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Among the 36 Strategies, Running away is the top one

by Chia Chen

408 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #00-0038; ISBN 1-55212-374-X; US$33.00, C$37.95, EUR27.50, £19.00

This is a novel about a Chinese woman living in New York, who returns to China for a visit. Her trip home turns out to be a voyage of self-rediscovery.

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about the book      about the author      sample chapter      catalogue info

About the Book Xuya Zhao runs from America to China, running away from her American problems. However, China is full of surprises for her, all kinds: the secrets her family has kept over the years, the unbreakable bond with her girlhood buddies, the magic power of her grandmother, the mystery of the jade pendants, the reunions and encounters with friends, sweethearts, acquaintances, and old enemies. Now she has a chance to settle those unsettled en en yuan yuan (passions and resentments) from the Cultural Revolution and to make sense of her complicated lives in both China and America. Thus, her return-home adventure turns into a journey of self-rediscovery.

About the Author

Chia Chen was born and raised in Hangzhou, China. In 1987 she came to Amierica to study and obtained a BA in Creative Writing from Queens College. Among The 36 Strategies, Running Away is the Top One is her first novel. This book was inspired by her first return-home trip in 1994. She set the stories in her hometown Hangzhou, a beautiful city known as the "Paradise on Earth" to the Chinese. She lives in her second hometown New York. She is a freelance fiction writer and is working on her second book.

Sample Chapter

Chapter 1

My left eyelid begins twitching when I arrive at the China Airline Terminal. This makes me feel nervous. Grandma used to teach me that if a woman's left eyelid twitched, something bad would happen. My hand presses the eyelid hard, but it continues twitching. I stop at the scanning machine, looking at the moving belt and then at my carry-on bag. I lift it up and put it down again. My hesitation stops the proceeding.

"Miss, put your bag on the belt," the security guard says to me. I still hold the bag, doing nothing. The passenger behind me puts his bag on the belt and passes me. He gives me a dirty look and says something in Cantonese. The people behind him add some Cantonese as an agreement. I ignore them, but reluctantly place my bag on the belt, praying in silence that they will not ask me to open it. As I am going through the security gate, the alarm goes off.

"Miss, step aside," a female guard says to me. She signals me to raise my arms and then scans me with the hand scanner. It is the metal buckle on my leather belt around my waist. Finally she lets me go. I rush to the end of the scanning machine and am so happy to see my bag unopened. It has passed the scanner. I drag the bag, walking as fast as I can, away from the security area. My hand grabs the handle so tightly that the palm is sweating. when I reach the waiting area, I am stunned to see a full house of Chinese passengers. Am I in New York or am I in China? I have to ask my self, feeling quite confused. For the past seven years living in America, I have never seen a single place as Chinese-dominant as here, not even in Chinatown, or the Little Chinatown -- Flushing.

There is a white man with a beard and a black guy wearing a baseball cap in this Chinese flow. The two look rather misplaced, lost in the Chinese sea. They are attracting attention. Though the waiting area is crowded, no Chinese jam around the non-Chinese. I eye an empty seat next to the white and move over.

"Excuse me, can I sit here?" I ask

"Please," he pleasantly invites. He is sick of being singled out and glad to receive some friendliness. I thank him and take the seat. Suddenly, I sense looks form all directions. Turning around, I find myself the focus of attention. Their looks are icy cold. I look back. They don't look away. Then I have to. It is too confrontational. Chinese hold onto their own people and reject non-Chinese. Inter-race socializing, dating or marriage is like bringing the Devil to Chinese society. Yang Gui Zi (Foreign Devils) -- that is what Chinese people historically called foreigners. They are more polite these days; they call them Da Bi Zi (Big Noses) or Wei Guo Ren (Foreigners). They don't separate one nation from another, for instance, Mei Guo Ren (Americans) from De Guo Ren (Germans), Yi Da Li Ren (Italians) from Fa Guo Ren (Frenchmen), Xi Ban Ya Ren(Spanish) from La Mei Guo Ren (Hispanics). What is the difference? In this world human beings are categorized into two groups: Chinese and non-Chinese, Wei Guo Ren (Foreigners). Chinese are quiet and patient, but stubborn and determined. In their quietness is their passion, which has the power of a volcano or a quake. The tension I am feeling here is more intense than what I felt when hanging out with my non-Chinese friends in Chinatown, where other peoples mingled with Chinese crowds.

I lower my head, pretending to be busy with my bag. While doing so, I squint. They are still staring at me. I get very annoyed. I think about changing my seat and decide not to. Why should I? Who cares how you Chinese think of me? I am surprised by my thoughts. I am Chinese too, but I am so used to the melting pot that I feel strange being surrounded only by my own people. I'd better start to think and feel that I am a Chinese from now on, I advise myself, soon I will live among Chinese, only Chinese.

