Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls 1)

An inspector dressed in an ill-fitting drab green uniform asks, “What is the reason for your visit?”

He speaks Shanghainese, which is a relief, but I don’t think I should tell him the truth—that I’ve come to find my father but I have no clue where he is precisely or how to locate him.

“I’m here to help build the People’s Republic of China,” I answer.

He asks for my papers, and his eyes widen when he sees my U.S. passport. He looks at me and then back at the photo. “It’s good you came this year instead of last year. Chairman Mao says that Overseas Chinese no longer have to apply for entry permits. All I need is something that shows your identity, and you’ve given me that. Would you consider yourself stateless?”

“Stateless?”

“It’s illegal to travel in China as a U.S. citizen,” he says. “So are you stateless?”

I’m nineteen. I don’t want to seem like an uninformed and ignorant runaway. I don’t want to confess that I don’t exactly know what stateless means.

“I’ve come to China in response to the call for patriotic Chinese from the United States to serve the people,” I say, reciting things I learned in my club in Chicago. “I want to contribute to humanity and help with national reconstruction!”

“All right then,” the inspector says.

He drops my passport in a drawer and locks it. That alarms me.

“When will I get my passport back?”

“You won’t.”

It never occurred to me that I could be giving up my rights should I ever want to leave China and return to the United States. I feel a door swing shut and lock behind me. What will I do later if I want to leave and I don’t have the key? Then my mother’s and aunt’s faces flash before me and all the tumultuous and sad emotions of our last days together bubble up again. I’ll never go back. Never.

“All personal luggage for Overseas Chinese must be searched,” the inspector states, pointing to a sign that reads, CUSTOMS PROCEDURE GOVERNING

PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF PERSONAL LUGGAGE ACCOMPANYING OVERSEAS CHINESE. “We’re seeking contraband items and clandestine remittances of foreign currency.”

I open my bag, and he paws through the contents. He confiscates my bras, which might be amusing if I weren’t so surprised and scared. My passport and bras?

He gives me a stern look. “If the matron were here, she’d take the one you’re wearing. Reactionary clothing has no place in the New China. Please throw out the offending item as soon as possible.” He closes my suitcase and shoves it aside. “Now, how much money have you brought with you? You’ll be assigned to a work unit, but for now we can’t let you enter the country unless you have a way to support yourself.”

I hand him my wallet. He takes half of my dollars and pockets them. I’m glad I have most of my money in my underwear. Then the inspector scrutinizes me, taking in my dotted swiss shift, which I now realize may have been a mistake. He tells me to stay where I am. When he leaves, I worry that this will be a repeat of what happened in Hong Kong, except where would they send me now? Maybe Joe and my uncle were right. Maybe something really bad is about to happen to me. Sweat begins to trickle down the small of my back.

The inspector comes back with several more men dressed in the same drab green uniforms. They wear enthusiastic smiles. They call me tong chih. It means comrade but with the connotation that you are a person of the same spirit, goals, and ambitions. Hearing the word makes me feel much better. See, I tell myself, you had nothing to worry about. They huddle together with me in the middle so our picture can be taken, which explains the delays earlier. Next they show me a wall with framed photos of what they tell me are some of the people who’ve entered China through this office. I see mostly men, a couple of women, and a few families. And they aren’t all Chinese. Some are Caucasians. Where they’re from, I can’t tell, although from their dress they don’t appear to be Americans. Maybe they’re from Poland, East Germany, or some other country in the Eastern Bloc. Soon my photo will be on the wall too. Pretty neat.

Then the inspectors ask where I’ll be staying. That stumps me. They see my uncertainty and exchange worried—suspicious—looks.

“You need to tell us where you’ll be staying before we can let you leave here,” the chief inspector says.

I tilt my head down and peer up at them, suggesting I’m innocent and helpless. I learned this expression from my aunt on a movie set years ago.

“I’m looking for my father,” I confide, hoping they’ll feel sorry for me. “My mother took me away from China before I was born. Now I’ve come home to my right place.” I haven’t lied up to this point, but I need their assistance. “I want to live with my father and help him build the country, but my mother refused to tell me where to find him. She’s become too American.” I crinkle my face at that last word as though it’s the most detestable thing to be on earth.

“What kind of worker is he?” the chief inspector asks.

“He’s an artist.”

“Ah, good,” he says. “A cultural worker.” The men rapidly discuss the possibilities. Then the chief inspector says, “Go to the All-China Art Workers’ Association. I think they just call it the Artists’ Association now, Shanghai branch. They supervise all cultural workers. They’ll know exactly where to find him.”

He writes down directions, draws a simple map, and tells me that the Artists’ Association is within walking distance. The men wish me luck, and then I leave the processing shed and step onto the Bund and into a sea of people who look just like me. Los Angeles Chinatown was a small enclave, and there weren’t that many Chinese at the University of Chicago. This is more Chinese than I’ve seen altogether in my life. A wave of pleasure ripples through me.

I stand on a pedestrian walkway that seems almost like a park edging the river. Before me is a street filled with masses of people on bicycles. It’s just noon, so maybe everyone is on lunch break, but I can’t be sure. Across the street, huge buildings—heavier, grander, and broader than what I’m used to in Los Angeles—sweep along the Bund, following the curve of the Whangpoo. Turning back to the river, I see Chinese naval ships and cargo ships of every shape and size. Dozens upon dozens of sampans bob on the river like so many water bugs. Junks float past with their sails aloft. What seems like thousands of men—stripped to their waists, with light cotton trousers rolled up to the knees—carry bundles of cotton, baskets filled with produce, and huge crates on and off boats. Everyone and everything seems to be either coming or going.

I glance at the map to get my bearings, adjust my suitcase in my hand, make my way through the crowds to the curb, and wait for the bicycles to stop to let me cross. They don’t stop. And there’s no streetlight. All the while I’m being bumped and pushed by the ceaseless flow of pedestrians. I watch others step into the herds of bicycles and daringly cross the street. The next time someone steps off the curb, I follow close behind, hoping I’ll be safe in his wake.

As I head up Nanking Road, I can’t help making comparisons between Shanghai and Chinatown, where most of the people were from Canton, in Kwangtung province in the south of China. My family’s originally from Kwangtung too, but my mother and aunt grew up in Shanghai. They always said the food was sweeter and the clothes were more fashionable in Shanghai. The city was more enchanting—with clubs and dancing, late night strolls along the Bund, and one more thing: laughter. I rarely heard my mother laugh when I was little, but she used to tell stories of giggling with Auntie May in their bedroom, exchanging jokes with handsome young men, and laughing at the sheer joy of being in the exact right place—the Paris of Asia—at the exact right moment—before the Japanese invaded and my grandmother, mother, and aunt had to flee for their lives.