Patrick J. Zhou lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Joy, and his cat, Bobby Newport. “Tàidù” is his first published short story.
To tune out the American voices behind him, Jia—his forehead leaning against the tacky smog-crusted glass of the bus window—counted the fluorescent orange bulbs as they flashed by on the concrete tunnel wall. Eighty-one. Eighty-two.
I really wish I could understand what this tour guide is saying.
I know. If they just had people who spoke better English, they’d make so much more money. Serious opportunity cost when you think about it.
For thirty minutes, a couple—the only white people who’d boarded their bus of mostly Chinese tourists—had been practically shouting every thought that crossed their mind. And, despite the obtrusive performance, Jia refused to pay them any attention. He wouldn’t give them that satisfaction.
Ninety, Jia muttered to himself. Ninety-one.
Maybe communist countries don’t really know how to do business. It’s not in their DNA.
Jia clenched his jaw but tried to keep it still. Dr. Baum said the grinding was wearing down his molars.
I bet it’s on purpose. With the Chinese controlling access to everything. I mean think about what they’re doing to the Uyghurs. Maybe they don’t want translators they can’t trust.
If the pair bothered anyone else, Jia couldn’t tell. Up ahead, the tour guide droned on in listless Sichuanese, his croaky voice crackling through scratchy speakers. A wisp of a woman in a yellow bucket hat kneeled on the seat in front of Jia and texted on WeChat. His seatmate, who smelled like Zhonghua cigarettes, was fast asleep. None of the forty-plus Chinese natives on this tour paid the Americans any mind at all.
It’s called being triggered, Felix told him once. That’s why you spiral. You should name it and be aware of it. There are tips and tricks to help manage how you’re feeling.
His family was always trying to help him. Last year, Jia flew back to Boston for Thanksgiving and told his brother about the lady next to him on the plane who, after a few minutes of pleasant small talk, said that his English was really good. He wasn’t quick on his feet though. He never was. Instead of telling her off, he seethed quietly for the rest of the flight, angry at himself for just saying, Thanks.
Gēge, her comment is a microaggression, Felix had said. Focusing on your breathing can help you calm down when you feel triggered.
Felix went to a liberal arts college where they talked about stuff that Jia didn’t in his chemical engineering program. During exams, his brother’s school would hire some company to bring puppies to the campus green for students to hold and relieve stress. Jia would just binge-watch a show on his iPad in bed until he fell asleep.
So, as the Americans yammered on behind him, he tried slow breaths. Deep breaths.
You’d think they could find some intern or college student learning English who’d do it for cheap.
His mother’s advice to fix what she called his tàidù, his attitude, relied on Scripture. She’d tell him in clunky English, Clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility—she’d pronounce it humi-lily—gentleness, patience.
And don’t look at me like that, she’d say. It’s not for anyone else or for me or even for God. Do it for yourself.
So now, he closed his eyes and imagined Jesus, preaching the Sermon on the Mount, wearing a windbreaker. A holy windbreaker of patience. The very same Nike windbreaker Jia had on.
Learning English is such a good skill to have for young people in foreign countries.
Oh, he had to look at these fuckers now.
The two sat in the very back of the bus and were altogether unsurprising. The man had a crew cut and a strong straight nose. A perfectly manicured beard and sharp jaw taunted Jia’s round and patchy chin. The woman had a tight blonde bun, bright eyes, and an even tan. A petite frame with five-day-a-week-yoga energy. Conventionally attractive, both of them, and Instagram-ready, as if any of that mattered.
But, of course it did. Not a crease of discomfort on their faces. They looked like they were ready to be anywhere; they got to belong everywhere.
Jia panicked when he let his gaze linger too long, afraid he’d been spotted. When the Americans made eye contact, however, they smiled back with polite vacancy, a total absence of familiarity of any kind. Then they went back to complaining to one another.
Relieved, Jia went back to the tunnel’s carousel of lights.
One.
Two.
