The Trip

In Beijing, he boiled the water. It was August, so the hottest month of the year. He put the water into a thermos and carried the thermos on a sling. He called himself a cowboy because he thought he looked dumb. Other people in the group carried a thermos, too, though his wife did not. Their tour guide was Felix. Like Felix the Cat, Felix said, and he replied, O.K. He had been to Europe before, the six-hour time change was fine, but when thirteen happened something yellow crusted around his eyes. The bus was air-conditioned. He dozed off, woke up, and by then his wife had finished his cowboy water. On the Great Wall, he had to run, since she was sprinting. She had come here long ago with a cousin. She was trying to show him a specific spot. This spot, when they got there, was where she, admiring the mountains, had learned from her cousin the word for “cool.” To not know that word, shuang, until she was thirteen, did he know how that felt? But you knew it in English, he wheezed, no oxygen left. She made a face. They sprinted on.

The tour would take them through the big cities. It had been a gift. Her parents, divorced, said, on separate calls, We want your first husband to see China and have good memories from there and sample its regional foods and see the warmth of its people and not hate us civilians should our two great nations ever partake in nuclear war. At least, that was what his wife said she had translated, then paraphrased.

He had not wanted to go, but her family was there, all except for the parents, who now lived in different states. She had no siblings. So, for years, it had been just the three of them under one roof that belonged, depending on the fight, to either Mom or Dad, but in truth belonged to the bank.

Do you know what that’s like? she would ask.

He did. His parents were divorced, but the divorce had been incredibly normal. They had not stuck it out, as hers did, until the day their child left for college. When his mother became a nag, his father began to drink. She nagged him about the drinking, and then he had an affair. A most American story, his wife said. She was studying how to write and had read a lot of Cheever.

In Xi’an, he bought bottled water, then shared with her a sausage on a stick that reminded her of childhood. Childhood, she said, and went to get another. Next, they drank something herbal from red tin cans, and he tried to crush his can with his grip, but couldn’t, which made her laugh. Their tour guide was Helen. Like Helen of Troy, she said, and he said, Sure. The Terracotta Army impressed him. More so than the Forbidden City—crowded—or the Great Wall. One person in their group got lost. Helen had rushed them down a long road of souvenirs and said, Please don’t buy anything, we’re already late for pickup. But a tourist called Karl stopped to buy something. The air-conditioned bus then had to drive another loop, but got stuck behind a crash and reappeared two hours later. In those two hours, Helen became silent. Only when his wife spoke to her in Chinese did she reply. All Karl bought was a magnet. At least buy the entire army. At least buy us a terra-cotta chariot. Two hours’ wait for a magnet. Fuck that magnet.

In Chengdu, he drank alcohol. She took him out for hot pot, for which the city was known. Hot pot and pandas. Their tour guide was Shirley. Like Shirley Temple, she said, and he said, All right. Pandas were lazy, he knew, but now understood. A panda’s main form of exercise was to eat. He willed one to move and it just shredded bamboo, stalk after stalk. This panda reminded him of his father, or the merged silhouette of his dad and the La-Z-Boy. Instead of bamboo, his father had eaten celery, after his mother threw out the alcohol. Childhood, he said to his wife, and she told him to respect his elders. At the hot-pot restaurant, the staff brought out a cauldron of dark-red water. This is mild spice? she asked, and they said it was. Into the red water they put chili-paste-marinated ribs and hot peppers. She told him she was going to cry. Cry or die? he asked, as he had just a taste and a flamethrower went off in his mouth. The staff brought them a bottle of alcohol. Then a plate of watermelon. Per her translation, they said, All free, please enjoy, and, remember, don’t be a pussy.

In Beijing, his mother e-mailed, but he didn’t reply.

In Xi’an, his mother texted, and he said yes, they had landed.

