Flickr Fiction Friday: Castles in the Air

It is hazy and sticky out, which isn’t unusual for Shanghai, but is unusual enough for so early in the morning. Even though the sun has not yet risen, the streets are still filled with people, cheek-by-jowl, rushing down the wide streets on bicycles, heading all directions. I wish I was one of them, filled with some kind of purpose, walking briskly. Instead, I am limping along, exhausted, still feeling jetlagged, travel-worn, and weary.

The boulevard outside the hotel boasts a wide, tree-lined walk; the Bund, the concierge called it. Walking along it are many Chinese peoples in plain outfits, doing the slow mantis-like movements of Tai Chi, and getting their morning exercise. A small group of fifteen or so senior citizens are flying kites against the pollution-corrupted sky. I encounter several curious gazes, but do not stop.

My high school had been thrilled we’d been invited to China; our a cappella chorus had worked hard all year, and had gone to the Mozart Festival in Austria only the summer before. Nobody had expected another overseas trip, but Ms. Dunston had a friend well placed in government in Shanghai, and with great excitement, she’d passed along a tour invitation to the school board. The trustees had been impressed enough to bring in the media, and for the last ten days, we’d been traveling with a newspaper columnist and a photographer, as well as with the usual plethora of interested parents and sponsors. We’d been performing every day for two weeks, and had two weeks of tours and performances left to go. Between the jetlag and the sticky, sullen weather, being ‘on’ all the time for the columnist and photographer, we were all exhausted, half-sick, and fractious. Students who were usually quiet and dependable were having screaming fights on the tour bus, and Liesel and Kim had cried most of the way through our tour of the Oriental Pearl Tower in Pudon, which was all aglitz with neon lights and flashing signs. When we got to East Asia Hotel, tearstained and tired, Ms. Dunston announced a curfew, and had instructed us all to go to bed immediately, or risk her wrath. I’d sleep early and deeply, and now, awake before six, I wander the streets with the locals.

Shanghai is beautiful, but strange. As we sing at each outdoor theater and concert hall, I feel too Western and huge, my wide shoulders and full figure the object of blank stares of astonishment by seemingly hundreds of small, compact Asian girls. I realize I am beginning to walk with a hunch, thoughtlessly trying to be shorter, smaller, to blend in. Where is the part of my heritage that is meant to fit here? My face is a flat oval but my skin is caramel crème and dimpled instead of a serene and delicate pale. Jamaica sings out in the bow of my lips, the sway of my steps, in the kinks in my hair. China, had given me only my eyes, which are long and tilted. It seems as if there is something else filling in the blanks, some third cultural fingerprint that only I can see. Even my mother doesn’t understand why I don’t want to be here, why the hair on my nape raised when everyone else thrilled at the word ‘China.’

“It will be such a great experience for you,” my mother, Yasmin had beamed. “Everyone should find out their roots.”

If I wanted to find out my supposed ‘roots,’ shouldn’t I be in Jamaica? The one-drop rule rules the world, I know that; to the Chinese, I am no more one of them than any Westerner. Anyway, I wonder how my mother can be so enthused. My full-blooded Jamaican father didn’t marry her because she is half Chinese, and his parents, as he had told her apologetically, would object – strenuously. He instead contents himself with sending trifles and trinkets from his ticky-tacky homeland, tourist toys meant to demonstrate a love I have not seen.

My mother won’t hear a bad word against him, but I hate my father, and vow I will never go to Jamaica. The problem is, ignoring Jamaica leaves me with my scrap of Chinese-ness, which isn’t enough to count. I am only a quarter, and nobody identifies me as that, either– I am something else. Girls in my class like Lily Wong don’t look at me and find instant sisterhood. Neither can I identify with the ‘one love’ ganja crowd, with their colorful crocheted hats and “Hey, Mon,” speech. I’m on my own island.

And now, I’m in Shanghai.

The air is stained thick with haze, the color of smoke, congestion, and new construction. I look up at the half-finished buildings, the new thrusting up beside the old, as ornate temples and skyscrapers vie for space on the choked and cluttered skyline. I have two more weeks to be here, two more weeks to take hold of something that proves to me that this, too, is my country. I may be only a stepchild, but China, at least, must somehow be mine.