The Cooked Seed (24 page)

I had been watching the popular American TV series
Dynasty
when an idea came to me. If I could create a TV series featuring Chinese students’ lives in America, I knew it would have an audience in China. I could write the stories and convince my friend Joan Chen to play the lead. Maybe I could find an American company interested in advertising in China to sponsor the show. I could contact one of my former film bosses in China to coproduce the stories and have the shows broadcast in China—this way, I’d create a job for myself.

I met a young black man at the school named Eric, who worked for a small Chicago film production company. Eric liked my idea so much that he arranged a meeting for me with his boss to pitch the idea.

Mr. R, the head of the production company, was excited about my idea. He told me that a notable corporation was one of his clients. He said that he would present the idea of sponsorship to them while I worked up a detailed proposal describing the show. Several meetings later, the corporation sent its representative, Miss K, to meet with me. I suggested that Mr. R and Miss K come to China with me to investigate the possibility, and they were thrilled.

I contacted Mr. Chong, whom I had once worked for. He was now the boss of the Beijing Film Corporation. I arranged multiple phone
meetings between Mr. Chong, Eric, Mr. R, and Miss K. I translated what Mr. Chong said. “China would love to earn US dollars by supplying equipment and labor.” Miss K wanted to know that China would air the show. “Mr. Chong doesn’t think it will be a problem as long as the show is not anti–Communist Party.”

A trip to China to meet with Mr. Chong in person was scheduled. The day before our departure, Eric came to me looking devastated.

“They canceled my ticket. They said there was no need for me to go. I’ve been double-crossed. I need your help.”

This was the first time I witnessed betrayal in an American setting. I went to Mr. R and told him that I would not have met him if it hadn’t been for Eric’s introduction. “I will not lead you to China if Eric is not on board. There will be no meeting with Mr. Chong, either.”

Mr. R had no choice but to let Eric join the trip to China.

To welcome the American guests, Mr. Chong threw a lavish banquet. Like a local king, he ushered our party through a tour of his property. Beijing Film Corporation was larger than Hollywood’s Universal Studios, although bare land was all he had. I didn’t know what to say when Mr. Chong asked me how big Mr. R’s film company was. It would be like comparing a horse to a mosquito. I only said that the US film companies operated differently. The success of a film didn’t depend on the size of its production office.

I believed that it was a waste of money when Mr. R and Miss K insisted on signing a contract with Mr. Chong through an American law office based in Beijing. I advised that American law wouldn’t bind the Chinese government—it was part of the risk of doing business in China.

Refusing to listen to me, Mr. R paid a foolish amount to the law office, and then he was happy, and felt secure about the deal.

A month after we returned to the US, Mr. Chong was removed from his position by the Central Communist Party because he had sided with the students at Tiananmen Square. Mr. Chong had personally ordered a documentary crew to film the event when the tanks rolled in. Mr. Chong might have been a historical hero if he hadn’t miscalculated.

The last thing Mr. Chong did was to tell me that the contract was still valid. He asked me to tell Mr. R and Miss K to wire the first production funds promised in the contract. With this, Mr. Chong shot himself in the foot. I smelled his rotten character. He knew he wouldn’t be able to guarantee the production or the broadcast, yet he still wanted the American dollars. He didn’t care what might happen to the American investors or me.

I was not as foolish as Mr. Chong thought I was. I told Mr. R and Miss K that the deal was off due to China’s political situation and Mr. Chong’s downfall. By then, they had already been informed. The image of a Chinese man standing in front of a line of military tanks was on TV all over the world.

“But we have the contract with Mr. Chong,” Mr. R argued. “It was notarized by our law office in Beijing!”

A couple years later I cowrote a new twenty-five-episode TV series for China based on the same idea. This time I was betrayed by my own people. I looked for partners to coproduce my show because I was tied up in writing a book and completing the scripts of the twenty-five episodes. Two former students from China, Mr. S and Mr. Z, approached me. They had been running a small Chinese-language television station in Chicago. They begged for a chance to work with me. I was impressed by their enthusiasm. I convinced Joan Chen to lend her name to the project and I composed a letter introducing Mr. S and Mr. Z to the Minister of China’s Cultural and Art Bureau. When Joan Chen asked if I trusted these young men, I gave a positive answer.

