The Cooked Seed (5 page)

“Do you have any talent? For example, art?” Joan Chen wrote. “You may try your luck in art school if you do.”

“I grew up painting Mao murals for propaganda purposes,” I wrote back. “My Chinese calligraphy was average.”

Joan Chen put me in touch with a friend of hers who explained to
me the admission process of an American art school. A “portfolio” was what I needed. I wondered what was expected. I had no training at all. I could copy neither the masterpieces of Chinese traditional brush paintings nor the Western masters. The only great Western artist I knew was Michelangelo. It would be impossible for an amateur like me to copy him. I had heard about a new Western art exhibition in Shanghai titled
Impressionism and Cubism
. I decided to check it out.

At the Shanghai art exhibition, I found myself confused and thrilled at the same time. Confused that Western society had abandoned Michelangelo for childlike paintings, thrilled that so-called modern art would be easy for me to copy. It was the first time I learned the names of Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, and Andy Warhol. I stared at the paintings and was not sure if I liked them. The strokes were clumsy and the subjects unclear and unrecognizable. The only thought that started to excite me was: If Americans preferred childlike paintings like these, I stood a chance to fool them.

After coming home, I set out canvases, brushes, and colored inks. I painted throughout the night. I found myself having a good time. There was no master’s work in front of me. I was guided by my own nature.

I felt like a child who had been given a magical brush. I painted earth, trees, bushes, and water in abstract shapes. I painted my deepest fear in the form of dark and broken strokes mixed with tearlike ink drops. I splashed my emotions on the canvases. My mother said she saw madness and death in my paintings.

Three months later, I received a thick envelope with a catalog and an application. It was from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The glossy catalog scared me, for I knew that I wouldn’t be able to afford it. I didn’t let myself be discouraged, though, because I remembered what Joan Chen had told me: Most Chinese students managed to work to pay their tuition and counted on future earnings to pay off their debts.

I attempted to fill out the application form but got stuck in the first line. I was supposed to fill in my name, but I didn’t have an English name. Do I spell “An-Qi” from the Pinyin system? Could Americans recognize that? For advice, I knocked on the door of the wise man in
the neighborhood. He suggested I spell my name as “Angel,” for it was an American name. I carefully copied the characters of “Angel” onto the application form, only I didn’t realize that I had spelled it as “Angle.”

The next line was “sex.” I looked up the word
sex
in my English-Chinese dictionary. The word didn’t exist. I visited the wise man again for help. He instructed me to circle “female.”

The line after “sex” was “field of interest.” I was supposed to check one of the following: drawing, painting, sculpting, designing, architecture, music, or filmmaking. I didn’t know which to circle. I scanned the remaining pages and sensed that I wouldn’t be able to complete the form on my own.

I visited a friend of Joan Chen’s after work at ten P.M. I needed help with my application form. The friend was not home, so I waited by her door. After midnight, she appeared. She was a translator and tour guide. She had just gotten off work, returning from Suzhou. I was sorry to bother her. Yawning, she took over my application.

Three months later, I received an acceptance letter from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Joan Chen had warned me that acceptance by an American school didn’t mean that I could enter the country. It was only the first of many steps. Next I had to obtain a passport from the security authority in Shanghai, and after that I had to apply for a visa at the US Consulate in China. The United States would grant visas only to those who showed promise and potential to contribute to the country.

If I had stopped to think, I never would have developed the guts to try. Everyone said to me, “Where did you get the nerve?” I had to force my mind to focus on jumping through the next hoop and nothing else. In the same letter, the school requested an important document. It said, “In order to issue you an I-20 form, which you will need to apply for a visa to enter America, we must first receive a signed Affidavit of Support.”

I had learned from Joan Chen that I must find an individual willing to play the role of my sponsor. I would have to convince this person that I would pay back anything I’d owed. I thought about my mother’s sister living in Singapore. The trouble was, I didn’t know my aunt very well. During the Cultural Revolution, my father made sure that we
denied her existence to avoid the government’s suspicion that we were spies.

My mother refused to write her sister a letter on my behalf. “It is too much to ask,” she said firmly. I wrote a letter to my aunt behind my mother’s back. It was the most difficult letter I had ever written. I promised that I would not be a burden. Fortunately, my aunt agreed to lend a hand. I could not have been more grateful when I received the signed Affidavit of Support.

I was at the office of the Communist Party boss. I had asked for permission to apply for a passport. The boss was a former veteran and a chain-smoker. He spoke with a northern accent and did not look me in the eye when he talked. He asked me to explain the difference between America and Albania. The question confused me. I was afraid to give the wrong answer. Instead of answering him, I took out the acceptance letter from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I pushed the papers toward the boss over the desk and asked him to examine them. He pushed them back.

“What’s the difference between America and Albania?” he insisted.

I wondered what kind of trick he was playing.

I spoke carefully and humbly. “Please enlighten me, for I am illiterate over international affairs.”

“We know that there are proletarians in Albania, yes?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Are there proletarians in America, Comrade Min?”

Relieved, I gave a firm answer. “Yes, of course, absolutely, definitely. There are many, many proletarians in America. Hundreds and thousands and perhaps millions of proletarians in America.”

“Excellent!” His eyes brightened. “We know what to do now. Are you, Comrade Min, a member of the Youth League of China?”

“Yes.”

“Do you intend to promote revolution in America?”

“Of course.”

“In the name of the Communist Youth League of China?”

