortune and fault, it will be very similar. I think of my own mother, long, long ago, in China, when I was a young girl. three My mother—your grandmother, once took a look at me specially.It was New Year's Eve that night, and I will be ten years old after the new year, which is a big birthday in China.Perhaps because of this, she didn't say much to criticize me.

"You are very lucky," she said, pinching my earlobes. "Look at these thick earlobes, just like mine. Earlobes with thin sides are born poor. You have a good pair of earlobes." Blessed ears, but you must not miss any chance." Then she patted my chin lightly: "The chin is just right, neither long nor short, which means that your life expectancy is just right. It is not good to live too long, it becomes a burden. " As for the nose, your grandma said: "Your nose is also like mine. The nostrils are not too big, so you can keep money. A straight nose is also a good look. A girl with a crooked nose is always bad luck."

Then she parted my hair again: "Our foreheads are also very similar. Maybe your forehead is wider than mine, so you are smarter than me. And your hair is lower than mine, which means that when you were young , there will be some ups and downs in life... your eyes are also very good, you are honest and enthusiastic, and you will become a good wife, mother and daughter-in-law." I was still very young at the time, and I really wanted to look more like my mother, so I imitated her expressions and manners from time to time. I became more and more like her.But a flood separated me from my mother.My first in-laws kicked me out, then another war, then across an ocean to a new country.Mom will never know that my face has changed a lot over the years.The corners of my mouth began to droop to the sides, and my eyes began to look around in a very American way, and on a crowded tram in San Francisco, a sudden brake hit my nose crookedly, which happened to be when we were going to on the way to the church.

In the United States, it is very difficult to maintain an unchanged Chinese face.Even before I went to the United States, in Beijing, I paid for a Chinese lady who grew up in the United States, and asked her to teach me how to adapt to the American way of life. She once said to me like this: "In the United States, you must never tell people that you want to stay in the United States forever. If you are a Chinese, you must say that you envy American education and their way of thinking, you must Show them that you have to become a learned person, and then dedicate what you have learned to the Chinese people." "Then...if they ask me which major I want to study, what should I say?" "Religion, you have to say, you have to study religion." That beautiful girl taught me so, "Americans have different ideas about religion, and there are a thousand different people. So in this respect, it doesn't matter. Right or wrong. Just tell them, 'I'm here for God' and they'll look up to you." Then the girl filled out a form for me, and I copied what she had written over and over again until I was able to write it completely silently.In the name column, I fill in Linda Sun, date of birth: May 11, 1918, place of birth: Taiyuan, China.And in the occupation column, I write seminary students. Finally, after accepting more money from me, the girl gave me another piece of advice: "First, you must find a husband, preferably an American citizen." Seeing my surprised look, she quickly added: "Of course, American citizens also have Chinese. 'Citizenship' doesn't necessarily mean a high-nosed foreigner, but if your husband is not a US citizen, the next thing you have to do is have a baby.It doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl in the U.S. They won't give you retirement anyway, what do you think? "We laughed. "But, despite all that, you have to be careful," she told me. "If immigration asks you how many children you have, or how many children you want, you have to say, 'You're not married yet.'" The tone Sincere and pious, the expression must be sincere and calm.” At that time, I must have shown a confused expression, so she immediately went on to explain: "You know, once you give birth to a child, the child is a U.S. citizen, and he can let the mother stay as a U.S. citizen, understand don't know?" But what confuses me is not this, but why she said that I should be sincere in my tone. Isn't it true that the usual me is not sincere enough? My daughter always tells people that I came to the United States after a long journey from China.This is not true.I am not that poor.I came by plane, not by boat.My first in-laws gave me some money, and I worked as a telephone operator for twelve years and saved up some money, so I wasn't poor.But the plane I took flew for three weeks: it had stops in Hong Kong, Vietnam, the Philippines, Hawaii and other places, so when I finally arrived in the United States, I could no longer put on a sincere and happy expression . Daughter, you still have to tell others: I met your father at the "China House" restaurant, saying that I once ate a piece of destiny paper out of a cookie filling, which said, I will marry a A handsome man in black, as soon as I put down the piece of paper, the hotel waiter smiled at me, and later, I married him.You can make jokes. Your father never worked as a waiter at all, and I never ate at this restaurant.Only Americans have always fallen in love with eating Chinese food in "China House".Now this "Chinese House" restaurant has been demolished, and a McDonald's restaurant has been built on the original site, and the Chinese signboard reads "Maidonglou".This is just nonsense, what "Maidonglou"!Alas, you, you, are all confused by that kind of fake Chinese.Let me tell you everything as it is. When I first arrived, no one at the customs asked me any difficult questions. After checking my documents, they let me in.I decided to go to the address that the Beijing girl gave me first.I jumped on a bus and came to California Street. I saw a tall building, which was the Old Santa Maria Church. On the bulletin board, it read: 7:00 am to 8:30 