Good Chinese Wife Read online

  “Very few Americans come to Hidden River,” his dad continued, “so only yuánfèn could bring you to our home.”

  “Xièxiè.” I thanked him. Cai’s dad seemed to accept me immediately. Over the years, he would turn out to be my strongest ally in Cai’s family. He also repeated the crow proverb all week. “Remember, àiwūjíwū. I know our conditions aren’t very good. It’s cold inside and we don’t have hot water, but as long as you have love, everything will be all right.”

  • • •

  Just like in the dorms in Hong Kong, we slept in separate rooms at Cai’s parents’ apartment, according to Chinese tradition. But that night, he snuck into my room after his parents fell asleep.

  “Your parents are next door,” I cried. I didn’t want them to think I was loose.

  “No problem,” he whispered, climbing into bed with me. “They’re asleep.”

  “I know, but what if they wake up? And what about protection?”

  “We’ll be quiet. And everything will be okay. I’ll pull out early.”

  Cai and I hadn’t yet had sex. We both had roommates and never knew when they would return. Now in Hidden River, away from the other students, we finally had an opportunity for intimacy. Because of the freezing indoor temperatures, we kept our sweaters on and stayed under the electric blanket, which Cai had turned off as soon as he scrambled into my bed. I’d read about “clouds and rain,” a poetic Chinese term for sex, but on this frigid night it felt more like a few sprinkles in a dry desert. I figured Cai kept it quick and quiet because his parents were in their bedroom on the other side of our wall.

  He stood up in haste after he’d finished. “I better go back to my room.” He sounded as if he were talking to a stranger with whom he just had a one-night stand.

  I’d hoped he’d sleep next to me until the early hours of the morning, before his parents woke. “You can’t stay here until the morning?”

  “Sorry. My parents are next door.”

  I was disappointed to spend the rest of the night alone, but I understood the cultural norm. And I didn’t want Cai’s parents to think I didn’t respect their customs.

  • • •

  Cai’s parents insisted I call them Mama and Baba. Retired and in their fifties, they enjoyed a leisurely life in Hidden River. Most people from their small city had never left China, let alone Hubei province. Baba’s travel history corresponded to the first category, having journeyed as far south as Guangzhou, once known as Canton; Mama fit the second.

  In the evenings, we sat around the TV watching reruns of the New Year’s Eve variety extravaganza that the whole country tuned into and then spent a week discussing, rehashing, and analyzing over their dinner and mah-jongg tables. Toward the end of my stay, during a commercial break in our nightly TV marathon, Baba sucked some air through his teeth and smiled widely. “We think you should get married as soon as possible.”

  Mama squealed, her eyes bulging. I guess they didn’t think I was a slut or a selfish American. Many parents in remote areas of China wouldn’t have been so compassionate.

  I’d never been opposed to marrying Cai sooner rather than later. There wasn’t a day that passed when I didn’t doubt my future with Cai. He was the guy I couldn’t let get away. I also secretly worried he might change his mind if we didn’t marry soon. What if he grew bored with me? Or if he decided our cultural differences were too great and just not worth the trouble?

  As if reading my thoughts, Cai gently caressed my knee with his long fingers and turned to me. “It’s a good idea. We could travel together in China this summer if we got married first. And we could live together in the dorm come fall. What do you think?”

  I looked at Cai, then at Cai’s parents’ eager eyes. “Yes.” I nodded. “I’d like that.”

  Mama squealed again and Baba placed his hands together, bowing slightly as if giving thanks to a revered deity.

  “But what does marriage have to do with traveling together?” I asked, looking from Cai to his parents.

  “We can’t stay in the same hotel room in China without a marriage license. It’s against the law here. So if you come with me to China this summer for fieldwork, it would be easier if we were married.”

  “Yan!” Mama shrieked. “You and Susan can get married this summer. Since you’ll be in China, you can marry here in Hidden River. Susan, maybe your parents can come for the banquet.”

  “We should first get our license in Hong Kong,” Cai interjected, “where it will be written in Chinese and English.”

