Lisa See - Shanghai Girls

From Wang’s Farmhouse, I follow Sam down Dragon Road. “Walk next to me,” he invites me in Sze Yup, but I don’t because I don’t want to encourage him. If I make small talk with him during the day or do something like walk next to him, then he’ll want to do the husband-wife thing.

Apart from the rickshaw rides, all the other Golden businesses are in the oval, where Dragon and Kwan Yin Roads meet. It’s along this route that the rickshaws make their serpentine loop. Only twice in the six months I’ve worked here have I ventured over to the Lotus Pool or into the covered area that houses a theater for Chinese opera, a penny arcade, and Tom Gubbins’s Asiatic Costume Company. China City may be one oddly shaped block bordered by Main, Macy, Spring, and Ord Streets-with over forty shops crammed together with all the cafés, restaurants, and other “tourist attractions” like Wang’s Farmhouse-but there are distinct enclaves inside the walls, and the people within them rarely associate with their neighbors.

Sam unlocks the door to the café, flips on the lights, and starts brewing coffee. As I refill the salt and pepper shakers, the uncles and the other workers straggle in and begin their chores. By the time the pies are sliced and put on display, the early-bird customers have arrived. I chat with our regulars-truck drivers and postal workers-take orders, and call them out to the cooks.

At nine, a pair of policemen come in and sit at the counter. I smooth my apron and allow my teeth to show in grinning welcome. If we don’t fill their bellies for free, they follow our customers to their cars and give them tickets. These last two weeks have been particularly bad as the police walked from one store to the next, collecting Christmas “presents” until their arms were loaded. A week ago, after they decided they hadn’t received enough gifts, they blocked the auto park, preventing customers from coming at all. Now everyone’s cowed, obedient, and willing to give whatever the policemen ask for so long as they let us keep our doors open.

Just as the police leave, a truck driver calls out to Sam, “Hey, buddy get me a piece of that blueberry pie to go, will ya?”

Maybe Sam’s still nervous about the policemen’s visit, because he ignores the request and continues washing glasses. By now it seems like an eternity ago that I learned from my coaching book that Sam was to be the manager of the café, but actually his position is somewhere between a glass washer and a dish washer. I watch him as I serve eggs, potatoes, toast, and coffee for thirty-five cents or a jelly roll and coffee for a nickel. Someone asks Sam for a coffee refill, but he doesn’t go over with the pot until the man taps the edge of his cup impatiently. A half hour later, that same man asks for his bill, and Sam points to me. Not once does he say a word to any of our customers.

The breakfast rush slows. Sam gathers dirty plates and silverware, while I follow after him with a wet cloth to wipe the tables and counters.

“Sam,” I say in English, “why don’t you talk to our customers?” When he doesn’t respond, I go on, still in English. “In Shanghai, the lo fan always said that Chinese waiters were surly and bad-mannered. You don’t want our customers to think that about you, do you?”

His look fades into nervousness, and he gnaws his lower lip.

I switch to Sze Yup. “You don’t know English, do you?”

“I know some,” he says. Then he amends this, smiling sheepishly. “A little. Very little.”

“How can that be?”

“I was born in China. Why would I know it?”

“Because you lived here until you were seven.”

“That was a long time ago. I don’t remember the words from then.”

“But didn’t you study it in China?” I ask. Everyone I knew in Shanghai learned English. Even May who was a very poor student, knows the language.

Sam doesn’t respond directly. “I can try to speak English, but the customers refuse to understand me. And when they talk to me, I don’t understand them either.” He nods to the wall clock. “You’d better go.”

He’s always pushing me out the door. I know he goes somewhere in the mornings and in the late afternoons, just as I do. As a fu yen it’s not my place to ask where he goes. If Sam is gambling or has hired someone to do the husband-wife thing with him, what can I do? If he’s one of those womanizer types, what can I do? If he’s a gambler like my father, what can I do? I learned to be a wife from my mother and from watching Yen-yen, and I know there’s nothing you can do if your husband wants to walk out on you. You don’t know where he goes. He comes back when he comes back, and that’s it.

I wash my hands and take off my apron. As I walk to the Golden Lantern, I think about what Sam said. How can he not know English? My English is perfect-and I’ve learned it’s polite to say Occidental instead of lo fan or fan gwaytze and Oriental instead of Chinaman or Chink -but I understand that isn’t the way to get a tip or make a sale. People come to China City to be entertained. Customers like me to speak wantee-chop-suey English-and how easy that is, after I’ve listened to Vern, Old Man Louie, and so many others, who were born here but speak crooked, misshapen English. For me, it’s an act; for Sam, it’s ignorance-country, and as distasteful to me as his secret dalliances with who knows who.

I reach the Golden Lantern, where Yen-yen sells curios and babysits Joy. Together we polish, dust, and sweep. When I finish, I play with Joy for a while. At 11:30, I once again leave Joy with Yen-yen and go back to the café, where as fast as I can I serve hamburgers for fifteen cents. Our hamburgers aren’t as popular as the Chinaburgers at Fook Gay’s Café, with their stir-fried bean sprouts, black mushrooms, and soy sauce, but we do well with our bowls of salted fish with pork for ten cents, and plain bowls of rice and tea for five cents.

After lunch, I work at the Golden Lotus, selling silk flowers until Vern arrives from school. Then I go to the Golden Pagoda. I want to talk to my sister about our plans for Christmas Day, but she’s busy convincing a customer that a piece of lacquer was painted on a raft in the middle of a lake lest a speck of dust mar the perfection of its surface, and I’m busy sweeping, dusting, polishing, and shining.

Before heading back to the café, I return to the Golden Lantern, pick up Joy, and take her for a short walk through China City ’s alleys. Much like the tourists, she loves to watch the rickshaws. Golden Rickshaw rides are hugely popular-they’re Old Man Louie’s most successful enterprise. Johnny Yee, one of the local boys, pulls rickshaws for celebrities or for promotional photographs, but usually Miguel, Jose, and Ramon do the job. They earn tips and a small percentage of the twenty-five-cent fare for each ride. They get a little more if they can persuade a customer to buy a photo for an extra twenty-five cents.

Today a woman passenger kicks Miguel and then swats him with her purse. Why would she do that? Because she can. The way pullers were treated in Shanghai never bothered me. Was it because my father owned the business? Because I was like this white woman -above the pullers? Because in Shanghai pullers were barely better than dogs, whereas here May and I are now in their class? I have to say yes, yes, and yes again.

I drop Joy back with her grandmother, kiss my baby good night because I won’t see her again until I go home, and then spend the rest of the evening serving sweet-and-sour pork, cashew chicken, and chop suey-all dishes I never saw or even heard of in Shanghai-until closing time at ten. Sam stays to lock up, and I start out for the apartment alone, wending my way through the festive Christmas Eve crowds on Olvera Street rather than walk alone on Main.