Shanghai Girls (17 page)

She points out the filling station, although we have yet to meet anyone who owns a car. She walks me past Jerry’s Joint—a bar with Chinese food and a Chinese atmosphere but not owned by a Chinese. Every non-business space is a flophouse of one sort or another: tiny apartments like the one we live in for families, boardinghouses for a few dollars a month for Chinese bachelor-laborers like the uncles, and rooms lent out by the missions, where men truly down on their luck can sleep, eat, and make a couple of dollars a month in exchange for keeping the place tidy.

After a month of these excursions around the block, May takes me into the Plaza. “This used to be the heart of the original Spanish settlement. Did we have Spanish people in Shanghai?” May asks lightly, almost gaily. “I don’t remember meeting any.”

She doesn’t give me a chance to answer, because she’s so intent on showing me Olvera Street, which is just opposite Sanchez Alley on the other side of the Plaza. I don’t want to see it particularly, but after many days of her complaining and insisting, I cross the open space with her and venture into the pedestrian way filled with colorfully painted plywood stalls displaying embroidered cotton shirts, heavy clay ashtrays, and lollipops shaped like pointed spires. People in lacy costumes make candles, blow glass, and hammer soles for sandals, while others sing and play instruments.

“Is this how people in Mexico really live?” May asks.

I don’t know if it’s at all like Mexico, but it’s festive and vibrant compared with our dingy apartment. “I have no idea. Maybe.”

“Well, if you think this is funny and cute, wait until you see China City.”

About halfway down the street, she stops abruptly. “Look, there’s Christine Sterling.” She nods toward an elderly but elegantly dressed white woman sitting on the porch of a house that looks like it was made from mud. “She developed Olvera Street. She’s behind China City too. Everyone says she has a big heart. They say she wants to help Mexicans and Chinese have their own businesses during these hard times. She came to Los Angeles with nothing, just like we did. Now she’s about to have two tourist attractions.”

We reach the end of the block. A flock of American cars trawl and beep their way along the roadway. Across Macy Street, I see the wall that surrounds China City.

“I’ll take you over there, if you’d like,” May offers. “All we have to do is cross the street.”

I shake my head. “Maybe another time.”

As we walk back through Olvera Street, May waves and smiles to shop owners, who don’t wave or smile back.

WHILE MAY WORKS
with Old Man Louie and Sam is getting things ready in China City, Yen-yen and I do our piecework in the apartment, look after Vernon when he comes home from school, and take turns carrying Joy during the long afternoons, when she cries endlessly for who knows what reason. But even if I could go visiting, who would I meet? There’s only about one woman or girl here for every ten men. Local girls May’s and my age are often forbidden to go out with boys, and the Chinese men living here don’t want to marry them anyway.

“Girls born here are too Americanized,” Uncle Edfred says when he comes to Sunday dinner. “When I get rich, I’ll go back to the home village to get a traditional wife.”

Some men—like Uncle Wilburt—have wives back in China they don’t see for years at a time. “I haven’t done the husband-wife thing with my wife since forever. Too expensive to go to China for that. I’m saving my money to go home for good.”

With thinking like this, most girls remain unmarried. During the week, they go to American school and then Chinese-language school at one of the missions. On weekends, they work in their families’ businesses and go to the missions for Chinese culture instruction. We don’t fit in with those girls, and we’re too young to fit in with the other wives and mothers, who seem backward to us. Even if they were born here, most of them—like Yen-yen—didn’t even complete elementary school. That’s how isolated, guarded, and protected they are.

One evening at the end of May, thirty-nine days after we arrived in Los Angeles and a few days before China City opens, Sam comes home and says, “You can go outside with your sister, if you want. I can give Joy her bottle.”

I’m reluctant to leave her with him, but these past weeks I’ve seen that she responds well to the awkward way he holds her, whispers in her ear, and tickles her tummy. Seeing her content—and knowing that Sam would just as soon have me gone so he won’t have to make conversation with me—May and I go out into the spring night. We walk to the Plaza, where we sit on a bench, listen to Mexican music wafting over from Olvera Street, and watch children play in Sanchez Alley, using a paper bag plumped with wadded newspapers and tied with a string as their ball.

At last May is no longer trying to show me things or trying to get me to cross this or that street. We can just sit and—for a few minutes—be ourselves. We have no privacy in the apartment, where everyone can hear everything that’s said and everything that’s done. Now, without so many listening ears, we’re able to talk freely and share secrets. We reminisce about Mama, Baba, Tommy, Betsy, Z.G., and even our old servants. We talk about the foods we miss and Shanghai’s scents and sounds, which seem so distant to us now. Finally, we pull ourselves away from the loneliness of lost people and places and force ourselves to focus on what’s happening right around us. I know every time Yen-yen and Old Man Louie do the husband-wife thing from the creaking of their mattress. I know as well that Vern and May haven’t done anything like that yet.

