爸 (Ba)

1962. The baby boom is over, the fifties have past, a cold war “isn’t” being fought, a space race, a cultural revolution and my father is born. My host father that is. In a town called 沈阳, Shenyang, in China’s northeast, 叶志刚, Ye Zhigang was born during The Cultural Revolution. Famine struck all of China. People with hu kou’s in the cities were given liang piao, or food stamps, every month to redeem for 30 jin of rice. A jin is just barely over a pound. And the food stamps would be redeemed for that much in the city. If you were in an outlying town, 27 jin, further rural areas, 25 jin, extremes, even less. People experienced hunger. Not that hunger that you hear from an elementary schooler as he returns home from school saying he’s hungry. Hunger. The type of hunger that makes time stand still and fights break out over half a slice of bread. This was when my father was born. He lived through it. And throughout it all, he retained a sense of optimism, go-with-the-flow-ness, tolerance, and surprisingly a sense of humor. He’s a short Chinese man, even by Chinese standards, he’s energetic, his short curly black hair sticks out among crowds. His face looks young, except for the deep creases under his eyes, bags that give away all that he’s seen and has to carry with him in his mind. He sees where China is going and he likes it. He said, “Mao san shi fen bu hao, qi shi fen mamahuhu,” or Mao was 30% bad, 70% meh. He doesn’t want Tibetan independence for the sake of the Laobaixing. He’s trying to learn English while I’m trying to learn Chinese. He works long hours and comes home and tolerates me butchering his language. He speaks with an accent not of this earth, as if you were to take a Sichuan accent and a South African accent, (if I were to guess on that second part,) and throw it together. A character, that’s how I’d describe him.
My first day off the plane, I looked at the mass of Chinese people waiting to find their new family member, that vestigial organ to their family. I heard mutterings in Chinese, “All Americans look the same. How are we supposed to find our student?” And then like a ninja, Ba was standing next to me, slurring his tones together and not pronouncing the “h” in “zh” sounds. He grabbed my bags, put them aside and then whipped out his camera from a pouch that he was wearing like a necklace. These pictures were all reminders of what a 12 hour flight and time difference can do to my appearance. We walked home. He was taking 3 steps to one of mine. The hutong that I was going to be spending the next year was lurking around the next corner. The road was intolerably narrow, and cars almost hit me with their side view mirrors, (they would eventually hit me later,) using their horns as freely as Americans would use their bicycle bell. The sidewalks were crowded with “Glad” trash bags, and were an ancient stone color. Old men sat on overturned buckets, playing Chinese Chess, xiangqi, directing every bit of anger at their opponents move into the board. The circular pieces clack-ed against the wooden board. Older people stared at me as we walked down the road, some of them spitting, but Ba led me onwards, to the house, ignoring the old folks looks. We turned the corner and then I saw it for the first time. A tan building, with a stucco front. Cars and bikes parked behind the gates that enveloped the small compound. A small garden with three trees struggling to grow, their leaves a sickly green. A few stray bikes hid under their branches. Ba led me up 5 flights of stairs, carrying himself with the strut and swagger of an important official… or something important. The flight of stairs was white, and shoes left their mark on the floor and in some places, the wall. Each door reminded me of a solitary prison cell. He opened his door, and we walked inside, showing me all that he overcame, showing what he had, all in that grin he had on his face. I looked in the house, behind the façade of the emotionless exterior and saw a house… no a home. Cherry wood floors, some art adorning the walls, wooden wainscoting, mind you it only came up to my ankle, but it was still there. Flowery curtains blocked the sunlight. This was it. He might have come into this house with the redistribution of wealth, he might’ve come to it through marriage. He might have even owned it before then, I don’t know, but he still made it his own.
He does a good job at covering up the past, but it comes through occasionally. Something that I wasn’t aware of before my arrival in China was how much we waste. I was eating a meal he had prepared one Saturday afternoon. I finished up and was about to thank him when he said, “Eat it all.” I looked at the bowl and said, “I did.” He looked extremely frustrated. There was some grayish water at the bottom, (from the pot he cooked it all in,) some meat chunks and a few pieces of lettuce. He told me to eat it all again. I looked down at it and gulped before choking down the appearance. After I did that, he was all smiles and back to happy-go-lucky Ba. I can’t do him justice in words. We use circumlocution to learn new words in the others languages. He’s open and talks about rough political issues in China, but the one thing he strays away from is the American election. But I’m okay with that. I came to China to learn about China and he’s taught me as much as any language teacher I’ve had yet. And he’s not just nice to me, he rubs off on everyone. Chris and Gavin agree, though they’ve spent varied amounts of time with him, that they love my dad. And I love him too. He’s like my second father.