CHAPTER 25
FUTURE MEI 2.0
I SIPPED MY COKE, WHICH had absurdly cost five dollars. The flyer on my table at the comedy club read: CHRISTINE CHU, ONE NIGHT ONLY. LEAVE YOUR ANCESTORS AT HOME.
I had tracked down Ying-Na. It wasn’t easy—she no longer went by Ying-Na; she was Christine now—but Xing knew someone who knew someone who was still friends with her. I was simultaneously excited and terrified to see future Mei 2.0.
An abstract picture of Ying-Na was artfully splashed across the flyer. Her features were blurred such that the focus was on her red, skintight qípáo and the slashes cut into the chest, stomach, and sides.
Slicing my qípáo or the goddamn sweaterdress would be so therapeutic, I thought. I wondered if Ying-Na had cut hers in anger or for the flyer.
I leaned back in my seat. Even though most of the chairs were filled, the club was so tiny there couldn’t have been more than forty people. I appeared to be the only unaccompanied spectator, but for once I didn’t feel alone. Part of the group, but separate enough to sit back and watch—a peaceful change from the recent norm.
The lights dimmed, and I sat up straighter. A male announcer in a collared shirt took the stage.
“Welcome, everyone, and please, give it up for the fabulous, hilarious, and ballsy Christeeeeen Chu!”
The way he dragged her name made me think, She’s the real deal!
Amid the applause and whistles, Ying-Na clicked onto the stage in four-inch heels. Her slashed qípáo hugged her body perfectly, and the waist-length hair I remembered from childhood was lobbed into a stylish pixie. Her baby fat was gone and her body had developed curves, but the most striking difference was her confidence, which radiated from every pore.
She moseyed to the microphone and detached it with experienced hands, like it was a daily routine. Then she jutted a hip out. “So what’s the deal with Panda Express?”
Pause. She relaxed her stance. “Just kidding. It’s not going to be that kind of show.”
She smiled at the audience in a way that made me feel like the grin was just for me. “Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone. I knew you’d be a great crowd. I begged The Laugh Den for tonight’s slot because my Chinese Farmer’s Calendar told me that today would be a funny day for Chinese zodiac mice, which I am. I just wish it would also tell me when my period would actually come, and which cycles would be an uber-bitch.” She pretended to flip through a calendar. “December nineteenth, female mice beware. Your ovaries will try to kill you today. Stay home from work no matter how uncomfortable your male boss is with menstrual cramps.”
My man-laugh burst from my lips, louder than the rest of the audience, but I didn’t care.
Ying-Na grasped the mic with both hands. “As most of you know, this is a pretty diverse show. Because there’s just too much in Asian culture to make fun of.” She smiled. “In all seriousness, I think we need more Asian comedians out there. But it makes sense why there aren’t that many of us. Humor isn’t valued. Every time I made a joke, my father would ask, ‘How’s that going to help you get a husband?’ Because, of course, a docile, quiet, obedient woman is easier to marry off than a funny one full of personality.
“My tiger parents weren’t proud of me, but nothing was worse than when I told them I wanted to be a stand-up comedian. They asked if I was being blackmailed, and if so, was it a Chinese single male willing to marry me?”
Pause. “Just kidding. Their actual response was to throw me on the street with one box of bāos to hold me over until I came to my senses. Those bāos lasted me until I found a minimum-wage job and this club. Contrary to what the Asian grapevine is saying, I did not also find herpes or a boyfriend who majored in English. Yes, those are equally bad in my parents’ eyes.”
She strolled as she spoke, as if she were speaking about buying groceries, not the worst day of her life (the way I still viewed my disownment day).
“I turned into the local Chinese community’s cautionary tale: whore, spinster, homeless, whatever that Asian parent’s biggest fear was. Since I don’t go by my Chinese name, I often hear these stories from other Asians who don’t realize they’re telling me about my own sexcapades and failures. Did you know I was giving head in the public-school bathroom yesterday at the same time I was peddling heroin on the other side of town? And all because I tried one sip of alcohol.”
