Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls #1)(87)

“Married people are starting to live away from their in-laws,” he says. “It will look strange if you don’t have your own home.” (Because after ten years he’s no longer afraid we’ll run away. We’re his true family now, just as he and Yen-yen are ours.)

“This apartment—too much bad air,” Yen-yen says. “The boy will need a place to play outside, not in an alley.” (Which had been fine for Joy.)

“I hope there’s room for a pony,” Joy says. (She isn’t getting a pony, no matter how much she wants to be a cowgirl.)

“With the war over, everything’s changed,” chimes in Uncle Wilburt, for once wholly optimistic. “You can go to the Bimini Pool to swim. You can sit wherever you want at the movie show. You could even marry a lo fan if you wanted to.”

“But who’d want to?” Uncle Charley asks. (So many laws have changed, but that doesn’t mean attitudes—Oriental or Occidental—have changed with them.)

Joy reaches her chopsticks across the table, looking for a piece of pork. Her grandmother smacks her hand. “Only take food from the dish directly in front of you!” Joy’s hand retreats, but Sam dips his chopsticks into the pork dish and fills his daughter’s bowl. He’s a man—soon to be the father of a precious grandson—and Yen-yen won’t correct his manners, but later she’ll give Joy a talking-to about being virtuous, graceful, courteous, polite, and obedient, which means, among other things, learning to sew and embroider, take care of the house, and use her chopsticks properly. All this from a woman who barely knows these things herself.

“So many doors have opened,” Uncle Fred says. He came back from the war with a box full of medals. His English, which had been pretty good to begin with, improved in the service, but he still speaks Sze Yup with us. We thought he’d return to China City and the Golden Dragon Café to work, but no. “Look at me. The government is helping me with my college tuition and housing.” He raises his beer. “Thank you, Uncle Sam, for helping me become a dentist!” He takes a swig, then adds, “The Supreme Court says we can live wherever we want. So where do you want to live?”

Sam runs a hand through his hair and then scratches the back of his neck. “Wherever they’ll accept us. If they don’t want us, I don’t want to live there.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Uncle Fred says. “The lo fan are more open to us now. A lot of guys were in the service. They met and fought with people who looked like us. You’ll be welcome wherever you go.”

Later that night, after everyone goes home and Joy has been tucked into her permanent sleeping place on the couch in the main room, Sam and I talk more about the baby and a possible move.

“With our own place, we could do what we want,” Sam says in Sze Yup. Then he adds in English, “In privacy.” No single word in Chinese conveys the concept of privacy, but we love the idea of it. “And all wives want to be away from their mothers-in-law.”

I don’t suffer under Yen-yen’s thumb, but the thought of moving out of Chinatown and giving Joy and our baby new opportunities brightens my heart. But we aren’t like Fred. We can’t use the G.I. Bill to buy a house. No bank will give just any Chinese a loan, and we don’t trust American banks because we don’t want to owe money to Americans. But Sam and I have been saving, hiding our money in his sock and in the lining of the hat I wore out of China. If we keep our desires modest, then we might just be able to buy something.

But it isn’t as easy as Uncle Fred said. I look in Crenshaw, where I’m told we can buy only south of Jefferson. I try Culver City, where the real estate agent won’t even show me property. I find a house I like in Lake-wood, but the neighbors sign a petition saying they don’t want Chinese to move in. I go to Pacific Palisades, but the land covenants still say that houses can’t be sold to someone of Ethiopian or Mongolian descent. I hear every excuse: “We don’t rent to Orientals.” “We won’t sell to Orientals.” “As Orientals, you won’t like that house.” And the old standby: “On the phone we thought you were Italian.”

Uncle Fred—who was in the war and earned his bravery—encourages us not to give up, but Sam and I are not the kind to holler and cry that we’ve been robbed, beaten, or discriminated against. The only way we can hope to buy a house outside Chinatown is to find a seller so desperate he doesn’t mind offending his neighbors, but by now I’m nervous about moving at all. Or maybe I’m not nervous; maybe I’m feeling homesick in advance. After Shanghai, how can I lose what we’ve built for ourselves in Chinatown?


I WORK HARD to grow my baby the Chinese way. I have the worries of every expectant mother, but I also know that my baby’s home environment was once invaded and nearly destroyed. I go to the herbalist, who looks at my tongue, listens to the many pulses in my wrist, and prescribes An Tai Yin—Peaceful Fetus Formula. He also gives me Shou Tai Wan— Fetus Longevity Pills. I don’t shake hands with strangers, because Mama once told a neighbor woman this would cause her baby to be born with six fingers. When May buys a camphor chest for me to store the clothes I’m making for the baby, I remember Mama’s beliefs and refuse to accept it, because it resembles a casket. I begin to question my dreams, recalling what Mama said about them: if you dream of shoes, then bad luck is coming; if you dream of losing teeth, then someone in the family will die; and if you dream of shit, then big trouble is about to arrive. Every morning I rub my belly, happy that my dreams have been free from these bad omens.