The Cooked Seed (20 page)

He didn’t carry the usual fresh-off-the-boat immigrant look, nor did he appear disoriented by his new surroundings. Instantly I found myself wondering where his confidence and ease came from. His face beamed as he surveyed the exhibition. He wore a Western black silk suit and a long gray coat. Around his neck hung a bright-red scarf made of wool. I was impressed. Later I’d learn that he had picked up his wardrobe from the local thrift store.

I asked the meaning of his name in written Chinese. He was pleased to explain. “
Qigu
, as ‘unique valley.’ ”

“This is not a working-class name,” I said, already sensing his family background.

“You have excellent sense.” He smiled. “No, it’s not a working-class name.” He said the Jiang family had been the wealthiest in Zhejiang province until the 1949 revolution, when Communists took over China. The family was evicted from the home that had been built by his great-grandfather during the late Qing dynasty. Mao personally claimed the old Jiang mansion. The government also confiscated the Jiang family land, temples, and collections of art; these included valuable ancient scrolls of Chinese calligraphy. “It’s just another boring story,” he said. “How about you? How’s life in America? Do you miss China?”

I told him that I missed everything Chinese, especially reading.

“That’s strange,” he responded. “Most would say that they miss Chinese food.”

“I have been avoiding speaking the mother tongue for years.”

“Why?” he looked at me intently. “How can you?”

“It is the only way to learn English. Survival depends on my ability to communicate.”

He smiled and said that my English sounded excellent.

“You are not bad yourself,” I complimented him. “Where did you learn to speak English?”

He told me that he had learned English at the Shanghai Teacher’s College, where he had earned his bachelor’s degree. He passed the TOEFL test with a score of 540. I asked why he came to America.

“Because there is no freedom of expression in China,” was his reply.

“You think you can find it here?”

“Yes.”

I thought the newcomer would soon find out otherwise. I didn’t mean to be rude or blunt, but I couldn’t help myself. “Without a green card, there is no freedom in America.”

“That’s not what I have heard,” he responded.

“Unless you have money,” I said. “Have you?”

“Two thousand dollars is all I possess,” he said. “But I don’t worry.”

“Where do you live?” I asked.

He told me that he was temporarily staying with an old college friend. “A few blocks south of Chinatown.” He had a work-study scholarship.

“You’re going to experience difficulty with people pronouncing your name.” I smiled.

“What kind of difficulty?”

“Well, when Americans see a ‘Qi,’ they pronounce it as
ki
instead of
chi
.”

He said that he had already experienced difficulties in almost everything, beginning with finding the bus stop. He couldn’t read the signs at the supermarket, either. He made me laugh because he kept pronouncing
supermarket
as “shoe-per-market.” He told me that he was already tired of correcting people who mispronounced his name.

“When I tell them I am Qigu, like Chico, they tell me that I have a Mexican name. I figure I should give myself an American name.”

In days to come I’d hear people call him David Jiang, John Jiang, Sy Jiang, and Cy Jiang in addition to Chico Jiang. He told me that he picked different names just to “try them out.” So far, none struck the right cord. He decided to live with all the different names to see if one would stick.

I found myself laughing with him. His lightheartedness lifted my spirit. I was impressed that he was able to meet a difficult situation with humor.

When Qigu told me that Chinese ink painting was his soul passion, I warned him that I could not be fooled. “I practiced Chinese ink painting myself for ten years,” I said. “And I got nowhere.”

He asked for an opportunity to demonstrate his talent. “I’ve never failed to charm people with my abilities. All I need is to be discovered and recognized.”

I told him that I had never met anyone who was so “full of booloony.” I had to explain to him what “boo-loony” meant. He didn’t mind and insisted that he was blessed with a gift. I offered him a brush, ink, and water. The exhibition in the gallery was being taken down—there was plenty of wall space. “Show me,” I said.

He took the brush and dipped it into the ink. With his eyes closed, in a single motion and with one stroke, he created a Michelangelo figure with hair-thin lines.

The image took my breath away.

The next time, Qigu came with his entire portfolio. He arrived a little before we switched shifts. He made a show of his elegant black case, which was made in China. I was stunned by the poetry in his work. Besides human figures, he painted my favorite subjects—bamboo, creeks, flowers, leaves, geese, hills, and clouds.

