How Sweet the Bitter Soup Read online

  “Okay, everyone sit down,” I said. I gestured to their chairs and even sat down myself to reinforce the message.

  Everyone sat where they were, oblivious to my beautifully prepared name tags.

  “Now, where is . . . Jia . . . Jin?”

  They all laughed at the way I pronounced the name. They ought to know a bit of English, I thought, they’re probably just out of practice and a little nervous. Supposedly, most of them had been taught a little English in kindergarten and spent two hours a day on it last year, in first grade.

  “Are you Jia Jin?” I asked the tall girl.

  “Yes. I . . . Jia Jin,” she said.

  “Good, okay. Now where is Liu Ping?”

  A little boy raised his hand and said, “Here.”

  Great, I thought, their English is coming back to them and they are settling down.

  After going through the roll, I pointed out the name tags to them and had each student sit in their proper seat. I definitely had their attention now. I noticed them sneaking peeks around the room, too, and I could tell they were fascinated by all I had put on the walls.

  I had not been assigned my own teaching assistant since my class was so small. I was grateful when Lei Hong came in and asked if she could help. I knew that theoretically it was best to teach English using English; that was what all the methods I had learned in graduate school had espoused. However, on that first day, I wanted the students to be absolutely clear about a few things, so I had Lei Hong translate some classroom rules and then explain a bit about the reading corner and the program I’d designed to go along with it.

  After distributing journals and pencils to the kids, I had them copy what was on the board. I thanked Cai Hong and told her before she left to tell the students not to worry if they didn’t understand my words—that they should just try their best, and soon they would. She did, and they seemed happy.

  We took a five-minute break after the first hour, during which time I let my students go to the common room and work on a puzzle or simply talk to their friends. When they returned, they did their daily journals, which for the first several weeks would consist mostly of copying what I had written on the board.

  We did some calendar activities where they practiced the days of the week and months of the year. After a second break, I read them a story, and then we played a matching game with flashcards. I had managed to keep their attention so far. I was still a bit anxious about the lesson plan—until I looked at the clock and realized I had actually over-prepared.

  Phew.

  At the end of class I had the kids “sit nicely” in their desks (after modeling what that meant), and dismissed them one by one. They tried too hard to sit straight, and I could tell this was a competition for them, each wanting to be the first to be dismissed. Before I knew it, they were gone and I sat alone in my classroom. I’d just survived my first class.

  chapter 8

  I needed internet in my apartment, so I asked the school secretary, Irene, how to do this. She gave me a form to fill out but told me I needed to pay the fee somewhere else—it was impossible to pay for the connection there. This seemed inconvenient and confusing; I’d thought I would be able to take care of both at one place. But no such luck. The post office handled internet setup, Irene informed me.

  Going to the post office for internet services was a new concept to me, but I was up for it. I had to take two different buses in order to find my way to the post office; when I got there I managed, with my phrase book in hand, to find the right line reasonably quickly.

  As I was waiting my turn, people kept cutting in front of me in line. I am usually an assertive person, but this shocked me because the people doing it didn’t seem to think anything of it. Is this a cultural habit? I wondered. I tried to be patient when it happened again and again, but after the first handful of times, it started getting beyond frustrating. Being respectful of cultural differences was one thing; standing in a line all day and letting people cut in front of me was quite another. After the fourth person tried to cut in front of me I put my foot in front of him as if to say, “No way, buddy.”

  A shouting match in Cantonese ensued between the guy who’d just tried to cut in front of me and another guy who was in the line next to us. I wasn’t sure if the other one was defending me, or what the nature of their argument is, but as they were fighting about it, I worked my way up to the counter.

  The girl took my money and said, “You come tomorrow, get information.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What information?”

  She again repeated her rote phrase without looking up at me: “You come tomorrow, get information.”

  Just to see if I’d get another response, I dared to ask, “What time?”

  “You come tomorrow, get information,” she said—this time with a slight touch of annoyance in her voice.

  This was not the end of the world, I decided. Besides, now that I was out and about, I was excited to explore my surroundings and try to feel a part of things. I stopped asking questions and stepped away from the window.

  Three days had passed since I first went to the post office. I’d returned the previous two days to get the aforementioned information, and both times my friend the postal worker had said only, “Not now information.” I interpreted this to mean that my password and login information were not yet ready.

  On this fourth visit—after waiting in line and not letting anyone cut in—I got up to the counter. Before I could even get a word out, she handed me the information. I was so excited, as though I had just received the key to some great secret hiding place. “I have my information!” I felt like shouting it from the rooftops. Instead, I said, “Xie xie,” and headed home to try it out. All I wanted to do was log on and send an email from the comfort of my own home.

  It didn’t work. I tried again and again before calling the maintenance office.

  “Wei,” someone answered—the standard response when anyone picked up the phone.

  “Uh, yes, hello. I need help with my internet connection,” I stupidly said in English.

