AlliterAsian (14 page)

“I bet Chad or Chuck or Chandler brought those,” I said, reaching for one. “Cheers.”

And so we drank away another night.

One day, just as a chill had set in, I found a job posting asking for a Chinese speaker. Though it didn't specify a dialect, I knew they were seeking someone fluent in Mandarin. My abilities in standard Chinese were rather limited; I spoke Cantonese with my family. Since becoming depressed and broke, however, nothing shamed me, and I no longer had qualms about telling untruths. I sent an email stating that I spoke Chinese. I received a phone message in Mandarin from someone named Kay asking me to meet at Dodge Hall that afternoon.

I walked across campus, passing Low Library. When it was warm out, the stairs leading up to the entrance was filled with people. But because it was cold, there were only a handful of students sitting down.

At Dodge Hall, there was only one Asian woman standing on the steps. I assumed this was Kay.

“Hello,” I said in Mandarin. “I'm Sophie. Are you Kay?”

“You're a Cantonese speaker,” Kay said when she heard my accent.

“Yes,” I said, switching back to English, not wanting to embarrass myself any further.

“You're in the film program,” she said.

“How did you know that?”

“You're friends with Sam. You're in his films. I've seen all of them. Sam and I used to work together in Singapore.”

“You're in the visual arts program.”

Kay lit a cigarette. “And how did you know that?” She exhaled.

“I think it's your glasses,” I said. “Actually, you were in my international student group for orientation last year. I was the peer mentor.” Kay was one of the people I often saw in Dodge Hall whom I wanted to befriend, but had never figured out a graceful way to do so.

“I can't see without them.”

“A blind artist,” I joked.

“Colour and motion are okay. I don't photograph, and I don't do fine drawings or detailed paintings.”

“Sculpture?”

“Installation, mostly. Some video.” She peered at me closely. “How tall are you?”

“Five-two.”

“Hmm.” She continued to stare at me.

“I think we're the same height,” I said.

“Come by my studio.” She handed me a card with her name and a telephone number embossed on it.

“You know where the studios are, yes?”

“Prentis.”

“Right.” She put out her cigarette, and left me standing on the stairs.

A few days later, on my way back from grocery shopping at Fairway, I decided to stop by Kay's studio.

I called her.

“Yes?” she said.

“It's Sophie. From the interview.”

“I was wondering when you would call.”

“I'm at Prentis, but I don't have swipe access to the building. Long story, but I keep losing my ID card. The guard is away.”

“I'll be right down.”

Kay opened the door for me. She was wearing what appeared to be layers of burlap.

“Isn't that itchy?” I asked.

“I'm wearing it over clothes,” she said. “The burlap isn't touching my skin. It's a bit cold in my studio, and this was lying around.”

As we walked up the stairs, I began to feel apprehensive. I had not yet seen her work, and I was worried that I might not like it. Though it was irrational, if I didn't like someone's artistic output, I found it difficult to be civil. I was lucky to have friends that could abide my pretensions and neuroses. When we entered her studio, I felt relieved. There was no evidence of mediocre work, only projects in progress that held promise.

“Would you like a drink?” Kay asked. “I have tea, coffee and Scotch.”

“I'll have a Scotch,” I said.

She handed me a generous glass of the liquor.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“Vancouver,” I said.

“I hear it's beautiful.”

“In parts,” I said. “But when I think of it, I only think about the areas that are picturesque, like the water and the mountains and the forests.”

I walked over to a wall covered in photographs. “I thought you didn't take photographs.”

“That's documentation of a performance I did last year. I don't photograph with the intention to show.”

“They're good,” I said.

“I didn't take them,” Kay said, laughing. “I paid someone to document the piece for me.”

I nodded to show that I understood, and took a sip of my drink.

“So, I guess you know that I don't speak Mandarin very well,” I said.

“It's okay,” she said. “There's no job. I wanted to see who would answer the ad. It's part of a project I'm working on.”

I felt relieved that I wasn't going to be called on to be an interpreter.

“Your friend, Kenichi,” Kay began.

“Oh, you know Kenichi?” I asked.

“We all know about Kenichi—all the women in my program, and some of the men, have tried to talk to him at some point,” she said. “But no one knows him. Except for you.”