Suddenly, the orange lights and the lifeless gray walls vanished. Natural light and a chorus of whaaas filled the decades-old bus as they emerged onto a narrow road along a ridge. The tour guide hollered into his mic and pointed eagerly out the windows to the landscape before them—
A pristine azure sky. Hugging the mountain range as far as Jia could see, a leafy quilt of emerald, canary yellow, and red. Tall trees in the valley bowing to gusts like worshippers to a throne. A glassy pearl of a lake gleaming in the late afternoon sun. A paradise. Here it was, the great natural wonder of the Middle Kingdom, the pride of his father’s province.
Jia’s dad had long dreamed of bringing the whole family out here for a visit. And now, because the company needed someone to inspect a new facility in Chengdu, Jia had the chance to realize that dream for himself. He pressed his phone up against that window and took photos. He reached his hand over the small gap at the top of the window to feel the breeze. He wanted to soak in as much detail as he could. With as little distraction as possible.
Can you say something, babe? Just to ask if he can speak up and try some English more often? We might as well get something out of this.
Excuse me? The man practically yodeled it. Excuse me? This time, everyone on the bus stopped what they were doing. Jia even saw the driver tilt his head up at the rearview mirror. They all looked at the American who, with the conceit of both a paying customer and a U.S. national, draped a shameless smile across his face.
In an attempt to do right by his family though, Jia turned away from the spectacle. He put his earbuds in and pulled his phone out of the fraying polyester jacket’s pocket, careful not to jostle his passport. He scrolled through his music to his “Chill Folk” playlist, put it on blast, and focused on his breathing.
This is a track jacket of humility, he thought, with a deep breath out, in rhythm with the soft plucky acoustic guitar coming on.
A track jacket of humi-lily.
. . .
The tour guide, who told their group to call him Dàgē (Mandarin for older brother), stood at the front of the overlook, closest to the waterfall, where a cascade of white ribbons streamed down glistening tawny rock. Jia, however, hovered at the back of the crowd, near the Americans. They were reading from Wikipedia on their phones.
Hm, this is called the White Pearl Waterfall.
Yeah, one of the widest waterfalls in the world.
The problem was that Dàgē’s Mandarin didn’t sound like Jia’s Beijing-born maternal grandparents or what the Boston Chinese Language Sunday School taught him from first to eighth grade. Even if Jia could make out the dialect, he only knew basic vocabulary for the home, like when his wàipó and wàigōng would ask him what he wanted to eat or when his parents would fight about money in the other room. So, he knew he would take this secret to the grave: that he had to learn about his ancestral homeland by eavesdropping on some randos dictating the internet.
As best as Jia could tell, the man’s name was Babe; the woman’s, Baby. They were from Maryland and had a dog, cat, or child back home whom they often referred to as the Tiny Baby. While the group followed Dàgē throughout the natural preserve—by the lake so clear you could see to the bottom (It’s called Arrow Lake) or through the woods with the golden canopy (The yellow leaves have medicinal properties)—no matter how their tourist amoeba was configured, Jia never drifted too far from the Americans.
What he hated even more than his stalking was that Babe’s and Baby’s manners were not altogether unwelcome. They weren’t physically pushy and didn’t crowd others like many of the Chinese did. They didn’t pick their nose. They didn’t spit. They had boundaries. Familiar boundaries. And, despite their performance on the bus earlier, they were whispering now. Like they did in fact remember to bring their tact but had just forgotten to unpack it.
I do wish we could ask some questions. Do you think he understood what you were asking for on the bus?
I think so. Maybe he’ll get us an earpiece thing at the first stop? Oh, look at this. These trees with the berries are yews.
Babe. Yew is what Voldemort’s wand is made of. She whispered “Voldemort” softly as if he still must not be named. Jia had to stifle a laugh with a fake cough.
You know, Baby, on the bright side, we’re on the same tour the Chinese are taking, not just a tour catered to English-speakers. It’s more real, more authentic if you look at it that way.
