Beijing Bastard Read Free Page B

documentary about them. I wanted to kick my nerdy upbringing to the curb and chase that vision of myself that had flitted across the screen in
Beijing Bastards.
Imagine the street cred I’d have if it worked out! This wasn’t a plan that anyone with any common sense would have hatched. Luckily, I had none.
    When my parents heard the news that I was moving to the country they’d fled almost fifty years before, they were less than happy. Things may be different today, but in the late 1990s no one in their right mind was moving to China.
    â€œHow about graduate school in English, Val?” asked my mom. “A job in publishing in New York? You had that summer internship.”
    â€œIt was great because it helped me figure out that I didn’t want to work in publishing in New York.”
    â€œWhat is your Five-Year Plan?” my dad demanded, as if I ran my life like a socialist dictatorship.
    â€œFive years?” I said. “I can barely think about the next five minutes!”
    â€œWhy go to China? Do you know how dirty the bathrooms are there?”
    â€œI thought you would be happy. You made me learn Chinese growing up and whatnot.”
    â€œYou were pampered growing up,” said my mom. “You’ll see when you get there.”
    â€œYou’ll hate it there,” my dad assured me.
    Before I left, each took me aside for a private talk.
    â€œVal, I want you to watch out for men who will want to marry you for a green card.”
    â€œOh, Mom,” I said after I’d stopped laughing. “I don’t even like Chinese guys.”
    Her expression shifted. “Val, don’t be so close-minded. If you find a nice one who you think can make it in America, don’t say no just because he’s Chinese. Keep an open mind.”
    My dad warned me about corruption. “China is a place governed by relationships, not by the law. People will do favors for you and expect you to do favors in return,” he said. “Your Yeye had hated that about China and you have no experience dealing with it.”
    I nodded.
    â€œPlus, the customer service there is terrible,” he said. “Terrible.”
    To them, me moving to China was a step backward that would unravel all the work they’d put into my life. They had achieved the Chinese-American dream: steady job, house in the suburbs, children through good colleges. I was supposed to repeat the pattern. I didn’t tell my parents that my dream was to make a documentary, to be an artist.
    My dad also told me that Nainai still owned a courtyard house in Beijing. He had lived in it for two years of his childhood and all he remembered was that it was located on a wedge of land between two roads. He didn’t know much more than that.
    As for Yeye, he found out on his deathbed that I was going to China; I never knew what he thought about it. I know only that he believed he could never go back to China because as soon as he stepped off the plane he would be captured and executed, even though we told him that anyone who might kill him was probably already dead.
    The only member of my family who wholeheartedly approved of my decision was Nainai. “Life is slower in China. People don’t rush around like they do in America,” she said in a tender voice I wasn’t accustomed to hearing. “You’ll love it there.”

Chapter Two
Fresh Tensions in U.S.–China Relations
    I awoke with a start.
    â€œZao,”
said Bobo. Good morning. I was lying in bed, earplugs in my ears, airline eyeshade over my eyes, but they were no match for the big color TV two feet behind my head, which Bobo had just turned on, loud. Bobo is Nainai’s eldest brother’s eldest son and was the relative in Beijing with whom she kept in closest contact. When I had moved to Beijing the week before, Bobo had graciously allowed me to stay with his family until I found my own apartment. He, his wife, their son Xiao Peng,