“He's my neighbour,” I said.

“He's not your boyfriend?”

“We're just friends.”

“How can you be just friends with him?” she asked. “Are you blind? I think you need to get your eyes checked. I'm not the only one with poor vision.” She smiled.

“Are you interested in him?” I asked.

“No, he's not my type,” she said. “But he seems to be yours.”

“I don't know about that,” I said.

The next week, Kenichi's therapist upped the dosage on his medication. He called to cancel Thursday night drinks because he had slept through class and didn't intend on leaving his apartment.

“Why don't we go have dinner instead?” I said, concerned that
he was slipping into a deeper depression. “If you haven't been outside all day, it might be good to get some air. Have you eaten?”

“I'm too tired,” he said. Then he hung up.

I watched two movies, and took notes. By midnight, I was exhausted, but I couldn't sleep. I called Kay. I had discovered that I could always count on her to be awake at odd hours. Her studio didn't have windows, and she often lost track of time. As well, her schedule remained fixed to Singapore time despite the fact that she had lived in New York for over a year. I had never thought to question why she had not acclimated to Eastern Standard Time.

“Are you busy?” I asked.

“Come over,” she said.

I was also privy to the knowledge that Kay was grieving, but she had never told me for whom. I was too polite to ask, and she was too private to talk about what was bothering her. Sometimes we sat in her studio drinking tea in silence. It was enough to know that someone else was going through the same thing.

“I'm worried about Kenichi,” I said when I reached her studio.

“Why?”

I told her about his missing class, and cancelling our standing appointment. But then I began to talk about my inability to work, because that was also worrying me. I began to speak as if I was delivering a monologue.

“Perhaps I'm defeating myself,” I said. “What is grief? It's just a transitory thing. I wish I could think myself out of all this and just write. It feels as if I'm using it as an excuse not to work.”

I was determined to start afresh. I scrapped the screenplay I had been working on and started on a new one, a romantic comedy. But every line I wrote seemed false. My protagonist was too much like myself, too afraid to be vulnerable, too afraid to love. Kenichi
called. “Why are you like this?” he slurred.

“Like what?” I asked, curious.

“Never mind,” he said. “I need to go back to sleep.”

“Good night,” I said. When I hung up, I wrote our conversation into my screenplay.

Thanksgiving came and went. One morning I woke up at eight a.m. and felt buoyant. I don't know what had changed, but something was different even though nothing had happened to warrant a change, except perhaps the passing of time.

Maybe the day was particularly bright, or I was clearheaded for the first time in a long while, but there was a sense that I had attained a freedom of some sort. Rather than plan my day around drinking, I made myself breakfast and sat down and wrote twenty pages. Later, I threw out those pages. There was nothing worth reading, but it was enough. I called Kenichi. I called Kay. I bought groceries and called Sarah to tell her that I was going to cook dinner, and that she should join me. That night, the four of us ate together, telling funny stories about our childhoods and drinking two bottles of wine. Sarah went to bed early, and Kay had to return home to make a phone call to Singapore. Kenichi and I began walking to the bar we always went to on Thursday nights.

“Did you get a haircut?” Kenichi asked me as we walked down the stairs.

“No,” I said.

“You look different,” he said. “Better.”

Out on Seminary Row, I had an overwhelming urge to hug Kenichi. I put my arms around him, and buried my face into his coat. He smelled so deliciously clean. He put his hands at the small of my back, and it felt as if he was holding me up, preventing me
from sinking into the ground. Snow was falling, and gathering on our clothes. The tears I had been holding back for months came up like a tsunami, unstoppable. My grandmother was dead. But I was alive. I would live. “I think this is what it's like to feel happy,” I said.

Reprinted with permission from
How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?
by Doretta Lau (Nightwood Editions, 2014)
.

