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Diversity

Welcome Aboard

I had heard that boarding a train was like entering a whole new world Gusts of wind whipped around the platform, a welcome appearance for the impatient passengers dripping with sweat on this sweltering Beijing summer afternoon. Off in the distance, two whistles blew, piercing the air with their tremulous shrill, ushering in a series of booming clang clang clangs. Eagerly, I gripped my blue suitcase ever so tightly. Sweat in my palms practically melted into the silver luggage handle. Just a few moments before we would board the train… a couple of seconds now… a mere split-second… CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! Puffs of smoke from the train funnel rose and drifted in the breeze, and the locomotive stopped still on the tracks, its red hue dimming in its countless journeys. The crimson gleam remained though. A train attendant clad in a dark navy-blue suit and beaming pearly whites unlocked the train entrance. A cluster of voices suddenly bubbled up as everyone clamored to board the train, yearning to escape the burning heat. Only one young woman stayed behind to wave tearfully at her family, yelling a last minute I promise to write! and I’ll miss you! Her parents nodded, ready to let her go as the young woman vanished within the clamoring crowd. I had heard that boarding a train was like entering a whole new world. That it would be an exciting, thrilling adventure. That sometimes you met all kinds of people who could change your life, or become a lifelong friend. It seemed that the world inside this train was bursting with people to be met, things to be seen… People also said that riding trains was the best way to immerse yourself in Chinese culture, as Chinese people routinely traveled by train, and that was just my goal as my family and I boarded the train that would take us on a cross-country route, leading from northern Beijing to the southern China harbors. We were bound for the final stop on the train route: Shenzhen, a mega-metropolis in China famed for being the Silicon Valley of China, for its contemporary architecture and modern, youthful culture. We’d come to visit my uncle who lived there. I had heard amazing tales of Shenzhen from my parents, and I dreamed of the urban adventures I would get to experience. Inside the train, I leaped across the passenger corridors, bursting with curiosity at the unfamiliar newness of it all. I paused to stop and inspect the cogs of an enticing gadget. Or how the window curtains were royal blue and fringed with golden yellow, with phoenix figures imprinted on the fabric… I was so thrilled to be on a real-life train, on a world away from home! Suddenly, my mom called me over. Instantly, I rushed—no, skipped—over to our compartment. This would be our home for the next twenty-two hours. Triple bunk beds were built on either side. Mom and I snagged the bottom bunks—rejoice!—while my cousin got the middle bunk above. Bottom bunk was almost always the best spot, because beside it was an oval-shaped window that gave a view of outside. Underneath was a sterile white table ideal for eating. And the best part was that I could freely amble in and out of the compartment. No having to climb down and fret about accidentally squashing someone’s toes! As we furnished our surroundings, I took out my travel satchel and a pink-and-purple dog-shaped pillow. Our bunkmates soon came in and settled down. They promptly began to doze off. The train would start off shortly. Suddenly, a flurry of voices began to rise. Poking my head out to see the commotion, I heard some people having a heated debate. A woman with high heels sharp enough to stab someone chatted in animated Chinese with her friend, a carefree spirit in her smile. A frail, elderly man with a head full of gray hair, dashed with specks of white, persevered to keep his balance as he walked and took out a pocket-sized leather-bound photo album and lovingly stared at a tiny, grainy, sepia photograph before placing it back. A pair of parents warned their child QUIT climbing on the suitcases or else… A teenager crunched on some chips as she listened to the blasting music in her earphones. She swayed to a rhythm I couldn’t make out, completely immune to the activity rushing around her. An auburn-haired man glued to his cellphone muttered to himself in a foreign tongue, urgently tapping the screen for a response, a ghostly halo framing his features. A young mother with a tied-up bun nestled in her arms a whining and wailing infant. Trailing behind her was her daughter, pulling her mom’s orange blouse, craving attention. Not far behind was the children’s dad, huffing and puffing as he heaved the massive luggage. They settled in the compartment next to us, the baby screaming louder. I wondered about the tales of these people, what sort of lives they had to tell. TWEEEEEEEET! The shrill whistle abruptly sounded, and off the train lurched, giving a violent jolt and leading me to hop into the safe covers of my bed. Grabbing a book, I began to read. Suddenly, nearly three chapters in, I felt someone staring at me. Intently. And for a long time. Maybe it was my sixth sense creeping in. I could hear a pitter patter of footsteps. Then a pause. Who could it be? Looking up, I found a pair of deep black eyes staring at me! Oh! Those eyes belonged to that little girl with the wailing infant sibling! They were thoughtful, glassy eyes, like marbles, rolling around the small room and studying the compartment, my dozing bunkmates, and, most importantly, me. Then she hid behind the wall separating the train compartments. She peeked again. And again! This game of peek-a-boo went on for several minutes, with each stolen glance becoming increasingly longer and more confident. Black bangs framing her chubby face, radiating total