  “Wo bu dong. Ni shuo shenma?”

  “Uh. . . .” I didn’t know where to go from here. I had only learned how to say hello and thank you so far. “I have problema.” Okay, why is Spanish coming out of my mouth? I had managed to learn my numbers one through ten, so I decided to tell them my room number. “Er . . . Ling . . . Yao.”

  I said this at least five times before the guy realized that I was indeed speaking Chinese and was telling him my room number. When he finally understood me, he said a bunch of things followed by an “okay,” to which I responded, “Okay,” and hung up.

  I had no idea what we’d just agreed upon, but five minutes later there was a knock at my door.

  I opened the door, revealing a very slight man with a boyish face on the other side. He gave a shy smile, took off his sandals, and came in, speaking Chinese to me. I smiled and pointed to the phone cord, then to the computer. I made some crazy gestures indicating that I could not connect the two, and miraculously, he understood. The problem was that I didn’t understand his response.

  After much back-and-forth, I managed to understand that I needed a different phone cord. The phone I had was quite antiquated and it looked like the attached cord would not allow for a modem connection. I could not believe it was this much trouble just to connect to the internet.

  The maintenance guy left and came back a few minutes later with a paper that had “management office” written on it. He handed it to me and left again.

  Arriving at the management office the next day, I explained with pantomime more than language that I needed a cord. They nodded and gave me three forms to complete first. I paid two yuan at a different office and was told I could pick up the cord at a warehouse on the other side of town.

  Later that night, I found the warehouse and showed my piece of paper with “phone cord” written in Chinese to every worker I saw. They didn’t know what to think of me. Many of them
looked at me as if they have never seen a foreigner in their lives, and I realized that they probably hadn’t. Each person that I met guided me through a different part of the maze that was the warehouse until, finally, I found the right office.

  “Ni hao,” the older man in the office said.

  “Ni hao,” I said, and handed him the paper.

  He came back with the cord in his hand.

  My heart was filled with hope. I couldn’t believe that after all this, I was finally going to get this phone cord. I couldn’t wait to go back to my cozy little apartment, plug in the cord, and finally email my friends and family.

  But then I looked more closely at the part the man was holding, and the wind was knocked out of me. It did not even resemble a phone cord. I wanted to cry or choke someone, but instead I took a deep breath. I tried once again to explain and show the man, pointing to his phone, exactly what it was that I needed.

  They didn’t have those here, the man finally explained. I would probably need to go to another city.

  Although this was terrible news, I realized how happy I was to have actually understood what he’d said. I wondered how it was possible that in this humongous place, they had no phone cords. I thought about that the whole way to Siqao, a nearby city, where I got off the bus, walked into the first little store I saw, and found a phone cord.

  chapter 9

  As I hopped on the bus for Siqao, I had to remind myself that many of the people I encountered had never seen a foreigner before, and I should try not to be bothered by their open-mouthed stares. I was constantly reminded that while in China, I would never be anonymous.

  Even when I was doing my grocery shopping in the market, people looked intently in my basket to see what I was buying. They watched to see if I would barter and whether or not I’d get a good price. I went to get my hair cut one day, and I was deeply relaxed, enjoying the head massage that is always a part of a haircut in China, when I casually looked out the window. At least ten people were leaning up against the glass, peering inside with open-mouthed stares. A smile and a wave on my part brought them out of their trance, but this is what I encountered when I ventured outside the gates of my little community.

  As time went by, my list of cultural differences accumulated. I also realized, though, that in many ways people are much the same wherever we go. On the bus one day, among all the noise, cigarette smoke, and the huge variety of people— from farmers to businessmen—a woman with a baby got on, and it was suddenly as if nothing else mattered. All the talking came to a halt as we all took notice of the baby and became fascinated by everything he did. We all, vocally and otherwise, oohed and aahed at the way the baby moved his hands or pointed to the window. Everything was adorable, amazing, and for a few minutes, we were all enthralled. Then, the next stop came, the baby and mother got off, and everyone went back to their own worlds.

  Scenes such as this probably occur everywhere in the world, but during moments like those it would hit me that I was really living in China, on the other side of the world, and that the world is not so big after all.

  Today, as we drove along on the bumpy road (which seemed to be under permanent construction), I thought about where I was going. An orphanage. One of the American teachers had arranged for a few of us to volunteer every Sunday afternoon, and I was planning to meet some of the other teachers there. The woman who organized the visit, Julie, had already adopted a little Chinese girl, which was how she had been established a connection with the orphanage.

  Prior to coming to China, I had developed an interest in the one-child policy and the reasons behind it. I’d always known I wanted to be a mother. Knowing about Chinese orphanages, or at least having read about them, I guess I’d also had thoughts about adopting a Chinese baby. Now that I was in China, it seemed like a real possibility.

