1My father doesn’t want to alarm us. But then again, it would not be fair to hide anything either. The fact is, at 70, he is going to try and get married again. This time to a Chinese wife. He thinks this would be more suitable than to someone American, given his advanced age.

2He has written his family in Shanghai, and is awaiting response. He is hoping to be married within six months.

3Let us unpeel this news one layer at a time.

4Question: At this point, is my father even what one would consider marriageable?

5At age 70, my father—a retired Chinese aerospace engineer—is starting to look more and more like somebody’s gardener. His feet shuffle along the patio in their broken sandals. He stoops to pull out one or two stray weeds, coughing phlegmatically. He wears a hideous old crew-neck tennis sweater. Later, he sits in a rattan chair and eats leathery green vegetables in brown sauce, his old eyes slitted wearily.

6He is the sort of person one would refer to as “Old Dragon Whiskers.” And not just because it is a picturesque Oriental way of speaking.

7“I am old now,” he started saying, about 10 years after my mother had died of cancer. “I’m just your crazy old Chinese father.” He would rock backwards in his chair and sigh. “I am an old, old man...”

8At times he almost seems to be over-acting this lizardy old part. He milks it. After all, he still does the same vigorous exercise regime—45 minutes of pull-ups, something that looks like the twist and much bellowing—he did 10 years ago. This always performed on the most public beaches possible, in his favorite Speedo—one he found in a dumpster.

9“Crazy old Chinese father” is, in truth, a code word, a rationalization for the fact that my father has always had a problem...spending money. Why buy a briefcase to carry to work, when an empty Frosted Flakes Cereal box will do? Papers slip down neatly inside, and pens can be clipped conveniently on either side.

10Why buy Bounty Paper Towels when, at work, he can just walk down the hall to the washroom, open the dispenser, and lift out a stack? They’re free—he can bring home as many as we want!

11If you’ve worn the same sweater for so many years that the elbows wear out, turn it around! Get another decade out of it! Which is why to this day, my father wears only crew neck, not V-neck sweaters...

12Why drive the car to work when you can take the so-convenient RTD bus? More time to read interesting scientific papers...and here they are, in my empty Frosted Flakes Box!

13“Terrific!” is my older sister Kaitlin’s response when I phone her with the news. Bear in mind that Kaitlin has not seen my father since the mid-’80s, preferring to nurse her bad memories of him independently, via a therapist. She allows herself a laugh, laying aside her customary dull hostility for a moment of more jocular hostility. “So who does he think would want to marry him?”

14“Someone Chinese,” I answer.

15“Oh good!” she exclaims. “That narrows down the field...to what? Half a billion? Nah, as always, he’s doing this to punish us.

16“Think about it,” Kaitlin continues with her usual chilling logic. “He marries a German woman the first time around. It’s a disaster. You and I represent that. Because he’s passive aggressive and he’s cheap. But no, to him, it’s that rebellious Aryan strain that’s the problem.

17“You take an Asian immigrant just off the boat, on the other hand. This is a person who has just fled a Communist government and a horrible life working in a bicycle factory for 10 cents a month and no public sanitation and repeated floggings every hour on the hour. After that, living with our father might seem like just another bizarre interlude. It could happen.”

18Kaitlin scores some compelling points, but nonetheless...

19I’m bothered for a different reason...

20Perhaps it is because in describing the potential new wife, he has used only that one adjective: Chinese. He has not said: “I’m looking for a smart wife,” or even “a fat wife,” he has picked “Chinese.” It is meant to stand for so much.

21Asian. Asian women. Asian ladies.

22I think back to a college writing workshop I once attended. (No credit and perhaps that was appropriate.) It was long before my current “administrative assistant” job at Swanson Films. (Makers of the 10-minute instructional video “Laughterobics! Featuring Meredith Baxter Birney,” among other fine titles.)

23Anyway, the workshop contained 13 hysterical women—and one Fred. Fred was a wealthy Caucasian sixtysomething urologist; he was always serene and beautifully dressed and insistent upon holding the door open for me “because you’re such a lovely lady.” I always wore jeans and a USC sweatshirt, sometimes even sweatpants, so at first I did not know what he meant.

24We women, on the other hand, were a wildly mixed group—writing anything from wintery Ann Beattie–esque snippets to sci-fi romance/porn novels (“She would be King Zenothar’s concubine, whether she liked it or not”). We attacked each other’s writing accordingly. People were bursting into tears every week, then making up by emotionally sharing stories about mutual eating disorders.

