IrisDaddy: They kept trying to ask which college you got into, and your mommy finally told them it was none of their business. They were shocked. We won’t be talking to them at the country club anymore.
IrisDaddy: We really miss you.
Iris . . . . . . . . . . . .
Iris: Then why did you send me away??????
IrisDaddy: It was not an easy decision. You will understand when you grow up.
Iris: ???
IrisDaddy: We only want the best for you. A new place is good for a new personality.
Iris: You want me to get a new personality??
IrisDaddy: No, we want you to learn to work hard. Learn from your uncle, aunt, and cousin.
Iris: If I was miserable here, would you let me come home?
IrisDaddy: What’s wrong??
Iris: Please let me come home!!! [Retracted message]
Iris: Nothing … just really miss home.
Iris: BIG question: why didn’t you tell me that Grandma and Grandpa were alive??? [Retracted message]
Finally, I decide to stuff the 8,000 yuan inside my wallet so I can’t see it.
If it’s out of sight, I can ignore it, right? After all, my dad just said that he loves me. My dad can’t be the bad guy in this family situation. Despite our recent problems, he’s always understood me more than my mom has.
Curious, I take out the mystery item from my grandma in my boot. It’s a tiny gold envelope for the Red Mandarin Hotel, the kind that clerks give you when you check into a hotel. There’s a room number 33245 and a white plastic key card.
I stare at it, confused. Does my grandmother want me to go to the hotel? Was this an open invitation or a mistake? But slipping her room key into my hand seemed to be deliberate. I examine it for the longest time.
Unable to relax, I pull up high-res photos of the Red Mandarin Hotel, a spiraling glass palace in the shape of a flying dragon, on my iPhone and realize that it’s one of Uncle Dai’s famous seven-star hotels, built only a few years back for celebrities and the world’s top 3 percent. The Red Mandarin Hotel is award-winning for hospitality and received Beijing’s top architectural medal. I’m impressed that Uncle Dai is responsible for such a fantastic feat.
I realize that even if I found a way to the hotel, I wouldn’t be able to communicate with my grandmother. How would she be able to tell me the truth about the past? No one told me that growing up and learning family secrets in another language would be practically impossible. I am honestly disappointed in myself, almost ashamed that I never tried harder to learn one simple greeting. I can’t even say “grandmother” in Chinese. My fear of studying and failing means that I might never be able to speak to her. I keep seeing her stricken expression over and over again. Would my grandmother say that I wasn’t Chinese? If I don’t understand her, will she think that I’m not part of her family?
Not speaking Chinese has already made me an ugly centipede in my Beijing family of silk caterpillars.
All this unexpected sleuthing is making me ravenous, and I realize that my appetite is back. To cheer myself up, I order room service: strips of raw mutton to be instantly boiled in a cauldron of hot water, shredded pork tenderloin in green sweet-spicy bean sauce, and zesty soybean noodles piled with lightly stir-fried vegetables.
What would my parents say if I flew back to America? What if I told them that I just couldn’t learn Chinese? That I tried to be ethnically, culturally, and politely Chinese, and I completely failed in every way possible? Nothing is stopping me if I used Uncle Dai’s wad of yuan. They wouldn’t legally be able to kick me out, would they? But then I imagine the shock, red-eyed fury, and nonstop disappointment that they would feel if I disobeyed them again. We might never recover as a family. I just want things to go back to pre-failing-senior-year days. I want us to be happy and normal and ordering seven-layer ice-cream cakes together from Dairy Queen.
I used to think being Chinese meant that I had to be a boring geek like my dad or a super-high-achieving CEO like my mom, but in reality, I just didn’t know the definition.
But in this city, there seems to be more to being Chinese than politeness, hard work, and pan-fried noodles. Whether I like it or not, I am connected to a long legacy of real and complicated people who have ugly secrets. At the same time, I am not used to being an outsider, a hopeful loner, or an unlicensed detective who has to use her IQ to solve serious life problems.
Why does Generation Z have to solve the issues of all the past generational alphabets? Is it because there are no other letters after Z?
I take comfort in the fact that if we were still friends, Samira and her dad would be so wildly jealous that I have my own real-life soap opera.
Instead of watching TV, I surprise myself and find the Mandarin language textbook from Uncle Dai that I hid under the bathroom sink. Feeling determined, I flip it open and ignore the escalating panic that typically takes over my mind whenever I have to study. “Nǐ hǎo, nǐ hǎo ma,” I keep repeating, even though I’m not sure how to properly say it. How are you? I want to ask my grandmother. I practice saying it at least a hundred times, in four different voices (soprano, alto, tenor, and bass) because I’m not sure which tone improves my accent. And then I move on to “Wǒ jiào Wang Weijun.” My name is … “Wǒ shì nǐ de dà nǚ’ér …” I am your granddaughter. There are at least a thousand phrases in the book. If I learn three a night, I could be fluent in Mandarin (I use the calculator on my phone) in 333 days. That’s practically a whole year. Why does mastering a language take so long??!!
In one year, I could also find out that I have another identity and all this learning might have been for nothing. What if instead of Chinese, I am supposed to be learning Korean or something obscure like Latin?
If I am truly Chinese, shouldn’t I somehow find learning Mandarin easier based on my genetic makeup? If I’m truly ethnically, culturally, and politely Chinese, isn’t there a special cheat code to level up?
All night, my mind goes on fast-forward, images of my grandmother, Uncle Dai, and Ruby blending together in a confusing dream montage. Wǒ jiào Wang Weijun, I keep saying to everyone, but no one can understand me. Finally, nightmare Ruby tells me that I’m not Wang Weijun. I’m just an impostor who doesn’t belong.
21
Wasting Time
“Are you paying attention?” Frank asks me. He doesn’t say anything about me bailing on him yesterday. I want to make up creative excuses, but I’m too tired. Secret-keeping is exhausting. I don’t have enough storage space left in my brain. Plus, he should be proud of me. I practiced three Mandarin phrases for almost half the night. But I can sense his disapproval with the crossed arms and nonstop frowning.
Honestly, I also don’t know how my dad or Uncle Dai keep such complicated secrets. It’s like I’m doing intense, invisible work with my imploding thoughts and getting zero credit. I must be an outdated iPhone with 8GB, but my dad and Uncle Dai are the latest model with unlimited storage capacity.
After only one day, I just want to blurt out everything to anyone who will listen. My dad kept the secret of his brother and undead parents for seventeen-plus years. Did he keep upgrading his memory? Installing new software?
I’m still furious at my dad for lying not once but twice. Is he trying to deprive me of all the family that I could know? What would happen if I asked him to produce a family tree? Would all the ancestors that are supposed to be dead be actually part of the living too? What the hell is wrong with our family? Do people not die when they’re supposed to?