Элинор Арнасон - The Very Best of the Best - 35 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction

We introduce ourselves by our English names. I am Thomas Majors and you are Daniel Liu. “Liu. Like my scarf,” I joke. I give you a smile copied from Pierce Brosnan.

I lie to you and tell you that I’m from London and my name is Thomas. Your lies are those of omission: you do not mention that you are the son of New Teach’s owner, and that you had the opportunity to study in the United States but flunked out immediately.

Somehow being the only child of rich parents hasn’t made you too spoiled. In your first year at New Teach you sit close to me, studying my counterfeit English as I talk to my students. Meanwhile, I sit close to Sarah, a heavyset Canadian girl, trying to glean real English from her as best I can.

Somehow, my waiguoren status doesn’t spoil me, either. Unlike most Western men in China, I bathe regularly and dress well and arrive to work on time without a hangover every morning, and I don’t try to sleep with my students. My humanity requires work to maintain. I don’t take it for granted.

For these reasons, I am declared the star foreign instructor at New Teach English. I stand out like a gleaming cubic zirconium in a rubbish heap. The students adore me. Parents request me for private lessons with their children. They dub me Da Huang (Big Yellow).

Every six to twelve months, the other foreign teachers leave and a new set takes their place. Only I remain with you. You stay close to me, seeking me out for grammar help and conversation practice. There’s more you want, I know, but you are too timid to ask for it outright, and I am unable to offer it.

We slowly create each other like a pair of half-rate Pygmalions. I fix the holes in your English, teach you how to look others in the eye, how to shake hands authoritatively, how to approach Western women, how to pose in photographs, how to project confidence (“fake it till you make it”), how to be the sort of man you see in movies.

Your questions prod me to quilt Thomas Majors together from little scraps stolen from overheard conversations in expat bars. Thomas Majors traveled a lot as a child, which is why his accent is a bit odd. (That came from an American girl who wore red-framed glasses.) Thomas Majors has an annoying younger brother and an eccentric older sister. (This I took from old television sitcoms.) His father owned a stationery shop (based on an ESL listening test), but his sister is set to inherit the business (from a BBC period piece), so Thomas moved to China to learn about calligraphy (that came from you, when I saw you carrying your ink brush).

Your questions and comments nudge me into playing the ideal Englishman: polite, a little silly at times, but sophisticated and cool. Somehow I become the sort of man that other men look up to. They ask Thomas for advice on dating and fashion and fitness and education. They tell him he’s tall and handsome and clever. I say “thank you” and smile, just as I practiced in the mirror.

I liked Thomas. I wish I could have kept on being him a little longer.

In Shenzhen, I nearly tell you the truth about myself. New Teach has just opened a center there and sends you out to manage it. You want to bring me to work there and help keep the foreign teachers in line.

“I don’t know if I can pass the medical examination,” I tell you.

“You look healthy,” you reply.

I choose my words carefully. “I have a medical condition. I manage it just fine, but I’m afraid the doctors will think I am too sick.”

“What condition? Is it di…” You struggle with the pronunciation.

“It’s not diabetes. The truth is”—and what follows is at least partially true—“I don’t know what it is, exactly.”

“You should see a doctor,” you tell me.

“I have,” I say. “They did a lot of tests on me for a long time but they still couldn’t figure it out. I got sick of it. Lots of needles in my arms and painful surgeries.” I mime nurses and doctors jabbing and cutting me. “So now I don’t go to doctors anymore.”

“You should still have an examination,” you tell me.

“No,” I say.

Physicians are not difficult to fool, especially in China, overworked and sleep-deprived as they are. But their machines, their scanners, and their blood tests are things I cannot deceive. I do not want to know what they might find beneath Thomas Majors’s skin.

I tell you I won’t go with you if I have to submit to a medical exam, knowing full well how badly you want me to come. And so phone calls are made, red envelopes are stuffed, favors are cashed in, and banquets are arranged.

We feast with Shenzhen hospital administrators. They stare at me as I eat with chopsticks. “You’re very good with… ah…” The hospital director points at the utensils in my hand, unable to dig up the English word.

“ Kuaizi ,” I say. They applaud.

We go out to KTV afterward. The KTV bar has one David Bowie song and two dozen from the Backstreet Boys. The men like the way I sing. They order further snacks, more beer, and a pretty girl to sit on our laps and flirt with us. “So handsome,” she says, stroking my chin. By then I have mastered the art of blushing.

You present a bottle of liquor: “It’s very good baijiu ,” you say, and everyone nods in agreement. We toast. They fill my glass with liquor over and over again. Each time they clink it and say, “ Gan bei! ” And to me they add, “For England!” Now I have no choice but to drain my glass to make my fake mother country proud.

For most foreigners, baijiu is a form of torture. I’ve heard them say it’s foul-tasting, that it gives monstrous hangovers, that you’ll find yourself burping it up two days later. But for me, it’s no more noxious than any other fluid. So I throw down enough liquor to show our guests that I am healthy and strong. We finish the bottle, then a second, and when I realize that the other men are putting themselves in agony to keep up with me I cover my mouth, run to the nearby lavatory, and loudly empty my stomach. Our guests love it. They cheer.

The winner of the drinking contest is a short, fat, toad-like man with a wide mouth. He’s the director of the hospital, which is easy to guess by his appearance; powerful men in Hunan often look a bit like toads. You tell me later that I made him very happy by drinking with him, and that he was extremely pleased to have defeated a Westerner.

And that is how I pass my health examination in Shenzhen.

Your grandmother recognizes me during the following Spring Festival.

Going home with you is a bad idea. I should spend those two weeks enjoying the relative quiet of the empty city, drinking myself into oblivion with the leftover handful of expats.

The idea starts as a lark, a jocular suggestion on your part, but once it seizes me it will not let me go. I can’t remember the last time I was in a home, with a family. I want to know what it’s like.

You are too embarrassed to try to talk me out of it, so home we go.

Your mother is surprised to see me. She takes you aside and scolds you. Tingting’s Changshahua has faded. Now my new English brain is still struggling to learn proper Mandarin, so I only get the gist of the conversation. I know meiyou (without) and nü pengyou (girlfriend), and my understanding of the culture fills in the rest. You’re supposed to have brought home a woman. You’re not getting any younger; you’re just a few years shy of turning thirty unmarried, a bare-branch man. Your parents can’t bear it. They don’t understand. You’re tall, rich, and handsome. Why don’t you have a girlfriend?

The question is repeated several times over the next ten days, by your mother, your father, your grandfather, and your aunt.