Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls 1)

“Happiness? Here in the Land of the Flowery Flag? I don’t know if happiness is possible in this country, but the Tiger has special attributes that could be helpful to your sister’s son. If he’s disciplined and loved equally, then a Tiger will respond with warmth and understanding. But you can never lie to a Tiger, because he will bound and thrash and do things that are wild and daring.”

“But aren’t those good characteristics?” May asks.

“Your sister is a Dragon. The Dragon and the Tiger will always fight for dominance. She must hope for a son—and what mother doesn’t wish for this thing?—because then their deeper positions will be clear. Every mother must obey her son, even if she is a Dragon. If your sister was a Sheep, I’d be concerned. The Tiger will usually protect its Sheep mother, but they are compatible only during good weather and easy times. Otherwise, the Tiger will leap away from the Sheep or he’ll tear her apart.”

May and I look at each other. We didn’t believe these things when Mama was alive. Why should we start now?

I TRY TO be sociable with detainees who speak the Sze Yup dialect, and my vocabulary improves as I remember words from my childhood, but truly, what’s the point in making conversation with these strangers? They never stay long enough for us to become friends, May can’t participate because she doesn’t understand them, and we both think it best if we keep to ourselves. We continue going to the communal toilets and the showers by ourselves, explaining that we don’t want to expose my son to the ghost spirits who linger in those areas. This, of course, doesn’t make sense. I’m not safer from ghosts when I go to the showers or toilet with just my sister instead of the group, but the women let it pass, agreeing I have the typical worries of an expectant mother.

The only changes in pattern come with our twice weekly excursions out of the Administration Building. On Tuesdays, we’re allowed to retrieve things from our bags on the wharf, and even though we never take anything new, it’s a relief to be in the fresh air. On Fridays, the missionary ladies lead us on a walk around the grounds. Angel Island is beautiful in many ways. We see deer and raccoons. We learn the names of the trees: eucalyptus, California live oak, and Torrey pine. We walk past the men’s barracks, which are segregated by race not only in the wings or floors but in the exercise yard as well. And while fences topped with barbed wire surround the entire Immigration Station, keeping it separated from whatever else is on the island, the men’s exercise yard has double fencing to keep them from escaping. But where could they escape to? Angel Island has been designed like Alcatraz, the island we passed on our way here. That too is an escape-proof prison. Those foolish or daring enough to swim for freedom are usually found days later washed up on a shore far from here. The difference between us and the inmates on the neighboring island is that we’ve done nothing wrong. Except that we have in the eyes of the lo fan.

In the Methodist mission school in Shanghai, our teachers talked about the one God and sin, about the virtues of Heaven and the horrors of Hell, but they hadn’t been completely forthright about how their compatriots felt about us. Between the women detainees and the interrogators, we learn that America doesn’t want us. Not only can we

not become naturalized citizens but the government passed a law in 1882 barring the immigration of all Chinese, except those in four exempt classes: ministers, diplomats, students, and merchants. Whether a Chinese in these exempt classes or an American citizen of Chinese descent, you need to have a Certificate of Identity to land. This document needs to be carried at all times. Are the Chinese singled out for this special treatment? It wouldn’t surprise me.

“You can’t pretend to be a minister, a diplomat, or a student,” Lee-shee explains, as we eat our first Christmas dinner in the new land. “But it’s not hard to fake being a merchant.”

“That’s right,” agrees Dong-shee, another married woman, who arrived a week after May and me. She’s the one who told us the reason we have brittle wire mesh to sleep on instead of mattresses is that the lo fan don’t think we’ll find beds comfortable. “They don’t want farmers like us. They don’t want coolies or rickshaw pullers or nightsoil collectors either.”

And I think, What country would? Those people are a necessity, but did we even want them in Shanghai? (See how sometimes I still don’t realize my place in world?)

“My husband bought a spot in a store,” Lee-shee boasts. “He paid five hundred dollars to become a partner. He’s not a real partner, and he didn’t pay the money either. Who has money like that? But he promised the owner he’d work until he paid his debt. Now my husband can claim he’s a merchant.”

“And that’s why they question us?” I ask. “They’re looking for fake merchants? It seems like a lot of trouble—”

“What they really want to catch are paper sons.”

Seeing the stupid expression on my face, the two women chuckle. May looks up from her bowl.

“Tell me,” she says. “Do they have a joke?”

I shake my head. May sighs and goes back to poking at the pig’s foot in her bowl. Across the table, the two women exchange knowing looks.

“You two don’t know very much,” Lee-shee observes. “Is that why you and your sister have been here for so long? Didn’t your husbands explain what you needed to do?”

“We were supposed to travel with our husbands and my father-in-law,” I answer truthfully. “We got separated. The monkey people—”

They nod sympathetically.

“You can also enter America if you’re the son or daughter of an American citizen,” Dong-shee goes on. She’s barely touched her food, and the heavily starched sauce congeals in her bowl. “My husband is a paper son. Is your husband one too?”

“Forgive me, but I don’t know what that is.”

“My husband bought the paper to become the son of an American. Now he can bring me in as his paper wife.”

“What do you mean he bought a paper?” I ask.

“Haven’t you heard of paper sons and paper-son slots?” When I shake my head, Dong-shee puts her elbows on the table and leans forward. “Suppose a Chinese man born in America travels to China to get married. When he comes back to America, he tells the authorities that his wife had a baby.”

I’m listening carefully for the loopholes, and I think I’ve found one. “Did she actually have the baby?”

“No. He only tells them that, and the officials at the embassy in China or here on Angel Island aren’t going to go to some village to check if he’s telling the truth. So this man, who is a citizen of the United States, is given a paper saying that he has a new son, who is also a citizen because of his father. But remember, this son was never born. He only exists on paper. So now the man has a paper-son slot to sell. The man waits ten years, twenty years. He then sells the paper—the slot—to a young man in China, who adopts his new family name and comes to America. He’s not a real son. He’s only a paper son. The immigration officials here on Angel Island will try to trick him into admitting the truth. If he’s caught, he’ll be sent back to China.”

“And if he isn’t?”

“Then he’ll go to his new home and live as a paper son with false citizenship, a false name, and a false family history. These lies will stay with him for as long as he remains here.”

“Who would want to do that?” I ask, skeptical because we come from a country where family names are hugely important and can sometimes be traced back twelve or more generations. The idea that a man would willingly change his family name to come here just doesn’t seem plausible.