Jia hated the “A” word. In college, after late nights of partying, his roommates would order takeout from the nearby twenty-four-hour Chinese place and one of his buddies would always preface the call, a palm over the speaker while the order was being repeated back, with Sorry, I know Lucky Eddie’s isn’t authentic. Like Jia knew how to judge what was authentic. He was two years old when he came to the States and grew up in Reading, behind both the bowling alley and his favorite spot for cheesy breadsticks, Papa Gino’s. How much more authentic could he be than Lucky Eddie?
By around sunset, the group arrived at a concrete plaza on the side of a mountain. There was a small building for restrooms and a cluster of stands where vendors sold meats on sticks and knock-off Peppa Pig kitsch. The tour bus, which had dropped them off back at the waterfall and had everyone’s luggage, was idling in a small parking lot. The driver napped at the wheel.
At the entrance, Dàgē said that the group would have an hour to walk around, go to the bathroom, or grab a snack at one of the food stands. After this, they’d make the two-hour drive to the hotel which would be their home base for the rest of the trip. He even repeated the instructions in choppy but serviceable English. He then left to go talk to a gaggle of other tour guides.
Jia bought some niúròugàn from a stand and sat on a stone ledge overlooking an iridescent valley, awash in the wan orange dusk, eating his beef on a skewer.
The panorama looked a lot like when their family would go up to the White Mountains to see the foliage. He didn’t appreciate it then. As a child, he was embarrassed when they would stop to take so many photos, hyper-sensitive that Americans would see their family as stereotypical Asians. Or that, when they were hiking, they’d talk too excitedly, too loudly in Mandarin, and he was afraid other families nearby would assume that they hadn’t bothered to learn English. He never could stop and just enjoy the damn family time.
A few years ago, when his father was near the end, his mother brought one of their old family photo albums to the hospital. Perusing them one afternoon on the vinyl recliner by his dad’s bed, Jia saw pictures of himself wearing a stiff smile on all kinds of trips—on hikes, at the beach, in Disney World—but he had no memory of these trips at all. There were so many places his parents had taken them, so many memories that Jia couldn’t recall even with the evidence in front of him. It was like his childhood had been wiped, like a wet cloth over a chalkboard, replaced by a lifelong script of constant worrying, of persistent triggering, by this bad tàidù of his.
He wasn’t a child anymore though. Now, he had this vista all to himself and his parents and their hollering weren’t around to blame. He also looked like everyone here. He could (almost) talk like them, too. Yet, none of it felt like he thought it would. What should connection to the homeland—and the strangers that occupy it—even feel like? This was supposed to be it.
Jia looked around at the other Chinese milling about on the plaza and wondered if they even thought about things like that. Maybe that was the real privilege. Maybe they never wondered where home was, never worried about where else they could or should be.
A commotion stirred behind Jia. First, indiscriminate shouting in Mandarin. Then, in American English in what sounded like Babe’s voice. Of course. Jia took the last bite of his meatstick and went toward the noise.
In the main part of the plaza, in the center of all the kiosks, a crowd gathered around four people like a dance circle at a wedding: Babe and Baby on one side, and Dàgē with another Chinese man on the other.
No, we’re not paying him, we didn’t ask for another tour. Babe pointed to the new person who had a scowl on his face and a fanny pack on his hip.
We don’t have the money, Baby pleaded. We can’t afford another thing. Please.
No, no. Zhè bù xíng, Dàgē shouted. You ask, I bring the friend, you pay.
Based on what Jia could understand, Dàgē had misinterpreted the couple’s request on the bus. He thought that when they asked for more English to be spoken, they were asking for a separate private tour. The man next to Dàgē was apparently that new private tour guide but, based on his silence in this debate, it did not seem like his English was any better than Dàgē’s. The problem was that this new guide had driven out here from a nearby village just for them. And now, he thought the Americans were backing out of their request and refusing to pay despite all his trouble coming out here. It cost gas. It cost time. It cost business. He wanted to get paid. Dàgē was threatening not to take the pair back on the bus without compensation for his friend.
