Competitiveness

I stepped in sticky rice on the sidewalk. This never happens in the States. Because I stood there inspecting my new black sandals in the blinding sun, the bus stopped for me, and we had to wave it on. Dee asked for the word, “active?” for when you call people because later you might need a favor. “Proactive,” said Kerri. Dee wrote down the word. I told her again she should work in government or business. Point for Kerri for coming up with the word. I like being competitive.

Dee said that she liked rich older men. Good painter and homebody Shushu was trying his best to run a factory, get rich and paint later as an old man, but Kerri said he would never really be what Dee wanted. As we all sat there and Dee talked business with one of her ex-boyfriend’s managers at lunch, Shushu folded a piece of paper into a Rubik's snake. It broke my heart.

As we walked down the stairs to leave the restaurant, Dee said, “Oh, Mr. Z is here”—Kerri's old boss, that she had left in the lurch 3 years ago when she broke her foot and flew home. We all shook hands. Dee said, “Do you want to sit down with him a while?” I thought Kerri might like to strangle Dee at that moment. Mr. Z said he was meeting a friend. “May gwan shee,” said Kerri—no problem.
As we further descended the stairs I joked, “Are you sure you guys don't want to stay? I could take a taxi home.”
“Awkward,” said Kerri.


She'd already told Dee we were leaving for Hangzhou soon, after we agreed we'd imposed long enough—and been dragged to a million social events while sleeping on the floor and using a smelly bathroom enough. She earned some DVD-watching this AM by having that tough talk.

We’d purchased a bunch of DVD’s for a dollar each, since piracy was held in high regard here. On the back of DVD packages here were surprising snippets from reviews, such as the back of the bad movie “American Dreams,” which said in big red letters, “If you do not like political satire that talks down to you, stay away from ‘American Dreams.’” We did not listen. As the movie credits ended, I looked out past the laundry-drying porch at some light and had to think hard to remember where I was.

Kerri reported that her pressure on Dee to explore mutual oral edification with her spouse—not reportedly done here—had given Shushu a couple good nights. But Monday, Dee said she had to return little Leo's phone and disappeared into the night. Kerri said, “Something's up.” After midnight, Shushu came into our room, turned on the light, and said, “Dee Dee not come back yet.” In the morning, Kerri told me her dad had yelled at Dee for a long time when she finally did.



Kerri warned me that her friend Chow Yen, who had initially been given the job of spying on Kerri for the school and had later become a friend, was a little quirky. Chow Yen had just had a baby and was struggling to lose the weight. She pointed out that both she and Kerri had this problem, which I suppose was an attempt to bond. She had mannish 80's hair, and talked about how she needed to “quarrel” with her husband, but his parents were always around. She was about to be fired from her school, again, because of bad reports about her teaching. She taught us the word for “shit,” cause her baby always did that. I asked her to show me how to eat a fajita-looking thing, and she said, “I think you are not that clever.” I could see why her students spoke ill of her.

She said her husband was not that romantic because he never bought her roses, which would mean he loved her. I explained to her that to men, flowers were “shit”, and asked whether she had figured out what she could do to make her husband think she loved HIM. She said she had no idea. I said, “Maybe you are not that clever.” She laughed and pointed at me, calling me the word for crazy—“Fa fung la.”

We went home to her house to meet her baby. What do you do when you realize you're the child of someone who didn't receive the right training? Same toys and highchair as at home. More watermelon. Chow Yen’s younger and more handsome husband spoke no English. When I met Chow Yen’s mom, and they brought out watermelon for us, I started to like her a bit more. I watched the Chinese drama on TV, which, as always, took place far in the past with ornate clothes and men with long hair. In the drama, the woman in the bathtub crying for some reason made me realize that life is good but it is not easy.


We walked home at night, through the people's park, with a tall monument in the middle, in the valley of huge scrolling red and orange bright lights on buildings, like Times Square. Hundreds of people sat on their fake Vespas or squatted and watched a free outdoor movie on a big screen, and little kids by the dozens played and rollerbladed. It felt family-oriented, safe, and fun. I was annoyed our doggie bag of noodles and dumplings was leaking.

