financial level. She said that she understood. After a semester, we parted on good terms. We remained friends. Once again I sought out the cheapest place to live. I looked in newspapers and searched bulletin boards at local community colleges.
Within a month, I found a group of Chinese students willing to share an apartment near Logan Square. It was a less desirable area farther from downtown Chicago. The five of us moved into a three-bedroom apartment. What made me happy was that my share of the rent was sixty dollars a month.
My temporary job was cleaning construction and event sites. I was not allowed to overwork or help other workers with their jobs. My boss told me that public restrooms and the cafeteria were not for students but for janitors who were union members. “Hard to explain to a foreigner,” he said.
My modeling job for fashion illustration classes was limited. The only other job available was to be a nude model for the painting and drawing department.
“Welcome back!” the clerk at the modeling office said. “The figure-drawing professors would love to have you. They never had a young female Asian model before.”
I was tempted by the pay. Fourteen dollars per hour! It was double what the fashion department paid. I signed up.
There was nothing wrong with being a nude model, I kept telling myself. Yet I didn’t believe myself. The next day my eyes were swollenafter a night of crying. I couldn’t stop visualizing removing my clothes in a classroom full of people. I was ashamed and wished that I had other choices. “It’s honest money!” I tried to convince myself.
At 8:30 A.M. I checked in with the lady at the modeling office. She offered me a heater. “You will need this,” she said. “The classroom is on the third floor.”
I burst into tears and my legs refused to move.
“Are you okay?” the lady asked. “Are you sick?”
I shook my head through my tears.
“You must be having your period! Are you? Don’t worry if so. Just go home. You don’t have to do it, you know. Trust me, this happens all the time. Girls having their period at the last minute. That’s why I always schedule a backup model. I can give the backup a call. No trouble at all. Would you like me to call the backup?”
I lost my courage and nodded.
The lady took back the heater. “It’s okay, honey. Call me when your period is over, and I’ll reschedule you.”
I never had the courage to go back.
Dr. Barbara Guenther was a walking impressionistic painting. She taught Essay Writing 101. She was dressed in a fashionable, brightly colored suit with a matching skirt. Part German and part British, she was a tall, slender, middle-aged white lady with brown hair and blue-green eyes. Her lipstick shade always matched the tone of her clothes. She said to us, “You may call me Dr. Guenther, or Barbara Guenther, or Barbara, but never Barb.”
I looked up the words Dr. Guenther had written on the board in my dictionary. As she began to explain the “roots” of
-cide
, she wrote
fungicide, pesticide,
and
suicide
. My mind took off instantly. I stared at the blackboard and copied Dr. Guenther’s writing, but the words did not register with me. As I spelled
suicide
, I saw Shanghai’s Huangpu River, where I had once contemplated drowning myself. My mind’s eye cast further: I saw the electric wires in my home, which I had planned to touch; the sleeping pills I had collected; the gas stove I almost lit but didn’t because my neighbor had had an asthma attack that night andthere was a big gap under her door where gas could travel and take her before me.
Suicide
remained the very first word I learned from Dr. Guenther.
Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, E. B. White, Lewis Thomas, James Baldwin, Edward Hoagland, Joan Didion, Alice Walker: I had never heard of these names, but I was fascinated. Dr. Guenther introduced them. I remembered Joan Didion the most, because Dr. Guenther said that Didion was her favorite. The book
Within a month, I found a group of Chinese students willing to share an apartment near Logan Square. It was a less desirable area farther from downtown Chicago. The five of us moved into a three-bedroom apartment. What made me happy was that my share of the rent was sixty dollars a month.
My temporary job was cleaning construction and event sites. I was not allowed to overwork or help other workers with their jobs. My boss told me that public restrooms and the cafeteria were not for students but for janitors who were union members. “Hard to explain to a foreigner,” he said.
My modeling job for fashion illustration classes was limited. The only other job available was to be a nude model for the painting and drawing department.
“Welcome back!” the clerk at the modeling office said. “The figure-drawing professors would love to have you. They never had a young female Asian model before.”
I was tempted by the pay. Fourteen dollars per hour! It was double what the fashion department paid. I signed up.
There was nothing wrong with being a nude model, I kept telling myself. Yet I didn’t believe myself. The next day my eyes were swollenafter a night of crying. I couldn’t stop visualizing removing my clothes in a classroom full of people. I was ashamed and wished that I had other choices. “It’s honest money!” I tried to convince myself.
At 8:30 A.M. I checked in with the lady at the modeling office. She offered me a heater. “You will need this,” she said. “The classroom is on the third floor.”
I burst into tears and my legs refused to move.
“Are you okay?” the lady asked. “Are you sick?”
I shook my head through my tears.
“You must be having your period! Are you? Don’t worry if so. Just go home. You don’t have to do it, you know. Trust me, this happens all the time. Girls having their period at the last minute. That’s why I always schedule a backup model. I can give the backup a call. No trouble at all. Would you like me to call the backup?”
I lost my courage and nodded.
The lady took back the heater. “It’s okay, honey. Call me when your period is over, and I’ll reschedule you.”
I never had the courage to go back.
Dr. Barbara Guenther was a walking impressionistic painting. She taught Essay Writing 101. She was dressed in a fashionable, brightly colored suit with a matching skirt. Part German and part British, she was a tall, slender, middle-aged white lady with brown hair and blue-green eyes. Her lipstick shade always matched the tone of her clothes. She said to us, “You may call me Dr. Guenther, or Barbara Guenther, or Barbara, but never Barb.”
I looked up the words Dr. Guenther had written on the board in my dictionary. As she began to explain the “roots” of
-cide
, she wrote
fungicide, pesticide,
and
suicide
. My mind took off instantly. I stared at the blackboard and copied Dr. Guenther’s writing, but the words did not register with me. As I spelled
suicide
, I saw Shanghai’s Huangpu River, where I had once contemplated drowning myself. My mind’s eye cast further: I saw the electric wires in my home, which I had planned to touch; the sleeping pills I had collected; the gas stove I almost lit but didn’t because my neighbor had had an asthma attack that night andthere was a big gap under her door where gas could travel and take her before me.
Suicide
remained the very first word I learned from Dr. Guenther.
Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, E. B. White, Lewis Thomas, James Baldwin, Edward Hoagland, Joan Didion, Alice Walker: I had never heard of these names, but I was fascinated. Dr. Guenther introduced them. I remembered Joan Didion the most, because Dr. Guenther said that Didion was her favorite. The book
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