  The thing was, though, that I couldn’t imagine being married. I suppose I had imagined it, but I’d never thought of it in a serious way. It’s not that I was against marriage; on the contrary, I strongly believed in the notion of marriage. I guess that’s why I didn’t think it would happen for me. I knew what I wanted in a husband, and I had never met or dated anyone who had come close to being that person. Anything was possible. Still, I wasn’t holding my breath. I was approaching thirty and living in the People’s Republic of China, not exactly a dating haven.

  The fact that I’d gone to college and even graduate school still shocked me once in awhile. I’d somehow figured out how to do these things, and fairly well. Now, here I was living in another country, with the chance to begin a promising career. So maybe not all my dreams of a nice husband and happy family would come true, but being a mother would be close. I could be a single parent. I could hire the help I needed, and eventually even my own mom could help out, which she would love. I knew I had a lot to give. I tried to tell myself this—that I was okay with being single, that I didn’t wish to find actual enduring love and a beautiful relationship—but something about that story didn’t ring true, and I knew it.

  As I rode the bus to the orphanage, I thought back to the stories I used to hear about China and their one-child policy. It was beyond my comprehension and sounded so oppressive. How could a government mandate how many children a family could have? And what about all those stories I’d heard about people abandoning baby girls? Was that why there were mostly girls in the orphanages?

  As is usually the case, I would eventually discover that there was a nugget of truth to all the stories I’d heard, but the Chinese themselves painted a very different picture of this policy. In fact, the Chinese friends I later discussed it with said they were grateful for the policy. They acknowledged that there simply had been too many people in China, and since the government began to implement the policy, the economy had gotten better. Quite simply, there was more to go around.

  As to the practice of abandoning babies, people acknowledged that, sadly, it did happen, and maybe to some extent continued to happen, in the countryside. People were scared of not being able to feed their baby, or were afraid that a girl wouldn’t be able to contribute to the family in the same way that a boy would, so yes, sometimes they would leave the baby. Did some babies die this way? Perhaps so, but that isn’t the case anymore.

  The traditional belief that boys are more valuable than girls is still somewhat present in the countryside, which is why there are so many baby girls in the orphanages. People in more rural areas tend to believe that when a girl gets married, she joins the man’s family—so when her parents get old, she will not be there to take care of them. In addition to that, they want a son so the family name will be carried on. So it’s easy to see why, from their perspective, a son is very important.

  The truth is that families in China can indeed have more than one child. The government in no way actually stops them from doing so; it does maintain, however, that the compulsory education of only one child per family will be supported by the system, as that’s all they can afford. Despite this policy, some families choose to have more children. They simply pay the fine and shoulder the expense of their other children’s education themselves. For most of the families at our school, for example, this was not an issue. They had as many kids as they wanted; they could afford to pay the fine. But even for the less affluent, the choice is there and many take advantage of it. If the family has a second child and doesn’t have cash to pay the fine, the government will take furniture or anything else of value to exact its fee. Many people I know have chosen this route. Like many Westerners, they believe family is more important than possessions and they can always replace the furniture later.

  I was thrilled to have this chance to go to an orphanage and maybe learn a bit more about Chinese adoption in the process. The fact that my colleague had gotten us in was a major accomplishment in and of itself, because foreigners, even those who were adopting, weren’t usually allowed inside.

  When we arrived, Xiao Jiang, the woman my colleague knew, greeted us at the front door and guided u
s through the rooms where we’d be working. The orphanage was not what I expected, though I wasn’t really sure what my expectations had been. It was very simple, with concrete walls and floors. There were two rooms: one with small cribs lined up in rows and another with a few toys. It was clean and organized, but very dull in appearance and limited in supplies. Xiao Jiang said that the main thing we could help with was holding the babies. The people taking care of them seemed to be gentle and to care about them, but there were only a few workers and so many babies. They simply didn’t have time to cuddle every baby as much as a baby should be cuddled.

  Most of the workers took several of the babies to the other room to feed them. Before leaving, though, they nodded toward the cribs, smiling, indicating that we should hold the babies. It was amazing to be trusted with all these precious little girls— and all we had to do was hold them? Heaven!

  I walked to the crib closest to the window and looked down at the baby girl inside. She looked healthy—all bundled up in lots of clothes and then swaddled in a blanket. I picked her up and pulled her to my chest. She didn’t show any reaction, but it was a wonderful moment for me. I felt so blessed and lucky to be there. It hit me what a rare chance I’d been given. I looked around the room at my colleagues, who were quietly doing the same thing, and tears came to my eyes.

  I lowered the little girl from my chest and cradled her in my arms so I could look into her eyes. I wondered what would become of her. Would she stay in this orphanage until she became old enough to leave on her own? Would an American family come to China and adopt her? Would I one day adopt a baby girl like her from this very orphanage? My thoughts were all over the place, yet filled with peaceful excitement about her life, as well as mine. I hoped we’d both get what we wanted.