At home, Kerri was tired and crashed face-down on the floor,
“I know you don't want to, but I am going to brush my teeth,” I said.
“I already did,” she said.
“Look who's the hygiene hero.”
“I told you about it,” she said. “As usual, I talk and you don't listen.”
“The talking thing again—what did we agree about that?” I said.
“That I would talk louder?” she said.
“No. I'm gonna brush if you're not going to say anything to stop me.”
“I hope you do,” she said.
“Stay awake. I can't stand to be the last one asleep.”


I stayed up thinking. I realized I relied on feeling like I was better than other people to feel confident, on the basketball courts, on the dance floor, on the job. I also suspected Kerri really was more cut out for teaching that I was. She liked to talk, and to prepare, and made everyone around her feel special and inspired, all the while peppering them with fun little jabs. There was a part of me that distrusted women. Still, for the most part, I preferred them to men. Men are there trying to beat each other at something, all the while pretending they are not competing, even when other men are not around. That's why men don’t talk: they don’t want to give up their position. I kept letting women go, and then seeing how long they'd stay faithful to me. Same with careers. It’s because I wasn’t confident enough to go after the ones I really wanted. Then again, I’m too short and too old to be in the NBA.




Mr. Tsen showed up at dinner in a peaceful garden restaurant with a girlfriend much prettier than he is. Dee told us she liked Mr. Tsen, because he was “a big potato” in the Wenzhou Department of Education, and could do calligraphy. He had a crewcut and a round head, and cleared his throat 12 times a minute. I wouldn’t be so cruel as to point this out, but I didn’t like the way he counseled Bomi on how to get over her cheating husband, making her cry again. Everyone at the table knew he was married, and he’s sitting there with his girlfriend consoling a broken-hearted woman like he’s Dr. Phil. He invited Kerri and me to his town of Wenzhou, calling it the “Hawaii” of China, really pushing us to stay with him. Not that we were so special, but it was clear that it boosted people’s profile to be seen consorting with Westerners.






Kerri and I had a late-night talk about our plans. The lifestyle of perpetual socializing worked for Dee, but not for us, and neither of us wanted to go see Mr. Phlegmy in Wenzhou.
“I don’t want to go run around and be this man’s guest for 3 days. I want to rest,” Kerri said.
“I want to start our life in Hangzhou,” I said. “Why did you let Dee agree to this for us? We have to tell him no, even if it offends him.”
“I care less and less about what people think about me,” Kerri said.
“Your words and your deeds are not on speaking terms,” I said, which was not nice.
Kerri researched Wenzhou on line and it turned out to be a polluted industrial city by the ocean where all the cabdrivers were failed businessmen, and even worse drivers than here in Jinhua. That settled it. We were leaving for Hangzhou in two days. It felt good to be a team, to be decided.

I would miss Dee and ShuShu. I wondered whether ShuShu, being an introvert, had been annoyed that Dee had plopped her father, her heartbroken childhood friend, and two crazy American friends all into their little apartment for weeks on end. But he was warm to us. I considered buying a painting from him, to remind me of the complicated love in that apartment, and to vote for him not abandoning his art.

Dee was upset the next morning when we said we were leaving. Later that day, she called to say we should stay in because a typhoon was coming. She said the roads could be flooded and we might not be able to escape this town tomorrow. Kerri was annoyed. I said, “Some people use manipulation to show they care,” and we both agreed our families did this. Dee went on to say we could be killed if we walked on the streets tomorrow. Chinese and Jewish mothers were indistinguishable.

