The idea seems shocking to me. “I’ve never opened it,” I admit.
“Let’s do it now,” Mr. Piu says, reaching for the cake. “Let’s taste it.”
Quick as a snake, Sean clamps his hand over our host’s wrist. “It’s for Haley to decide when and if she wishes to open it.”
An awkward silence falls over the little group.
“He never brings a girl to visit,” Mr. Piu jokes, trying to defuse the tension. “Now look how proprietary he is!”
The others laugh. Sean releases his grip. More tea is poured.
A few hours later, Sean and I pile into the car. My bag is filled with tea samples and tea gifts given by our host, who says, “So you’ll always remember our day together.”
When we get back to Yiwu, we walk down the dusty street to a restaurant with smears of I-don’t-know-what on the plate-glass windows. Sean orders soup and a simple assortment of vegetable dishes. Everything has been so go-go-go that we haven’t had much of a chance to talk about anything beyond travel logistics and tea, but now he asks if this is my first time to China.
“Do I look that out of place?” I ask.
He raises his eyebrows. Yes.
“It’s my second trip,” I say. “I was seventeen the first time I came. I’m adopted, and my parents brought me on a heritage tour to find my roots.”
“And did you find them?” he asks coolly, showing no surprise about my background.
“My roots? Nope. But that’s all right.” I feel compelled to explain. “I have a loving family. I grew up in a beautiful home. I’m getting a great education and following my dreams—”
“Which is why you’re here with me.”
Yikes. An awkward silence. I force myself to forge ahead.
“A few years ago, someone told me about a concept called the grateful-but-angry Chinese adoptee. Yes, I’ve been grateful. And yes, I’ve been angry. It was hard for me to separate what I should be grateful for and what I was actually grateful for. I guess that’s why I decided it should be grateful and angry, not but angry. That was a long time ago. Now what I feel is something more like survivor’s guilt. Do you know what I mean?”
“Perhaps I do,” he answers with a hint of sadness, but I don’t feel comfortable probing into his background.
“I could have ended up in a sucky life,” I yammer on. “Instead I got a fabulous life. A lot of girls like me feel we need to account for ourselves in a bigger way than people who just come home from the hospital, no questions asked.” I will myself to stop talking. But then, “Maybe this is more than you want to know.”
“I want to know everything about you.”
I guess I set him up for that, but it’s such a dopey line, I can’t even drum up a comeback. Even he looks embarrassed. Is he going to talk about himself for a while? I’m not that lucky.
“Do you see yourself as Chinese or American?”
“One hundred percent American and one hundred percent Chinese,” I answer. “I’m not half and half. I’m fully both. I’ll forever wear my Chinese-ness on my face, but these days when I look in the mirror I don’t see how mismatched I am in my birth family or that I don’t feel Chinese enough. I just see me.”
My comment startles me. I struggled so long with who I was. Have I actually come to a place of acceptance?
“You’re a new kind of global citizen,” he says. “You can be a bridge between two cultures and two countries.”
“That’s going a little far, don’t you think?”
“Not really. And it’s not just about you, is it? You and your cohort are products of the One Child policy, which is now over, right? I’ve heard that over four hundred million births were prevented, but all of you are in a special category. Your perspective—and those of other women like you—is unique. It’s larger than any of you as individuals. In a way, you do have immense responsibility—”
“I used to resent that. But it has given me a sense of purpose—”
“The power of international Chinese adoptees all around the world could be a force to be reckoned with!”
Now for sure he’s teasing me. I give him a half smile, and we return to our meal.
Later, he walks me all the way to my hotel room. My dad would undoubtedly be relieved to know that another night goes by without any “funny business.”
* * *
On the third morning, we visit a villa so remote that there isn’t another house in view, with a vista that reminds me a lot of Topanga Canyon back home. The living room is floored in white marble, a gigantic flat-screen TV blares from a cabinet the size of Nebraska, and a fortune in tea packed in oversize bags is stacked against the walls. Our hostess asks us to stay for lunch. “We’ll kill a chicken,” she says, and the next thing I hear is a chicken’s neck being snapped just inches from my ear. I taste whatever’s put in my bowl—including anteater and bear paw—out of politeness. I show her my tea cake, but she doesn’t have any ideas about it.
From here, we stop in to meet several farmers. Wherever we go, three things happen. First, as soon as we arrive water is heated, leaves rinsed, and tea steeped. We meet those who treat it as something treasured, but more often than not, we’re across from a farmer or his son who chain-smokes. Ashes and cigarette butts overflow ashtrays, even though we’re tasting something that relies on aroma and flavor. One man even uses his electric razor while we’re sipping his tea. People tell me incredible stories of poverty, hardship, sacrifice, and overnight wealth. Farmers proudly point out their running water, televisions, and motor scooters.
Second, I show people my tea cake. Everyone has a theory about it, but no one can tell me definitively what it is or where it came from. And third, folks are kind to me, but they rib Sean mercilessly. He laughs. He blushes. He ducks his head and runs his hands through his hair, chagrined but pleased. He then translates everything, or I think he does, because why else would he tell me things like “They say your hair looks like silk,” “They wonder if you’re an ethnic minority and how many children you can have in America,” and “They want you to know that you’ll always be safe and happy with me.”
As we drive from place to place, he sits on his side of the backseat and I stay on mine, but the roads are bumpy with lots of curves, and the laws of physics . . . So there’s that, but otherwise we don’t do any of the obvious things like walking so close together that our fingers touch or staring too long into each other’s eyes when he says something like “In drinking the best tea, you and I are having a conversation with the wind and the rain that the ancient Daoists had above the mountain clouds. Through the tea liquor, across streams, and under moon shadows we can understand that the separation between Man and Nature is not real.” I mean, come on. Who wouldn’t want to sleep with a guy who talks like that? But he doesn’t make a move, and I mostly keep my eyes on the scenery. I’ve had casual hookups and even a few short relationships, but this feels different. I can wait, but the anticipation only fuels my desire.
* * *