25But there was one moment when all 13 women were of like minds. It was that moment when Fred would enter the classroom, laden with xeroxes, blushing shyly as a new bride. We would all look at each other as if to say, “Oh my God, Fred has brought in work again.”

26As though springing from a murky bottomless well, each week new chapters would appear from this semi-epistolary novel Fred was penning about an elderly doctor named Fred who goes on sabbatical for a year to Japan and there finds love with a 23-year-old Japanese medical student named Aku who smells of cherry blossoms.

27There were many awkward scenes in which Fred and Aku were exploring each other’s bodies as they lay—as far as I could gather—upon the bare floor, only a tatami mat for comfort. (Fred would always italicize the Japanese words, as if to separate and somehow protect them from other, lesser words.) But it was all beautifully pure and unlike the urban squalor we find in America—the rock music, the drugs, the uncouth teenagers.

28Anyway, I recall the one line that I have never since been able to blot from my mind. I cannot think of it without a bit of a shiver. Nor the way he read it, in that hoarse tremulous voice...

29“I put my hand in hers, and her little fingers opened like the petals of a moist flower.”

30It is a month later and, as in a dream, I sit at the worn formica family dining table with my father, photos and letters spread before us.

31Since my father has written to Shanghai, the mail has come pouring in. I have to face the fact that my father is, well, hot. “You see?” he says. “Seven women have written! Ha!” He beams, his gold molar glinting. He is drinking steaming green tea from a beaker, which he handles with a Beauty and the Beast potholder.

32Remarkably, my father doesn’t make the least effort to mask his delight, no matter how inappropriate. He is old now. He can do whatever the hell he wants, is how I now understand it. With a sigh, I turn to the photos. In spite of myself, I am wowed!

33Tzau Pa, Ling Ling, Sui Pai, Chong Zhou...“28, administrative assistant,” “47, owner of a seamstress business,” “39, freelance beautician.” The words jump off the pages, both in English and Chinese translations. These women are dynamos, achievers, with black curly hair, in turtlenecks, jauntily riding bicycles, seated squarely on cannons before military museums, standing proudly with three grown daughters.

34One thing unites them: they’re all ready to leap off the mainland at the drop of a hat.

35And don’t think their careers and hobbies are going to keep them from being terrific wives. Quite the opposite. Several already have excellent experience, including one who’s been married twice already. The seamstress has sent him two shorts and several pairs of socks; there is much talk of seven-course meals and ironing and terrific expertise in gardening.

36Super-achievement is a major theme that applies to all. And the biggest star of all is my father. He clears his throat and gleefully reads from a letter by one Liu Tzun:

37“You see?” my father chuckles. “They have a lot of respect for me in China. When I go there, they treat me like President Bush! Free meals, free drinks...I don’t pay for anything!”

38“He had his chance. He got married once, for 25 years. He was a terrible husband and a worse father.”

39Kaitlin is weighing in. All jokes are off. Her fury blazes away, further aggravated by the fact that she is going through a divorce and hates her $50,000 a year job. Her monthly Nordstrom bills are astronomical. MCI is positively crackling.

40“He’s a single man,” I say. “Mum’s been gone for 12 years now—”

41“And now he gets a second try—just like that?” Kaitlin exclaims. “Clean slate? Start right over? Buy a wife? It makes me sick. He is totally unqualified to sustain a marriage. A family structure of any kind collapses around him. Do you even remember one happy Christmas?”

42Twinkling lights and tinsel suddenly swirl before me and looking deeper, through green foliage, I see my mother looking beautiful and crisp in lipstick and pearls, her wavy auburn hair done...except for the fact that she is hysterical, and my father, his face a mask of disgust so extreme it is almost parodic, is holding his overpriced new V-necked tennis sweater from Saks out in front of him like it is a dead animal—

43“I try to block it out,” is what I say.

44“Well I was six years older than you so I can’t.” Kaitlin’s pain is raw. “Why does he deserve to be happy...now? He made Mama miserable in her lifetime—he was so cheap! I think she was almost glad to go as soon as she did! A $70 dress, leaving the heater on overnight, too much spent on a nice steak dinner—he could never let anything go! He could never just let it go! He just could...not...let...things...go!”

45Meanwhile...

46On its own gentle time clock, unsullied by the raging doubts of his two daughters...

47My father’s project bursts into flower.

48And 47-year-old Liu—the writer of the magic letter—is the lucky winner! Within three months, she is flown to Los Angeles. She and my father are married a week later.