       
A
UTHOR
C
OMMENTARY

I began writing “Days of Being Wild” in 2008 during my lunch break at work. I had just moved back to Vancouver from New York and I was hoping to complete a book manuscript, but I found that I no longer enjoyed writing. My initial inspiration was Mavis Gallant's short story, “When We Were Nearly Young.” I was also thinking about Banana Yoshimoto's novella
Kitchen
because my grandmother had died the year before. I wanted to write a story about grief. I also wished to examine the friendships of a group of people who feel foreign no matter where they are in the world. I must have rewritten the opening pages fifty times. I had no clue how the narrative would end, no image to work towards. I was lost and frustrated. So I set the story aside and came back to it in 2011. That was the year I decided that I had to like writing again or give it up and find another office job. Over the course of two months, I mapped out my short story collection, finished this story, and immediately worked on another piece. I rediscovered my love for writing. —
Doretta Lau, 2015

       
A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

Doretta Lau is a journalist who lives and works in Vancouver and Hong Kong. She completed an MFA in writing at Columbia University.
How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?
(Nightwood Editions, 2014), her debut short story collection, was
shortlisted for the City of Vancouver Book Award, longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and named by
The Atlantic
as one of the best books of 2014.

Lao Yang

Ricepaper
18, no. 3 (2013)

Ying Kong

He was called “Yang Senior Engineer” at work and “Yang Gang” at home before coming to Canada. He and their daughter came to join his wife, a graduate student at the University of Manitoba. Now, a year later, he no longer carried his title as an engineer because he was never hired as one, and still he was not used to being called by his first name, Gang, as was the practice in the new country. He didn't like to be called “Gang Yang” either, because the reverse naming didn't make any sense in Chinese. He liked his name to be used in the Chinese way—family name first, then given name.

He was proud of his Chinese name because Yang Gang happened to be a Chinese idiom for “hard, rigid, firm, unyielding, strong, indomitable,” and, finally, “manly.” So for a long time, he did not have a clear name. After many months in Canada, it became confusing.

“How about an English name?” his daughter suggested. She chose to be called Linda not long after she arrived. Her Chinese name had been Lida.

“No way!” he had retorted. “I will feel out of place. Besides, I don't want to worship foreign things.”

He finally settled on Lao Yang. “Lao” in Chinese means old, and Yang is one of the most popular Chinese last names. So he was choosing, in effect, to be called “Old Yang.” However, Lao Yang was
not old at all. He was in his late forties. When he moved to Canada two years before, he had often been mistaken for his wife's son or his teenage daughter's boyfriend.

Inside, he felt too old to start a new life in this new country. When he explained to Elaine, his English tutor, what Lao Yang meant, she was curious. “You're not old at all. Why do you want to be called Lao Yang?” Elaine was in her forties, only a bit younger than he.

Looking at Elaine, he said, “I am old; you are young. So I don't want you call me ‘Xiao Yang.'”

Elaine laughed. “I'm not as young as you think.” Realizing Lao Yang's problem in identifying himself in this new culture, she tried to help him. “How about if I call you ‘Gang'?”

“No, no!” he refused immediately. “It is too close. Only my mother calls me Gang.”

“What does your wife call you?” Elaine continued in her effort to help him.

“Yang Gang.”

“Hmm, that sounds too formal to me,” she said, adding, “Tell me, how do people decide between
Lao
and
Xiao
?”

“Age.”

“Does age really matter in China?”

“Yes, in job, we say, ‘Old ginger is hot.'”

“Old ginger?”

“People say baby ginger no good for cooking; it is not hot. Young people don't know lot about their job,” Lao Yang explained. He enjoyed talking about his own culture.

“Oh, I understand; someone older has more value because he has more experience,” Elaine said.

Seeing Elaine understand him, Lao Yang smiled. “Older good for move up and salary raise.”

“Oh, that's interesting.”

“I become senior engineer when I am over forty years old,” Lao Yang said, with pride. Suddenly, his smile disappeared. He sighed sadly. “When I go back to China, it is very hard for me find good job.”

“Oh, you would leave your wife and daughter here?”

“I don't want live here all my life,” he told Elaine firmly.

“Can you tell me more about your feelings of living here?”

“My English no good. I don't find good job here.”

“Yes, I understand.” Elaine nodded with empathy. “But, I'm sure you will learn English.”

Lao Yang seemed not to hear her. “China change now. When look for job, young people easy to get job. Hire cheap. Bosses must pay me more because I am senior engineer. If I don't go back soon, I will be too old to find good job.”

“Do they ask your age when you apply for a job?”

“They ask age. Job poster always say ‘No People Over Forty-Five.'”