A Broken Promise, A Mended Me

Strange, lucky, unique, divided, foreign, difficult… All are good descriptions of my life, but I couldn’t imagine myself living any other way. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t live in Mexico, if I wasn’t bilingual, if I didn’t clamp my mouth shut whenever my friends pleaded for me to speak English. My blond hair and blue eyes made me stand out in a crowd, but when people learned I could speak English, and for some reason it never took them that long to find out, all hope of being overlooked vanished. “Where are you from?” was the same question they would always ask me. “I was born in Guadalajara, but I live in Puerto Escondido,” I would say. It wasn’t a lie but I knew it wasn’t what they were looking for. They would look at each other and then back at me, a skeptical look in their eyes. “But where are your parents from?” they would prod, guessing the answer before I had to say it. “Well, they’re from the United States,” I always admitted reluctantly, more than anything because I knew exactly what they were going to say next. “Ah,” they would say, nodding to each other, “so you speak English?” “Yeah.” Inwardly, I would sigh. I’m not sure I really minded this treatment anymore. I’d learned to accept it and deal with it, mostly by pretending that it didn’t exist. When I went to school in first grade, I started to realize how different I was from other kids. My wispy blond hair, always escaping from its ponytail, stood out against the sea of perfectly combed dark hair, like a drop of yellow paint would against a perfectly painted black background. I got to leave school an entire hour early because everyone had agreed that English class would be a complete waste of time for me. Back then I did want to fit in. I wanted to have brown hair and dark eyes and not a single word of English vocabulary. I would have done anything for these things back then. “Where are you from?” was the same question they would always ask me I was so determined that I decided I would never speak English again with my friends. I turned a deaf ear to my friends’ pleadings. “Heather, please speak English.” I refused. “No.” I would not speak English, and someday I would dye my hair black. I’d be just like everyone else one day, I thought stubbornly. “ Se forman al fondo. Correle!” (Form a line at the back. Hurry!), the teacher yelled, spacing the final word into separate syllables for emphasis. New Year’s was a recent memory and very few kids had made it to class. There was a loud chorus of pat, pat, pat as the small group of nine hurried to the last row of blue and yellow foam squares that covered the Tae Kwon Do school’s floor, the usual commotion occurring as children shuffled to be next to friends. “Uno!” the teacher says, pointing at Angeles, a girl with short black hair who’s standing next to me in line. She repeats it. “Dos!” I say when it’s my turn. He continues until reaching the final girl who yells out, “Nueve!” “Ahora todos me lo van a decir en inglés” (Now everyone will say it in English), he says, picking up a stack of neon orange cones and placing them in a line across the room. He smiles when he sees my scowl. “One,” Angeles says, pronouncing with a Mexican accent so that it sounds more like wan. The entire class looked at me expectantly. Maria, a tall girl on my other side, with jet-black hair tied back in a high ponytail, was nodding at me as if for moral support. I looked around helplessly. I doubted it would matter if I said it with a Mexican accent as I did the rare times that I spoke in English with my friends. It took me little more than a fraction of a second to realize, no, I would not speak in English. I’d always listened well at Tae Kwon Do. It wasn’t just expected; it was taken for granted. Everyone did exactly what the teacher said, no exceptions, so it surprised me to find myself thinking, I don’t care. I won’t do it. “Dos!” I said after hardly any hesitation, looking stubbornly back at the staring eyes. The teacher rolled his eyes and the whole class cried in unison, “Heather!” “A ver, de nuevo” (Let’s see, again), the teacher said, pointing at Angeles. I made a pitiful face. Sometimes people would just give up once they realized they would be better off asking a rock to speak English, and then there were other times… “One,” Angeles said between laughs. “Dos,” I said. I wasn’t about to back down now. “Heather!” the kids around me grumbled. Now the teacher had joined in. “Engleesh,” Maria said in a Mexican accent. “One, two, three,” she continued, until I gave her an exasperated “Ay Maria!” “Pero es que yo no quiero hablar en inglés!” I said, making a face and throwing my hands up in the air. No way was I speaking English! “But Heather…” my friends pleaded in Spanish. “Your mom’s looking at you,” Angeles said in Spanish, pointing at my mom. I turned around. She was right. Mom was staring at me with a cross between bewilderment and laughter. “All this time and she hasn’t learned to speak English. You’re an embarrassment to your family,” Angeles continued with mock disapproval, shaking her head at me, and then laughed. I was laughing along with everyone else. Though many of them were staring too, as though they didn’t quite know what to make of me. For a second I imagined what they must be thinking now: Heather, the only girl in the class who really could speak English, and she was refusing to do so. “Heather,” the teacher finally said in Spanish, “if