The Americans were getting desperate. Babe explained that they were both just school teachers and were traveling on a tight budget. They were gifted a voucher for this trip by some friends from study abroad. He flipped both jean pockets inside out and shook the limp linty cloth. Look. We. Don’t. Have. Any. More. Money. That’s not what I asked for, Babe spat. He wagged his finger at the two grown men. Can. You. Not. Under. Stand. Me?
Jia couldn’t tell if the Chinese could understand their story. They clearly didn’t believe that these two could possibly be short on cash. Dàgē shook an angry fist at Babe and Baby and pointed at a taxi cab in the lot, as if banishing them to the even shantier vehicle.
Even if he wanted to help, Jia’s spoken Mandarin wasn’t that good. What if he accidentally made it worse? And, while the Chinese were being a little unreasonable, he also didn’t know if he should believe the couple’s story. What if they really could afford it and it was just a ruse to backtrack out of their obnoxious request in the first place? It was so like the rich to penny pinch when it came to paying people they considered beneath them. This poor guy came all this way from his village to help. Plus, look at them. Was it really going to hurt them in the long run to throw this guy a few hundred yuan? They don’t just get to be in a place and feel like it owes them anything.
Please, please. Baby’s voice faltered under the shouts of the men who talked past and down to one another. This was just a misunderstanding, she trembled. We’re really, really sorry.
She turned to the cloud of witnesses around her, some of whom had their phones out, recording this shitshow. Can anyone help us here? Please, anyone? She clasped her hands, now bloodless pale, the panic electric in her eyes, begging. Her gaze fell squarely on Jia, whom she surely recognized as having lurked near them for most of the day, an apparent ally, and stepped toward him. Please, somebody?
It was true that the Chinese could be real assholes to tourists. Especially Americans. The state-controlled media didn’t do American travelers any favors either, especially given the state of the relationship between the two countries. (A few years ago, when his mom took him and Felix back to visit her hometown, she told them to tell locals that they were visiting from Germany.) What if these two IG-sexy schoolteachers were telling the truth? After all, they weren’t unlike so many people he’d met before, who did nothing wrong to him personally and who didn’t even know they were being offensive. A little ignorant, sure, but didn’t they deserve help, just as he would want help in their situation? Do unto others as they would do unto you or something?
His mother would want him to be compassionate.
His brother would tell him to self-care first.
Jia said nothing. He returned the same vacant look that they’d given him earlier on the bus. For once, he was just another black-haired, smushed-nosed, slanty-eyed, flat Chinese face in the crowd.
Then, someone from behind Jia gently pushed him aside. It was the woman with the yellow bucket hat from his bus. She scrambled into the circle between the two factions and held up both hands like she was directing traffic. She explained to Dàgē and his friend in Mandarin what the Americans had been saying. She even whipped out her phone and offered to pay them half of what they wanted. Realizing this was going to be the best they were going to get, the two Chinese relented and the new tour guide left. Dàgē cooled down, shouted Hǎode, wǒmen zǒuba, and waved everyone back to the bus.
Jia stayed behind and pretended to text on his phone while people milled about. The Americans were shell-shocked yet relieved, deeply appreciative of the woman. He swore he saw Baby even briefly put her hands together and bow slightly, as she said thank you, thank you.
No worries, the woman in the bucket hat said, with a British-sounding accent. The language barrier can be hard in the more rural areas. When I heard a row, I came as soon as I could. Registering the surprise on their two faces, she explained, Oh, I lived in Sydney for secondary school and Uni. I do love meeting Americans. “Friends” is my favorite programme.
. . .
Other than the wind whistling over the engine’s mechanical churn, their bus was silent on the way to the hotel. A moonless night sheathed the mountains and their proud long-standing trees in black velvet. And, through that window, Jia saw nothing that indicated that this place, on the other side of the world, was where he came from. There were no roots here.