“You haven’t done it with Sam either,” May retorts. “You’ve got to do it. You’re married. You have a baby with him.”

“But why should I do it when you haven’t done it with Vern?”

May makes a face. “How can I? There’s something wrong with him.”

Back in Shanghai, I’d thought she was just being unkind, but now that I’ve lived with Vern and spent far more time with him than May has, I know she’s right. And it’s not just that he hasn’t begun his growth into manhood.

“I don’t think he’s retarded,” I say, trying to be helpful.

May impatiently waves away the idea. “It’s not that. He’s … damaged.” She searches the canopy of tree branches above us, as though she might find an answer there. “He talks, but not much. Sometimes he doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening around him. Other times he’s completely obsessed—like with those model airplanes and boats the old man is always buying for him to glue together.”

“At least they take care of him,” I reason. “Remember the boy we saw on the boat on the Grand Canal? His family kept him in a cage.”

Either May doesn’t remember or she doesn’t care, because she goes on without acknowledging me. “They treat Vern like he’s special. Yen-yen irons his clothes and lays them out for him in the morning. She calls him Boy-husband—”

“She’s like Mama that way. She calls everyone by title or rank in the family. She even calls her husband Old Man Louie!”

It feels good to laugh. Mama and Baba had called him that as a sign of respect; we’d always called him that because we didn’t like him; Yen-yen calls him that because that’s how she sees him.

“She has natural feet, but she’s far more backward than Mama ever was,” I continue. “She believes in ghosts, spirits, potions, the zodiac, what to eat and not eat, all that mumbo jumbo—”

May snorts in disgust and irritation. “Remember when I made the mistake of saying I had a cold and she brewed me a tea of ginger and dried scallions to clear my chest and made me breathe steamed vinegar to relieve my congestion? That was disgusting!”

“But it worked.”

“Yes,” May admits, “but now she wants me to go to the herbalist to make me more fertile and attractive to the boy-husband. She tells me that the Sheep and the Boar are among the most compatible of the signs.”

“Mama always said that the Boar has a pure heart, that it has great honesty and simplicity.”

“Vern’s simple all right.” May shudders. “I’ve tried, you know. I mean …” She hesitates. “I sleep in the same bed with him. Some people would say the boy’s lucky to have me there. But he won’t do anything, even though he has everything below that he needs.”

She lets that hang in the air for me to consider. We’re both killing time here in this horrible limbo, but anytime I think things are bad for me, all I have to do is think about my sister in the next room.

“And then when I go to the kitchen in the morning,” May says, “Yen-yen asks, ‘Where’s your son? I need a grandson.’ When I came home from China City last week, she pulled me aside and said, ‘I see the visit from the little red sister has come again. Tomorrow you will eat sparrow kidneys and dried tangerine peel to strengthen your
chi
. The herbalist tells me this will make your womb welcome my son’s vital essence.’”

The way she imitates Yen-yen’s high-pitched, squeaky voice makes me smile, but May doesn’t see the humor.

“Why don’t they make
you
eat sparrow kidneys and tangerine peel? Why don’t they send
you
to the herbalist?” she demands.

I don’t know why Old Man Louie and his wife treat Sam and me differently. Yen-yen may have a title for everyone, but I’ve never heard her call Sam anything—not by title, not by his American name, not even by his Chinese name. And except for that first night, my father-in-law rarely speaks to either of us.

“Sam and his father don’t get along,” I say. “Have you noticed that?”

“They fight quite a bit. The old man calls Sam
toh gee
and
chok gin
. I don’t know what they mean, but they aren’t compliments.”

“He’s saying Sam’s lazy and empty-headed.” I don’t spend much time with Sam, so I ask, “Is he?”

“Not that I’ve seen. The old man keeps insisting Sam run the rickshaw rides when China City opens. He wants Sam to be a puller. Sam doesn’t want to do it.”

“Who would?” I shudder.

“Not here, not anywhere,” May agrees. “Not even if it’s just an entertainment for people.”

I wouldn’t mind talking about Sam a bit more, but May circles back to the problem of her husband.

“You’d think they’d treat him like the other boys around here and have him work with his father after school. He could help Sam and me unpack crates and put merchandise on the shelves for when China City opens, but the old man insists that Vern go straight home to the apartment to do his homework. I think all he does is go to his room and work on his models. And not very well from what I can see.”