A link formed between Ying-Na and me. We weren’t all that different, using humor as a coping mechanism.
“The only thing these rumors got right was that I don’t give a shit about dishonoring my ancestors. But I see it as being honest. And so far I haven’t been struck down, although I guess getting struck with a hundred cases of proverbial STDs might count.”
As I bent forward in laughter, my eyes locked with my neighbor, an Asian girl approximately my age. We nodded to each other as we snickered, bonded by a shared sense of humor.
Ying-Na turned and strolled in the other direction.
“So I went on this date the other day. To my mother’s dismay, he wasn’t Taiwanese, but he did have yellow fever, which is the only way I get dates now. I guess most men are turned off by my hooded eyes, snub nose, and pan face.” She circled her face with her hand. “It’s like I was the tragic victim of God’s whack-a-mole game. I didn’t have a chance being a hundred percent Chinese, the one race that selected on obedience, not looks.”
While the audience laughed, my girl crush on her grew. I hoped my confidence could be as high as hers one day.
“So anyways, this guy, my date, tells me he’s going to give me an education in Chinese food because he’s a quote-on-quote ‘expert.’ ” She made air quotes with her free hand. “Well, of course, he took me for chow mein, General Gao’s chicken, and moo goo gai pan.”
No one else laughed, which amplified mine. I stopped short, embarrassed. Wait, why weren’t the other Asians laughing? Were their families not as judgy as Lu Pàng about Americanized Chinese food?
Ying-Na gestured to me. “Thank you, jiějie! My Asian sister!”
She smiled, and I wondered if she could make out my features from stage. Would she remember me?
“For the rest of you, that’s not Chinese food. And for the record, I’m also not related to every other Chu out there.”
She sipped her water as we laughed. I thought of how in high school, everyone had assumed Ping Lu was my cousin, but no one assumed Ally Jones and Mike Jones were related.
“So halfway through our date, this guy tells me he has ESP. He thought he was part of a government experiment.” She paused to push her lips into a straight line and stared at us with wary eyes. “This is a true story, guys. He told me that he exclusively dates Asians because we’re the only ones who can understand since we also have superpowers—math, obedience, and DDR, of course. Naturally, I stayed. I only have two check boxes on my list.” She held up one finger. “Not chosen by my mother and”—another finger—“doesn’t like my mother.”
Pause. “Just kidding. I actually chucked five rolls at him, then yelled, ‘Use your fucking ESP’ when they all hit him in the face.”
The audience cheered. Some whistled, some woo-ed, and others chanted “Chu! Chu! Chu!” which blended with the woos concordantly.
“Now, after my date with Racist Man, Boston’s newest superhero, my checklist also includes no yellow fever . . . which means I will be single forever. Unless I let my mother help me. The last time she tried to set me up, she brought three brothers over and told me to choose one. I started haggling with them, thinking she’d be impressed by how much I’d learned during our last trip to China.”
In a Chinese accent, she mimicked, “Two dollar, how about two dollar for you to leave me alone?”
She reverted to her American accent. “By the end of it, I was out fifty bucks and my mother was probably out another hundred bucks just to get them there in the first place.”
She smiled while the crowd chuckled. The mic still in her hand, she grabbed the stand with the other and froze for a second, thinking.
“You know, that’s a lucrative business there—matchmaker for the mothers, bouncer for the daughters. Anyone out there interested in investing?”
She placed a hand over her eyes to shield the spotlight and looked left, then right. Several hands went in the air.
“Two dollar?” she asked in a Chinese accent. “Two dollar going once, twice . . .”
Everyone roared. I glanced around at the bodies rocking back and forth, the knee slaps, the clapping hands. Closing my eyes, I focused on the laughter wrapping around me, basking in Ying-Na’s hard-earned success. She hadn’t just survived; she was on her way up, and all by herself.
