The Popstar & Me

Chapter 6 - Jet Lag Dreams

Chapter 6

By 10 p.m., the jet lag catches up with us. The three of us pile into Dr. Su's car in the nearby Waldorf Astoria parking lot as he insists on driving us home. He shoves aside a pile of hospital medical records, a couple of old take-out menus, and an empty thermostat with dried tea leaves on the bottom to make room for me to sit shot-gun. The boys are already snoring in the back seat.

Dr. Su turns on some music as we pull into the dusty roadways. The air is alive with fluorescent lights, and even though it's late, the roads are bustling with cars and cyclists.

While we are stopped at the light, I see three baby-blue taxis speed by us, all more eager than the last not to be held up by the stoplight.

"You have to watch out for those," Su tells me and turns the radio on to pass the time. "They're all driven by xiāng xià rén. Though, I remember driving in NYC is just as dangerous. I remember an old woman banged on our taxi in the UES because we were blocking the crosswalk. You don't see things like that around here. Cars have the right of way."

"Yeah," I agree as Su narrowly avoids side-swiping one of the blue taxis. I suspect driving in this country is an art that a meek, yield-to-pedestrians New Yorker like me will never quite master.

"You look alarmed. The traffic laws here are different from your laws back home, right?"

"Thank you very much for taking me home," I reply, reassuring him that I am indeed grateful that I'm here in his beat-up old car with a vaguely medical smell. "I don't think I even remember the address of the Marriott Hotel that parents put me in."

"Where's your real house?" Su asks. "You're not staying at a hotel all summer, are you?"

"No, I'm going to be staying with relatives," I assure him. Dr. Su seems distressed that I'm wasting money paying for a hotel even though my mom paid for my bill with points from her traveler's club credit card.

I guess one could say that I'm staying with relatives. My uncle owns a spare apartment in Nanjing Lu. I'm going to stay there once he leaves for a business trip to London. I would rather stay at the Marriott instead of with one of my relatives, but as my mom reminds me constantly — she's not made of money or Marriott points.

"Are they going to set you up with a nice boy while you're here?" Su asks with a chuckle as we finally pull away from the swarm of taxis on The Bund and onto the relatively sparsely populated highway.

"No! I'm not here for that," I snap back. "I'm much too young to be set up with anyone. Also, I doubt my relatives know what I like."

"You're never too young to start looking," Su replies and nods his head at Calvin. "It looks like you already have your sights set on that rìběn rén."

Okay, it's true that Calvin is probably Japanese. I never thought to ask before. He doesn't speak Chinese, and his last name sounds vaguely Japanese. I think, growing up in New York, I can pinpoint if a friend of mine is Asian or not, though I've never thought to differentiate what part of Asia they are from. There just never seemed to be a point. We all communicate in English, so what does it matter if their parents spoke Cantonese, Mandarin, or Japanese?

I can't believe Su just pointed out that I should think twice about dating a guy just because he's not the same type of Asian as I am. Back in America, one is either Asian or not. If you have yellow skin, you're all part of the same party. I start to comment on how Su is very intolerant, but then I stop myself. Explaining any of this to Su requires much more than my basic elementary level Chinese can muster. All I can think of saying is — it's not nice to point out that he is Japanese; you wouldn't want other people to point out that you're Chinese, do you?

Then, as I turn this accusation around in my head, I realize how idiotic it is. Su doesn't care if people here point out that he's Chinese! This is China. The Chinese are the majority are here!

"Do you have a favorite type of music?" Su asks as he flips through the radio stations. I'm grateful that he turned off the Xiqu operatic music that had been playing when we first sat down in the car. "I don't know what young girls listen to these days."

I decide to stop trying to teach Su cultural competency and take over DJing before he crashes the car while trying to flip radio stations with one hand. I settle on a station playing that song I heard back in my hotel room — the one about the red string of fate.

"You like Fang Yao?" Su asks with a chuckle as though I had admitted to something universally acknowledged by women akin to liking the color rose pink or hating thigh fat.

"Is that his name?" I ask and glance absently out the window. "I don't know who any of these singers are."

"He's an actor too, you know. A popular one." Su keeps talking to me in a teasing tone like he's expecting me to admit that I'm the treasurer of this Yao dude's fan club. I shake my head.

"I never heard of him. I don't follow actors; I'm too busy with school."

"Oh, that's too bad."

"Why is it too bad?"

"No reason," Su says and drops the conversation. As we drive off the highway, I notice that the softly-glowing bus stop ads have Asian celebrities on them. As we stop at a street light, a giant portrait of Fang Yao in a Dior Homme ad stars back at me. He's the only modern Asian celebrity that I'm able to recognize so far.

Although, like New York City, Shanghai is full of glittering skyscrapers, gray litter-filled pavements, huddled crowds, and a McDonalds' on every corner, the difference starts to sink in. The celebrities in the ads are all Chinese, like me. I almost feel embarrassed that there is so much of myself staring back at me. In New York, we are taught as a minority to feel grateful for whatever small scrap of representation we are offered.

Here, I see myself everywhere. It's as though the city isn't designed for the gaze of people like Andrew at all. But instead, it's a place where Asians can be movie stars, models, or even pop stars. They can be the heroes in their own stories to be played out on the stage, unfiltered by a foreigner's lens.

My parents, my father especially, have always told me to be thankful to be an American. Yet, as I look at the realm of possibilities the people here enjoy, to see their faces up in lights unapologetically, unflinchingly, unpretentiously, I start to wonder if the fortunate one — is me.