Autobiography
Sometimes, I liked taking the longer way home. You could sit down. You could listen to music. You could look out the window. You don’t end up guessing the age of a middle aged person who comes near and wonder if it’s offensive or not to stay seated. The minibus sped around the corner, the red numbers on the monitor increasing steadily and stopping. The words “West Island School” in block letters appeared on the right every time.
I looked at the front office, which hadn’t changed since I left. The glass doors and white walls moved further and further away until I couldn’t see them anymore. Whenever 5th period had finished, I’d waited outside for Amanda so we could go study during our free. A second Amanda, much to my amusement the day we met, the second day of school. I saw a figure coming out of the classroom. Amanda came running towards me and waved in front of my face. “Get glasses already!” She laughed. Amanda was Chinese Canadian. Reminiscing about the good ol’ songs from the 2000’s. Attending tuition classes in every tuition center ever built. Sifting through the sales sections of our favorite shops and hunting for the best restaurants. If I had the choice of saving her or my favorite Korean boy band member from drowning, I would save her, probably.
American. Chinese American. ABC. A few of many terms I use to explain my accent and less than fluent Chinese. Being raised by Chinese immigrant parents was no big oddity in San Francisco, California, where words like “cultural melting pot” and more notably, “Chinatown” get thrown around a lot. It could have ended there. I could have gotten my citizenship and truly become the ABC I always say I am.
The lunch bell had pierced through the halls of Santa Rita Elementary School. Jenna’s Tupperware opens up to rigatoni pasta sprinkled with grated Parmesan. The brown mass of stir-fried pork and green splotches of mung beans in mine lay scattered atop my rice. I prodded the rice. “What is that?” Jenna peered over. “It’s pork that’s been cooked with preserved vegetables and green beans,” I shift in my seat. “Oh.., so like pickles? That’s cool!” Ham and cheese sandwiches, spaghetti and meatballs, pretzels and Doritos quickly disappear from everyone else’s.
I had asked my mom to make fried rice for lunch instead of the meat and vegetable dishes she usually packed for us. “But you don’t even like fried rice.” She continued slicing oranges, “Nonsense, I’ll pack you the pork and mung beans that you like so much. I already made it anyways!” She turned back around to wash the dishes. How could I make such a request from my already busy mother? I didn’t like fried rice that much. I found it a bit bland and boring. But it was one of the few dishes that everyone recognized as “Chinese food.” Yet, I did not get to have fried rice for lunch.
My friends Amanda and Loren were like me. Except both their parents grew up in America and spoke English with a “big-tongued accent” that my parents liked to use to describe me to my relatives. Amanda had a cute golden retriever and her parents let us jump from the diving board into her pool and had a huge selection of DVD’s for us to watch. Loren’s house had all the fun board games and always smelled like vanilla and sugar because her mom loved to bake us warm treats – chocolate chip cookies, ginger snaps, and blueberry muffins. As for me? Unless we all wanted to watch reruns of Rugrats on Cartoon Network, read “101 Fun Science Experiments” or share my Nintendo DS for the entire playdate, there wasn’t much we could do. They didn’t mind though, the meaty smells of pork rib soup, the pungent kick of ginger, the sharp spice of peppercorn and star anise. They spoke to my mom in broken mandarin.
A fuzzy outline walked towards me at the end of the hallway. A head of messy black hair and pink sandals bobbed past the lockers, holding notebooks in her arms. “Hey Wendy Wu, homecoming warrior!” someone shouted. “Tony Yang if you call me that one more time!” Wendy charged after him with her books and sat down next to me. “God I hate that movie! Why does she have to have the same name as me? I’m the real Wendy.” She attempted to comb her fingers through her hair. Pink and yellow plastic hair clips hung onto her bangs, the same ones that my grandma puts in mine whenever we go back to Chongqing. “Hey, at least she’s an awesome character who kicks butt. Isn’t that a good thing?” I nudged her in Tony’s direction. The colorful clips in her hair clacked together. Wendy loved coming over. She loved my stash of manga books that changed every week, my 120 piece color pencil set, our loft upstairs where we liked to fold origami, and most importantly, my mom’s 红烧肉. She looked at me and pretended to pout. The end of recess bell rang. “Don’t worry, I’ll ask her to make everything you like!”
It’s funny how Chinese characters work. Say my name out loud and it means, “picture.” Say my name out loud backwards and it means, “drawing a picture.” Read the actual characters and… it doesn’t really mean anything, I guess.