“So for those of you who aren’t familiar—and to those, I ask, what Big Dig rubble have you been living under?—boys are the desired babies in Chinese culture. When my brother was born, my parents snapped hundreds of photos of him daily, get this—with no pants. They got their firstborn son, and damn it, the world had better see the teeny-tiny proof. Good thing they didn’t have Instagram in those days. His penis would have been immortalized, the Confucius of penises.”
Ying-Na’s aura was on fire. She was so clearly meant for this. If only her parents could see her now. If only the entire community could see her. Although then she’d lose her source material. I chuckled, thinking about how she had won. She had turned their punishment into her success, the ultimate revenge.
“Have any of you noticed how a lot of Chinese proverbs revolve around bathroom humor? Anyone got one for me?” Ying-Na held a hand up to her ear and waved encouragement with the other.
“Búyào tuō kùzi fàngpì! ” I bellowed.
Ying-Na clapped her hands, the sound amplified by the mic. “Yes, thank you! Don’t take your pants off to fart!”
The audience laughed. How amusing—the idiom was hilarious enough to be a joke in itself.
“Chī shı dōu jiē bú dào rè de! ” an elderly woman yelled from the front row to a wave of groans.
Ying-Na snapped her head back in shock. “You’re so slow you can’t even eat the shit while it’s still hot,” she translated. “Damn, that’s extreme, even for stinky tofu lovers!”
She stopped gesturing to the audience and grasped the mic with both hands again. “Along those lines is one of my favorites: Gou gaibùliao chī shı. It’s kind of like ‘a leopard can’t change its spots,’ but directly translated, it’s ‘a dog can’t help but eat shit.’ ”
My nose burned. That had been Nǎinai’s second favorite phrase. Who would’ve guessed dog shit could stir up such nostalgia? It was so ludicrous I laughed through the grief. Best medicine, better than acupuncture or the cow’s hoof.
“Why did they have to go with something so crude?” Ying-Na continued. “There were so many other options. . . . A panda is still a bear beneath the cuddliness, scallion pancakes will always give you diarrhea, a woman can’t run in her qípáo. . . .” She flashed the slit up her left side, revealing her leg, Angelina Jolie–style. “Unless she’s an American girl who knows how to use a knife!”
She raised her voice to shout over the thundering crowd. “You’ve all been so wonderful. Thank you so much! Remember, none of this was racist because I have Asian immunity! Zàijiàn!”
The spectators whistled, screamed, and stomped their good-byes. Their enthusiasm mirrored mine, and even though I barely knew her, I felt proud of Ying-Na. She wasn’t the cautionary tale; she was the hero. The dreamer. The fighter.
As the audience stretched before the next act, I downed my Coke, then collected my things. Should I try to get backstage? I hadn’t realized Ying-Na was so popular. Now she felt like a celebrity, not an old friend.
A club employee tapped me on the shoulder. “Miss Chu would like to extend an invitation backstage.”
I followed his broad bouncer shoulders, weaving through chairs and feeling like a bit of a celebrity myself. The dressing room was merely a coat closet with a stained armchair on one side and a stool on the other. A smudged mirror leaned against the wall, threatening to topple at any moment.
Ying-Na’s face brightened when she saw me. I stuck a hand out, but she pulled me into a hug. Her sweaty skin stuck to mine, and I held back a cringe.
Now that we were in close proximity, memories flashed through my mind. Ying-Na, age six, yelling out her mother’s mahjong hand to the rest of the table. Everyone had been amused except her mother, which now, in retrospect, had probably been her motivation—getting some laughs, but more important, annoying her ultra-tiger mom. Ying-Na, age eight, grabbing the stuffed animals to put on a show for the younger kids, cartoon voices and jokes galore. I remembered keeling over with laughter, my stomach hurting, just like tonight. Ying-Na, age twelve, reading us kissing scenes from her romance book, telling us she’d teach us how to kiss since our Chinese mothers never would. She had grabbed stacks of oranges for us to French with. I had eaten mine.