Worse still, his mother would have been ashamed of him. He should have helped Babe and Baby. Sure, his Mandarin wasn’t perfect, but he knew enough and could say enough. It would have been the decent thing to do. His one solace was that, for the first time, he blended in with the crowd. His shame, rather than being shouted on the mountain side, could go unnoticed, faceless and unknown. Just like he always wanted. Exhausted and spent, Jia pulled out his music again, put in his earbuds, and fell asleep.
When they arrived at the hotel, their group was exhausted. The bus itself wheezed and sputtered as they parked like it too needed a good night’s sleep. Eyelids hung heavy as they trudged off. Limp necks and slumped shoulders waited for luggage. Everyone smelled like sweat.
Jia’s suitcase came out first so he led the group’s walk through the fluorescently-lit lobby. Dàgē, who was already there at the front desk talking to the night manager, told everyone to get out their IDs to turn in, as was protocol for travelers. But when Jia got there, he reached for his jacket pocket and found only his phone. His passport was gone.
He patted his jeans pockets, knowing full well that it didn’t even fit there. Could he have left it at the overlook? Or dropped it in the pond? Did he lose it over the ledge he sat on? Or in the plaza? Dàgē had said this cluster of hotels was the only visitor lodging for hours; on the off-chance that anyone did pick it up somewhere, at the very least, he wasn’t getting it back tonight. But forget being able to check into this hotel—he had no other identification with him. If he didn’t find it, how would he get home?
As he stood there, repeatedly patting his body in empty places where there weren’t even pockets, he began to hyperventilate. In front of Dàgē, the desk clerk, and his group, the heat in his chest bubbled, hot and fast. His windbreaker was a straitjacket.
Then, Jia got a tap on his shoulder. It was Babe. Picked this up on the floor of the bus. Thought it was ours. He held out his hand in which was firmly clamped, between his index finger and thumb, Jia’s passport in its navy-blue glory with the “United States of America” emblazoned in gold foil.
Also, I think these are yours, too. In his other hand were Jia’s earbuds. He hadn’t even noticed they’d fallen out.
Unable to look the man in the face, all Jia could muster was a weak confession, the one thing he could think of saying on the spot while accepting his items from this man.
Sank you. Like he was Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
The same shame he felt back then—on those mountain hikes in the autumn, when his mom and dad would chit chat and laugh and point and “whaaa” with such unfettered joy for the beauty in their newly adopted home, when he, at eleven years old, would chastise them for how they were embarrassing him when they made such a scene in public—it all wound tightly around him now. It was all the same yoke.
He turned to the hotel clerk and spoke hurriedly in Mandarin, asking for the opening times for the hotel restaurant. Like reverting back quickly to the foreign language could cover up what’d been exposed, as if he could make it sound like, despite having a U.S. passport, his English still wasn’t very good.
Nidecantingshenmeshihoukaimen?
The clerk furrowed his brow and looked confused. Qǐng nǐ zàishuō yībiàn. He paused before adding, Wǒ yě huì shuō yīngyǔ.
No way in hell Jia was going to speak English to this man. He tried again, more slowly this time, sure to enunciate his tones carefully.
O, míngbáile, the clerk said to Jia’s clammy relief. The restaurant opened for breakfast at six a.m.
Like Jia would ever leave his room and present his sorry face in public again.
Once he got his room card key, he scurried away from the throng, their mute gazes on his back. His luggage wheels tumbled loudly over the lobby floor, squealing because they didn’t line up properly. But he couldn’t fix them. He couldn’t afford to stop. The last Jia overheard from the now distant group behind him—the last he wanted to hear from them—was that springy Australian accent and his two compatriots.
That was quite kind of you.
Oh, it’s nothing really. Treat others as you’d want to be treated, I always say.
Why don’t you have breakfast with us in the morning? Our treat…
Unable to stand the idea of waiting in the elevator with anyone else, Jia headed straight for the stairwell despite his fifth floor room. He lugged and banged that suitcase up the endless flight of concrete steps, under the flickering light of failing yellow bulbs, knowing that everyone, the Chinese, the Americans, could see him, would always see him wherever he went, wherever he’d go.