We went to a teahouse, which cost 30 yuan for all you can eat. I grabbed three nasty-looking insect pods and a bunch of veggies. We dined with more businessmen and government officials, talking about differences in social security between the West and China. The room had a TV, and when the news came on, everyone looked up because over 100 people in Wenzhou had died in the typhoon, the biggest in 50 years. Kerri and I were supposed to be there in Wenzhou today, and we looked at each other, so glad we hadn't given in to the phlegmy guy. They showed flooded houses, bodies covered in sheets, and people weeping. They cut to footage of a young woman wailing in a hospital bed, who had jumped from the third floor of a building. Her family stood over her, and the mother’s obvious love for her daughter in the hospital bed was moving. Dee explained that this was an unrelated story, and the young woman had jumped because she'd been raped, and the men had been holding her hostage. She worked at a karaoke club, and like many girls, she would come and sing and people could “kiss and touch them a little” and then pay 100-200 yuan, but no sex. Four guys had taken her back to a hotel room. Girls from poor villages with no education did this, said Dee, if they were good-looking, or worked at massage parlors like the “pink house,” which offered a different variety than the painful massages we'd received.

Kerri had wanted to cook dinner again the next day for Dee and ShuShu but her knee was in too much pain, so Dee cooked, which Kerri told me she rarely did. Dee told us at dinner, in front of Shushu, that Shushu never had fun going out with her friends, so it was hard to be with him. I was never sure how much English ShuShu understood, but I thought it was considerable. She also said ShuShu had felt she was being too “kind” to Mr. Tsen last night, making jokes, and told us that ShuShu had said, “I'll never go out with you again.”
The fan moved Kerri's empty plastic cup across the table, among the eight plates of food. Kerri spoke for a minute and a half about her ideas about one person's limited ability to change another, and Dee spoke for the same amount of time to ShuShu, translating for him, ending it with a joke for our benefit-“I'm down with that,” an expression Kerri had taught her. Dee was amazing. She was too much for her husband, sitting underneath a huge framed photo of the two of them on their wedding day, kneeling on a pathway, looking up at the heavens. ShuShu looked like he was wearing lipstick in the photo.
Without looking at Dee at all, ShuShu asked whether jealousy meant you loved a person deeply, which Dee translated for us. Kerri went on about trust, which made me uncomfortable, given what I knew about their marriage. We thanked Dee for cooking, since in 3 years of marriage, she'd cooked once for Shushu. Kerri asked if ShuShu were happy she'd cooked, since his birthday had just passed. She didn't translate his reply.
“What should we do now?” I said. Dee's phone rang and she was off arranging something.

I got the emails I had to reply to down to 70, and rested. I was in no position to criticize others for spreading themselves too thin, but who could I cut out? Friends, former students, family, old loves, old bosses?


“I think I spend too much time on the Internet,” I said.
“You think, Captain Obvious?” she said. This was an expression her brothers used when someone was sharing an insight that was none too insightful.
She and I had agreed she was the CEO of the trip, while I was the CFO, since she liked to plan and I'm eight times better with money. We sat on the green pleather couch in the living room and looked at pictures of us on the computer.
“I have wide-set eyes,” Kerri said.
“Isn't that a Stanley Kubrick film?” I said.
“Eyes wide set, yes,” she said.
“You’re like a seagull. You can’t tell whether I’m 50 feet off or, 5 feet off.”
“I wish you were 50 feet off. Get your feet off me right now. Sacred line,” she said.
“You’ve finally acknowledged the mastodon in the room. I’ve thought your eyes were far apart for 22 years now. I thought your ponytail had gotten caught in a roller coaster or something and they got pulled that way.”
“Nice,” she said, scrolling through the pictures.
“I like how my computer is my computer, and your computer is ours,” I said.
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
“Let's delete that one,” I said. “We both look bad.”
“No.”
“Okay,” I said, giving her laptop back. “It's still 60/40 yours.”
“It's 100 percent mine," she said.
“You are the CEO," I said. "Captain Elizabeth Obvious.”
ShuShu came in and joined us on the couch, and Dee followed. He said our computer was not expensive to us. We said yes it was. Shushu said he worked 3 or 4 months to buy his computer, while we worked less than one for ours. Good point. As we watched a woman cry in a Chinese movie, Dee rubbed Shushu's back.