  I liked the idea of a civil ceremony in Hong Kong with a banquet in Hidden River. Cai’s parents went on to explain that in mainland China the couple might receive their marriage certificate months or even a year before their banquet, but they still aren’t officially married until they drink toasts with their loved ones around tables of Chinese delicacies. So we could obtain our marriage license in Hong Kong at any time, but Cai’s family wouldn’t recognize our marriage until we held a huge banquet.

  These plans seemed perfect for us. My parents had never visited central China, so it would be a unique experience for them. And, I rationalized, what better way to see this part of China than to attend the boisterous wedding party of their own daughter? I became so caught up in envisioning my parents on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Hidden River that I didn’t stop to realize that our plans were rushed or impulsive.

  “Is that all right?” Cai asked me in English.

  “Of course it’s all right.” I switched back to Mandarin for the benefit of Cai’s parents. “I think my parents can probably come here this summer. They don’t teach then.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Cai announced. “We’ll get our license in Hong Kong this spring, and we’ll have our banquet here in the summer.”

  “We can take care of your baby!” Mama’s eyes beamed. I smiled, humbled by her words, but didn’t take them seriously. Her offer was probably just a way of saying she couldn’t wait to have grandchildren from us.

  “Thank you, but we’re not sure where we’ll live,” I said. “It’s probably not going to be in Hidden River.” If Cai hadn’t told his parents that he wasn’t coming back to Hidden River after graduation, I didn’t want to be the one to break the news.

  “I know.” Her eyes still radiated from the thought of more grandchildren. “The baby can stay with us. For several years.”

  What? Never. I felt a wave of nausea collide with a lump in my throat. She wasn’t joking, either. There’s no way I’d ever let our baby live in Hidden River, with or without me. I had to put an end to this idea now, before she thought I’d agreed. “We don’t have that custom in America. Cai and I can take care of our baby.” I forced a smile to hide my panic as the TV program resumed.

  “But kids don’t learn anything until they’re five, so we can take care of your baby here.” Mama spoke with the authority of the teacher she was before she and Baba retired a couple years earlier.

  I would never, ever let her take my baby. With a look of terror, I turned toward Cai, hoping he would stand up to his mother. He nodded as if he could read my mind.

  “Mama.” Cai put up his hand. “Americans don’t do that. We’ll raise our own kids.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured to both Cai and his mother. This issue had never crossed my mind back in Hong Kong, but now that Mama brought it up, I was relieved Cai had quickly come to my side.

  Chapter 8

  A Hong Kong Wedding

  For most twenty-four-year-old American brides, their wedding day is the pinnacle of their lives, the day they’ve dreamed of for two decades. A white wedding gown, coiffed hair, and meticulous makeup. A maid of honor, mother of the bride, and a cute flower girl and ring bearer to help the bride celebrate her big day. Hours of planning about invitations, flowers, seating charts, rehearsals, and interviews with photographers, musicians, and event space directors. I never p
aid much thought to those things; I just wanted to find a man who loved me as much as I loved him.

  I woke up alone on the day I was to marry Cai in a Hong Kong civil ceremony. Na Wei had slept in her boyfriend’s room the night before, and Cai was in his room, since it wasn’t culturally acceptable for unmarried couples to spend the night together if they wanted to keep their reputations intact. I was serious about showing Cai that I respected his culture. So I didn’t ask him to stay over or object when he insisted on returning to his dorm room alone each night.

  A few weeks before our civil service, Cai and I had spent a long afternoon shopping for a dress I could wear to our wedding. It was a little depressing to find that the ones I liked didn’t come in a big enough size. And the only dress Cai chose—made of a red and black bandana fabric—seemed more fitting for a picnic. With time running out before our ceremony, I put together a mismatched ensemble of clothes I already owned: a brown sleeveless dress layered with a white linen tunic embellished with frog buttons, topped off with a long black jacket. I looked like a member of a makeshift orchestra.

