Kitchen Chinese (14 page)

Tina introduces me as “Li Jia,
nimen de waiguo pengyou
.” Your foreign friend. Mr. Shi rushes forward to shake my hand, a stream of
“Ni hao, ni hao, ni hao,”
flowing through the smile that broadens his weathered face. His wife, Wangmei, stands next to me, her strong hand patting my shoulder in a rhythmic beat. I turn to greet the grandmother, an older woman with cropped gray hair and proud posture, who holds a plump-cheeked baby in her arms. Her sharp eyes scan my face intently as she stretches out a leathered hand to touch my cheek. Forty years ago these people
would have been proud to be called peasants. Now they are considered rough and rural, although unlike most country folk—who are suspicious of outsiders—their faces are open and friendly.

I call the younger woman
“ayi,”
or aunt, the grandmother
“nainai,”
the man
“shushu,”
or uncle, as if they are my own family. These are terms of respect in China and, after several months here, they roll off my tongue. It’s difficult to determine their ages—their lined faces belie their youth, though not the bitterness of life. The baby is introduced as Baobei—I later find out that’s not her real name, but a nickname meaning “precious treasure.” She opens her mouth to emit a hungry wail and Nainai bounces her inside, the rest of us trailing behind her.

The rest of us, I should say, except for Tina, who seizes the opportunity to whisk herself away. “’Bye,” she says, squeezing my arm so that the duffel bag slips off my shoulder and jars my elbow. “Meet the driver at the train station tomorrow at eight
A.M
. He’ll bring you to the set.” She gives a small wave and disappears around the corner, leaving me alone.

N
ine-thirty
P.M
. Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod. I’m wide-awake, my eyes round as gum balls. Next door, the Shis slumber. I can hear the measured rise and fall of their breathing through the house’s thin walls. I already have to pee. How will I make it through the night?

Going to the bathroom is out of the question. Going to the bathroom would require putting on my shoes and finding a flashlight, making my way outside and down the dark street to the public toilet, where I would have to squat over a rotting plank, my stomach churning from the smell. No, I can’t. I can face it during the day, but at night it’s too terrifying. For the first time in my life I wish for a bedpan.

And something else is keeping me awake. Something that, with shortness of breath and an ache in the back of my throat, feels a lot like fear. I’ve never interviewed a Hollywood director before—hell, six months ago I had never interviewed
anyone
. My stomach heaves—and I’m pretty sure it’s not from drinking unclean water. Even though I’ve watched all of Max Zhang’s movies and read every scrap ever written about him (in English), a doubtful chill keeps creeping down my spine. I’m not sure my Chinese is good enough. I’m not sure if
I’m
good enough.

Turning on my side, I try to distract myself by mulling over my evening at the Shis’ house. Ayi and I spent the evening in an elaborate dance of politesse: she kept trying to offer me things—food, fruit, tea, her bedroom—and I kept trying to refuse them. She won. She insisted that I sleep in her bed, her tone so vehement I feared she might burst a blood vessel. Now, she and Shushu lie tucked up on the concrete living room floor, their aged backs reclining against the unforgiving surface, while I lounge like a princess in their bed. Add guilt to the list of emotions that chase each other in my head.

At dinner, Ayi sat next to me, maintaining a towering heap of food on my plate. As the honored guest, I was treated to the fattiest morsels of cured sausage, while the dishes of vegetables—inexpensive, and thus ordinary—were kept far from my eager chopsticks. Bowls of
mao er dou
—cat’s ear noodles shaped like pointed orrechiette—were mixed with scrambled egg and tomato, seasoned with sugar (because tomatoes are a fruit, after all), and doused with the region’s famous black vinegar. Plates of sliced cucumber and tart, stir-fried shredded cabbage rounded out the simple meal.

I politely swallowed slice after slice of fatty meat and finished my bowl of noodles, until my stomach felt ready to explode. As soon as I had slurped up the last bite, Ayi snatched my bowl
away and scooped in another helping, my exclamations of
“Chi baole!”
(I’m full!) falling on deaf ears. Afraid of offending her, I forced down the second bowl. When she refilled my bowl a third time, I thought I might burst from her kindness.