am, Chinese services.I memorized this timetable so that if the immigration office asked me where I worshiped, I would be able to answer fluently.Then I crossed the road, opposite to an ordinary building, I saw this kind of words painted on the wall: Save today for peace tomorrow ① - National Bank of the United States.I was like, oh, that's where Americans worship.Today, the St. Mary's Church is still there, but the low bank in those days has been demolished, and a fifty-story building has been erected. Now, you and your fiancé are working there, dealing with domineering A place for every taxpayer. When my daughter hears this, she always laughs happily.Can't see it, the old mother will tell a few jokes. I continued to walk up the small slope, and the streets became narrower, darker, and dirty. Although I could see various decorations with Chinese characteristics from time to time along the way, they were all very rough and crappy, and I couldn’t figure it out. Understand, why do people always embellish the most backward part of Chinese flavor as a special feature?Why don't they build some gardens or pools or something? ①Salvation and savings are the same word in English, and Linda confused them here. ——Translator's Note I finally found the place that the girl from Beijing offered me according to the address. Although I didn't have high hopes for it, the noisy and dirty environment still made me gasp.This is a green building, and a large group of children are jumping up and down the corridor like mice.At 402, an old lady came out, and she complained as soon as she opened her mouth. She waited for me for a whole week.Then, she quickly wrote down several addresses for me, and then she opened her hand to me, and I gave her a dollar, and she glanced at her with disdain, and said, "Miss," she said in Chinese, "This is America, and even a beggar can't get a dollar out of it." I gave her another dollar, and she said, "Well, you think my consultation is so cheap!" I had to give her another dollar, and she That's when I stopped talking. According to the address given by the old lady, I found a cheap apartment on Washington Street and settled down.These tenements were usually above a small shop, and then, on the list of inquiries I got for three dollars, I found a job at seventy-five cents an hour.That's a horrible job.Originally I hoped to be a salesperson, but my English is not good.And this job is to do massage for foreign men.I knew right away that this kind of business was undoubtedly like a fourth-class prostitute in China, so I quit immediately and crossed out the address with black ink.Other occupations are mostly monopolized by Cantonese and Taishan people. These southerners have laid their foundation here for generations and made foreign fortunes. Their great-grandsons or great-great-great-grandsons control the lifeline of the entire Chinese district. This reminds me of what my mother once said to me: "My early life was rough and bumpy, which makes sense. Later, I worked in a cookie factory. We sat on the high stool next to the machine, and the machine was constantly transporting And what I have to do is to grab the hot golden pancake, insert a fate strip, and then fold them in half before the pancake hardens. This job looks simple, But it’s very hard work. If you start too fast, the hot dough will burn your fingers, and if you drop your hands too slowly, the cookie will harden, then you won’t be able to insert the fate bar, and the pancake will be useless. After only one day, all ten of my fingers were burnt red.The next day, my eyes were tired because I had to stare at the pancakes all day long.On the third day, I couldn't even lift my arms.But after a week, I was able to handle this purely mechanical operation with ease.Only then did I have the time to discover that on my side was a taciturn old woman from Cantonese. She was serious and at most chatted in Cantonese for a while.On the other side of me is a female worker who is about the same age as me. I found that there are very few defective products in the bucket next to her. I doubt that she ate the broken pancakes at all.She is very plump. "Hey, miss," she often calls me over the rumbling voice of the machine, her voice sounds very pleasant, because she also speaks Mandarin. "Have you ever thought that one day, you will stand out and decide the fate of others?" She asked me like this. I didn't understand her at once.She picked up a fate paper and read it aloud in English: "Don't fight with others while washing clothes, or even if you win, your clothes will get dirty." Before I could understand, she picked up another note and read: "Money is the chief evil, it will make you steal out of dissatisfaction." "What nonsense!" I said, and decided that I should learn these American proverbs. "This is fate!" the young female worker explained, "Americans think this is a Chinese proverb." "But we Chinese have never heard of such nonsense," I said. "These words are meaningless. They are not fate at all. They are just nonsense." "No, ma'am," giggled the young working woman, "it's through our hands that these bad words are sent to the other wretches, let's see who gets them." This young female worker is Xu Anmei.Look, it's Aunt Anmei.Aunt Anmei who is old and weird now. One day, Anmei said to me, "Linda, come to our church this Sunday. One of my husband's friends wants to find a Chinese wife. Of course, he is not an American citizen, but I know for sure that he has a way. Get citizenship." That's how I got to know your father, Gong Ding.This marriage is not like my last marriage. This time I can choose for myself: yes or no, I can choose by myself. But the first time I saw your dad, I didn't like it very much.He is a Cantonese!How can I marry a Cantonese?But Aunt Anmei said: "What does it matter? We are no longer in China, and we no longer need to find a husband from the same hometown. In the United States, every Chinese is from the same hometown." When meeting your father for the first time, we were both quite shy.We didn't understand each other's dialect: Cantonese and Mandarin, so we went