人生若只如初见 Chapter 8

My father accompanied me to Beijing airport. He gave me $4000.

“Guard the money well: that’s all dad can give you,” he said, “For your future life in America you only have yourself to depend on.”

I passed the checkpoint and walked to my gate. When I looked back my father waved goodbye at me.

 

A Christian couple from Taiwan, Mr. and Mrs. Yee, picked me up from the San Francisco International Airport. On the way to their house I looked out the window: the city was so beautiful. I was tired but excited.

 

Mr. Yee was a retired US marine; the wife was a homemaker. They had two sons: one was at Stanford University, and the other joined the marine. The couple had been helping new Chinese students for many years. They gave new students free rides to grocery stores, picked up used or thrown-away mattresses to be used by the new students, and took them to church and to Bible study meetings. On the walls of their house there were thank-you plaques awarded to them by the Chinese consulate, thanking them for helping Chinese students from mainland. There were already several new students staying in the house, in addition to the couple’s dog. One was Deng Jian, a guy from Guang Zhou; another was Lu, from Beijing University; yet another was Zhao Bin, from Nan Kai University.

 

All the bedrooms were already occupied. Mr. Yee pulled out a mattress from the garage, and I slept on the mattress in the living room. I woke up in the middle of the night and felt very lonely. This was my first night in America. The dog was sleeping a few feet away from me.

 

The next day Mr. and Mrs. Yee took us to a Bible study group. We read some paragraphs from the Bible, sung some songs, and had free lunch. After lunch we sung more songs. The pastor, who was a Taiwanese, wearing glasses, said, “Sing louder, everybody. Didn’t you just have lunch?”

 

Sitting next to me was a guy from mainland. He had been a Christian for many years. He seemed to be very sincere and I liked him.

“Have you wanted to become a Christian?” he asked me.

I said, “I have not seriously thought about it. I prayed for God’s help when I wanted to get a girl, and my prayer was not answered. I prayed for a good score when I was taking the GRE exam, and I prayed for my visa to America. Both prayers were answered. I do think it is nice to have a religious belief though.”

 

He urged me to become a Christian. “America is a Christian country. Many Nobel Prize winners are Christians. All US presidents are Christians,” he said, “My life is completely changed after I became a Christian.”

 

I teamed up with Deng Jian to find an apartment. He was a PhD student in the department of physics.

 

I told him I graduated from my college quite a while ago.

He said, “I came here right after graduation from college. I am very ambitious.” Behind his black frame glasses his small eyes radiated confidence.

 

“Why do you want to come to the States?” he asked me.

I told him that northeastern China was backward country, and I did not have a good job. I came to the states to look for a better life.

 

He said, “Guang Zhou is highly developed. I already bought myself a motorcycle in China. America is not that much better than Guang Zhou. I only came to America because I want to see the world.”

 

We found an apartment with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and moved out of the Yees’ house after staying there for about a week. There was a tragic accident. The guy from Beijing University, Lu, was riding a bicycle when he somehow fell on the street. A bus passing by ran over his head, and killed him instantly.

“This is so sad.” I said, “he came to America a week ago.” I thought about my brief encounter with him in the Yees’ house.

Deng Jian said, “It is. He probably had not seen a strip dance.”

“And he was from Beijing University – no less.” I said.

“What does that have to do with anything? It is sad, no matter which university he was from.” He said.

 

I emailed Kate after I settled down. I told her that I came to the States about a month ago, and asked for her phone number. When I sent her the email I felt like I just won a battle.

 

We talked a few times over the phone. She said she just graduated and got a good job in New Jersey.

“Student life in Michigan had been so harsh for me.” she said.

 

She told me that she had been living in a basement, working in a restaurant, and she did not even have a used car. But luckily a Chinese guy was very nice to her. He gave her a lift to the restaurant where she worked when needed. He gave her a ride to grocery stores every weekend. When she got seriously sick, he took care of her for several days, cooking for her, running errands for her.

 

But things were obviously going for the better now.

“I will apply for green card soon.” She said.

 

New Jersey: that’s thousands of miles away from San Francisco. I thought about this Chinese guy she mentioned. Their relationship was probably more than friendship. Not that I was jealous. To me Kate was just a friend now. I felt happy for her, that she got a good job. This was what she came to the States for. I recalled that in that snowy evening, when we first met, she told me that she wanted to go to the States because her parents, as professors, were not making much money.

 

My department was in an eight-story building, and my office was on the 4^th floor. One day on the first floor I got into the elevator car with a white man and a white woman. The man was a lecturer in my department. The woman was a graduate student. They pressed seven. I pressed four.

The guy suddenly said, “Anyone below 5^th floor should not use elevator.”

The woman laughed, and said, “That’s a good one.”

 

I looked at the guy. He looked at me, with impassive facial expression. I did not know what to make of that, and I did not know what to say. I ran out of the car when the door opened. Was it a joke? Was he hostile to me? Was it racial discrimination? I was deeply hurt.

 

The more I talked with Deng Jian, the more uncomfortable I became with him.

 

One day, he said, “I heard northeastern Chinese are lazy.”

I said, “That’s true. A lot of small businesses in northeastern China are run by southerners.”

 

He said, “The weather in San Francisco is better than in Guang Zhou. It is too hot in Guang Zhou. We have to take shower everyday. I heard people in northeastern China rarely take shower.”

 

His smile was so obnoxious. His two small eyes behind the black frame glasses made me sick. They looked like rat’s eyes. I said, “I took shower once a week in the winter in a public bathhouse, because there was no shower equipment in my dorm.”

 

The IT industry was booming. Deng Jian applied for admission to some computer science departments at other universities. He said he did not want to waste time in this PhD program in physics, because it was difficult to find a job after graduation. Apparently he did not come to the States just for sightseeing. When he was doing his applications, he registered himself for two PhD qualifying exams in the department of physics.

“I am sure I can pass the two exams through one go.” he told me.

 

It was a pity, that his claim would not be born out: he left San Francisco for another university to study computer science at the end of the first semester. He did not get any financial assistance from that university.

“My family is very rich. They will support me financially.” He said.

 

Since we two signed a one-year lease for the apartment, Deng Jian posted an ad to the email list for Chinese students at our university, looking for someone to take over his part of the lease. A Chinese woman from Gan Su moved in after Deng Jian left.