I’m so stuffed from steamed dumplings that I seriously need a nap.
That’s when I see it: a billboard over the Oriental Plaza. It’s a giant photo of my uncle, who is looking down over the entire boulevard. He’s grinning like he’s won the lottery. Like he’s a ginormous Rich Uncle Pennybags in a game of real-life Monopoly. Underneath the Chinese lettering of the board, I see the English title: FENG CONSTRUCTION CORP. Does my uncle own this mall?!
I have so many questions. Like how many luxury malls and properties he owns. And if he is actually my biological father.
I decide to hail a taxi, but the driver, a middle-aged man in a baseball cap, doesn’t speak a lot of English.
“What wrong with you?” he demands. “Why you not speak?”
“I’m American,” I say, irritated. Normally, I would be polite and explain that I’m from Bradley Gardens, New Jersey, but I’m honestly a bit cranky from always having to justify why I don’t fit in. Since I arrived in Beijing, I’m tired of explaining why my outsides don’t match my insides. It’s like asking a doughnut why it doesn’t have jelly filling.
“But you look Chinese,” he argues. “Why you not speak?”
“American Chinese,” I say, hoping that he’ll stop interrogating me about who I am. How is the concept of being born Chinese in a different country so foreign to Beijingers? Just because a Skittle is a teensy bit misshapen doesn’t mean that it isn’t still a Skittle. If I can’t be an exciting fusion dish, a bubbly and bold blend of two countries, where do I belong? I mean, why do I have to be only Chinese or American? Can’t I just be delicious, MSG-infused chop suey?
Sighing with annoyance, I show him the photo of the Shangri-La on my phone, and he nods, like he knows where the hotel is. But we drive in a full circle for forty-five minutes, and he seems to be hopelessly lost. We seem like we’re heading in the wrong direction. Office towers, concrete buildings, highways, and steel factories pass by.
Finally, he stops the car at an abandoned street full of old, deserted traditional Chinese houses. There’s no one here. I panic momentarily. I’ve seen CSI and Law & Order before, and I know when something horrible is about to happen. You never want to be the girl alone with a stalled cab. The character always ends up on the nightly news, whether or not they find her body.
“You pay me six thousand yuan or you get out,” he says, turning to me.
Is he kidding?
The cab driver scowls.
Would this even happen if I spoke a minimal amount of Chinese?
I’m scandalized but relieved that he’s not going to kill me (at least, not yet, anyway).
I won’t pay a scammer 6,000 yuan, so quickly, I hop out of the taxi and start running back to the main road. Pant-jogging, I have no sense of where I’m going, but I continue in one direction. To my relief, he doesn’t chase me with the car. I hide behind a dumpster in an alleyway to make sure that no one is following me. For an hour, miserable and blurry-eyed, I wander around until I somehow find myself at Xidan Commercial Street market. Around me, there are crowds and stalls of colorful clothing, socks, and cheap electronics in plastic bins.
Stress-panting like a Doberman on the way to the vet, I’m eventually able to speak to a small shop owner of funky-smelling herbal medicine, and she helps me flag down another cab and negotiate a fee of 87 yuan to the hotel. Never mind that the shopkeeper charges me an additional 35 yuan for her help.
Then I realize that I’ve forgotten all my purchases in the taxi’s backseat. I’ve never lost a whole day’s purchases before, and I’ve used up nearly half of my dad’s envelope of cash on travel and customer service.
I want to cry from such a horrible ordeal. What would my dad say if I told him that Beijing is ridiculously expensive and I had to spend all his money on emergency assistance? Would he blame me if I told him that I got scammed by a taxi driver?
When I finally get to the penthouse, sweaty and panting, I discover that my suitcase is missing. All my clothing, makeup, underwear, and my toothbrush are gone! This can’t be happening. I look everywhere for my belongings. I check the entire penthouse suite.
Maybe housekeeping accidentally took my bag away and stored it in a closet.
Maybe I’m in the wrong suite.
But when I go into my en suite bathroom (not a squat toilet, thank god!), I see a note on a piece of paper: GO BACK TO AMERICA. NO ONE WANTS YOU HERE!
Ruby. I sigh with anger. So passive-aggressive, right?
After my shitty day, her note makes me feel almost as horrible as a monthlong stomach ulcer. Furious tears begin splashing down my face, and I do my best to wipe them, but they keep monsoon-raining from my eyeballs. I don’t know how to stop crying from the hurt and frustration. Nothing I do in Beijing is working.
I know I did a supremely shitty thing—trying on Ruby’s clothes was rude, and then I also made her doggy-pageant gown unwearable. I ruined an expensive dress by not thinking and being completely disrespectful.
But how do I show her that I’m genuinely sorry?
Nothing in my social skill set from America is working.
I can’t possibly replace her dress, and even if I could, I am not sure how we could start over. How do you show someone that you are generally well-meaning and harmless? I’m practically a cute mosquito, not a termite.
And that’s when I see it: all my clothes strewn in the bathtub full of water. And the presents that I haven’t yet given to my uncle, aunt, and cousin thrown inside too. My cheeks become wasabi-hot. My throat constricts, like I’m choking on a sticky candy wrapper. When I bend closer and grab a few items, I realize that the scarf that I got for her had been cut into threads.
Even my favorite Victoria’s Secret bras have been snipped in half right through the center strap! What am I supposed to do? Walk around covering just half my chest?
Then I find one of my Converse sneakers, half-drowned, in the toilet.
Ruby did a very thorough job.
My eyes water for real this time. I hyperventilate. Anger bursts through me. How dare she wreck my things? Ditching me, ignoring me, and then shredding my clothes?
With hot, horrible shame, I realize that she’s not just blaming me for wrecking her beautiful gown. She wants me to go home. It’s her form of petty revenge, yes, but it’s more than that. These were my belongings. All the things that I brought with me from home. Anything to make me leave her penthouse apartment.
Suddenly, New Jersey feels very far away.
I unplug the bathtub. It gurgles, but then it gets stuck. I try again. It gets stuck. I can’t even unplug a bathtub in China. I start sobbing again and sound strangely like the gurgling drain.
Why don’t I fit in yet?
Why does being born in a different country, in a strange culture, make me such a weirdo?
And why does it make the simplest things across the world so difficult?
Being American Chinese in China is like accidentally showing up in old gym clothes to a black-tie wedding. It’s realizing that you have no clue about where you belong or who you belong to.
I’m interrupted from my erupting frustration when the phone from Uncle Dai rings. Even my iPhone, my old self, has been erased. I don’t even recognize the tone, but I pick it up anyway. Who would be calling me in Beijing?
“Weijun!!!” my uncle says, sounding relieved. “Mr. Chen say you and Ruby are not at store. Where you?”