“I know. I see more of him than you do. I’m with him every day.” I don’t know if May hears the sourness in my voice, but I do and I hurry to hide it. “Everyone knows a son is precious. Maybe they’re preparing him to take over the businesses one day.”

“But he’s the youngest son! They aren’t going to let him do that. It wouldn’t be right. But Vern’s got to learn how to do something. It’s like they want to keep him a little boy forever.”

“Maybe they don’t want Vern to leave. Maybe they don’t want
any
of us to leave. They’re just so backward. The way we all live together, the way the businesses are kept within the family, the way they keep their money hidden and protected, the way they don’t give us any spending money.”

That’s right. May and I don’t receive a household allowance. Of course, we can’t say that we want our own money to escape from this place and start over again.

“It’s like they’re a bunch of bumpkins from the countryside,” May says bitterly. “And the way Yen-yen cooks,” she adds almost as an afterthought. “What kind of a Chinese woman is she?”

“We don’t know how to cook either.”

“But we were never expected to cook! We were going to have servants for that.”

We sit and think about that for a while, but what’s the point of dreaming about the past when it’s gone? May looks over to Sanchez Alley. Most of the children have returned to their apartments. “We’d better get back before Old Man Louie locks us out.”

We walk back to the apartment arm in arm. My heart feels lighter. May and I are not only sisters but sisters-in-law as well. For thousands of years, daughters-in-law have complained about the hardship of life in their husbands’ homes, living under the iron fists of their fathers-in-law and under the calloused thumbs of their mothers-in-law. May and I are very lucky to have each other.

Dreams of Oriental Romance

ON JUNE 8
, almost two months after we arrived in Los Angeles, I cross the street at last and enter China City for the Grand Opening. China City is enclosed by a miniature Great Wall—although it’s hard to call it “Great” when it looks just like cardboard cutouts placed on top of a narrow wall. I pass through the main gate and encounter a thousand or so people grouped together in a big open area called the Court of the Four Seasons. Dignitaries and movie stars give speeches, firecrackers spit and crackle, a dragon parades, and lion dancers frolic. The
lo fan
look glamorous and fashionable: the women in silks and furs, gloves and hats, and shiny lipstick; the men in suits, wing tips, and fedoras. May and I wear
cheongsams
, but as sleek and beautiful as we look in them, I feel we appear outdated and foreign compared with the American women.

“Dreams of Oriental romance are woven like silk threads through the little fabric that is China City,” Christine Sterling proclaims from the stage. “We ask Your Honorable Person to see the brilliant colors of its hopes and ideals and to forget the imperfections in its creation, because these will fade with the passing years. Let those who have peopled the generations of China’s existence, who have survived catastrophes of every kind in their motherland, find a new haven, where they can perpetuate their desire for collective identity, follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, and ply the trades and arts of their heritage in all tranquillity.”

Oh, brother
.

“Leave the new world of rush and confusion behind,” Christine Sterling goes on, “and enter the old world of languorous enchantment.”

Really?

The shops and restaurants will open their doors for business as soon as the speeches finish, and those who work here—Yen-yen and me included—will need to hurry to take their positions. As we listen, I hold Joy in my arms so she can see what’s happening. With the undulating crowds and all the jostling, we get separated from Yen-yen. I’m supposed to go to the Golden Dragon Café, but I don’t know where it is. How can I get lost in just one block surrounded by a wall? But with so many blind alleys and narrow paths that twist and turn, I’m completely confused. I walk through doorways only to find myself in a courtyard with a goldfish pond or in a stand selling incense. I press Joy tight against my chest and squeeze up against the wall as the rickshaws—emblazoned with the Golden Rickshaws’ logo—haul laughing
lo fan
through the alleys, the pullers calling, “Coming through! Coming through!” These aren’t like any rickshaw pullers I’ve ever seen. They’re all dolled up in silk pajamas, embroidered slippers, and brand-new coolie hats made from straw. And they aren’t Chinese. They’re Mexican.

A little girl costumed like a street urchin—only cleaner—wiggles through the crowd, handing out maps. I take one and open it, looking for where I need to go. The map shows the big sights: the Steps of Heaven, the Harbor of Whangpoo, the Lotus Pool, and the Court of the Four Seasons. At the bottom of the map, two men dressed in Chinese robes and slippers drawn in black ink bow to each other. The caption reads: “If you will condescend your august self to enlighten our humble city, we greet you with sweetmeats, wines, and music rare, and also objets d’art that will delight your noble eyes.” Nothing on this map shows any of Old Man Louie’s enterprises, each of which has Golden in its name.