There is not much to do with the carry-on bag. I close my eyes to avoid eye contact with the Chinese and to meditate -- to blank my thoughts. I see again the courthouse, the place I went many times working as an interpreter, and I will never forget my very last visit there. The anger and anguish all boil in my blood. My breathing speeds up. I want revenge. Revenge! I almost scream out my thoughts.

"Miss, are you all right?"

I open my eyes and see my neighbor looking at me with concern. My body is shaking, my teeth are clenched and my hands are in fists.

"I'm okay," I respond, squeezing out a smile and trying to stop the shaking. He nods to me. Again I feel the focusing beams from the Chinese. This time, their stares are even colder. I grow enormously irritated. I decide to do something to get even with them: I will converse with the white to revenge myself upon these Chinese for their unspoken accusation as well as to take my mind off the things I should put behind.

"Which airline are you taking?" I ask nicely.

"China Airline," he replies nicely.

"Where are you going?"

"China."

"Which part of China?" Politically there are three parts of China: The mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

"The mainland."

I am surprised. China Airline is run by Taiwan and it will make a stop at Hong Kong. I thought that he was going to either Taiwan or Hong Kong. Because he is going to the mainland, my country, I grow a little friendlier towards him. I look around and can tell that my strategy is working; the anger on the Chinese faces has grown.

The boarding begins, which gives me a chance to escape the confrontation with my people. When I see the line of attendants at the craft door, I become nervous again.

"Welcome aboard!" they greet. I hold my breath going through the human walls. When I finally fall into my window sea, I blow out a breath. I check all the zippers and the lock around the carry-on bag again. The old woman, sitting next to me, has given me several glances; she must think there are devils or ghosts locked in it and that is why I have to secure it. I place the carry-on bag in front of my seat and rest my legs on it. In this way I feel that the bag is safe.

"Miss, please put your bag into the overhead bin," the attendant who is checking baggage arrangement says to me.

"No," I abruptly reply.

"You can have room for you legs," she patiently explains. "If you sit like this, you'll be worn-out very soon."

"If I suffer, I deserve it," I stubbornly say. She still smiles at me, but says nothing more and moves to the next row. Why did I act hostile to her? She was trying to make me comfortable. I regret my words, but don't intend to turn around for an apology. I sit back. At this hour -- almost midnight -- my biological clock tells my body to go to sleep, but my mind is widely awake. It seems like a dream that I have boarded the plane to China.

Seven years! I have waited seven years for my first return-home trip.

"I'll come back to visit you every year or every other year," I said to my parents on the day I left for America. But as each year passed by, my promise bubbled less and less. Three years ago, my friends video-taped me studying at the school library, touring around the Statue of Liberty, playing volleyball at the South Hampton beach, diving into a friend's swimming pool and cooking in my kitchen, and I sent the tape to my parents.

Mama called me after receiving the tape: "We watched the tape last week and your father hasn't talked since then."

This was what I had been afraid of. "Where is Baba?" My voice began trembling.

"I'll get him." She put me on hold.

"Hello, Xuya." The familiar voice vibrated my ears, so close -- as close as if he were in my room next to me, yet so far -- as far as crossing thousands of miles. I couldn't see him, couldn't hug him and couldn't be with him.

"Baba,..." I couldn't continue. I never thought that my departure would be an indefinite one.

"How is everything? Are you doing fine?" His trembling voice broke my heart. I had lived with my parents since the day I was born until I left for America. From seeing them every day to not seeing them at all. It was so hard to accept that we were divided by the distance of the Pacific Ocean. I used to walk into Baba's study to talk through my problems. Now I felt helpless without him.

"I miss you, Baba." My words mixed with sobs.

A long pause, very long. "I miss you too." He was trying to control his voice and Mama was crying on the other phone. I waited and waited for them to say "Come home." They didn't.

"I'll come home this summer." I decided I would, no matter what the consequences would be.

"Xuya, if you love us, stay there, finish your studies and get your degree," Baba said firmly, "we're proud of you." Tears were steaming down my face. My parents have never asked me to return home. Not even once. Whenever I think of how much they have sacrificed to let me fulfill my college dream, I blame myself for being so selfish. I wrote them letters, begging to come home. No, they said, We don't want you to take a chance. They were very much concerned about my problem of not having a green card to come back to America.

Green card! I press the pocket book hanging over my shoulder. The pink-colored-but-called-green card, which I got a few months ago, is more important than my life to me, though I always feel humiliated with an index fingerprint postured next to my face on it. It is my legal document to live in America, but there are so many pains and twists wrapped in it.

My eyelid twitches and it is the left eyelid again. I am not as superstitious as Grandma, but weird things have happened. Several months ago, I hurt my back badly by sneezing when my left eyelid was twitching. My back seemed to fall down to where my butt was. I could sit, but I couldn't bend at all. The X-rays showed nothing was wrong and the HIP specialists couldn't find the problem. They explained that I was under too much stress; it was my nervous system. The prescriptions they gave me killed the pain, but did nothing to cure my condition.

In desperation, I took Kay's suggestion that I see her mother-in-law.