  Not bothering (or knowing how) to style my hair differently from its normal air-dried mass of shoulder-length curls, I left my room and started up the mountain to my morning class. I didn’t give a second thought to my clothes and hair, which seemed trivial to the event at hand. Hoping the next few hours would pass quickly, I inhaled the delicate morning scent of campus: lanky ashoka trees, fragrant bauhinia, and mossy greens mixed with the sea smells from Tolo Harbour.

  My two-hour political development seminar seemed to last five hours. I had a ready explanation if someone asked about my eccentric outfit—plans after class off-campus—but no one seemed to notice. I was the only non-Chinese in my program, so my local classmates probably chalked up this strange style to my foreignness. We had one eccentrically dressed mainland Chinese classmate who perhaps didn’t notice my outfit because it seemed normal to her. But my attendance in class stood out more than any outfit. Because of me, the professor taught in English, not Cantonese.

  After class, I flew down the crumbling cement stairs sculpted into the side of the mountain, stepping over giant snails that had come out after the rainstorm the previous night. Cai was waiting with a wide smile at our designated meeting place in front of the student center, halfway down the mountain. He looked stunning in a gray and white herringbone jacket, white dress shirt, gray dress pants, and a red tie.

  We grabbed a quick dim sum lunch, but I felt so anxious for our ceremony to begin that I barely touched my usual repertoire of curry squid and shrimp dumplings. Cai paid the bill before we headed down the rest of the mountain to University Station, holding hands the entire way. Approaching the station, we saw our two witnesses seated on a bench near the entrance. I had asked my exchange student friend, Cee Cee, to serve as my witness, and Cai had enlisted his female classmate, Luo Minghui, the woman he was with the night we met.

  Two stops away, the Sha Tin train station sat at the edge of a mega mall that faced the sort of town hall, library, and performing arts center found in most satellite towns, or self-contained suburbs far from the bustling business districts of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. One of the first shops we reached in the mall was a florist’s, a space that only fit a couple of customers. Cai ducked in for several minutes. When he reemerged, he was cradling a huge spring bouquet of yellow lilies and peach roses that he handed to me with a romantic smile. I almost melted into the pavement.

  At the town hall marriage registry, we checked in minutes before a female official called our names. I half expected to see Janice rush into the lobby, exclaiming that of course she would never miss my wedding. She had recently started a new job with an American consulting firm only one station away, but it felt like she was back in Washington, DC. Just weeks ago, I had called her at work with my big news.

  “Are you sitting down?” I asked.

  “You’re pregnant!” she whispered.

  “Are you kidding me? Of course I’m not pregnant.”

  “That’s a relief. So what’s the big news?”

  “I’m getting married next month.”

  Silence. Then, “Shit. You barely know him.”

  “We were going to wait until after graduation, but we figured if it was going to happen eventually, why not now?” I explained hurriedly, adding, “Our ceremony is at two thirty on the thirtieth in Sha Tin. It’s a Thursday. Could you come for a while? It shouldn’t take very long.”

  I knew Janice would never understand how much I loved Cai or why I knew I needed to seize the opportunity so quickly—before it escaped—to be with this amazing man who loved me back. In truth, deep down I was terrified Cai might change his mind.

  Janice paused. “I don’t know what I’ll be doing that week. I’ll come if I can. How about that?”

  “Of course.” But my gut told me she wouldn’t be there.

  And sure enough, a week ago she had quickly mentioned that she was swamped at work. I couldn’t think too long about her absence without tearing up. It wasn’t so much the fact that she disapproved, because I knew I couldn’t force her to like him. But she was my best friend, and I couldn’t imagine getting married without her by my side. I started to feel her slipping away, going back to when Cai and I started meeting on a nightly basis, and I didn’t want to choose between my friendship with Janice and my marriage to Cai.

  That’s why I still hoped she would come to our ceremony. But Janice didn’t show up.

  Despite her absence, I was determined not to let anything spoil my big day. I brought up the rear of my group and peered around the room at the other wedding parties. The brides stood out in their white lace gowns and carefully styled hair, pinned up and slightly curled at the ends. They all looked beautiful, but it wouldn’t have been convenient for me to do the same. We had a tight schedule that didn’t allow for extra time to change in and out of a fancy dress. And I was fine with that; I just wanted to get married.