China City isn’t like Shanghai. It isn’t like the Old Chinese City either. It isn’t even like a Chinese village. It looks a lot like the China May and I used to see in movies brought to Shanghai from Hollywood. Yes, it’s all exactly as May described during our walks together. Paramount Studios has donated a set from
Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife
, which has now been converted into the Chinese Junk Café. Workmen from MGM have meticulously reassembled Wang’s Farmhouse from
The Good Earth
, right down to the ducks and chickens in the yard. Behind Wang’s Farmhouse winds the Passage of One Hundred Surprises, where those same MGM carpenters have converted an old blacksmith shop into ten novelty boutiques, selling jewel trees, scented teas, and fringed and embroidered “Spanish” shawls made in China. The tapestries in the Temple of Kwan Yin are reputed to be thousands of years old, and the statue was supposedly saved from the bombing of Shanghai. In fact, like so many things at China City, the temple was constructed from more leftover sets from MGM. Even the Great Wall came from a movie, although it must have been a western in which a fort needed defending. Christine Sterling’s determination to repackage her Olvera Street concept into something Chinese has been matched by her total lack of understanding of our culture, history, and taste.

My brain tells me I’m safe. Too many people mill about for anyone to try to trap or hurt me, but I’m nervous and scared. I hurry down another blind alley. I hold Joy so tightly she starts to cry. People stare at me as though I’m a bad mother.
I’m not a bad mother
, I want to shout.
This is my baby
. In my panic I think, if I can find the front entrance, then I’ll be able to find my way back to the apartment. But Old Man Louie locked the door on our way out and I don’t have a key. Agitated and apprehensive, I put my head down and shove through the people.

“Are you lost?” A voice addresses me in the pure tones of the Wu dialect of Shanghai. “Do you need help?”

I look up to see a
lo fan
with white hair, glasses, and a full white beard.

“I think you must be May’s sister,” he says. “Are you Pearl?”

I nod.

“I’m Tom Gubbins. Most people call me Bak Wah Tom—Motion Pictures Tom. I have a shop here, and I know your sister. Tell me where you need to go.”

“They want me at the Golden Dragon Café.”

“Ah, yes, one of the many Golden enterprises. Anything that’s worth five cents around here is run by your father-in-law,” he says knowingly. “Come along. I’ll take you there.”

I don’t know this man and May has never mentioned him, but perhaps he’s just one of many things she hasn’t told me. Still, the sounds of Shanghai coming from his mouth give me all the assurance I need. On our way to the café, he points out the various shops my father-in-law owns. The Golden Lantern, Old Man Louie’s original store from Old Chinatown, sells cheap curios: ashtrays, toothpick holders, and back scratchers. Through the window, I see Yen-yen talking to customers. Farther along, Vern sits by himself in a tiny shop, the Golden Lotus, selling silk flowers. I’ve heard Old Man Louie boast to our neighbors about how little it cost him to open this business: “Silk flowers cost almost nothing in China. Here I can sell them for five times their original price.” He scoffed at another family that opened a live-flower stand. “They paid eighteen dollars for the icebox at the secondhand store. Every day they’ll spend fifty cents to buy a hundred pounds of ice. They have to buy cans and vases to put the flowers in. Altogether fifty dollars! Too much! Too wasteful! And it isn’t hard to sell silk flowers, because even my son can do it.”

I see the top of the Golden Pagoda before we reach it and know that from now on I can always look up to get my bearings. The Golden Pagoda is housed in a fake pagoda five tiers high. From here, Old Man Louie—dressed in a midnight blue mandarin gown—plans to sell his best merchandise: cloisonné, fine porcelains, mother-of-pearl inlay carved teakwood furniture, opium pipes, ivory mah-jongg sets, and antiques. Through the window, I see May standing a little to his left, chatting with a family of four, gesturing animatedly, and smiling so broadly I can see her teeth. She looks different and yet very much the sister I’ve always known. Her
cheongsam
clings to her like a second skin. Her hair swirls around her face, and I realize she’s gotten her hair cut and styled. How have I not noticed that before? But it’s the old radiance that shines out of her that really surprises me. I haven’t seen her like this in a long time.

“She’s very beautiful,” Tom observes, as if reading my thoughts. “I’ve told her I could get her work, but she’s afraid you won’t approve. What do you think, Pearl? You can see I’m not a bad man. Why don’t you think about it and talk it over with May?”