My grandma said it was androgynous. That it was unique. “People will remember you.” Her glittering eyes disappeared into the crinkles forming around her cheeks.
涂, the one with the three-stroke radical, and化, the first character in “chemistry,” I always explained. I once asked my mom how she and dad came up with my name. “Chou Qian (stick selection)” she said. Apparently they went to the temple and used the Chou Qian to see which name was the most auspicious. Apparently mine gives me luck.
I sometimes wondered what it would be like if my parents chose one of the other names they had in mind. My dad’s surname was as uncommon in China as it was in California. “You should be glad,” my mom laughed. “All the other names would make you sound more like a country bumpkin.” Turns out she was only half joking. Thanks mom.
A tenacious one, that one; he was stronger out of the two. I was allergic to cats and my dad was allergic to dogs, so we had to make something else work. We picked the two tiny balls from PetSmart 3 months ago and haven’t looked back. Christopher Columbus, our little adventurer, and CBD, aptly standing for “cute but dumb.” I put the finishing touches on my homemade toilet paper tube maze and set it down in the plastic tub. One after the other the two furry butts wiggled inside, the flimsy structure shaking. I waited for the familiar sight of Christopher Columbus to make his appearance. This time, the little pink nose that poked out of the last tunnel was attached to orange fur instead of brown. His small paws held up a chubby body, slowly but surely shimmying up the final vertical plastic tube. CBD lolled his body into the food cup and buried his head into the sunflower seed and yogurt drops, his round body pulsing in delight.
I thumped myself down at the dining table. From the gap in between my arms I peaked at my parents in the living room. With his glasses pushed down on his nose, my dad breathed audibly through his mouth, making low whistling sounds, as he does whenever he concentrated, and used the screwdriver to slowly remove the legs of my mom’s vanity desk. He used the back of his knuckle to scratch his head. I looked at the thin grey streaks embedded on the side of his hair. I could have sworn my mom dyed it for him just two weeks ago.
My mom is in the kitchen, stepping on a chair to reach the dishware on the highest cabinet. She lets out a sigh. A new cardboard box comes down. She encases our cast iron teapot in a 5th layer of bubble wrap. Our family friend got it for us from Japan. Apparently it was supposed to keep the water’s temperature hotter for longer. It was also supposed to make the tea taste sweeter and more flavorful. I couldn’t really taste the difference.
On the bookcase next to the TV, my family stares back. Two photos of Chloe and me as babies. Two from our most recent school picture days, and a photo of our entire family in the center, displayed in a silver frame. Above it, in the highest shelf, is a hanging vine plant, its tendrils cascading down to the lower levels of the bookcase. She tells me how long its vines are and how stylish it looks, draped over our bookcase every time she waters it. “Don’t tell me this isn’t straight out of a Pottery Barn catalogue!” This day its leaves looked dry and yellow, with the edges taking on a brown tinge. The usual bouncy greenness lay flaccidly against the basket, devoid of strength. Who cares, anyways? We were leaving, leaving everything behind. I bury my face back into my arms and close my eyes. Clinking dishes, the stretching sound of ripping tape, and an overenthusiastic car salesman fill the silence in the room.
Stepping outside the airport I was walking underwater. The humidity was suffocating. The once breathtaking skyscrapers looked menacing and mocking. My room was less than half the size of my old room. We no longer had a backyard. The mosquitos were eating me alive. The first day of school loomed. I looked at my reflection in the mirror and saw an angry red splotch on my cheek where a pimple threatened to form. From the neck down, the situation wasn’t much better. Apart from the movies, I had never seen school uniforms before, not like this. Maybe a neat white button up with a tie, pleated skirt and a smart blazer, like they wore in Harry Potter, not this plaid blue button up with a plain beige skort. I smoothed out the furled edge with my palm, tracing the rounded curve all the way down.
My fingers glided across the yellow embroidered edges of the petals. I turned over and lay on my stomach. The yellow sunlight filtered through the tree, creating a fluttering pattern on the pages of my book. I closed my book and opened my bag.
My rollerblades glided smoothly over the freshly paved sidewalk. Regina Spektor’s voice fluttered. The old oak trees rustled its leaves, fuchsia flowers swaying. Squeals came from the playground on the corner. My mom waved at me with a tired smile, sponge in hand. I ducked under the tree branches and felt the thudding bumps of the sidewalk grooves. I opened my bag to feel the circular player and pressed pause.