“Oh, they can't do that here. That's age discrimination.”

“Dis-what?” asked Lao Yang, frowning as he attempted to repeat the word.

“Age dis-cri-mi-na-tion,” Elaine said slowly. She wrote the word on paper. Lao Yang recognized the word at once. “I know what that word mean.”

Elaine continued, “When you look for a job here, a company can't say, ‘You're too old. We don't want you. '”

“I know,” said Lao Yang. “At my work here in cafeteria, my boss don't know my age. She ask me do this and that. She think I am very young. I am not! This young woman don't respect me. When I am work, she always say to me, ‘Faster, faster!' I think this is age dismation. They don't respect old people here.”

“I see.” Elaine acknowledged his feelings. “I never thought of discrimination like that! Do you want to tell me how old you are?”

“No problem. In China, we don't tell lie for age. I am almost fifty years old,” Lao Yang said loudly. He was proud of being so close to fifty, a venerable age.

“Fifty is not old at all,” Elaine said cheerfully. “I can still call you Xiao Yang.”

“No! Call me Lao Yang. I like that,” he insisted.

“Okay, Lao Yang!” she said and then changed topics.

“Do you know what the date is today?”

“Wend-day,” Lao Yang replied immediately.

“No, I mean DATE, not day.”

Lao Yang corrected himself. “Ah, FE-BU-REE.”

“Yes, it's FE-BROO-ARY. But, what is the NUMBER on the calendar?”

“Fourteen.”

“Yes, February fourteenth.” Elaine looked at him, and then gave him a hint. “Is there anything special about today?”

Lao Yang looked blankly. “I don't know.”

“Do you have Valentine's Day in your culture?”

“Valen-Day?”

“ValenTINE's Day. On that day lovers give gifts and love messages.”

He seemed to remember. “Oh, we call it
Qingrenjie
. That only for young people, not married people.”

“But married couples can also celebrate their love,” Elaine said with a smile.

Lao Yang didn't agree. “My wife and me too old for that. We old couple, don't play that game.”

“But Lao Yang, you're HERE now. Don't you want to express your love for your wife in the Canadian way?”

“What I do then?”

“Buy her candy.”

“Chinese don't like eat sweet things.”

“Then buy her flowers.”

“No use for flowers. They die two or three days.”

“Take her to her favourite restaurant.”

“She likes Western food, I no like.”

Elaine paused and then said, “What food do you like?”

“Chinese food!”

“Then take her to a Chinese restaurant,” she suggested.

“Chinese food in Canada too Western,” Lao Yang started complaining. “Everything deep fried, too sweet. In China, no lemon chicken, sweet-sour pork, ginger beef. Canadians more big bodies, Chinese small. We different bodies.”

Elaine persisted, “Then what can you do for her for Valentine's Day?”

Lao Yang paused and then said, “I cook her real Chinese food!”

“Like what?”

“Rice and
mapodofu
.”

“That sounds great, Lao Yang,” Elaine said, feeling satisfied that he had come up with something for himself.

When Lao Yang got home, he was surprised to see his wife, Mei, already there. She was home earlier than usual. His daughter, Linda, was practicing the piano. He was relieved he was finally home again, where he could speak Mandarin.

“I thought I would give you a surprise today when you came home,” Lao Yang said with a smile.

“A surprise? What?” said Mei.

“For VALEN-DAY,” said Lao Yang loudly, using the new English word he'd learned.

“Oh, Valentine's Day! You've started to celebrate
lao wai
^1
1
festivals.” She sounded excited. “I'm so happy to see you have accepted the cultural customs here.”

“I didn't know that it was Valen-Day today,” Lao Yang said honestly. “Elaine told me and she tried to persuade me to buy you flowers. That's not practical.”

“Don't say that! I like roses,” she said, adding, “I know you will get used to it here sooner or later.”

Lao Yang's smile disappeared. “I'll never like it here.”

“You will. Once your English improves, you will find a good job,” his wife cheerfully said. “Then you will like it here.”

Lao Yang sighed. “I'm too old to learn English now,” he said. “If I were ten years younger, I would like to go back to school, learn this damnable language and get my engineering certificate.”

“Don't say you're old. All my friends say you look much younger than me. Look at me, I'm still a student. And I don't feel old at all.”

