called Prison Break . Do you know it?”
“No,” I say. “But I don’t watch a lot of television.” When I’m with Rose, she laughs so often, she makes me smile. In many ways, Rose is all lightness. She doesn’t dwell on the past, and this, too, has been a surprise.
“In China we are obsessed with Prison Break . The lead actor, I am forgetting his name.” Rose laughs again. “He is very handsome. And tall. He is someone I would not have to think about marrying. He has money. I would marry him right away. If you have money in China, you can buy anything.”
“Even kids?” I ask, and she nods.
What the really rich do now, she says, is buy fake passports from Canada or Britain or some other Western country. “In 1976, the one-child policy went into effect. Many rich Chinese left China. They fled the country so they could have as many babies as they wanted on the new passports.” She dips her chopsticks into the broth and brings up a piece of tofu. “Minority groups in China can also have more than one child, but the norm is still one-child families.”
My eyes are wide while I listen to her. “You yisi,” I keep saying over and over. “You yisi”— that’s very interesting . Last week I took the boys to the hospital for vaccines, and outside the radiology clinic there was a picture of a newborn baby on a poster with words in English and Chinese below: “Girl or Boy. Let It Be.” After so many home abortions and orphanage drop-offs, there’s a boy windfall here. Villages of unmarried men.
Rose says, “I’ve heard the government might be relaxing the one-child policy. Soon if an only child from one family marries an only child from another, that couple will be allowed to have two children. And,” she adds, “if you have an advanced degree from college, none of these rules apply.”
“What do you mean, they don’t apply?”
“If you have a PhD or some other kinds of master’s degrees, the government lets you have more kids.”
“What kind of degrees do you have to have?” I can’t believe what she’s telling me.
She says it comes down to money in China. “You have to pay big money for your graduate degrees here, Susan. And the degree gives you a certain status.”
“This is not Communism, is it? This buying of babies?”
Rose dodges my question. “It’s changing fast,” she says. “So fast we can’t keep up with it.”
On Friday morning the boys go to school. I clear the breakfast dishes and load the dishwasher. Then I work at my desk until Xiao Wang comes. I meet her in the hall and ask how her son is. No more IVs, she explains in Mandarin, though he still has a bad cough. She also says her hip doesn’t hurt as much and smiles and tries to hand me back the remaining ibuprofen. “Bu yao,” I say. “Bu yao,” and I put my hand over hers. I don’t want them back .
Then Tony calls from his office—he wants to play hooky at a sports bar and watch the New England Patriots on TV. I say I’ll meet him. The Goose ’n’ Duck Pub is on the first floor of a giant new complex called Green Lake just across from us on the Fourth Ring Road. Inside the pub, the lights are dimmed and the windows are frosted so it feels like midnight. It’s a big place, with five pool tables and as many giant flat-screens. The wall behind the long bar is covered in colorful banners: NFL, NHL, NASCAR, and NBA. There are seven customers when we arrive. Five of them are Chinese prostitutes. They look like teenage girls who haven’t been to bed since the night before. They wear smudged black eye makeup and tight nylon dresses. One of the girls has passed out with her head sideways on the wooden bar. Three others hold pints of beer in their hands and shimmy to David Bowie on the sound system.
The oldest-looking woman in the group plays pool with a foreign man in a rumpled tie and a blue Oxford. I take him for American. Somebody’s father. Somebody’s husband. There is one other customer in the
“No,” I say. “But I don’t watch a lot of television.” When I’m with Rose, she laughs so often, she makes me smile. In many ways, Rose is all lightness. She doesn’t dwell on the past, and this, too, has been a surprise.
“In China we are obsessed with Prison Break . The lead actor, I am forgetting his name.” Rose laughs again. “He is very handsome. And tall. He is someone I would not have to think about marrying. He has money. I would marry him right away. If you have money in China, you can buy anything.”
“Even kids?” I ask, and she nods.
What the really rich do now, she says, is buy fake passports from Canada or Britain or some other Western country. “In 1976, the one-child policy went into effect. Many rich Chinese left China. They fled the country so they could have as many babies as they wanted on the new passports.” She dips her chopsticks into the broth and brings up a piece of tofu. “Minority groups in China can also have more than one child, but the norm is still one-child families.”
My eyes are wide while I listen to her. “You yisi,” I keep saying over and over. “You yisi”— that’s very interesting . Last week I took the boys to the hospital for vaccines, and outside the radiology clinic there was a picture of a newborn baby on a poster with words in English and Chinese below: “Girl or Boy. Let It Be.” After so many home abortions and orphanage drop-offs, there’s a boy windfall here. Villages of unmarried men.
Rose says, “I’ve heard the government might be relaxing the one-child policy. Soon if an only child from one family marries an only child from another, that couple will be allowed to have two children. And,” she adds, “if you have an advanced degree from college, none of these rules apply.”
“What do you mean, they don’t apply?”
“If you have a PhD or some other kinds of master’s degrees, the government lets you have more kids.”
“What kind of degrees do you have to have?” I can’t believe what she’s telling me.
She says it comes down to money in China. “You have to pay big money for your graduate degrees here, Susan. And the degree gives you a certain status.”
“This is not Communism, is it? This buying of babies?”
Rose dodges my question. “It’s changing fast,” she says. “So fast we can’t keep up with it.”
On Friday morning the boys go to school. I clear the breakfast dishes and load the dishwasher. Then I work at my desk until Xiao Wang comes. I meet her in the hall and ask how her son is. No more IVs, she explains in Mandarin, though he still has a bad cough. She also says her hip doesn’t hurt as much and smiles and tries to hand me back the remaining ibuprofen. “Bu yao,” I say. “Bu yao,” and I put my hand over hers. I don’t want them back .
Then Tony calls from his office—he wants to play hooky at a sports bar and watch the New England Patriots on TV. I say I’ll meet him. The Goose ’n’ Duck Pub is on the first floor of a giant new complex called Green Lake just across from us on the Fourth Ring Road. Inside the pub, the lights are dimmed and the windows are frosted so it feels like midnight. It’s a big place, with five pool tables and as many giant flat-screens. The wall behind the long bar is covered in colorful banners: NFL, NHL, NASCAR, and NBA. There are seven customers when we arrive. Five of them are Chinese prostitutes. They look like teenage girls who haven’t been to bed since the night before. They wear smudged black eye makeup and tight nylon dresses. One of the girls has passed out with her head sideways on the wooden bar. Three others hold pints of beer in their hands and shimmy to David Bowie on the sound system.
The oldest-looking woman in the group plays pool with a foreign man in a rumpled tie and a blue Oxford. I take him for American. Somebody’s father. Somebody’s husband. There is one other customer in the
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