It was hanging by only a few threads. The thin brown woven rope struggled to hold onto the beaded surface. I opened my bag and took everything out. Smackers chapstick, Boston keychain, Walkerman CD MP3 Player, Skittles wrapper. The old sewing box opened up and it began to heal.
Roxy, a new girl joined me at the front of the school. She was from London. We started talking during our tour of the school. “Hi! I’m Anna! Nice to meet you!” a voice came from a cheery girl with blonde hair like Roxy’s. “Come, let me show you around.” She immediately took Roxy’s hand and pulled her away to the door. Roxy looked back at me and motioned with her hands. I shook my head and smiled, urging her to go.
I fidgeted with my necklace and walked to my classroom by myself. People whispered and glanced in my direction. A girl named Eunice asked me where I was from. “You’re from California? That’s so cool!” I looked at the growing number of kids that gathered around my table and tried my best to answer their flood of questions. That day I learned that people believed no matter where in California you lived, you would always be next to a beach. Living next to the beach would also make you a surfer, puka shell necklace and all. And how can we forget about Hollywood? I must have had Zac Efron as my neighbor at some point, or bumped into Jessica Alba at the supermarket.
At West Island, they didn’t have a recess bell. Buying lunch from school was the more popular option here. Today’s main dishes were sweet and sour pork with rice, stir-fried noodles, and beef lasagna. On the condiments table, soy sauce, vinegar and chili sauce joined the ketchup and Parmesan cheese. A few packed lunchboxes with sandwiches and pasta were dotted here and there. Some squirted chili sauce onto their noodles and expertly ate it with chopsticks. A few headed off to buy little carton drinks, wiping the sweat off their foreheads in the blistering August sun.
Jonny passed me the bowl of wasabi pea chips, almost tipping it over on my lap. “Bro!” I yelled. His left hand quickly found his controller again. He sniped my player from the top of the cliff. Even quicker, he used his hands to block his head as I threw a pillow at him. “I thought you said you were going to go easy on me!” He grinned so I could see 32 of his teeth. I took Ginger in my arms and petted her. “I can’t believe you actually just stopped being allergic.” He started a new game. Anyone who knew me knew that pollen and dust were two of my enemies. That didn’t stop me from going to Jonny’s, where I played with his tabby. But one day, something changed. I realized I didn’t need to take my Clarityne anymore.
“Hu Too? Hooh-ah Too? Wa Too? Hue-ah Too?”
It’s funny too, how I got my English name. I chose it myself. When we first moved to California, an elderly Caucasian woman who smelled like baby powder came to our house every two weeks to teach my parents about the Bible. They could barely speak English but her heart was full. She said that for names, the “ck” sound sounds the best with the “t” sound because it slips right off the tongue. All the “ck” names in the world and it got whittled down to Katherine and Chloe.
My mom asked me which one I liked more. Something about the three syllables and all the different ways your tongue twists when you say “Katherine” makes it sound more mature than Chloe. That’s what my 5-year-old self thought. I guess that was the reason why they took me out of ESL class after just one month.
“But you can call me Katherine.”
Even though that was my name from then on, my passport and school records said otherwise. Every time I heard my name being called in the doctor’s office. Every time a new teacher read my name from the register. Every time, I pursed my lips in anticipation to say it. And every time, their brows unfurrowed, mouths relaxed and heads shook in approval.
If there was one thing I knew, it was that the liquid that they called Nescafe coffee was not actually coffee. I raised the cold can to my lips and attempted to finish the last of it in one gulp. Big mistake. I spluttered and it gushed out all at once, pouring down my chin and seeping into my shirt. I ran to the kitchen to grab a wet tissue and pressed it into the faded maroon cotton. Not today, at least not with coffee that tastes like this. It was my mom’s shirt. She had had it since she was in high school. Fashion does that weird thing, where clothes from the past become trendy again, and this was one of the pieces I coveted. I dabbed at a brown splotch on top of one of leaf-shaped patterns that I like to think is mitochondria. Come to think of it, the “star” pattern also looks like a diagram of an atom and the “flower” looks like the inside of a cell. The crop top style and white buttons at the neckline place it at the top of the current bohemian and vintage trends, but this pattern was what makes it truly one of a kind, all mine.