In Chengdu, his mother called. She wanted to know if he remembered So-and-So. His mother worked at UPS, and So-and-So’s Gam-gam had come in to mail a package. Gam-gam said that So-and-So had finally found a job in D.C. She asked his mother to relay a message from So-and-So about their time in high school when they worked at Chick-fil-A and that fun summer selling Aflac insurance. So-and-So used to be his best friend. They had once dated the same girl, who was now So-and-So’s wife and obese after three kids. So-and-So used to play football, defense—that field, green year-round, was the most expensive part of their school. Because So-and-So’s job was government, background checks were extensive—did he have a record, did he travel, who were his family and friends. When his mother paused, he said he had to go. But wait, his mother said, you haven’t told me anything about China. I want to know what you’re doing and eating. What did you do and eat today? What are you going to eat and do tomorrow? Sorry, Mom, he said, I really have to go.

In Shanghai, they met up with his wife’s cousin, who lived alone and worked in a pie shop. Here the prepaid tour ended and they said goodbye to Karl and the others. His wife had booked a room at the Langham. There were no light switches, just a control pad by the bed. The toilet lid lifted each time he passed. In Shanghai, they ate more. Hot pot, grilled fish, barbecue, fried noodles, soup noodles, soup dumplings, regular dumplings, an upscale KFC. He could no longer remember hunger.

The cousin spoke English. At one meal, he asked her about his wife’s Chinese and the cousin replied that his wife’s Chinese was like that of a toddler.

Sorry? he said.

The cousin said that it was like talking to someone between the ages of three and five.

Oh.

For instance, she and I could not discuss, in Chinese, politics or culture. If I asked her what she thought of the clash between person and state, our preoccupation with status and wealth, our envy of the West, our pride, our tendency to self-criticize, your wife would not know how to respond.

The cousin’s English was great. The pie shop was run by an American who, on his study abroad, had discovered that China did not have pie, and thus opened a store to remedy this. His wife said nothing and looked down. Then the cousin laughed and they gan bei-ed. Back at the Langham, he told his wife that she could switch to English with her cousin anytime; they weren’t kids. No, his wife said, and that was that.

What do you think about the pies? he asked a little later.

Nothing, she said.

Really? he said. You have no thoughts on the pies?

She said she really didn’t.

His mother baked pies and his wife had thoughts on them. Come Thanksgiving, his mother usually made four, and his wife would look at the pies, each a foot in diameter, and ask why four modestly sized people—his mother had remarried—needed four large pies.

Nothing to say at all?

No.

His mother called, but he was in the shower.

His mother called again, and he picked up. Did he remember this teacher? The teacher had come in to mail a package and mentioned that her son used to be his student. The teacher said her son was the best and possessed a natural mind for math. I wrote his letter of rec, the teacher said, and it was an honor to. In the letter, the teacher wrote about what it meant for someone like her son to have come out of their little town; he emphasized how rare that was. It had come as no surprise to him when he saw in the local paper, which was displayed at the store, that his best student had graduated summa cum laude from Duke, or, later, in the same paper, that he was doing his graduate work at Harvard, his postgraduate work at M.I.T., and then that he had been offered a place at a computational think tank, modelling how blood moves in the body, through arteries and veins, saving lives, and now, most recently, that he had just published his first Nature paper—congratulations—which his teacher apologized for not being able to understand, after his mother had sent him a copy. Do you remember his son? his mother asked next. He said he remembered this teacher, wonderful yet firm, but not his son. Well, his mother said, his son teaches math at the community college, where they have lots of Chinese students now. Chinese students from China. Supposedly very lucrative, but I can’t imagine why Chinese students would want to come here. Maybe no one told them that there’s nothing to do. Listening, he thought, I love you, Mom, but I don’t like you. If he ever told her that, his mother would want to know when, at what point, exactly, he had stopped liking her. He would then have to say that it was gradual. But when did it start? Probably when he was eleven.

He did not read the local paper. His mother sent it to him, but he recycled. Only when a truly absurd headline appeared did he keep it as a reminder. One such headline was “Woman Kicked in Face by Deer.”