We began to chat in Shanghai dialect. Since I felt as if I had been living inside a pressure cooker, I asked him about his seeming tranquility.

It was then he revealed that he was a practitioner of Taoism and Zen.

“I know Taoism and Zen,” I said, “and all the rest of the Chinese stuff. But don’t you worry about survival in America? Money, security, and a green card? It is the first concern of every newcomer.”

“Of course,” he replied. “I just won’t let it chew me up. It’s the mind that kills the living.”

“Easier said than done,” I responded. “I used to, and still do, envy the American homeless. I consider them rich because they are blessed with citizenship. They have the right to work, and they already speak English.”

I also told Qigu that I admired the Chinese students who majored in math and engineering. “They live lives of security and peace,” I said. “They know they will get a job offer after graduation. They don’t chase the green card, the green card chases them.”

“Well, seemingly purposeful men but without a purpose,” Qigu said. “So many people with well-paying jobs lead miserable lives. They seek money so much that they are ruled by money. That is self-imposed slavery, in my view.”

Qigu was convinced that unless I could free myself from my mental cage, opportunities would pass me by. “There are options and solutions in dealing with the visa issue,” he said. “For example, one can hop from one community college to another and pay the low tuition in exchange for a student visa. You can be a lifetime ‘foreign student’ without violating US immigration law.”

Talking with Qigu relaxed me. To thank him, I invited him out for the five-dollar shrimp wonton soup in Chinatown. I insisted on paying, because I felt that I had been in America three years and was in a better financial situation. Five dollars would mean Qigu’s monthly salary in China. It didn’t occur to me that I was sending Qigu a message that I would regret.

Years later Qigu would tell me that he thought I was hitting on him. I not only set up the date, but also paid for the dinner. During the meal, I told Qigu that I had a hard time picturing myself, as an old woman, posing as a foreign student. “What an awful life would that be!”

Qigu laughed. “To me life is about making time to enjoy the sunshine,
to smell the flowers, to have friends and tasty food—as Americans would say, ‘a good time’!”

It didn’t take me long to discover that there were people who would pay to listen to Qigu. Margaret was one of them. She became Qigu’s instant disciple. She began to take Chinese brush-painting lessons from him. According to the Zen and Taoism philosophies Qigu preached, penniless people were better off than the wealthy. “They lead richer spiritual lives,” Qigu insisted. He firmly believed that people needed to free themselves of monetary concerns before they would be able to achieve nobility and find life’s purpose.

“Such human beings get a lot more out of living,” Qigu concluded. “They can truly feel, absorb, and harvest what life offers.”

Qigu made Margaret feel that going broke could be a purifying experience. “To let go of everything is the only way to gain everything.”

Qigu and I often ran into each other at the South Halstead bus stop. In the mornings we took the same route through Chinatown and the downtown loop. In afternoons or evenings, when we returned from the school or work, we took the same bus. He would get off on Thirty-fifth Street and I on Forty-third Street. Besides saying hello, we shared our views, discoveries, and opinions about America, our classes, art, professors, and schoolmates.

It was odd to me that Qigu had no intention of applying for a job in a Chinese restaurant. Instead he spent time learning about American art and artists. One day he invited me to visit his friends, who were former artists who had given up their passion in exchange for well-paying jobs in corporate America.

I was surprised to see that these people were deeply unhappy. They called their H-1 visa status “meaningless.” With Qigu they discussed their boredom, homesickness, and their inability to feel truly at home in America.

As if to compensate for their deprivations, they got together with Qigu on American holidays. They listened to classical music on their new, high-quality sound systems, and they cooked Chinese food. We
made Shanghai-style wonton with meat and spinach. Being with Qigu and his friends made me feel less lonely, although the dread of my visa expiring was never far from my mind.

The day before the Chinese New Year, Qigu and I rode the Halstead bus together on our way home from school. We joked about having to spend the Chinese New Year’s Eve alone. He told me about China’s new comedian stars. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a TV set,” he said. “The new broadcasting system by Central China Television is said to reach every corner in the world, including America!”

“I have a nine-inch TV set,” I offered eagerly.