I understand his words, but I can’t take in their meaning.

Seeing my confusion, he shrugs. “All right then. On to the Golden Dragon.”

When we get there, he glances in the window and says, “It looks like they could use your help, so I won’t keep you. But if you ever need anything, come see me at the Asiatic Costume Company. May will show you where it is. She visits me every day.”

With that, he turns away and melts into the crowd. I pull open the door to the Golden Dragon Café and enter. There are eight tables and a counter with ten stools. Behind the counter Uncle Wilburt, wearing a white undershirt and a paper hat folded from plain newsprint, sweats over a sizzling wok. Next to him Uncle Charley chops ingredients with a cleaver. Uncle Edfred carries a load of dishes to the sink, where Sam rinses dirty glasses under a steaming tap.

“Hey, can we get some help over here?” a man calls out.

Sam wipes his hands, hurries over, hands me a notepad, takes Joy from my arms, and places her in a wooden crate behind the counter. For the next six hours, we work without stop. By the time the Grand Opening officially ends, Sam’s clothes are smeared with food and grease, and my feet, shoulders, and arms ache, but Joy’s sound asleep in her crate. Old Man Louie and the others come to fetch us. The uncles head to wherever it is Chinatown bachelors go at night. After my father-in-law locks the door, we set out for the apartment. Sam, Vern, and their father walk ahead, while Yen-yen, May, and I stay a proper ten paces behind them. I’m exhausted and Joy feels as heavy as a sack of rice, but no one offers to take her from me.

Old Man Louie told us not to use a language he can’t understand, but I speak to May in the Wu dialect, hoping Yen-yen won’t tell on us and trusting we’re far enough from the men that they won’t hear.

“You’ve been keeping things from me, May.”

I’m not angry. I’m hurt. May has been building a new life in China City, while I’ve been locked in the apartment. She’s even gotten a haircut! Oh, how that burns now that I’ve noticed it.

“Things? What things?” She keeps her voice low—so we won’t be heard? So I won’t raise mine?

“I thought we decided we would wear only Western clothes once we got here. We said we would try to look like Americans, but all you bring me are these.”

“That’s one of your favorite
cheongsams,”
May says.

“I don’t want to wear these anymore. We agreed—”

She slows, and as I pass her she reaches for my shoulder to hold me back. Yen-yen keeps walking, obediently following her husband and sons.

“I haven’t wanted to tell you, because I knew you’d be upset,” May whispers. She taps her lips hesitantly with three knuckles.

“What is it?” I sigh. “Just tell me.”

“Our Western dresses are gone. He”—she nods toward the men, but I know she’s referring to our father-in-law—“doesn’t want us to wear anything but our Chinese clothes.”

“Why—”

“Just listen to me, Pearl. I’ve been trying to tell you things. I’ve been trying to show you things, but sometimes you’re as bad as Mama. You don’t want to know. You don’t want to listen.”

Her words stun and wound me, but she isn’t finished.

“You know how the people who work on Olvera Street have to wear Mexican costumes? That’s because Mrs. Sterling insists on it. It’s in their rental agreements, just as it’s in our leases at China City. We
have
to wear our
cheongsams
to work there. They—Mrs. Sterling and her
lo fan
partners—want us to look like we’ve never left China. Old Man Louie must have known that when he took our clothes in Shanghai. Think about it, Pearl. We thought he had no taste, no discernment, but he knew exactly what he was looking for and he took only what he thought would be useful here. He left everything else behind.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“How could I? You’re barely
here
. I’ve been trying to get you to go places with me, but usually you don’t want to leave the apartment. I had to drag you out just to sit in the Plaza. You don’t say anything about it, but I know you blame me and Sam and Vern and all of us for keeping you inside. But no one’s keeping you inside. You won’t go anywhere. I couldn’t even get you to cross the street to go to China City until today!”

“What do I care about these places? We aren’t going to be here forever.”

“But how are we going to escape if we don’t know what’s out there?”

Because it’s easier not to do anything, because I’m scared
, I think but don’t say.

“You’re like a bird that’s been freed from a cage,” May says, “but doesn’t remember how to fly. You’re my sister, but I don’t know where you’ve gone in your mind. You’re so far away from me now.”

We climb the stairs back to the apartment. At the door, she holds me back once again. “Why can’t you be the sister I knew in Shanghai? You were fun. You weren’t afraid of anything. Now you act like a
fu yen
.” She pauses. “I’m sorry. That sounded terrible. I know you’ve been through a lot, and I realize you have to give all your attention and care to the baby. But I miss you, Pearl. I miss my sister.”