49I do not get to meet her right away, but my father fills me in on the stats. And I have to confess, I’m a little surprised at how modern she is, how urban. Liu is a divorcee with, well, with ambitions in the entertainment business. Although she speaks no English, she seems to be an expert on American culture. The fact that Los Angeles is near Hollywood has not escaped her. This is made clear to me one Sunday evening, three weeks later, via telephone.

50“I know you have friends in the entertainment business,” my father declares. He has never fully grasped the fact that I am a typist and that Swanson Films’ clients include such Oscar contenders as Kraft Foods and Motorola.

51“Aside from having knitted me a new sweater and playing the piano,” my father continues, “you should know that Liu is an excellent singer—” Turning away from the phone, he and his new wife exchange a series of staccato reports in Mandarin, which mean nothing to me.

52“I’m sure that Liu is quite accomplished,” I reply, “it’s just that—”

53“Oh...she’s terr-ific!” my father exclaims, shocked that I may be calling Liu’s musical talent into question. “You want to hear her sing? Here, here, I will put her on the phone right now...”

54Creeping into my father’s voice is a tremulous note that is sickeningly familiar. How many times had I heard it during my childhood as I was being pushed towards the piano, kicking and screaming? How many times—

55But that was 20 years ago. I gulp terror back down. I live in my own apartment now, full of director’s chairs, potted fici, and Matisse posters. I will be fine. My father has moved on to a totally new pushee...

56Who picks up the phone, sighs—then bursts out triumphantly:

57“Nee-ee hoo-oo man, tieh-hen see bau-hau jioo...!”

58Five weeks later, Liu just packs up her suitcase, makes some sandwiches, and takes off in the family Toyota. She leaves her note on the same formica table at which she’d first won his heart.

59My father is in shock. Then again, he is philosophical.

60“Liu—she had a lot of problems. She said she had no one to talk to. There were no other Chinese people in Tarzana. She wanted me to give her gifts. She was bored. You know I don’t like to go out at night. But I tell her, ‘Go! See your friends in Chinatown.’ But Liu does not want to take the bus. She wants to drive! But you know me, your cheap father. I don’t want to pay her insurance. That Liu—she was a very bad driver—”

61“Ha!” is Kaitlin’s only comment.

62Summer turns to fall in Southern California, causing the palm trees to sway a bit. The divorce is soon final, Liu’s settlement including $10,000, the microwave and the Toyota.

63Never one to dwell, my father has picked a new bride: Zhou Ping, 37, home-maker from Qang-Zhou province. I groan.

64“But no...Zhou Ping is very good,” my father insists. He has had several phone conversations with her. “And she comes very highly recommended, not, I have to say, like Liu. Liu was bad, that one. Zhou Ping is sensible and hard-working. She has had a tough life. Boy! She worked in a coal mine in Manchuria until she was 25. The winters there were very, very bitter! She had to make her own shoes and clothing. Then she worked on a farming collective, where she raised cattle and grew many different kinds of crops—by herself!”

65“I’m sure she’s going to fit in really well in Los Angeles,” I say.

66Zhou Ping is indeed a different sort. The news, to my astonishment, comes from Kaitlin. “I received...” her voice trails off, the very words seeming to elude her. “A birthday card. From Papa...and Zhou Ping.”

67My sister continues in a kind of trance of matter-of-factness, as if describing some curious archaeological artifact. “Let’s see, on the front is a picture with flowers on it. It’s from Hallmark. Inside is gold lettering, cursive, that says, ‘Happy Birthday!’ At the bottom, in red pen, it says...‘Love, Zhou Ping and your Dad.’ ”

68“Your ‘Dad’?”

69“I think Zhou Ping put him up to this. The envelope is not addressed in his handwriting. Nonetheless...” Kaitlin thinks it over, concurs with herself. “Yes. Yes. I believe this is the first birthday card I’ve ever received from him in my life. The first. It’s totally bizarre.”

70A week later, Kaitlin receives birthday gifts in the mail: a sweater hand-knit by Zhou Ping, and a box of “mooncakes.” She is flipping out. “Oh no,” she worries, “Now I really have to call and thank her. I mean, the poor woman probably has no friends in America. Who knows what he’s having her do? We may be her only link to society!”

71Kaitlin finally does call, managing to catch Zhou Ping when my father is on the beach doing his exercises (which he always does at 11 and at 3). Although Zhou Ping’s English is very broken, she somehow convinces Kaitlin to fly down for a visit.

72It will be Kaitlin’s first trip home since our mother’s passing. And my first meeting of either of my step-mothers.

73I pull up the familiar driveway in my Geo. Neither Kaitlin nor I say anything. We peer out the windows.