It never occurred to me that I would be double-crossed the same way Eric was. The moment China’s Central Television Corporation picked up the show and became its solo sponsor, which guaranteed over a billion viewers, I found myself excluded from the project. My partners, the two students whom I named executive producers, had “fired” me.

Most of the creative members of the crew went with the money, understandably, except my loyal friend Joan Chen. She did exactly what
I had done for Eric—she stood up for me and withdrew her name from the show. She witnessed how I was stabbed in the back and lost her faith in the project. She no longer felt safe working with them. “They were your friends,” she said to me.

Not a day passed that I didn’t think about my younger sister’s tear-washed face, my mother pretending that she hadn’t witnessed our fight, and my father pleading, “Anchee, it is my wish that you go back to America. You might be poor there, but you will be safe. America will have no Cultural Revolution. You’ll never worry about waking up one morning to find yourself denounced.”

I couldn’t make my father understand that without a green card there would be no safety in America. The door kept shutting in my face in terms of jobs, even with my master’s degree. I began to see that some Chinese students who couldn’t get jobs chose to pursue Ph.D. degrees. Why not try the same route? My master’s degree might fool people into believing I was qualified. I submitted my application to the University of Chicago in Chinese history and women’s studies.

Qigu said, “It’s crazy to focus your entire life on securing your immigration status. Your life is passing you by. You’re robbing yourself of all that is wonderful—sunshine, spring, flowers, and birds. You forget the real reason we exist on this planet.” Once again he listed examples of people who were green card holders, American citizens who lived unfulfilled and miserable lives.

“If you continue to slave yourself, what is the purpose of coming to America?” Qigu continued. “It’s a downward spiral, a black hole. It will not end even after you achieve citizenship. Such discontent is like greed. You will want to upgrade your house to match your new status. Then you’ll realize that you must drive an equally fancy car. You will then need to update your wardrobe in order to match your car; along the way your hair, accessories, shoes, socks, and skin color will come up for review. Finally, you’ll convince yourself that your partner is a mismatch …”

Qigu won the Tokyo Tri-annual International Art Exhibition competition. As a result, he was accepted for a group show at a Chicago gallery.
He believed that only when one was free in body and spirit would one’s mind be open to positive energy and opportunities. “This is exactly what is happening to me.”

Qigu was happy doing what he loved. I admired his mental strength and his sense of calm confidence. This, in fact, was what I most valued in him. His perspective was a balm that I had come to depend on. I needed him to tell me that I would be okay.

Although I loved painting, I never imagined that I could be an artist. Under Qigu’s influence, a Chinese-American gallery owner took a chance on me. He offered to exhibit my paintings, but none sold.

I was not looking forward to my thirty-fourth birthday. I felt stuck and in a rut, without much to look forward to. Only Qigu didn’t think I was a loser. And I was not sure if he was a winner.

I longed for a family and children. Qigu didn’t know how desperate I was to settle down. I had secretly gone to the library looking for information on how late was too late for a woman to have children. What I learned scared me. When a woman turned thirty-five, there was a 2 percent chance that her fetus would be retarded or wouldn’t survive the pregnancy. The percentage of such risk increased drastically as the woman aged. If I wanted a healthy baby, assuming I was still capable, I had less than a year.

It had become obvious that Qigu had no interest in proposing to me. In my cowardly way, I had asked him about love, and he gave his usual answer that “we were Chinese.” I took this as a sign that he loved me in a profound way, the Chinese way. I carefully asked him about his future in terms of a family. He asked me if I understood the word
fatalism
.

When I replied no, he explained that he would never make enough money to provide for a family. “How can I feed my children when I can barely feed myself?” he said. “It would be irresponsible—to you, society, and the child.”