His wife did not get involved. The only time she did was when, one Thanksgiving, he mentioned that he was applying for a passport, as they were going to Europe for vacation. Suddenly, his stepfather got up and unmuted the television. His mother looked at his wife and then at him.

Tell me, his mother said, do the two of you have no interest in seeing the rest of America? Yellowstone. The Grand Canyon. The amount of natural beauty in this country is endless. Then his mother began to reminisce. They used to take road trips and go camping. He used to play cowboys and Indians in the back seat.

We are not trying to say that we do not love Yellowstone, his wife answered. He told his mother that it was just a passport.

We started watching documentaries about China because of you, his mother said to his wife. We loved seeing people eat with chopsticks, and the pandas—we loved seeing them play. We even bought chopsticks. She went to the cupboard. Do you want to use them? His wife looked down, and, seeing his wife look down, he told his mother to stop talking.

Why do I have to stop?

He stared at her.

No, I don’t think I want to.

Please stop talking.

What’s gotten into you?

Shut up right now.

Later, his wife said that the entire meal was surreal. She found his mother interesting. Someone like her actually exists, she said, almost excited. And these places exist, and your stepdad watches ESPN, and they don’t want passports, they’ve never been on a plane, all those pickup trucks, amazing!

But also, his wife said, somewhat serious, it must be confusing for your mom, how to stay involved without being afraid—impossible now—and fear can manifest in strange ways.

He didn’t think it was fear. He told her what he thought it was. Ignorance leads to fear, she said.

That year, his mother invited them, as usual, to the family reunion and he declined. They had a call about it.

So we’re not good enough for you anymore.

That’s not what I said.

When are you coming back to see me?

You already asked that.

At Duke, he had won an essay contest. He wrote about low expectations. The problem with low expectations, he wrote, is that they will often seem harmless or even kind. He won a thousand dollars. In college, he worked part time. There was a scholarship for first-gen students and advisers told him to apply. He opened the form but thought, If I get this, people will know. If I never tell, who would know? So he didn’t apply and accrued ninety thousand dollars in debt.

But what about high expectations? his wife asked. To be groomed for a six-figure career, do you know what that’s like? I have a friend, she would start. This friend was locked in a room by his parents until he could do something right.

We need an average, he told her.

I don’t want kids, she replied.

In Hangzhou, they met the rest of her family. Both grandmothers were still alive, and many uncles and aunts. A crowd of thirteen was waiting for them, the train-station arrival lane filled with mopeds and cars. Each person wanted to help carry something. In the end, they emptied out a suitcase to give each person a thing to carry. Then they all gathered at one aunt’s house, a large apartment with a terrace, to eat. I can’t eat any more, he told her, face down on the bed. She said he had to. Per her translation, her family thought all Americans could eat and if he couldn’t it would be disappointing. He might be the first and last American they’d ever meet and he had to deliver.

His mother called, but he was eating.

His mother called, but he was on the toilet.

His mother called, but he was out on a run.

In Hangzhou, her cousin took them to see a pagoda. The pagoda had a history, but he zoned out, as all his energy was being used to digest food. He sat down and listened to his stomach. Moments later, his wife and the cousin began to argue. He could make out parts. While admiring West Lake, his wife had said shuang, and her cousin had said that that word meant refreshing, not cool. Cool was ku, as in ruthless or strong, the Chinese word for “cruel.” His wife looked down. But immediately back up. The argument worsened until they had to leave, and, on the bus, it continued. At one point, her cousin turned to him and said in English, Hey, look, I’m arguing with a toddler, after which his wife swung her hand across the cousin’s mouth. Then no one spoke.

She is like a sister to me, his wife had told him. Or maybe the closest to a sister that I can imagine.

They had known each other from age zero through five, then at thirteen, twenty-one, and now.

She had also said to him, I get that you don’t want to see your family, but do you know what it’s like to have that choice be made for you? My parents chose to leave. I did not. I was lonely.