74The yard doesn’t look too bad. There are new sprinklers, and a kind of irrigation system made by a network of ingenuously placed rain gutters. Soil has been turned, and thoughtfully. Cypresses have been trimmed. Enormous bundles of weeds flank the driveway, as if for some momentous occasion.

75We ring the doorbell. Neither of us has had keys to the house in years.

76The door opens. A short, somewhat plump Chinese woman, in round glasses and a perfect bowl haircut, beams at us. She is wearing a bright yellow “I hate housework!” apron that my mother was once given as a gag gift—and I think never wore.

77“Kat-lin! Jen-na!” she exclaims in what seems like authentic joy, embracing us. She is laughing and almost crying with emotion.

78In spite of myself, giggles begin to well up from inside me as if from a spring. I can’t help it: I feel warm and euphoric. Authentic joy is contagious. Who cares who this woman is: no one has been this happy to see me in ages.

79“Wel-come home,” Zhou Ping says, with careful emphasis. She turns to Kaitlin, a shadow falling over her face. “I am glad you finally come home to see your Daddy,” she says in a low, sorrowful voice. She looks over her shoulder. “He old now.”

80Then, as if exhausted by that effort, Zhou Ping collapses into giggles. I sneak a glance over at Kaitlin, whose expression seems to be straining somewhere between joy and nausea. Pleasantries lunge out of my mouth: “It’s nice to finally meet you!” “How do you like America?” “I’ve heard so much about your cooking!”

81My father materializes behind a potted plant. He is wearing a new sweater and oddly formal dress pants. His gaze hovers somewhere near the floor.

82“Hul-lo,” he declares, attempting a smile. “Long time no see!” he exclaims, not making eye contact, but in Kaitlin’s general direction.

83“Yes!” Kaitlin exclaims back, defiant, a kind of winged Amazon in perfect beige Anne Klein II leisurewear. “It certainly is!”

84My father stands stiffly.

85Kaitlin blazes.

86“It’s good to see you!” he finally concludes, as though this were something he learned in English class.

87Feeling, perhaps, that we should all leave well enough alone, the Chow family, such as we are, moves on through the house. It is ablaze with color—the sort of eye-popping combinations one associates with Thai restaurants and Hindu shrines. There are big purple couches, peach rugs, a shiny brass trellis and creeping charlies everywhere.

88All this redecorating came at no great expense, though. “See this rug?” my father says proudly, while Zhou Ping giggles. “She found it in a dumpster. They were going to throw it away!” “Throw it away!” she exclaims. “See? It very nice.”

89Over their heads, Kaitlin silently mouths one word to me: “Help.”

90Beyond, the formica dining room table is set. Oddly. There are little rice bowls, chopsticks, and a sheet of plain white paper at each place setting. It is good to know some definite event has been planned. Kaitlin, my father and I are so unaccustomed to being in a room together that any kind of definite agenda—aka: “We’ll eat dinner, and then we’ll leave”—is comforting.

91My father goes off to put some music on his new CD player. “That bad Liu made me buy it!” he explains. “But it’s nice.” Zhou Ping bustles into the kitchen. “Dinner ready—in five minute!” she declares.

92Kaitlin waits a beat, then pulls me aside into the bathroom and slams the door.

93“This is so weird!” she hisses.

94We have not stood together in this bathroom for some 15 years. It seems different. I notice that the wallpaper is faded, the towels are new—but no, it’s something else. On one wall is my mother’s framed reproduction of the brown Da Vinci etching called Praying Hands which she had always kept in her sewing room. Right next to it, in shocking juxtaposition, is a green, red, blue and yellow “Bank of Canton” calendar from which a zaftig Asian female chortles.

95“I can’t go through with this!” Kaitlin continues in stage whisper. “It’s too weird! There are so many memories here, and not good ones!”

96And like debris from a hurricane, the words tumble out:

97“I go by the kitchen and all I can see is me standing before the oven clock at age five with tears in my eyes. He is yelling: ‘What time is it? The little hand is most of the way to four and the big hand is on the eight! It was 3:18 twenty-two minutes ago—so what time is it now? What’s eighteen plus twenty-two? Come on—you can do it in your head! Come on! Come on!’

98“I go by the dining room and I see him hurling my Nancy Drew books across the floor. They slam against the wall and I huddle against Mum, screaming. ‘Why do you waste your time on this when your algebra homework isn’t finished? You...good for nothing! You’re nothing, nothing—you’ll never amount to anything!’

