I land in Hong Kong, and a wave of familiarity washes over me. It’s good to be back.
Mom is teaching English at Xiamen University, and Dad gives businessmen informal English conversation practice and keeps an eye on Jondy and Nina when Mom is at the university. I’m going to join their undercover missionary Home as a Chinese language student at the university on a student visa. The university class fees are only $700 for the year, which we can cover by teaching English. The opportunity feels heaven sent.
I navigate using the instructions Mom sent me to take the subway from the airport to the mainland China border crossing at Shenzhen. There I hop a long-distance overnight bus to Xiamen. The orange plastic seats are really a single bed with two people squashed lengthwise into each one, a hard rectangular block at our head to represent a pillow. I’m lucky that a young Chinese woman and her six-month-old baby are in my bunk. We smile at each other tentatively. Better than being paired with the gruff man across the aisle who is puffing away in flagrant disregard for the “no smoking” sign over his head. Or his companion, who is casually spitting sunflower seed shells into the aisle.
As the bus bumps along pockmarked roads, I try to ignore my discomfort by studying the tiny Mandarin phrase book I bought in Hong Kong with the money I saved up from my toiletry allowance. I don’t speak a word of Mandarin. The official language of mainland China, also known as the People’s Republic of China, is a totally different dialect than the Cantonese I grew up hearing in Macau and Hong Kong. Admittedly, as a kid I didn’t put much effort into mastering Cantonese beyond the witnessing phrases. Now, learning Chinese is a matter of survival.
I’ve barely had time to memorize the numbers one through one hundred when the bus stops for dinner at a small roadside cafeteria. The metal tables and stools glint under the harsh neon light that has my bleary eyes squinting after the dim, smoky bus. No one speaks a word of English at this remote outpost. I may not speak Mandarin yet, but I’m no fool when it comes to Chinese dining. I sit with my fellow bus passengers at a huge round table and wait for the harried waitress to turn to me. I don’t point at Chinese characters on the menu at random, a rookie mistake that can result in sea slug or entrails on your plate. Instead, I take a deep breath and moo loudly.
She stares in shock, as does everyone else in the restaurant. Embarrassed but, really, who cares, I moo again, placing my index fingers as horns on my head. She giggles and nods. “Niu rou!”
Encouraged, I try again. “Bok, bok, bok,” I say, flapping my arms for emphasis.
Ahh, the light bulb goes on. “Ji rou!”
My whole table is cracking up, laughing and shouting guesses. A few minutes later, I’m delighted when a lovely dish of beef and broccoli and stir-fried chicken arrive with rice. Communication sometimes means bypassing words.
After another six hours on the bus, in the early-morning light, we pull into a dirty, crowded bus station. I spot my dad, skinny as ever, bouncing on his toes, waiting for me to get off. He hoists up my two suitcases and leads me onto a city bus heading to the university. While he talks nonstop, I wonder what it’ll be like to live with my parents again after three years apart and so little contact. I’d spoken to them only once the entire year I was in Kazakhstan, a three-minute Christmas call.
I listen closely as he quickly lists off the rest of my siblings. Josh’s, Aaron’s, and Mary’s families all live in Taiwan. Aaron married a nice Australian SGA woman (ironically her name is Jewel) while he was still in Japan; now they have four young kids. Nehi is divorced (his wife left the Family and returned to Sweden with his kids) and is somewhere in war-torn Bosnia, taking pictures of relief work for the Family and other NGOs. Caleb, the last bachelor of our family, is in Poland or perhaps Hungary. Hobo’s family lives in the UK, but he never writes. Esther has emerged from four years in WS and is supposedly living somewhere in China, also teaching English.
“And guess who is living nearby?” Dad says gleefully, watching for my surprise. “Daniel and Grace’s family!”
“Patrick!” I yelp. Together again after all these years!
“Yes, and Sophia. You remember Uncle Ben’s daughter?”
“Typhoon 10! How could I forget!” Sophia’s family had lived with us in Macau for a few years. She’d earned the nickname “Typhoon 10” at two years old. Leave her unsupervised in a room for five minutes and the contents of every drawer and shelf were in a heap on the floor.
“She’s seventeen now, and Ching-Ching, Zacky and Hope’s daughter, will be living with us. She arrived just a few days before you did.”
Hoorah! My old childhood gang together again. I haven’t seen or even heard from any of them in nearly ten years, since before I left for Thailand. What will they look like? Sound like? Will we be friends again?
“You know, China is opening up and allowing more foreigners in, but missionary work and witnessing are still strictly banned.”
“I know, Dad,” I say, glancing around nervously, figuring he doesn’t expect anyone on this public bus to speak English. I had carefully hidden my Bible and Mo Letters in the bottom of my suitcases in case they were searched at customs.
A hard jerk of the bus slams my head into the seatback, and a few people standing in the aisle land on their butts. I glance through the front windshield to see an old lady crossing in the middle of the road without giving the cursing driver a glance. Ahh, China.
When we finally reach our stop and clamber off, Dad leads me to a hill and points to a little house perched on the side. “Up we go!” With a deep breath, I begin climbing the 150 stairs it takes to get there. A few times I pause, out of breath, Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never give in, I silently quote as I pant. Mom is waiting at the door, arms open wide. Exhausted, I practically fall into them.
She looks about the same, though she’s on the thinner side of her perpetual weight swings, and her face glows with energy. She hurries me inside, and Dad follows, happily dragging my heavy suitcases. We can keep only what we can carry on an airplane as we move countries, so my bags are packed without an inch of air space.
I nearly bump into Ching-Ching in the entryway, and we laugh and hug. Her face is the same, but she’s filled out. Weight lifting, she confides.
She takes me on a quick tour of my parents’ new home, a simple single-story Chinese house with a living room, three small bedrooms, and a typical three-by-six-foot Chinese kitchen covered in one-inch white tiles. Mom sits us down at the dining table, which nearly fills the small living room, and over a pot of jasmine tea, she and Dad outline our situation here.