In their bedroom, just the two of them, he asked what the fight was about. Nothing, his wife said. Just that the cousin had called her an ABC and said that she was the most classic American-born Chinese she knew. Only ABCs went on prepaid tours, spoke bad Chinese, married out, and thought everything was cool or great, when most things were just plain.

But I was born here, she said. I had a passport from here that I gave up.

The pagoda is where the legendary White Maiden is locked. The White Maiden is beautiful, immortal, and can turn, when necessary, into the white snake from which she came. She has an immortal sidekick who comes from a green snake. His wife had said that she remembered the TV show they’d watched—which had led to arguments about who was more like the White Maiden—and her cousin had replied that it was so ABC of her to remember the show but not the Ming-dynasty legend, which she could not read.

His wife cried for ten minutes and then stopped. I see her point now, she said, and looked at him inquisitively. You know what I thought about when she called me an ABC? He didn’t. I thought about my parents. Because her parents had funny names and accents, they had to spell their names out each time, slowly and with references. Q for Queen. G for George. X for Xerox. Z for Zebra. Eventually, they changed their names altogether. Raymond like “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Lucy like “I Love Lucy.”

These were the last phrases his wife said to him in English. After that moment, something changed. She stopped translating for him, too. At meals, he could only look around or eat or laugh when everyone else did.

A phase, he decided. Something to get out of her system. But then he wondered if that made him sound like his mother, who called many things a phase. His allergy to cats, his view of the world, etc.

Her family watched television together. They went from house to house—each family member had a house for his wife and him to see and sit in, and a television to turn on so they could watch a variety show. The shows confused him, not just the language but the thought bubbles and commentary that exploded onscreen, over the actors’ faces.

Do we find any of this bizarre? he asked, but his wife just yelled ha-ha-ha alongside her aunts. Because her family sat around her, he was pushed to the other end of the room. A grandmother would sit next to her and stroke her arm. His wife didn’t seem to mind. One afternoon, a white man appeared on television. The white man spoke Chinese and wore rectangular glasses. Her cousin told him that this was Dashan, or Big Mountain, the most famous Chinese-speaking Caucasian in China. He spoke like a native. The American who ran the pie shop had decent Chinese, but not as good, so she called him Small Mountain. You could become either of them, her cousin said, or you could become Average Mountain. He said that this was not his plan.

His mother called and he answered so as not to watch more TV. What did you do today? What did you eat? He told her. And the day before? He told her. And what about tomorrow? He told her. Send me pictures of where they live. He asked why. She said she wanted to see what a Chinese town looked like. Do they have big kitchens and big couches, or no kitchens and floor mats? Do they buy their own produce or grow it themselves? Are there bazaars? Do they love dogs? Send me a picture of a well-loved dog. Does she come from a village? his mother asked. She does not, he said. But have they been nice to you? Have they treated you well? Are you eating enough? Is it too hot? How’s the air? Are you allergic to anything? Have you seen a hospital? A pharmacy? Are the police dangerous? Did you meet Chairman Mao? He’s dead, he said. But are there pictures of him up? Do they talk about him a lot? Do they pray? Have you seen a church? When are you coming back? When are you coming to visit? We can’t wait for you to visit. The next time you do, we’ll all go camping. Remember when you loved that? Remember cowboys and Indians and you would put mud on your face to— Mom, he said. Well, she continued, have you seen a park? Are there cars? Does her family have a car? Is it new? Send me a picture of a brand-new car. Are you getting around O.K.? Do you feel less free? Less free? he asked. Do you feel less free over there? He hung up.

When her cousin wasn’t there, they used Google Translate. They would speak into the phone mike and it would, supposedly, tell them each what the other had said.

I’m going out now, she said.

Where? he asked.

Out for a walk.

Do you want me to come?

Yes, but no, thanks, have a very nice day but you are not welcomed.

Then his wife put on a canvas bucket hat—there were many in the house—and went out for a stroll.