I pulled away first. “Ying-Na, I mean Christine, I can’t believe you remember me!”
“Of course! And I still have an ear to one last grapevine leaf. I heard about what happened with your parents. I’m really sorry.”
I sat on the armchair, folding one leg beneath me. “Figures. Disownments usually make the mahjong-table gossip.”
Ying-Na laughed, and I filled with pride that I had made her laugh.
She sat on the stool, able to cross her legs because of the slits running up to her thigh. “You’re becoming quite the tale yourself. Kicked out of MIT, possibly pregnant, dating a bad biker dude”—I snorted at that one—“and the kicker, that you had Romeo-and-Juliet-ed yourself into the Charles River.”
“Jesus, I had no idea.”
“Don’t worry. You’re immortalized now, just like Ying-Kan’s penis. And me.”
I chuckled. “What an honor.”
“I tried to spread a rumor like, ‘Ying-Na is a stand-up comedian, and she’s actually funny. Go watch her!’ But nobody bit on that one.”
I laughed. “Your show was fantastic. And I love the slashed qípáo—brilliant.”
“Slashing down nonsensical traditions one at a time.” She flashed her stage-worthy smile.
“I’m really happy you’re doing so well. You’re a celebrity!”
She sighed. “Not really. Cultural humor is tough. A lot of Asians don’t like it if your material doesn’t match their experience, and non-Asians sometimes just don’t get the joke. I’m lucky to have enough fans in the area to fill this tiny club—and don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for that—but I’m still struggling. This road isn’t easy, but at least it’s getting better. The beginning was the hardest. I wasn’t used to being alone. . . . I was busing tables . . . working odd jobs here and there. I knew my parents would be so ashamed that I was washing dishes, but after about three months, I stopped caring. Actually, they’d still be ashamed of me now, doing this, but . . . ” She shrugged and meant it.
“God, I’m so glad I’m past that,” she continued. “Now I have regular work with an improv group, I teach some comedy classes at the local community college, and I bartend at this club the nights I’m not onstage. The checks are infrequent and pretty small, but it’s enough to get me by. I don’t need much—just a roof over my head and distance from my mother.”
“I’m sorry it’s been so hard for you.”
She gave me an appreciative nod. “Thanks. You know, it’s cliché, but you really can’t put a price on happiness. And don’t worry—it won’t be as hard for you as it was for me. I know you have plenty of options—more than I did. You were always the one my mother compared me to. . . .” She mimicked her mother’s heavy accent. “Mei got straight As last semester. Mei is in all honors classes. Mei poops golden nuggets.”
I cringed. I remembered Mrs. Chu and her stern face with perpetually pursed lips, like she was always constipated. Out of all my mother’s friends, she had scared me the most. “Sorry about that.”
Ying-Na shook her head. “It’s not your fault. I will never be good enough for her. It took me nineteen years to realize that, but once I did, things got easier. It sucks—I mean, she’s my mother—but once I stopped trying so damn hard to be someone else, I started to enjoy life. Being alone was hard, but better than feeling shitty about myself all the time.”
“That’s the eventual goal—to enjoy life.”
Her face turned down with empathy. “Do you need anything? A job?”
“I actually have one. I’m teaching dance, just two classes for now, but I’m hoping to add on a few.” It wasn’t enough, but that plus the financial aid that would kick in when I turned eighteen would hopefully get me through.
Ying-Na clapped her hands together in excitement. “I’m totally there! Save a spot for me!”
“Maybe I can fill my class with sympathetic Asians who want to get me off the streets.”
She laughed. “I’ll spread the word. We Asian-Americans need to stick together. No one else understands the shit we have to deal with.”
She pulled me into another hug. She felt like my jiějie. A dirtier, foul-mouthed older sister.