  My party of four followed the marriage official into a small room with plush, red padded walls. A small boardroom table stood in the middle of the room, and a line of chairs flanked one wall. I couldn’t imagine how a large wedding party could fit into one of these rooms. Perhaps we were in one designated for those who chose the elopement option, like us.

  Mrs. Lee, the marriage official, placed a certificate printed in English and Chinese on a table. I had never attended a wedding in Hong Kong, so I wasn’t sure how it would differ from ceremonies in the United States. I grasped my bouquet, which at that moment seemed a little excessive for an audience of two. But I held on to it happily.

  Just as with my professors, Mrs. Lee began the ceremony in English because of my presence. She pointed to our marriage certificate and asked me to sign my name above a line that read “spinster.” Cai signed his above “groom.” She then motioned for Cee Cee and Luo Minghui to add their signatures as witnesses.

  Switching to Cantonese, she asked Cai if he took me as his bride. I could only understand a few words, but I breathed a sigh of joy when she asked me in English if I took Cai as my husband. Although the exchange of rings wasn’t a tradition in China yet, most married couples in Hong Kong wore them. I was going to have a wedding band; however, Cai was not.

  He had explained a month earlier that he would wear a ring if I insisted, but if it were up to him, he would opt not to have one. He didn’t like the feel of jewelry on his skin. Since my father didn’t wear a wedding ring for the same reason, I thought nothing of it and told Cai to do as he pleased. (I also worried that protesting would make me appear to be a nagging wife even before we were married, something that Cai detested.)

  Mrs. Lee turned again to Cai. “Sir, do you have a ring?” She spoke the first word in English.

  “Yes.” From his inside jacket pocket, he retrieved a tiny, red satin bag fashioned like an envelope. He unsnapped the flap, running his finger along the inside
to unzip it. Reaching into the bag, he pulled out a yellow gold ring engraved with the Chinese characters for double happiness or joyful marriage. Mrs. Lee asked him to place it on my finger.

  So far, the ceremony mirrored a normal American wedding except for the mix of languages and the bilingual marriage certificate, which were nice touches unique to Hong Kong. From what Cai told me about weddings in mainland China, people simply registered for a license in a government building without an exchange of vows or rings. Yet couples weren’t considered truly married until they held a large banquet for family and friends, so we planned to have our banquet in his hometown later that summer. I was grateful to Cai for suggesting this civil ceremony in Hong Kong before going to China, so that we began our married life in this special place where we met and fell in love.

  “You may now kiss your bride.” Mrs. Lee beamed. Cai brought his lips to mine and kissed me long enough for our friends and Mrs. Lee to clap.

  I was his wife.

  There was no wedding recessional or thrown rice as we left the room, but I felt just as glorious as a bride being showered with rose petals. Beaming, Cai and I walked back through the marriage registry, hand in hand, as other couples waited for their turns. Outside, we bid good-bye to our friends and thanked them.

  “Why don’t I take your bouquet back to the dorm? I’ll keep it for you until tomorrow,” Cee Cee said.

  I thanked her and handed over my flowers. Now I wouldn’t have to carry them to the hotel where Cai and I would spend the night. Even though we needed to return to campus the following morning so he could make his weekly appointment with his PhD adviser, Dr. Tsang, I wasn’t bothered about our abbreviated honeymoon. All I could think of was one thing: the next twenty hours would be ours.

  Chapter 9

  Honeymoon in Hong Kong

  As man and wife, Cai and I headed for an abbreviated honeymoon in Tsim Sha Tsui, the district that sits at the tip of the Kowloon Peninsula. We were staying at the Mira Hotel on Nathan Road, only a mile up from the waterfront promenade that overlooks what I consider to be the most breathtaking skyline in the world. My mom and her family had traveled to Hong Kong in the 1960s and usually stayed in the same area. The Mira was a popular hotel back then, but I had never heard any of my family members speak of it. Still, I pictured them walking down this street thirty years earlier, dressed in suits and shift dresses, and poking their heads into the tailors and jewelry shops that lined the road.