“Men are different from women. Their life spans are shorter than women's. Also, women are better at resisting aging psychologically, and—”

“Okay, stop!” Mei interrupted. “Remember, it's Valentine's Day today.”

“Do you also want to follow the customs here? You know I don't like candy or flowers,” Lao Yang said.

“I know that. So I got you something else.” Mei took out a wrapped gift from her purse and handed it to Lao Yang.

Lao Yang took the wrapped gift, looked at it and then shook it near his ears, trying to guess what was inside. As he did this, Linda came up to them to see what Lao Yang had gotten. Lao Yang turned to his daughter and said, “Your Mama has learned the
lao wai's game very quickly. She's never bought me anything for Qingrenjie before.”

“Do in Rome as the Romans do,” Linda quoted, adding with excitement, “Ba, open it and see what it is!”

“No,” Lao Yang said, setting the gift down on the table. “I think I'll open it after dinner. I'll prepare our dinner first.”

“No, Ba, open it now!” Linda said. “The custom here is that you have to open the gift in front of the guests, and then say thanks.”

“Okay, okay.” Lao Yang began tearing off the wrapping paper. There was a box. He opened it, and saw a leather wallet with many pockets for credit cards inside. Looking at it, he said, “This must be very expensive. You don't have to spend big money on unnecessary things.”

“But you need this wallet for the credit cards and your bank card,” Mei said.

“Let me have a look.” Linda took the wallet from him. “Wow, it's a good one and it's a brand name, Crocodile. Look, there are lots of holders and you can put in all your cards, especially your credit cards.”

Lao Yang frowned. “You know I don't want to use credit cards. I don't feel like I am actually spending money when I use them. It's deceptive. The credit company charges high interest if you fail to pay on time. That's why people here have such high debt. I want to use cash. Using cash makes me aware of how much money I really have to pay, and I will never owe banks money.”

“Ba, people here don't use cash as much as we do back home,” Linda said, nudging him. “Please say thanks to Mama.”

Lao Yang said in a dispirited tone, “Thank you, but I want you to know that my heart aches when I see you spending money on me like this. This must have cost my whole day's wage. You two
women don't work as a
dagongzai
^2
2
here like me. If I continue with these dead-end jobs, I'll be a dagongzai forever. I'll go crazy!”

“Stop talking like this!” Mei admonished. “It's Valentine's Day today.”

Remembering his promise to Elaine, Lao Yang said, “Actually, I was going to cook our favourite dish for our dinner tonight. That's my Valen-Day gift for you. I am going to cook now.”

With a smile, Mei replied in English, “Thanks, my dear.”

“Don't say ‘my dear!'” Lao Yang snapped. “I get ‘chicken bumps' when I hear you call me ‘my dear. '”

“It's not ‘chicken bumps,' but ‘goosebumps' in English,” Linda corrected him.

“I don't want to hear any more English today. I've had enough!” Lao Yang said, exasperated.

“Listen, I don't want you to cook today. We'll save it for some other day. Let's go out for dinner,” Mei suggested.

“But I don't like to eat out,” Lao Yang protested.

“Why? Not even for today?”

“I hate to eat in restaurants,” Lao Yang said in a loud voice.

“I know you don't like Western food, so let's go to a Chinese restaurant.”

Lao Yang became really angry now. “It doesn't matter what restaurant it is. It all reminds me of the boring dagongzai job like the one I have. It's a shit-hole where I work. I peel onions and carrots, all day. My job is never done. There is always another thing I have to peel or cut. I want to finish as quickly as possible so that I can take a break. Chopping, peeling, and cutting, I'm sick of work like this! Screw this job! When will I ever leave this hell?!”

“I'm sorry,” Mei said. “I didn't realize it hurt you when we eat out in restaurants.”

“You never think of my feelings. All you think is how lazy I am in learning English. How can I have energy to learn it after a day of tedious and boring work?”

They ended up having dinner at home. Lao Yang prepared delicious plates of mapodofu,
disanxian
^3
3
, homemade salad, stewed chicken with dried mushrooms, and vermicelli he bought in Chinatown, all of which were Mei's favourite dishes. But there were no festival feelings around the dinner table, only a subdued silence.