"The bitch used to do Kan Xiang (Face Reading) in China and I heard that she was pretty good," Kay said to me. Kay and I had been roommates in Morgantown, West Virginia. Two years after I left the little town, Kay, through the arrangement of her parents in China, married James Wu in Bayside in New York. I had never met her mother-in-law. I imagined that she was a huge-framed woman with a witch face. I heard quite a lot, from Kay, about the sick things the witch did: she manipulated her own son, Kay's husband, and tossed their marriage around. I called her "Mu Ye Cha" (Female Tiger).

When I walked into her room alone, I couldn't see her at all. There were no lights and the curtains were drawn over the windows even tough it was afternoon.

"Get close to me." Her voice came from the shadow behind the rectangular table in the middle of the room.

I knelt down on the floor and rested my elbows on the table. She lit two candles and placed one on each side of the table.

"Move closer," she said. I leaned my upper body towards her. Under the feeble candle lights, I saw an old, tiny lady whose shrunk-body sank in a willow chair. Her wrinkled face looked like a dried olive; it scared me. She moved the candles close to my face on each side, and I could feel the flames and smell the burning wax.

"Look straight into my eyes," she demanded. I forced myself to keep my eyes in her direction and my feet on the floor so I wouldn't spring up to run out of the room.

She fixed her eyes on my face. I numbly looked at her and soon my eyes became crossed. Her face blurred. It seemed a century before her voice broke the dead silence.

"Yin Nie Ta Shen, Jie Zhai Hua Zui."With the first four words, she told me that I had too much sex and committed too many sins. With the second four words, she told me that I must eat Chinese food, without any kind of meat, and I must sleep by myself without sex. Doing so would clean up my sins and save my soul. She waved me to leave and blew out the candles.

I didn't bother to cook Chinese food. Too much work, I claimed. I ate salad for two days and felt my stomach squeaking. When I saw a roasted chicken, I couldn't resist a few bites. That shouldn't hurt, I convinced myself. And I shared the only bed with the man I was living with. I was sure that the witch wouldn't know if I didn't tell her.

A week passed and my back pain got worse. Now I couldn't even sit. I paid a second visit to the dried-olive-face witch in order to curse her out. She set up the same candle lights at the same close distance.

"Zi Zou Zi Shou" (You are suffering for what you have done). She knocked her finger tips on the table. She listed exactly what I did and what I didn't do. I denied it.

"It is all over your face." She waved me to leave and blew out the candles.

Knowing that the witch had the power to manipulate my fortune, I didn't dare cheat for the second week. I cooked and ate vegetables and slept on the floor alone. The magic happened on the fifth day: the pain was gone when I got up in the morning. I did bending and sitting down and twisting, and felt no pains and no troubles at all.

The engine begins roaring. The attendant gives safety instructions, first in Mandarin, then in Cantonese and English, for ninety-nine percent of the passengers on this plane are Chinese. Her Mandarin is perfect, much better than her English. I look through the window. It is dark. The only things I can see are the lights on the ground along the runway. The baby in the arms of a young father, two seats down on the left, starts crying. He must be frightened by the roaring noise. The lights are moving backwards on the window now. I check my watch: 11:30 pm. The plane is taking off on time. Without feeling much bouncing, I find the lit runway is below and soon JFK Airport is only a spotlight within the panoramic view of the city. The evening view of New York City is the one I love best. On the expressways, the lights are divided into two streams: one red and one yellow. They move in opposite directions, backgrounded by building and commercial lights.

The baby keeps screaming no matter how his father rocks him. The daddy is trapped by the seat belt. So is the baby. A tall man in his early 30s, wearing a uniform, appears.

"I'm the captain. Let me help you." He has the father take out a milk bottle and gently plugs it into the baby's mouth. The baby sucks the bottle and slows his crying and eventually stops. "Nothing is wrong with your baby, it's the high air pressure that hurts his eardrums," the captain explains to the father, who apparently is taking the baby alone on a trip for the first time. "Once we are in the air, he will be fine. If you need any assistance, have the attendants get me." The captain touches the baby's cheeks and disappears behind the curtain separating the first class seating area from the rest.

Mississippi one, Mississippi two, Mississippi three ....I count in my head, for I see the courthouse again. I have promised myself that I will never think of it. Mississippi one, Mississippi two, Mississippi three...I restart counting. Too much American stuff in my head.

Once at a dinner party for my birthday, I got a fortune cookie which said, "You are quick for decisions and actions." The whole table of people laughed. That's you, they agreed. That is me. My trip to China was a quick decision. I must run away, my heart said. And my instant thought was to run back to China. I need to run away from the people involved in my life, and I need to detach myself from my American life. I cannot think rationally without distance. China is where I was born and raised, where my home is, where all my childhood friends live, where I always feel safe, where I can be understood, and where I will comb through my thoughts and pick up my life again. Among the 36 strategies, running away is the top one -- my life philosophy, which has worked in the past, and will work now, I am sure.

Catalogue Information