After dinner, Ayi and I watched Xiao Baobei toddle between the broken appliances and rusted bicycles that littered the small courtyard. The baby was actually her granddaughter, the child of her only son, Ayi revealed, holding his photo between tobacco-stained fingers. He’s gone to Beijing to seek construction work, she explained. His wife lives with him and takes care of foreigners’ kids. They send money home once a month. In the picture, a young man with rumpled hair stares out unsmiling, his jaw jutting forward in defiance.

Neighbors stopped to say hello, most eyeing me with undisguised curiosity. Though this courtyard home was built for a single family, the Shis share it with three other households, each living in one of the four buildings that border the square, central space. Running water spouts from a corroded tap, but bathing happens at the public shower down the street. To me, the lack of privacy is a gnawing discomfort—even the toilet stalls lack doors—but everyone else accepts it.

In Beijing, the explosion of new buildings and fleets of shiny Audis make it easy to forget about China’s poverty. But in this rural village,
ayi, shushu, nainai,
and their neighbors still clearly struggle to find food and clean water. It occurs to me that they’re among the lucky; thanks to a steady flow of tourist income, Pingyao is less impoverished than most. I shut my eyes and try to imagine my grandparents, my father’s parents, Cantonese farmers who emigrated to California in 1925. They died before I was born, taking with them all traces of their former life. I’ll never know if their Guangdong village was anything like this.

S
leep comes in the early hours of the morning and is brief. I am awakened by the sound of a rooster calling roo roo rooooooooo! I saw him clucking about the courtyard yesterday, his tail feathers bristling as he pecked circles around Baobei’s fat toes. Outside, the sky looks milky gray, with clouds blanketing the surface. I climb out of bed and struggle into my jeans, which are fast becoming greasily soft with overwearing. With light filling the sky, I am finally brave (or desperate) enough to visit the bathroom.

Despite the early hour, the family is already awake. As I slip out of the house, I see Ayi hunched over the dining table, the day’s chores already started. Her hands blur as she skillfully rolls and presses dough into cat’s ear noodles. “Good morning!” she calls out to me, waving a hand covered in flour.

In the morning chill, the bathroom seems more manageable and, thus emboldened, I vow to visit the public shower. I
need
to take a shower; my hair clings to my head like an oil slick. I walk quickly back to the Shis to gather my things, breathing in the heavy, smoky scent of coal that fills the air. In, out, in, out, the deep, calming breaths fill my lungs and a light vibration makes my leg tremble. Who is calling me at 6:30
A.M
.? The name lights up the screen: jeff.

“Hey there, you’re up early!” A smile creeps across my face.

“Early? You mean late. I haven’t gone to bed yet, babe. Where are you? You didn’t answer my e-mail.” His voice is husky with cigarettes and something else—desire?

“I told you…I’m in Pingyao. With Tina.” My trip to Pingyao means I had to cancel our date, something I’m sure Tina planned.

“Ohhh yeahhhh.” Is that a touch of anxiety in his voice? “How’s it going?”

I take a deep breath, ready to complain about the Shis’ primi
tive home, the smelliness of the toilet, Tina’s suspiciously solicitous manner, but instead I let it out. “Everything’s fine,” I say.

“I wanted to see you last night,” he says sulkily.

“I’m really sorry. But I’ll be back Friday.” I find myself using a wheedling tone, as if I’m talking to a child.

“That’s so far away! I need to see you, Li Jia.”

“Friday.”

On the other end of the phone I hear a rising squeal of voices and then a whoosh as if Jeff has covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Hello?” I say. “Hello?”

“That sounds great, babe,” he says, suddenly distracted. “Look, I really need to crash, so I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Sure. I’ll talk to you later—” I hear the series of beeps, which mean he’s ended the call. “’Bye,” I say, but no one hears me.

Back at the Shis’, breakfast postpones my shower. We sit down at the wobbly dining table to another bowl of short noodles mixed with scrambled egg and tomato. The meal is almost identical to last night’s, featuring the same drizzle of dark vinegar, the same liberal sprinkling of cilantro, the same hurried movements that carry our food from bowl to mouth. We shovel the food in swiftly, with only the slurp of noodles and clink of plastic chopsticks on chipped plates punctuating the silence. This, then, is eating for sustenance, with every mouthful chewed, swallowed, and untasted. As I dig into my second bowl (Ayi insisted), it occurs to me that they have probably been eating this same meal for months. I ask about the local produce and am not surprised to hear Ayi say, “Tomato season is almost over. Soon it’ll be only cabbage.”