It was too late when I realized that I had sounded too inviting. We stopped talking. The bus kept rolling. “Twenty-third Halstead,” the conductor announced. “Twenty-sixth Halstead.” “Twenty-ninth Halstead.” We sat in awkward silence. Everything was too obvious. A single man and a single woman—a convenient pair. I felt too old and too aware. There was nothing spontaneous or unexpected. Wasn’t love supposed to involve passion, not just naked needs? I felt that I was spoiling the relationship before it had a chance to begin.

The bus approached Thirty-fifth Street. Qigu rose as if in slow motion, as if hesitating and waiting. I debated whether or not to invite him. I concluded that I shouldn’t be the one to ask. I saw him sit back down and then stand again. He pulled the please-stop cord and the bus slowed down and angled toward the curb. At Thirty-fifth Street, Qigu moved toward the exit, nodding and smiling at me.

I felt strangely encouraged. Maybe it was just my imagination that he was moving so slowly. I felt an odd connection. A ripe moment. I found myself speaking: “If you like, you’re welcome to join me to watch TV.”

I convinced myself that it was nothing but a gesture between friends. But I already knew. I was fooling nobody but myself. I knew exactly what I was doing. In retrospect, I couldn’t say I didn’t ask for it.

If a good beginning equals half the success, according to the Chinese saying, a bad beginning equals half the failure. The truth was that I had no confidence. The foundation of my being had rotted, although
the building appeared to be standing. I feared that I would face the snow-covered parking lot and Nick’s stink forever. The difference between now and when I served as a laborer in China was that my age had almost doubled. Even though I dreamed that my prince would come one day, the reality had sunk in. The possibility that a prince might ever show up had faded.

Looking back, I must have given up, already, at the age of thirty. I must have already admitted and accepted my defeat. I had committed myself to a loser’s position.

I was being murdered by my own fear that I was missing my “last bus.” If I had kept my mouth shut that day on the bus and let Qigu get off at Thirty-fifth Street, I would have avoided a sad story. If Qigu had the means to love me, I should have had the patience to let him reveal himself. But I could not wait to end the misery of being alone.

“I have a nine-inch TV set” were the words that did the poisoning.

We watched three hours of TV broadcast from mainland China and talked during commercial breaks. Leaning against the narrow sofa bed together, side by side, we exchanged our childhood memories of growing up in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. Later, Qigu would tell me his first impressions of my place. He focused on the ugly cracks on the ceramic floor. “I am sure you had cleaned the floor,” he said, “but it looked dirty. It kind of made me wonder about your standards, just kidding.”

I found it difficult to see his opinion as humorous. I explained that I had cleaned my floor every day because I wore socks in the room. The floor was easy to clean because the space was tiny, less than four by five feet. I felt disappointed that I had left that impression. After all, it was our first date.

Our parting that first time was friendly. We both were awkward, too aware of what we were doing. We were no longer ordinary friends, and yet we were not ready to kiss good-bye as lovers.

We gave each other a hug, an imitation American hug—bear style, chests apart. Qigu pecked my lower cheek, half an inch from my lips. He bounced away, his face turning bright red.

A week later, Qigu invited me to the Moon Palace Restaurant in Chinatown. He came with gifts, a rose-colored silk scarf and a Paul Klee art book. I was flattered, although I felt bad about what he had spent, especially on the dinner. He was relaxed and enjoyed himself.

From then on, he paid me regular visits. We watched the Chinese news on TV together. One day, Qigu stayed past midnight. We had sex. It was unceremonial. Naked needs took us. Neither of us ever mentioned our “first time together” again. It was as if we were guilty of our act, as if we were using each other. We let it continue because it felt good, physically if not mentally.

It became inconvenient that I didn’t have a stove. It was easy to say yes to him when he invited me to his place, where we could cook together. By now Qigu had moved from his friend’s place. He lived alone on the top floor of a house on Parnell Street near Thirty-second Street in the neighborhood of Bridgeport. I was surprised that with only a few hundred dollars to his name, Qigu was not afraid to rent a two-bedroom apartment with a drawing room, a living room, and a kitchen. I asked him how he could possibly afford such a place. He replied that he planned to rent out one bedroom.