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By Root 1510 0

”), or in Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver (which natives there nicknamed “Hongcouver”). But not every family was happy with the new arrangement. In Hong Kong, where labor was cheap, many wives had servants at their disposal. Now they had to adapt to a society in which even upper-middle-class American housewives were expected to cook, clean, and chauffeur their children around. Also, in Hong Kong, most had enjoyed an adrenaline-charged social schedule, a whirlwind ritual of dim sum luncheons, karaoke parties, banquets, and nightly receptions. In the United States, some found it difficult to adjust to the slower pace of social activities, to the physical isolation and cool privacy of suburban living.

Inevitably, the loneliness caused by the prolonged absence of a spouse would lead many to adultery. According to psychologist Alex Leung, some astronauts experienced “a second bachelorhood” when they returned to Asia. “Hong Kong is a place which is famous for its materialistic glamour and night life,” he wrote. “It is very easy for these ‘single’ men to indulge themselves in these ’niceties‘—while writing off the excesses as ‘Business Entertainment.’” Meanwhile, there were reports of bored, frustrated Chinese housewives developing friendships with local men in their lives, platonic business relationships that may at times have evolved into something else. Extramarital sex—real or imagined—destroyed many astronaut marriages. The wife of a Hong Kong bank executive and mother of three children aroused her husband’s jealousy when she became close friends with an unmarried male neighbor in San Francisco. Her husband accused her of having an affair, while she confronted him with rumors of cavorting with strange women in Hong Kong nightclubs. Upon these words, he immediately left for Hong Kong and asked for a divorce a week later.

Of course, many if not most astronaut marriages withstood these tensions and survived, but the special pressures of split-home arrangements caused other fissures in family relationships. To allay their guilt over their extended absences, some Chinese fathers tried to express their love through expensive gifts—trendy toys, luxury cars, enormous allowances. But no matter how much money they spent, they learned that a father’s obligation to his children could not be satisfied solely in terms of dollars. Some sons and daughters came to view their fathers more as money machines than as loving advisers and reliable role models, and over time many fathers found themselves psychologically and emotionally estranged from their families. Alex Leung described a Mr. Lee whose children preferred to converse in English, not Chinese; when he insisted they speak to him in his native tongue, they often found it easier not to talk to him at all. In another home, a Mr. Wong, when staying with his wife and children, obsessively checked his stock quotes on the other side of the planet through fax and cell phone, often in the middle of the night, North American time. When they grew annoyed and asked him to stop, he warned he would never visit them again if they continued to complain about his behavior.

Without a strong father presence, troubled behavior among young people increased. One daughter of a Hong Kong astronaut confided to an interviewer that she was deeply worried about her brother: “He starts gambling and smoking, being involved with the gangs in Chinatown, having sex with a lot of bad girls. He has been caught once for breaking and entering. I try to cover for him as much as possible. My parents do not know yet and I am sure they will be devastated.”

But surely the ones who paid the greatest price for the astronaut lifestyle were the astronauts themselves, suffering the cumulative health risk of long flights, daily restaurant meals, and sleep deprivation caused by jet lag. A typical day for them might consist of meetings in a city far from home, sending e-mails from the airport, eating and sleeping onboard a red-eye flight to the next destination. Some astronauts trained themselves to work continuously for