W
ell, I tried. I really, really tried. Determined to vanquish any CAP (Chinese American Princess) behavior, I gathered my re
solve and a towel, marched to the public shower, paid my two
kuai
and tried to ignore the wet smell of mildew within. Clutching my towel around my body, I started to undress, awkwardly wriggling out of my T-shirt and storing it on the hook. The shower, a communal space with one nozzle, featured billows of steam and a light carpet of green algae, and my toes curled as I considered my lack of shower-friendly footwear. I stood there in my lace-edged bra, willing myself to strip and jump in, and began to feel the stares.

In Beijing my Chinese appearance means that I can pass as a local, as long as I keep my mouth shut. Here in this tiny village that’s as close-knit as a cable sweater, I am a stranger, an oddity, a welcome diversion from the unyielding stretches of monotony. The gaggle of women in the shower stood scrubbing themselves with quick movements and staring at me, their curiosity as naked as their aged bodies.

“It’s that foreigner who’s staying with the Shi family,” said one, not bothering to lower her voice. “I heard she doesn’t speak a word of Chinese.”

“Is she Japanese?” someone hissed.

“No, I think she’s Korean.”

“She’s too fat to be Korean.”

Their cackles bounced off the tiled walls as I shoved the T-shirt back over my head and ran from the building.

Now, my stomach churns as the driver zooms along the rough roads, one hand on his cell phone, one hand on the wheel. I’ve scraped my hair back into a slippery ponytail but it still feels ready to crawl off my head. I smooth the trousers of my pale gray suit and pull down the soft cuffs of my cashmere sweater. I’ll soon be able to give Gab tips on growing dreadlocks, but at least my clothes are clean and well-tailored. The driver swerves, narrowing the gap between our car and the oncoming traffic, and
I dig my nails into my wrist to distract myself from the nausea. I get out my cell phone to call Geraldine, but here, deep in the Shanxi countryside, the signal has faded.

T
ina greets me with a face full of solicitous concern. “How’s it going with the Shi family? Did you sleep well? Are you hungry?” she coos.

I brush her off and sweep out of the car, my sharp heels immediately sinking into a patch of sticky mud. Tina looks at me in amusement. “Didn’t my assistant call you?” she asks. “We’ve had terrible weather and the mud out here is awful!” She lifts a foot and displays a Burberry-plaid Wellington that’s delicately spattered with mud.

“I’m fine.” The words barely make it through my clenched jaw. I follow Tina toward the set, my legs as shaky as a newborn gazelle, my embroidered velvet mules—a prize from the Barney’s sample sale—growing more soaked with every step.

I’m shivering by the time we reach the trailer that’s used as an office. “Isn’t it funny how much colder it is here than in town?” chirps Tina. “You’re going to need an extra layer out on the field. But don’t worry, I’ll find you something warm to wear.”

“I bet you will,” I mutter under my breath.

Tina pulls a walkie-talkie out of the back pocket of her lowcut jeans and issues a few commands. Soon I am swathed in a padded, khaki-green jacket, a replica of the military-style coats worn by Chinese security guards. A brown leather belt bundles in the waist, the sleeves fall below my fingertips, and the hem almost hides my feet, which slide around inside a scuffed pair of army boots. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and choke back my horror. I look dirty and bedraggled, like I’ve spent the night on the ground, using my only set of clothes as a blanket.
How on earth will a famous Hollywood director ever take me seriously?

“Tina, I can’t meet Max Zhang like this.” I grit my teeth to keep the tears at bay.

She looks at me. “Why?”

“I look like a street urchin! Don’t you have anything else?”

“This isn’t Bloomingdale’s, Isabelle.” She snaps up her puffy silver jacket. “Besides, we don’t have time. Max wants to wrap up the shoot today. You’ll be lucky if we can even squeeze in your interview.”

We sludge through the mud to the edge of a grassy field, the flat plain stretching for miles before breaking into rolling hills. Shanxi province features coal mines and drab countryside, and gazing into the distance, I can see why Max Zhang chose to film here; if you stare long enough at the horizon, the monotony sprawls into beauty, evoking the contrast in the film’s title,
Iron into Gold.
Tina deposits me amidst a crowd of extras, who are dressed in khaki-green coats similar to mine, though, I wryly note, their clothes seem to fit. “Wait here,” she instructs me. “I’ll come get you after this scene wraps.”