American Panda(5)

My mother bit the hook. Gossiping was harder for her to turn down than a soup dumpling is for me. “Ah, thank goodness.”

As she chatted on and on about all the horrible things Amberly and her mother have done—Mrs. Ahn betrayed me, wanting Eugene for Amberly. Hunh! As if Mrs. Huang would want Amberly’s tiny hips instead of your child-bearing form—I felt a (very odd) sense of security wrap around me, a blanket of comfort. Even though some—okay, most—of the things she was saying were gross, even though I didn’t really want to meet Eugene, there was some kind of twisted pride in there.

And Chow Chow was my second home, my Taiwanese home away from my Taiwanese home. I knew its calligraphy wallpaper and ceiling lanterns as well as the plastic wrap covering my parents’ furniture.

My father strolled in and sat sans words. Upon his arrival, the waiter brought over our favorite appetizer: “open-mouth” dumplings with steam pouring out the sides. Fitting, since I was sitting with my mouth open and some drool spilling out. My mother clucked her tongue at me and my jaw snapped shut.

As I was about to dig in, my father cleared his throat—a thundering noise that always made me sit up straight and lower my eyes. “Mei, a few words.” He paused for effect. “MIT is your first step to a good life. Work hard, get good grades, get into a good medical school, and make us proud. Don’t worry, we will be watching every step of the way. We will see you here, at Chow Chow, every Saturday, to check in.” A decree, not a request.

My mother gave me the eyeball, and I knew she was telecommunicating, You also need to marry Dr. Eugene Huang and pump out a litter of Taiwanese babies.

I wanted to enjoy my newfound freedom and cut the umbilical cord, but with these words I realized it would never be severed, only stretched.

When my parents raised their soy milk and plum smoothie in the air, I needed a moment before I could lift my pink mush in return.





Voicemail from my mother

Remember Amberly Ahn? She had eyelid surgery and it turned out great. We should think about doing that for you. Maybe we can tattoo your makeup on at the same time. Remember, there are no ugly women, only lazy women. Repeat that three times every morning.

And don’t forget, “měi” means “beautiful” in Chinese. Live up to the name I chose for you.

Oh, and it’s your mǔqīn.





CHAPTER 2


BB-HATE


WHEN I OPENED THE DOOR to my usually empty dorm room, a gorgeous girl with olive skin and wavy hair (that I was immediately jealous of?) was rearranging the furniture.

Guess she was the replacement for Leslie, who MIT’s roommate-pairing algorithm had originally thought to be The One for me. But they hadn’t accounted for Taiwanese politics. Upon seeing my chopstick-straight hair and black-as-bean-paste eyes, Leslie had asked, before I even knew her name, “Where’re you from?”

Given her similar hair and eyes, her question had startled the words right out of me. I was used to being asked this, but not by other Asians, at least not in that tone. I gave her the answer I gave everyone: “Massachusetts.”

She shook her head at me, annoyed, same as everyone else. I rubbed my eyes in case her Chinese-ness was somehow a hallucination.

Nope.

Instead of asking all the questions flooding my brain—Why does it matter? Well, where are you from? What the hell is your name?—I said, “I’m Taiwanese,” hoping to move past the awkwardness so we could start the lifelong friendship promised me by books and movies.

“Thank God,” she said. “I was worried you were from China.”

Well, that was weird. And a first. “If I were, then would we not be friends?”

She furrowed her eyebrows at me for a second. Then the realization dawned on her face and she sighed, not bothering to hide her exasperation and perhaps even exaggerating it. “That means your parents aren’t native.”

When I stuck my chin out, silently asking what she was talking about, she clarified. “Your family came to Taiwan in 1949, during the Communist Revolution.” A statement, not a question. Then she said the sentence that would haunt me for years to come. “Your family killed my family.”

I gaped. Just stood there with my eyes wide, mouth open—completely incapacitated by the bomb she’d just set off. Finally, I managed to squeak out, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Figures. Learn your own history. When your people”—she practically spat the word—“invaded our home, you massacred us—my grandpa—for no reason.”

“I—I’m sorry,” I stuttered, so overwhelmed by the venom in her voice, as if I had personally wielded a gun in that war.

“And you all covered it up like they always do.” She repacked the T-shirt she had just unpacked. “You don’t get to call yourself Taiwanese. You’re not. And you’re not Chinese either, since your grandparents fled from there. You don’t belong anywhere.”

I was used to being shunned by others for my different-tinted skin, different-shaped eyes, and my parents’ difficulty with ls and rs, but this was completely new. I guess to Leslie, we weren’t the same either. Shortly thereafter, her bed was empty, a constant reminder of how much I didn’t belong.

So even though the new roommate intimidated me with the confidence exuding from every cell of her long, lean, stupidly perfect body, there was no way this could go any worse.