With confidence, I ordered a turkey sandwich (safe) and a parsley-carrot juice (yee-haw!).
I sat beside Helen, whose head was swiveling to and fro, clearly searching for someone.
“I just heard that the guy I’m crushing on checked in here,” she whispered so softly I barely heard. It took me a moment to fill in the blanks, half the words having disappeared into her pale-pink lipstick.
“Checked in on Facebook?”
“Shhhh!” She waved her hands at me, drawing way more attention than my four words had. “Duh, on Facebook.” With one more scan of the perimeter, she settled into her chair. “He’s not here yet. So, how’s MIT?”
“Good,” I said instinctively, in the same way you answer I’m fine regardless of how you’re actually feeling. “I mean, I like it,” I said sincerely. “I fit in there better than I did in high school.” I ignored Helen’s snort, which she didn’t try to cover up. “But there’s still a bit of a disconnect.”
“Do you think it’s because you’re younger?”
I shrugged. “I mean, no one knows I’m younger. It hasn’t come up.”
“Yeah, but you are. You’re supposed to still be in high school, worrying about parents and grades and the mean popular kids.”
“Um, I still do that.”
She laughed. “You should’ve come here with me, Mei. I could’ve helped you shed your stiff exterior.” Then she said what I was thinking but wouldn’t have voiced aloud. “But I guess that wasn’t really an option with your parents.”
I stiffened.
Helen looked at me warily. “Ease up, soldier. I know better than to say anything negative at this point.”
I laughed, short and forced. Ms. I-Hold-Nothing-Back used to rail on my parents, calling them dictators, tiger parents, qíguài. And each time, despite the fact that I had been complaining just moments before, I’d defend them, inciting a fight. Eventually, we learned to steer clear, but it didn’t make me any less tense when we circled it.
“You know, I didn’t even have to apply to MIT. Remember?”
Of course I remembered. I felt like she was just rubbing it in at this point.
Before even visiting, Helen had told her parents she didn’t want to go to MIT because she didn’t want that kind of college experience, whatever that meant. You know what her parents said? Sure, Wei Wei, whatever you want. Her parents called her Wei Wei. Taught her Mandarin. Yet she didn’t have to go to Chinese school because she didn’t like it, and she didn’t have to strive for MIT/Harvard and accept Dartmouth as a shameful consolation. Her parents had thrown a party when she was accepted early decision, while mine hid Xing’s Dartmouth attendance away in shame.
I realized that I had come here partly because I wanted to know why our experiences had been so different. Her parents were from Taiwan, just like mine. They had immigrated here for graduate school, just like mine. Yet Helen had boyfriends, spoke her mind, and her only house rule growing up was Don’t let the dog poop on the bed. I bet Helen never suffered from Lu guilt—you know, that special brand of disgrace, responsibility, and shame bred by an environment where most things you did weren’t good enough and unconditional obedience was expected.
Other childhood acquaintances popped into my head like whack-a-moles. Kimberly Chen, who married a non-Chinese guy and then got divorced . . . Jade, who moved in with her boyfriend without a ring on her finger . . . even Hanwei, whose mother hadn’t cut him off when he’d decided to pursue music.
Suddenly I saw the spectrum they represented. It had been right before my eyes, but I hadn’t seen—or more accurately, had refused to see. Before, I had blamed my culture, but that wasn’t the problem. It was so much more complicated than that. It was a clashing of personalities and interpretations of cultures. How would my parents and I ever find a solution to this impossible mix of opposing ideals and desires? No right answers. Only a long list of wrong ones.
“Helllooooo.” Helen waved a hand in front of my face. “Did you fall asleep over there because of the all-nighters you’ve pulled doing homework?”
“When people ask you what you are, what do you say?”
She quirked a brow. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, then waved my hand to draw the answer out.
“Chinese, I guess. Why?”
“Do you feel Chinese?”
Her eyes narrowed in confusion. “Of course. I speak the language, my parents are from Taiwan, and I mean, c’mon, look at me! Supercute Asian girl!”
She felt Chinese but didn’t feel