Meet Soon-Soon

CHAPTER ONE THE WANG FAMILY   Soon-Soon Wang was an energetic eight-year-old Chinese girl from Beijing. She was full of life. Her black eyes always seemed to be dancing. Her grandfathers and great-grandfathers had been court officials during the Qing Dynasty at the Forbidden City. Her parents had been sent to study in England. Her father became a senior scientist at the National Chinese Space Program in Beijing and her mother worked at the Beijing Children’s Hospital. When her paternal grandfather died, Soon-Soon’s father, being the oldest son, inherited his house. It had ten bedrooms and three bathrooms. It had magnificent courtyards, stupendous gardens, and two goldfish ponds. They had many people to wait on them. Every night a tremendous meal was served. The rooms were huge and spacious. Soon-Soon had never had to do much work. She only ate, slept, played, or her parents took her on outings and shopping trips. Soon-Soon’s parents got married seven years after the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949. They greatly supported the new government. They lived a happy life until 1966 when the chaotic Cultural Revolution began. They were in great danger since they lived in such a grand house. In 1963 Mrs. Wang (Wang Chun-Mei) gave birth to a little girl whom they named Soon-Soon. The house had magnificent courtyards, stupendous gardens, and two goldfish ponds Soon-Soon was extremely lucky. All around her people were thrown out of their houses and moved off to the countryside with only what they could carry by themselves. But some fortunate women managed to sew their jewelry in the hems of their clothes so they could exchange them for food in the hard times ahead. No bright colors could be seen anywhere. Soon-Soon was too young to know quite what was going on, but she knew her life would never be the same again. Her family was very lucky not to be a part of it, for the time being at least, because of her father’s important job at the Chinese space research program. In the future bad things would happen, but not for a while. CHAPTER TWO THE LITTLE COMPANION When Soon-Soon was four, the government of Mao Zedong moved nine other families into the house. Every family got just one bedroom. Everyone had to share all the other rooms. There was always a line to use the bathroom in the morning. Next to the Wangs’ room was the Bais’ room. Lao Bai, the grandfather, was an extreme grouch. He had arthritis in his hands and legs, and he never got over the loss of his house and his antique furniture. His son Wen-Wen and his daughter-in-law Yi-Hua were both always working late at the clothing factory, leaving little Xiao-Long behind. Xiao-Long was the same age as Soon- Soon. He always pulled pranks on Lao Bai. He often hid Lao Bai’s arthritis pills. That is exactly why Soon-Soon liked him. They soon became the best of friends. The ten families lived together until the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976. The Wangs were then given the house back. All the families left except the Bais, whom the Wangs allowed to stay. During the Chinese New Year of 1971, when Soon-Soon and Xiao-Long were both eight, they went out for a day of fun. First they counted all their savings. They had enough to go to the Chinese opera but needed five mao more in order to go ice-skating as well. Soon-Soon and Xiao-Long pestered Lao Bai until he finally gave in and gave them the money. The two children raced each other to the bus stop. They each had bus passes so they didn’t pay for the bus ticket. When they arrived at the opera theater, they excitedly settled down in their seats and watched eagerly as the curtains parted, revealing a table and chairs. They watched three fascinating shows. Xiao-Long’s favorite was about the monkey king playing many mischievous pranks on the Celestial Emperor. Soon-Soon’s favorite was about a poor but beautiful girl who got married to a rich man. After it was all over, they got on another bus to go to the lake near Bei Hai. They rented skates and raced each other to a hole in the ice where people were ice-swimming. They gasped because the temperature was below zero. “How on earth can they do that?” Soon-Soon asked, awestruck. “How should I know?” Xiao-Long replied. “Perhaps they’ve been training in cold weather.” They watched for a little while longer but soon got bored. They went to one of the food sellers and bought some noodles, with Lao Bai’s money. They finished eating and skated some more. Xiao-Long started doing some fancy spins and jumps, he was a show-off, but he fell down a lot and was very dirty by the time they got home. At Lao Bai’s room they wished they had earplugs. Lao Bai yelled at them for getting dirty. When they finally got away they ran to Soon-Soon’s parents’ room. Soon-Soon’s parents were not there! There was a message for Soon- Soon on the table. It said, Dear Soon-Soon, We have been taken away by the government because of your grandfather’s high positions with the Qing Emperors at the Forbidden City. You go live with the Bais. You are lucky you weren’t home. Otherwise you would have been taken too. Try and contact your Uncle Kee- Yong. Ask him to take you to his house in America. His address is: 1588 Highland Glen, McLean, Virginia 22101, USA. Love, Your Parents They grabbed the letter and ran to show it to Lao Bai. He allowed Soon- Soon to stay with his family. She was devastated and cried herself to sleep every night for two months. But the thought of America, the land of opportunity, gave her hope. CHAPTER THREE UNCLE KEE-YONG TO THE RESCUE! “Lao Bai, can we have some paper?” Xiao-Long asked. It was a month after Soon-Soon’s parents had been taken away. She and