Arrival

(Copyright Ryan Pyle/Corbis)

"Why not sue your government?"

Stumped, I didn't know how to answer. But the question has stayed with me since. It shook me, as I realized that democracy fundamentally meant the equality between the individual and the country. Such a thought was something few Chinese would dare to entertain.

When I left home, it was understood between my wife, Lisha, and me that I would live abroad for four years without coming back to visit her, because I was unlikely to be able to afford the airfare. Our 2-year-old son had been staying with her parents, and, right before my departure, Lisha and I went to see him; he was too young to worry about my imminent absence from his life. Even when I said goodbye, he hardly paid me any mind. After my arrival in Boston, I noticed that some Chinese graduate students had their spouses with them, so I began to figure out how to bring Lisha over. I spoke to a woman at the graduate school admissions at Brandeis, saying: "I want my wife to join me here. I miss her terribly." She didn't respond, her face wooden and her eyes dropped, as if I had asked for something beyond reason. The prolonged silence made clear that no assistance would come from her office.

Gradually, I found out that everyone who came here was entitled to have a visa for his or her spouse, but there was another difficulty, namely money. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing would demand that my wife show that I had at least $4,000 in my bank account. To earn that amount, I began working on and off campus. I started in the periodical section of the main library and learned to operate the copiers and the microfilm and microfiche machines. My fellow graduate student Dan Morris used to be a custodian at Waltham Hospital, but now he was too busy with his studies to keep all the hours, so he split the job with me. We each worked 20 hours a week in the medical building, vacuuming floors, cleaning toilets, washing glass doors, picking up trash from the offices and keeping the parking lot clean. We wore beepers at work so that the doctors and nurses could page us if they needed help. The job was undemanding, but I often got confused. For instance, a patient once told me to keep an eye on his "burgundy station wagon" because its lock was broken. I had no idea what kind of car a station wagon was and had to ask several people about that. A physician who spoke English with a Greek accent often wiggled his forefinger to summon me over when he wanted me to change a light bulb or clean away a patch of vomit on his office floor. I hated that gesture, which at first seemed to mean that he could pull me around with just one finger. But gradually I became accustomed to it as I saw that many others used it without any condescension. Despite some twinge of discomfort, I liked the job, mainly because I could rest my mind while I worked. I had to be very careful about my time and energy. At the outset of the semester, the director of graduate studies had told me that the English department had admitted Asian PhD candidates before, but none of them had survived the intensity of the graduate work, so I had to prove that I could manage it.

For new arrivals in America, there was always the sinister attraction of money. Suddenly one could make $4 or $5 an hour, which was equal to a whole week's wages back home. If you were not careful, you could fall into the money-grubbing trap. Some Chinese students didn't continue with their graduate work because they couldn't stop making money. One fellow from Shanghai started working part time in a museum on campus but soon stopped showing up in his lab in the physics department, dropped out of graduate school within a semester, and began taking courses to learn how to sell real estate. Another in American studies, who loved teaching as a profession, could no longer write his dissertation after taking a clerical job in a bank -- sometimes he put in more than 60 hours a week, the overtime even harder to resist.

One evening, as I was cleaning the front entrance of the medical building, a slender Hispanic woman carrying a baby stopped to watch me work. She was under 30, with honey-colored hair, and might have been a single mother. A moment later, she stepped closer and handed her pacifier-sucking baby to me, saying, "You like kids?" Her round eyes were glowing while a hesitant smile cracked her face.

I was perplexed but managed to say, "Sorry, I am busy now." I kept spraying Windex on the glass door. After scraping the glass clean, I observed my face in the mirror inside the men's room. I looked a bit melancholy and frazzled. But how on earth, I wondered, had that woman sensed my yearning for family?

My coursework and two part-time jobs kept me so busy that I rarely ate dinner. I would cook twice a week -- a potful of rice or spaghetti mixed with vegetables and chicken generally lasted me a few days. Back home, I wouldn't eat chicken or beef, because, unlike pork, they had tasted strange to me. But now I just ate whatever I could get. Fortunately, in America, food was very affordable. But my eating habit soon gave me a stomachache. I went to the infirmary, and the doctor said I had developed a digestive disorder and must eat regularly, three meals a day. That was out of the question, thanks to my hectic schedule. But my stomach problem made Lisha eager to join me here.

Despite my effort to earn money for her visa, she was not sure if she would be able to come. With the help of a doctor's letter about my illness, she had obtained a three-month leave from the school where she taught, but the Chinese authorities wouldn't let her bring our child. She was having difficulty getting a passport even for herself. For two months, she went to various offices every day to ask for permission to visit me. Sometimes she swept floors and wiped desks in those places just to earn the officials' mercy so they might issue her the papers.

During my absence, she had been raising our child alone on her teacher's salary. I missed him and often looked at the photos she mailed me. I could not afford to call home, since it cost more than $3 a minute. Worse, very few families in China had a phone back then, and if I was going to call, Lisha would have to go to an office to wait for the call. When she spoke, there would be people around, listening. Once in a while, she would send me the imprints of our child's hands and feet to give me a better sense of how much he had grown. In the Boston area, I had encountered young couples from China who had their children with them, and I could see that eventually I might be able to bring my son over, too, but the first step was to get his mother out.

However, even after Lisha got her passport, she began having second thoughts about leaving our son behind and coming alone. In her letters, she even bragged teasingly about how orderly her life had become without me around and said that, as we had planned, she could manage without seeing me for four years. I assured her that our family would be reunited in time, but she should come over first. She was worried about her lack of English, as well, and I told her that she could easily learn it once she was here. I also wrote her about American amenities: She could take a hot shower at home every day; she could do laundry in a washer and a dryer, no need to hand-launder anything; and she needn't burn honeycomb briquettes to cook, as electric and gas stoves were commonplace in America. What's more, the air here was so fresh and clean that your collar didn't get black even after you wore a white shirt for days, and that you needn't wipe your shoes.

After a few more exchanges of letters, she finally decided to come once I had earned the $4,000.

At the end of the semester, I completed my four courses with decent grades, which convinced the department of my ability. Then, one evening, my friend Jia-yang, a first-year graduate student in the biology department, came by to ask if he could borrow $1,000 from me, saying that his wife was going to apply for a visa, and he needed enough money in his bank account. I was stupefied, as it had never crossed my mind that I could have borrowed cash from friends, perhaps because it was such a big sum. I lent Jia-yang the money, and he promised to lend me some when Lisha began her application. And, two months later, he did. Now Lisha and I wouldn't have to wait for long to be together again, for me to show her my new American life.

. . .

Ha Jin is the author of Waiting and A Free Life. He can be reached at 20071@washpost.com.