He looked online to see if this behavior was common. Of the medical causes, she could have had heat stroke or just a regular stroke. Had she concussed herself? Had there been a moment of trauma? On a husband forum, husbands offered theories about why their wives had stopped talking to them. There was another forum, directly linked, of husbands seeking advice on how to make their wives talk less.

She came back from the stroll with more food. Everything was in a bag, even her cup of coffee was in a bag, which she held by the handles as she drank. She sat down next to him with a huge bag of prunes and a medium bag of sunflower seeds. Did you have a nice time? he asked. She didn’t respond.

Did you have a nice time?

She took out her phone and spoke into it. Can I interest you in a prune?

But did you have a nice time?

Can I interest you in a sunflower seed?

Why is this happening? he asked.

Sometimes a thing just needs to happen.

Is this about my mother? Are you angry with me?

No harm, no foul. No pain, no gain.

I think you might be suffering from heat stroke.

Can I interest you in some yogurt?

Maybe we should go see a doctor.

No, I am not a doctor, but thanks for asking. That’s so kind of you. One of my aunts is a doctor, except she is not here right now. What is your emergency?

Did he have an emergency? He shook his head. She handed him a prune that was wrapped in waxed paper. He didn’t like it but ate two more. She poured sunflower seeds into his hand, and he ate them, too. They spat the shells into a metal bowl. Afterward, they spent some time looking for a canvas hat that would fit him.

My head is too big, he said.

No, Google Translate replied, it’s just that your head is too big and shaped like a triangle. But do not fret, we will find a triangle hat for you and, once we do, you shall wear it while we eat more prunes.

They wore their hats for the rest of the day. Her family complimented the look and took photos. He and his wife posed with their arms each forming a half heart and linked at the hands. In this country, young couples like to dress the same, one aunt said as the cousin translated. It is silly, and we don’t understand it. Maybe they’re awkward people. Or maybe they just want to merge. Yes, we don’t understand it, but I suppose merging can be good, or it can be frightening. Please keep the hat, it suits you.

He spent half of their last day in the bathroom, the other half at the dinner table. It seemed that his wife’s Chinese had improved. Her cousin said that it was now at the level of a first grader. Her cousin also had a message for him from his wife. His wife was sitting right across from him.

How would you feel if you went back first and I stayed a little longer?

What?

Her cousin repeated the message but now mimicked his wife’s voice.

No, he said, no way.

He looked at his wife, and she tilted her head. Only when her cousin translated did his wife go, Ah.

What would you do here? he asked.

His wife showed him her phone, which was logged into WeChat. She scrolled through all the people she had been chatting with on this app.

Who are these people? he asked, taking the phone away from her.

One was her cousin, her cousin said. Aunts, uncles, both grandmothers, her parents in the States. And friends she’d made here.

Here? he asked. Which friends?

Her cousin listed them. Felix the Cat. Helen of Troy. Shirley Temple.

Our guides? You’re talking with our tour guides?

And someone named Karl.

Oh, my God.

His wife beamed. She could type Chinese a bit, and the others humored her. Animated emojis filled in what she could not yet say. She was considering becoming a tour guide herself, here in Hangzhou. She could show Americans the pagoda and tell them the legend. Eventually, she hoped to read the original, ancient text.

Although, her cousin said, that would require college-level literacy. But, given her rate of progress, it would take her only a few months to achieve.

A few months? he said. No, no way.

His wife’s hand covered his. She looked sad again.

What about me? he was about to say. I am lonely, too. Then he thought about it more. He looked at his wife’s face, which was open and smooth. His wife spoke and her cousin translated. I will come back, but I need some time. I would like to do this on my own, but also with this family. Family is a choice, you’ve said. I am proud of you just as I hope you are of me. No fears, no tears. If you can, please add me on WeChat as well.

He nodded. That day, he flew alone.

On WeChat, she had a blog. He followed her posts, pictures of West Lake and the tourists she led around it, pictures of food, of pets, a talking parrot, a box of chicks, a pickup truck. She began to use some English again and he learned some Chinese.

Ku, she wrote.

Ku back. ♦