Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [6]
My mother always said China was corrupt. I thought that sort of thing went out with the Communist takeover, but apparently it hasn’t disappeared completely. What would my mom do if she were here? She’d hide her cash, as she did at home. When I get back to my cabin, I take out all the money I stole from her can under the sink and divide it into two piles, wrapping the larger amount in a handkerchief and pinning it to my underwear. I take the rest—$250—and put it in my wallet with my new Chinese money. Then I pick up my suitcase, leave the cabin, and disembark.
IT’S EIGHT A.M., and the air is as thick, heavy, and hot white as potato soup. I’m herded with the other passengers into a stifling room filled with cigarette smoke and pungent with the odors of food that’s spent too long without refrigeration in this weather. The walls are painted a sickly pea green. The humidity is so bad that the windows sweat. In America, everything would be orderly, with people standing in lines. Here, my fellow passengers crush forward in a throbbing mass to the single processing kiosk. I linger on the edges because I’m nervous after my experience with passport control in Hong Kong. The line moves very slowly, with numerous delays for reasons I can’t see or intuit. It takes three hours for me to reach the window.
An inspector dressed in an ill-fitting drab green uniform asks, “What is the reason for your visit?”
He speaks Shanghainese, which is a relief, but I don’t think I should tell him the truth—that I’ve come to find my father but I have no clue where he is precisely or how to locate him.
“I’m here to help build the People’s Republic of China,” I answer.
He asks for my papers, and his eyes widen when he sees my U.S. passport. He looks at me and then back at the photo. “It’s good you came this year instead of last year. Chairman Mao says that Overseas Chinese no longer have to apply for entry permits. All I need is something that shows your identity, and you’ve given me that. Would you consider yourself stateless?”
“Stateless?”
“It’s illegal to travel in China as a U.S. citizen,” he says. “So are you stateless?”
I’m nineteen. I don’t want to seem like an uninformed and ignorant runaway. I don’t want to confess that I don’t exactly know what stateless means.
“I’ve come to China in response to the call for patriotic Chinese from the United States to serve the people,” I say, reciting things I learned in my club in Chicago. “I want to contribute to humanity and help with national reconstruction!”
“All right then,” the inspector says.
He drops my passport in a drawer and locks it. That alarms me.
“When will I get my passport back?”
“You won’t.”
It never occurred to me that I could be giving up my rights should I ever want to leave China and return to the United States. I feel a door swing shut and lock behind me. What will I do later if I want to leave and I don’t have the key? Then my mother’s and aunt’s faces flash before me and all the tumultuous and sad emotions of our last days together bubble up again. I’ll never go back. Never.
“All personal luggage for Overseas Chinese must be searched,” the inspector states, pointing to a sign that reads, CUSTOMS PROCEDURE GOVERNING PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF PERSONAL LUGGAGE ACCOMPANYING OVERSEAS CHINESE. “We’re seeking contraband items and clandestine remittances of foreign currency.”
I open my bag, and he paws through