to English class together, spoke English, and sometimes wrote Chinese characters on paper to help understand each other's meaning.But for men and women who want to form a couple, this kind of conversation is far from enough, and this kind of conversation is quite like the conversation in English class: "I saw a cat, I saw a mouse, this It's a hat." But I soon felt that your father liked me very much.He would talk to me with the exaggerated expression in Chinese drama. For example, when he wrapped his hands around his hair and kept moving his hands and feet, I knew how tense and hectic the work of the Pacific Telephone Company he worked for was.You really don't know your father, he had the genius of an actor. I found out later that his career was not as busy, important, or even as good as he portrayed.At this moment, I can talk to your father in Cantonese. I always ask him, why didn't he find a better position at that time?At this time, he pretended to be deaf and dumb. So far I am also very strange to myself, why do I insist on grasping the word marriage?I think it's all because of what Anmei taught me.She used to tell me, "In the movies, the boy and the girl pass notes, and then they both fall into love troubles and can't get out of it. You need to play some games like this, otherwise, when you wake up, you're an old woman." .” That night, Anmei and I were on duty, desperately searching for fate notes, we wanted to find a suitable one for your father. An Mei had already selected a lot of candidates and piled them aside.One read: "Golden diamonds are a girl's best companion. You should never stand still with a good friend. If you have such an idea, it's time to propose." I picked one myself: "A house can't be called a home when there's no other half in the house." I quietly wrapped this destiny paper inside a pancake, which I wrapped carefully. After English class the next afternoon, I reached into my satchel, screamed deliberately, and pulled out a sweet pancake: "Look, a sweet pancake. Ouch, looking at these sweet pancakes all day It makes me lose my appetite, this is for you to eat!" He took the pancake and ate it bhabha while reading the fate paper embedded inside.I hypocritically went up to him and said, "What's written on that paper?" He didn't make a sound, and I urged him, "Let me read it." We were walking in Portsmouth Square that day. It was a misty evening. I was wearing a light woolen coat and felt chilly. Therefore, I hope your father will propose to me quickly so that I can go back early.I saw him carefully read the fate note, and then said seriously: "Oh, how do you explain the word spouse? I'll tell you tomorrow when I go home and look it up in the dictionary." The next day, he said to me in English: "Linda, can you be my spouse?"In this way, we decided to get married. A month later, we were married at First Baptist Church, where we first met.Nine months later, your dad and I got our citizenship papers—a fat, heavy baby boy, your older brother Winston.The reason why I like this name is because it is composed of two words "win" and "ton". I want to raise a son who can win a lot in his life. He wants to win many things: money, reputation, a prosperous life... …At that time I thought, everything will be fine for me, everything will be there, how could I have expected that Winston would die in a car accident later, when he was only sixteen years old! Two years after Winston was born, I had another brother of yours, Vincent, whom I named because it sounds like "win a hundred", which is also the sound of making money.In the end, I was so engrossed in thinking about making money that I bumped my nose when the bus slammed on the brakes. After that, you were born. Maybe it's the crooked nose that changed me, or maybe it's because you look too much like me in the swaddling baby.I want you to be perfect in this life, and I'll name you Waverly, that's the name of the street we live on.I live here, but in the future when you grow up, you will take me out of here. ① Wins - to win, ton - ton. ——Translator's Note Four Mr. Lorey brushed my hair, which was still soft and black. "Wow, Mom, you're really good. Everyone will think you're my sister at the wedding." I look at myself in the barber mirror, and I know a certain flaw in my looks that I have passed on to my daughter. "Oh, what's wrong with your nose?" I cried out. She looked in the mirror and shrugged inexplicably. "What's wrong? There's nothing wrong with my nose!" "How is it crooked?" I asked, and indeed, I noticed that one side of her nose was a little crooked. "What's the matter, you made me like this!" "It's really crooked and you'll have to go to a plastic surgeon and get a plastic brace to straighten it out." The daughter just smiled nonchalantly, put her head on my anxious face, and said, "Don't be stupid, Mom. Our noses are all okay, and this nose makes us look wavier." "What does this 'devious' mean?" I asked. "It's just... twists and turns, well, a road is not straight, it has many branches, we can go this way or that way, it seems that we both have the same face shape, but in fact we are different. We say what we think, but we understand it differently." "Do people see this from our looks?" I asked. She smiled: "No. Everyone has two sides." "is this okay?" "If you can get what you want because of it, that's of course good." I looked at our mother and daughter in the mirror, and I thought about my own principles of life. I really couldn't figure out which one was Chinese and which one was American.Anyway, I can only do one of the two, take one, and for many years, I have been wandering between the two, considering the choice. Last year I went back to mainland China after a 40-year absence. Even though I took off all jewelry and did not wear overly colorful clothes, I used their currency and spoke their language, they still recognized that I was not pure Chinese, they still want me to pay foreigner standard prices which are several times higher than normal prices. So now I often wonder: What am I missing?What did I get again?I don't know what my daughter thinks.