Qigu took me to a dinner at the house of his favorite professor, Don. The old man sensed my anxiety during our conversation. He said, “Trust me, I have been teaching art for nearly thirty years. Qigu turns his feelings into inspired works of art. His paintings are poetic encounters with life: a small miracle, a separation over a misfortune,
the sharing of a contented moment. Qigu’s gift is his ability to feel deeply.”

But feeling deeply doesn’t get us a green card
, I thought.

“I beg you not to make demands on Qigu,” the professor continued. “He is such a gentle soul, and he loves you.” The wine had turned the man’s face bright pink. “Shield Qigu from the ordinary duties of life. Spare him from such torture. Qigu was born to paint. A genius. He honors God with his art. It’s our fortune that Qigu shares his gift with us. I pray that God will give him the strength to endure life’s cruelty.”

I continued to live with Qigu in the attic as we worked to fix the rest of the units. I had trouble getting used to the attic doorway, which was only five feet high. I kept bruising my forehead. I let Qigu know that I was trying to feel free and safe, but I didn’t. I had trouble playing the role of his girlfriend, although we got along well as friends and schoolmates. Sometimes I felt embarrassed to be associated with him.

I felt a loss of face and resented Qigu when our tenants Maria and her brother didn’t get their window fixed. They deserved a decent window; they were the only family who was never late on the rent. I would have done the job myself if I could have. If we could have afforded to hire someone, I would have. Instead I kept pushing Qigu. I fought with him and he kept putting me off. I couldn’t tell him how much it really bothered me, and I felt ashamed because Qigu’s inaction reflected badly on me. If it hadn’t been for the mortgage, I would have asked Maria to hold on to her rent until we fixed her window.

Another thing that bothered me involved our downstairs tenants, two students from India. Qigu had great conversations with them about their motherland, but he did not provide quality service as a landlord. The students came to the attic one morning complaining that they had caught cold due to insufficient heat. They reported that the heat had been cut off in the middle of the night.

I confronted Qigu, who admitted that it was his doing. He was trying to save on the heating bill. He meant to turn the heat back on in the morning but overslept and forgot. In an attempt to calm the students he said, “We survived in China and you in India, where heat and air-conditioning don’t exist.”

“But this is not China or India,” the students protested. “This is America!”

The students insisted that their lease clearly stated that the rent included heat. “We have to stay up late to do our homework and prepare for exams. We’d offer to pay an extra twenty dollars to help keep the heat on.”

I was embarrassed beyond words. I could see that the Indian students had lost respect for us as Chinese. I felt not only disappointed but hurt.

“You talk like a model Communist!” Qigu said after the students went back downstairs. “Before demanding others to be perfect, first examine yourself. Are you perfect? Since nobody is perfect, let’s relax. You are neither behind nor ahead of anyone else in human virtue. Why do you have to be so self-righteous all the time? Maybe it is your former training. Maybe being dramatic is your nature.”

I could no longer ignore the sad fact that Qigu and I were not in love. We had been sleeping in the bed we made—the mortgage contract was under both of our names. I felt that I had little choice but to stick with Qigu. Hopefully for my good behavior he would reward me with a marriage proposal. In the meantime I found it difficult to put up with him. He saw himself as a guru while I saw him as a beggar.

My comment didn’t offend Qigu a bit. His response was, “Confucius was a beggar before he was a sage—so was Buddha.”

It was during a dinner with friends that I turned mad. Qigu had initiated the dinner. Since I knew we couldn’t afford it, I didn’t want to go. But he insisted. “Let’s have a good time. I’ll take care of everything.”

When the menus were passed around, I became nervous over the pricy dishes. Qigu kept encouraging everyone, “Pick whatever you like the best! How about baked oysters with ginger? It’s absolutely delicious!”

I kicked Qigu under the table, but he ignored me. I leaned over his shoulder and pointed at the price of the oyster dish, $14.99.

“No problem!” Qigu continued.

Intoxicated by the rice wine, the guests were inspired by Qigu’s
brilliant commentary on Taoism and Zen philosophy. The dishes kept coming one after another until the table was full. Everyone but me was enjoying himself and having a great time. The discussion focused on the current international art trend.