Students carrying wobbling trays of barbeque pork rice, braised eggplant and lemon iced tea move past me from every direction. Five, or maybe six different languages float past in the air, most likely containing the words “professor” “timetable” and “registration” in them. We both choose spicy Sichuan noodles with iced milk tea. We find an empty table and sit down. “So where you from? Are you American?” Adrian leans forward. Something in his eyes takes me by surprise. I take a sip of my milk tea. I explain how I moved to Hong Kong after being raised in California. “But I was born in China,” I add. “So you aren’t American then. You’re Chinese.” He leans back in his chair. I pause and take in his words. “Yeah I technically am but I haven’t lived in China for more than a –” “But you’re still not American.” He looks back at me. He digs into his rice. “I’m British by the way. I was born there.” I take a bite out of my own and nod. I study his slicked back hair and blue Jack Wills button up shirt. “So you grew up in the UK as well?” His eyes meet mine for a second.
That day I learned that by being born somewhere makes you automatically a local of that country. No, it doesn’t matter at all how long you lived there. As long as you were born there, you were considered “legit.” It turns out Adrian only lived in London for the time he was doing the IB (International Baccalaureate) Diploma. The IB program is taken in the last two years of high school. I would know because I did the same curriculum at mine. Two years. I played flute for two years. I did swim training for two years. I tutored a 4-year old toddler English for two years. Except I didn’t think of myself as a flute prodigy, professional swimmer, or a certified teacher.
Every month, we’d go, without fail, to La Baguette and get the Tuscan Chicken Sandwich. Every month, we would go, without fail, to Haagen Dazs and get the Dulce De Leche. Most months, if not all, we would go, to Jim’s Hotdogs and get the Original Dog. The murmur of Stanford Shopping Center filled my ears, these filled my mouth.
But, something changed.
A bead of sweat traced my jawline and dangled precariously from my chin. I felt a stitch forming on my left side and used my hand to press against the ache. I finally reached the gate and stepped out onto the open area. I slapped away the mosquitos drawing my blood and leaned against the railing to catch my breath. The glow of the purple setting sun peaked behind the silhouette of the mountains. The fishing boats lulled with the sway of the waves and the cicadas chimed in a chorus of eternity. The white sand illuminated in the warm magenta glow. John Legend’s voice filled my head. I lifted my soul off the railing and ran towards the bright lights behind the sand.
I had lived in Hong Kong for almost as long as I had lived in California, and for the sake of convenience, it was easier to say I’m from Hong Kong and then backtrack to my past, usually after they ask why my English is so good. Whenever someone spoke Cantonese to me, I had to explain that I barely understood, puzzling them further. I couldn’t blame them. I was born in China but English was my native language. I was raised in California but spent my later years in Hong Kong. I have a Hong Kong passport but I can’t speak Cantonese. Every time someone asked me “the question” I was prepared to give long explanations. His words burned in my head like a fluorescent bulb. There was no easy way about it, and even though he may have been a Eurocentric jerk, he did make somewhat of a point. I guess.
A girl in a pink velvet puffer jacket plops herself down in the seat across me on the MTR. I’ve never seen a puffer jacket with that material. How cool would it be to own a black one. I add that to my mental wish list. I examine the rest of her outfit. Underneath her mustard yellow beanie, her hair is dyed faded lilac pink, almost matching the color of her jacket. Her jacket contrasts against her black sweater, and her black platform sneakers (called creepers) tap to the beat of an invisible song. A peak of her wrist from the edge of her sleeve shows the beginning of a tattoo sleeve. I instinctively reach to my ribs to touch where my tiny one is.
Her eyes light up as her sparkly manicured hands swipes away on her phone. A gleeful smile (that she was trying so hard to suppress) occasionally peaks through. Her pillowy coat dances up and down in silent throbs of laughter. Maybe she’s in a relationship? Or maybe she has someone whom she has a massive crush on. Her giddiness is endearing and her good mood cannot be hidden. The doors open at Sheung Wan Station and she gets up to leave, her large grey backpack jostling. She’s cool, that’s for sure. She’s confident. She is optimistic. She is not afraid to venture out.
“And this is Colin.” Jane motions towards her right. A tall guy with big arms and dark eyebrows looks at me from under his cap and stretches out his hand. “Where are you from?” I ask. “I’m from Shanghai. Well, kind of.” Our eyes meet.
