Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [65]
“Exactly like these,” I say. “I always thought of the garden as my mother’s domain, but she was from Shanghai. Why did she want a South China garden?”
“Maybe the garden was a reflection of the community where she lived, a community filled with South China peasants.”
Once again, he’s right. My mother and Auntie May were Shanghai girls, but my father, grandparents, uncles, and all our neighbors were South China peasants. Even those who’d been in Los Angeles for two or more generations—some of whom were well educated, spoke good English, and dressed like Americans—were still, at heart, South China peasants. Somehow they’d maintained the visual idea of how things should look—the lushness of South China re-created in the desert of Los Angeles. More important, they still had their South China frugality.
“I’m from Shanghai,” Z.G. says, “and May was most definitely a product of Shanghai. You may have these gardens in your blood, but you too are a Shanghai girl.”
He says that with such confidence, and in some ways it makes me happy. I’m glad I decided to talk to him, but I can’t stop thinking about the woman I always believed was my mother. Judging from her garden, she must have had memories of her home village. Either that or her home village was deep, deep inside her soul, as my love for the countryside is in mine through my father Sam. Through my blood parents, I should be a Shanghai girl through and through, as Z.G. says. Instead, I feel connected to the people outside the window: China’s peasants, like the people in Green Dragon Village, like the people in Chinatown, like my father who loved me so much. Now, sitting on the train, I understand in part why I love Tao. He reminds me of my father—not the one sitting across from me in his elegant suit but the one who worried when I was sick, who made special treats for me, who told me bedtime stories.
IN PEKING, Z.G. and I go on excursions to the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, and the Forbidden City. All my life I’ve known about these places from Chinese school and from the photos and pictures my grandfather clipped from magazines to hang on the wall. The sights are beautiful, but I bet they’re a lot more enjoyable in the spring, when it isn’t bitterly cold. At night, we go to parties, where Z.G. teaches me how to distinguish people of importance. “A regular cadre has one fountain pen in his pocket,” he explains at a party in the compound next to the Forbidden City, where the most important members of the Communist Party live and work. “A two-pen cadre is more important. The most powerful carry several pens in their breast pockets. Those are high officials.”
Z.G. seems to know everyone. He has good guan-hsi—connections—which function like a web that links government relationships, family, influence, and power. People are happy to see him, especially the women, who bring him drinks, cover their mouths to hide their giggles when he speaks, and generally act like they’ve never seen a man before. We meet plenty of Americans, who make up the largest group of foreigners in Peking after the Soviet experts. We even attend a couple of parties where Chairman Mao and Premier Chou En-lai circulate through the room. I see them nod to Z.G. a couple of times, but they never come our way. These are people I’ve read about and who have inspired me. They’ve made history and changed a country. As a little girl, I met lots of movie stars when I worked on film sets. I even sat on Clark Gable’s lap once. But none of them have the charisma of China’s leaders. When they walk into a room, the air changes, becoming electric in the true sense of that word—sparkly and powerful. I’m utterly in awe.
It’s all wonderful, but two things disturb me. First—and I know it’s minor—it’s freezing around here. Every party we go to has barely any heat. Sometimes