Half and Half (11 page)

Mom held out the costume. “Better hurry up and change!”

I tore off the fancy blouse and kilt and thrust my arms into the sleeves of the silk jacket. In my hurry to put on the pants, I stuffed both feet into the same leg. Amanda helped to pull the pants off, and I started over again. Nainai did the buttons of the jacket for me.

I turned and headed for the stage, but Mom held me back. “You can't go out with that hair!”

Fortunately she had remembered to bring the black wig. Nainai helped me cover my orange Jell-O mop with the wig.

Out front, the moderator for the session stood up to introduce the first speaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have
the great honor to introduce the distinguished author and illustrator of books for young people—Frank Cheng.”

Dad walked up to the podium, arranged his notes, and began his talk. He didn't know that Mom had arrived with the costume, so he gave the second version of his talk, the one that didn't include my appearance.

“My daughter was supposed to appear onstage, dressed as the heroine of the book,” he said. “But because of a conflict, she can't make it.”

Mom gave me a push. “Go on!”

I took a deep breath and slowly climbed the steps up to the stage. I arrived behind Dad just as he was saying, “So you'll have to use your imagination instead and visualize the girl coming forth …”

The audience pointed at me and broke out into laughter and applause. Dad whirled around. When he saw me, his jaw dropped. It was one of the few times I've seen him totally speechless.

I grinned at the audience. Then I walked slowly back and forth across the stage to let people admire the costume, and to let Dad recover himself.

Dad finally snapped his jaw shut and cleared his throat to continue his talk. “You people have a pretty powerful imagination!” he said, and another ripple of laughter came from the audience.

I flashed around one last grin and began to climb back down the stairs. Nainai would probably say that a modest Chinese maiden shouldn't grin at crowds like that, but I didn't care. I was half and half, and one half of me wanted to grin.

Backstage, Mom, Nainai, and Amanda helped me take off the silk costume and put back on the kilt, blouse, and cap. The other half of me was back in business. Amanda and I quietly left through a back door and ran for the Center House.

We found that the senior dance troupe was still doing their last number. When I joined the other junior dancers, Grandpa gave me a big smile. There was so much delight on his face that it made up for all the hurt I had felt when I thought he really wanted Ron in the dance troupe.

The senior troupe left the stage and we took our places. Behind me I could hear Grandpa tuning his fiddle.
The audience was quieting down as they waited for us to begin. It was a pretty good crowd.

Standing opposite me onstage for the first number was Maggie. When she met my eyes, she smiled and gave me a thumbs-up sign. Then Grandpa raised his bow and struck up the music for the first reel. Our feet began to tap in time to the lively tune, and at Grandpa's signal, we threw ourselves into the dance.

The night before, Grandpa had said that the rehearsal was the best session he had yet with his troupe. That day we were even better. As I passed Maggie in one of our loops, she gave me another smile and again raised her right hand with the thumb up. Then I saw that the rest of the dancers were also giving each other the thumbs-up sign. I don't think Grandpa even noticed, because he was totally caught up by the music. Just as I was totally caught up by the dance—both halves of me.

All this time, I had been assigning percentages to myself and to others of mixed race based on how they looked. What a stupid waste of time!

It didn't matter whether I looked Chinese or Scottish,
or whether I had black hair, red hair, or orange Jell-O hair. Ron had genuine red hair, but he wasn't as good a dancer as I was. I might look like an Asian girl with dyed hair and a borrowed kilt, but I could really dance a Highland reel.

That evening, after the festival was officially over, there was a party for the program participants and their friends. We were urged to go in our costumes. So again I had to make my choice: Should I keep the kilt and blouse on, or should I change into Nainai's Chinese costume?

“You might as well keep your dancing costume on,” Dad told me. “You've already showed off the silk outfit.”

“Yeah, that was quite an act you put on for your dad's talk,” said Amanda. “You looked like a fashion model parading down the runway.”

“But the people at the party will expect to see the girl on the book cover,” said Nainai.

Ron suddenly spoke up. “Let me wear the kilt.”

For a moment we just stared at him. Ron continued, “It's not going to hurt my ankle, since I don't have to dance.”

I saw Grandma blink and take out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Grandpa's eyes were not quite dry, either, and when he spoke his voice was husky. “That would be very nice, Ron.”

So that was how we wound up: I was in Nainai's silk outfit, and Ron was Grandpa's redheaded laddie in kilt and blouse and Balmoral cap.

When we reached the hall where the party was being held, Maggie and the others in our dance troupe didn't recognize me at first. They crowded around me to examine the costume. “Hey, I like that orange hair with the green silk,” said one girl. “It's cool!”

That wasn't how Nainai felt. She wanted me to put my black wig back on, but I refused. With the wig on, I felt hot, not cool.

Helping myself to food and chatting with the others, I soon gave up my dainty Chinese maiden act. It was hard to keep it up, with my feet too big and my legs too long.

I glanced over at Ron and saw that he was showing a couple of boys some kung fu hand movements. It looked kind of strange with Ron wearing his Highland outfit.

That's when I realized I was probably the only person
in the whole Folk Fest who'd gotten to participate in two programs for two different cultures. And it had happened because I don't fit into a box or a category. I wasn't 100% anything—except myself. Our grandparents expected us to belong to one category or another. I looked more Asian, so Nainai saw me as a Chinese maiden. Ron looked like Mom's side of the family, so Grandpa saw him as a redheaded Highland boy. But inside we were just ourselves. Mom and Dad knew that, and that's all they ever wanted us to be.

I might not always blend in, but for the first time it didn't bother me. I decided that I would check the ‘Other' box as my race after all when I filled out the recreation center form. It wouldn't make me an outsider or a weirdo. Everyone's got something that makes them different: the way Mom is thrifty, the way Dad uses baby talk around Nainai. Since I didn't fit in one of the boxes for race, I didn't have to choose one culture over another.

I got to be both: half and half.