“In the name of the Communist Youth League of China!”

The boss was satisfied. “I shall stamp your application and then forward it to the Department of Security for processing. However, I need you to answer my last question. I want you to complete the lower couplet of a poem I am going to recite.” Smiling, as if pleased with himself, he continued. “
A spark of flame—
”

“
Will start a wild fire!
” I was thrilled that I had received solid training in reciting Mao’s poems and teachings.

I ran from the studio like a criminal who had escaped by accident. I was afraid that the Party boss might change his mind or have another question that I wouldn’t be able to answer. I was surprised that he hadn’t mentioned that I was Madame Mao’s trash. I wondered if he actually checked my dossier. I had heard many people say that the boss was unpredictable. He had once been wounded in the skull. When he was in a dark mood, he would recognize no one. He described himself as a “loyal Communist dog” and was proud of being ruthless. I thanked heaven for putting him in a favorable mood that day.

It was discouraging just to look at the long line wrapped around the block at the United States Consulate in Shanghai. It was an old-style mansion half hidden in a canopy of large trees on the west Huai Hai Boulevard. Armed Chinese soldiers stood on pedestals by the gate watching over the crowd. I was looking for information on how to obtain an American visa. Since our new leader, Deng Xiaoping, had opened China’s doors, the people’s view of America had changed dramatically. As we watched newsreels showing America’s poor protesting on their streets, we were shocked to see that many of them were obese. They dressed better than the rich people in China. For half a century, we had been fed the idea that American people were skeleton thin and wore rags. If a picture was worth a thousand words, the newsreel created a silent revolution in Chinese minds. The newly imported American movies
Snow White
and
The Sound of Music
fueled our doubts and wonder. I was beginning to understand that Americans were not the devils we had believed them to be.

More and more university graduates wanted to go to America to see for themselves. The visa office was jammed with applicants. The neighborhood near the consulate entrance became a hot spot for young and interested people. During visa hours, the place was like a refugee camp. Makeshift vendors sold food, water, and aspirin. Old ladies rented out stools, sun hats, sunglasses, fans, and umbrellas. There were wise men and fortune-tellers giving opinions and predictions. The crowd grew bigger in late summer before the start of the school year in America.

The crowd was divided mostly into two groups. Group A was formally rejected visa applicants who wanted to try again. Group B was people like me, about to try their luck for the first time. The update was that the American government had raised the qualification bar on visas. Master’s-degree applicants were no longer promised visas. One
had to be a Ph.D. candidate in the area of math and science in order to get a visa.

People said to me, “Going for a bachelor degree in art? Next life!”

I began to cough blood again. My doctor said that it was not tuberculosis, though he couldn’t tell what it was. The traditional Chinese doctor told me that my internal breath “chi” was “gravely disturbed.” My body had lost its ability to heal. My intestines no longer functioned properly. I suffered from chronic diarrhea. When I saw undigested spinach floating in the toilet bowl, I wept.

I carried
English 900 Sentences
on buses going to and returning from work. Compared to Chinese, English as a language made more sense. For example, the English “I” took one stroke while the Chinese “I” took seven. The Chinese “I,” “
”, looked like a walking person in an elaborate costume. English seemed to serve as a better tool, while Chinese existed to be admired.

It was obvious that the English “I” was the result of capitalism. Time equaled money. I welcomed the English “I.” In China we never stopped talking about “Serving the people with heart and soul,” yet people, the majority, were uneducated and illiterate.

To prepare to face an American visa officer, I drafted a “self-introduction.” I composed it in Chinese first, then had it translated into English. At the entrance of the US Consulate, the wise men had told me that a “self-introduction” must focus on three points:

1.
Who are you?

2.
Why do you want to go to America?

3.
How will you be able to survive in the US?

“If you fail to impress the consul, you will be given a rejection stamp called code B-14 on your passport. Do not try to lie, because the consuls are trained lie detectors. They can see through you.”

When people learned that I did not speak any English, they said, “You must have eaten a lion’s gut! How dare you plan to fool the consul?”

There was no way I’d be able to impress the consul, but it would be suicidal if I told the truth: “Hello, I’d like to go to America because I want to escape my misery in China.” An American consul in his or her right mind would never issue a visa to a desperate person like me. Would it be better to say, “I’d like to go to America for an education. It might serve to reverse my ill fortune in China”?

Answering the question of how I would survive in the United States would be hard without speaking English. I couldn’t afford to be honest and tell the consul that I had memorized the speech.

Why rob myself of my one chance? If the consul were in my shoes, would he not be lying himself? I was not hurting anyone. I had to overcome my guilt. My mother hadn’t raised me to be a liar. She would rather die than tell a lie. She would be disappointed and ashamed that her daughter would choose to lie. She would threaten to disown me. What would happen if I gave up? I would end up living the life my mother led. I felt that this would be worse than getting caught lying.

What if the consul interrupted me? What if he asked a question? I wouldn’t be able to understand him and wouldn’t know how to respond. I decided that I would recite my self-introduction so fast that it would be difficult for the consul to interrupt me.

I began to drill myself after work. Everyone was irritable around home. My father had collapsed at work due to internal stomach bleeding. He had recently been transferred from the printing shop to a position as an instructor of astronomy at the Shanghai Children’s Center. In gratitude to his new Party boss, my father worked long hours and was exhausted. He was rushed to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. The news sent our family into a panic.