99“I go by the bedroom—”

100“Please—” I have this sickening feeling like I’m going to cry, that I’m just going to lose it. I want to just sit down in the middle of the floor and roll myself into a ball. But I can’t. Kaitlin’s rage is like something uncontainable, a dreadful natural force, and I am the gatekeeper. I feel if I open the door, it will rush out and destroy the house and everyone in it. “Please,” is what I end up whispering. “Please. Let’s just eat. We’ll be done in a hour. Then we can go home. I promise. You won’t have to do this again for another 10 years—or maybe ever.”

101At dinner, endless plates of food twirl their way out of the kitchen, Zhou Ping practically dancing underneath. Spinach, teriyaki-ish chicken, shrimp, some kind of egg thing with peas, dumplings packed with little pillows of pork.

102And amazingly, there is no want of conversational material. Photos from Shanghai are being pulled out of envelopes and passed around, of her family, his family...

103I do recognize three or four Chinese relatives—a cousin, an aunt, a grand-uncle? Their names are impossible for me to remember. We had met them in China during our last trip as a family. I was 15; it was right before our mother started to get sick.

104Shanghai is a distant, confused memory for me, of ringing bicycle bells and laundry lines hanging from buildings. What I do remember is how curious my father’s family had seemed about Kaitlin and me, his odd American experiment, oohing over our height and touching our auburn hair. There were many smiles but no intelligible conversation, at least to our ears. We probably won’t see any of these people again before we die.

105Zhou Ping, though, is determined to push through, to forge a bridge between us. She plunges ahead with her bad English, my father almost absent-mindedly correcting her.

106Their lives are abuzz with activity. Zhou Ping is taking piano lessons at the community college. My father is learning Italian and French off the Learning Channel—he sets his alarm for four in the morning. “So early!” Zhou Ping hoots. They listen to Karl Haas’ Listening to Good Music on the classical station at 10. “Mot-sart—he very nice!” They have joined the Bahais, a local quasi-religious group. “I must cook food all the time!” My father suddenly puts his spoon down. He is chewing slowly, a frown growing.

107“This meat...” he shakes his head, “is very greasy.”

108He turns to Zhou Ping and the lines at both sides of his mouth deepen. His eyes cloud. He says something to her in Chinese, with a certain sharp cadence that makes my spine stiffen...

109Zhou Ping’s face goes blank for a moment. Her eyes grow big. My stomach turns to ice.

110How will she respond? By throwing her napkin down, bursting into tears, running from the room? Will she knock the table over, plates sliding after each other, sauces spilling, crockery breaking? Will we hear the car engine turn over as she drives off into the night, to leave us frightened and panicked?

111It is none of these things.

112Zhou Ping’s head tilts back, her eyes crinkle...

113And laughter pours out of her, peal after peal after peal. It is a big laugh, an enormous laugh, the laugh of a woman who has birthed calves and hoed crops and seen harsh winters decimate countrysides. Pointing to our father, Zhou Ping turns to us with large glittering eyes and says words which sound incredible to our ears:

114“Your Papa—he so funny!”

115My jaw drops. No one has ever laughed out loud at this table, ever. We laughed behind closed doors, in our bedrooms, in the bathroom, never before my father. We laughed sometimes with my mother, on those glorious days when he would be off on a trip—

116But Kaitlin is not laughing. She is trembling; her face is turning red.

117“Why were you always so angry?” Kaitlin cries out in a strangled voice. It is the question that she has waited 30 years to ask. “Why were you so angry?”

118There is shocked silence. My father looks weary and embarrassed. He smiles wanly and shrugs his thin shoulders.

119“No really,” Kaitlin insists. “All those years. With Mama. Why?”

120“I don’t know,” my father murmurs. “People get angry.”

121And I know, in that moment, that he doesn’t have an answer. He literally doesn’t. It’s as if anger was this chemical which reacted on him for 20 years. Who knows why, but like some kind of spirit, it has left him now. The rage is spent. He is old now. He is old.

122Dusk has fallen, and long shadows fall across the worn parquet floor of the dining room. After a moment of silence, my father asks Zhou Ping to sing a song. The hausfrau from Qang Zhou opens her mouth and with an odd dignity, sings simply and slowly. My father translates.
From the four corners of the earth
My lover comes to me
Playing the lute
Like the wind over the water

123He recites the words without embarrassment, almost without emotion. And why shouldn’t he? The song has nothing to do with him personally: it is from some old Chinese fable. It has to do with missing someone, something, that perhaps one can’t even define any more.

124As Zhou Ping sings, everyone longs for home. But what home? Zhou Ping—for her bitter winters? My father—for the Shanghai he left 40 years ago? Kaitlin and I? We are even sitting in our home, and we long for it.