PART THREE
1
ONE DAY in the early summer of 1991, Nan came across an advertisement in World Journal for the sale of a restaurant in Georgia. The asking price was $25,000; the owner claimed that its annual business surpassed $100,000, more than enough to make a decent profit. "Perfect for your family," the ad declared. Nan brought back the page of the newspaper and showed it to Pingping. They talked about it late into the night.
For months they had been thinking about where to go. Should they stay in the Boston area? Or should they migrate to another place where the cost of living was lower?
By now they had saved more money, having worked nonstop without spending a penny on rent for the past three years. They had two CDs in the bank, $50,000 altogether. Yet even with this much cash, they still couldn't possibly buy a home or business in Massachusetts, where everything was expensive. Nan earned ten dollars an hour at the Jade Cafe; wages like that wouldn't qualify him for a loan from the bank. He'd heard that some Chinese restaurants in Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama were quite affordable. Nan had been following newspaper ads, which seemed to confirm that. After working at the Jade Cafe for four months, he was already an experienced cook.
But what about Taotao's schooling? They decided this wouldn't be an obstacle if they left the Boston area, because Pingping could teach him math while Nan could help him with his English. Despite the mistakes he made when he spoke the language, Nan knew English grammar like the back of his hand. The crux of the problem was whether they'd be willing to go to the Deep South, where they had heard that racial prejudice was still rampant, and where the Ku Klux Klan was active and even dared to march in the glare of daylight. On the other hand, they had also read articles, written by Chinese immigrants living in the South, that bragged about the quality of life there. One woman in Louisiana boasted that her family had sixty-four oaks and maples in their backyard, something they could never have dreamed of when they had lived in northern California. Others even praised the climate in the South, which was similar to that in their home provinces back in China, not dry in the summer and with no snow, to say nothing of blizzards, in the winter.
That night, the Wus decided to contact the owner of the Georgia restaurant. When Nan called the next morning, a feeble male voice answered the phone. On hearing of Nan 's interest, the man turned animated and identified himself as Mr. Wang, the owner. "I can guarantee you that you'll make good money here," he told Nan.
"Then why are you selling the business?"
"My wife and I are getting old and can't run it anymore. Too much work. Sometimes we go back to Taiwan to visit friends and family, and it's hard to find someone to take care of this place when we're away."
"How long have you owned it?"
"More than twenty years. Truth be told, it's an ideal family business, very stable. If we could manage it, we'd never sell it."
" But the economy is in recession now, and lots of restaurants have folded in Massachusetts."
" I know. Some people here have lost their businesses too. We have fewer customers these days, but we're doing okay. Believe me, the economy will come around. Like I said, this place is very stable."
Nan asked him about the living environment of the Atlanta suburbs, which Mr. Wang assured him was absolutely congenial and safe for raising children. He had only heard of the Klansmen but never seen them in the flesh. Besides, there were thousands upon thousands of Asian immigrants living in the Atlanta area, which, he claimed, was almost like virgin land just open for settlement. In fact, Gwinnett County, where Mr. Wang was living, was one of the fastest growing counties in the whole country, and every two years a new elementary or middle school had to be added. Still, all classrooms were bursting at the seams, and on every campus some students had to attend class in trailers. All these nuggets of information were encouraging. Nan wanted to go down to Georgia and take a look at the restaurant. He told Mr. Wang he would come as soon as he got permission from his boss at the Jade Cafe.
Pingping grew excited after Nan described to her his conversation with Mr. Wang. If this deal worked out, it would mean they'd have their own business and eventually their own home. She urged Nan to set out for Georgia that very week. He should pay a deposit if he believed that the restaurant was in good condition and the area adequate for living. He should also look around some to see how much an average house cost in the vicinity. As long as there were Asian immigrants living there, the place should be safe.
2
THREE DAYS LATER Nan set out for the South. He followed I-95 all the way to Virginia and switched to I-85 after Richmond. He drove for fourteen hours until he was too exhausted to continue and had to stop for the night. He slept in his car in the parking lot of a rest area near Ridgeway, North Carolina. Before sunrise, when tree leaves were drenched with heavy dew and a thin fog was lifting, he resumed his trip. Entering Durham, North Carolina, he caught sight of a burgundy motorcycle, which reminded him of the Yamaha scooter the wild Beina used to ride. He floored the gas pedal, but his car couldn't go fast enough. In no time the motorcyclist's white helmet, jiggling and dodging, disappeared in the traffic ahead. Nan sighed and shook his head vigorously to force the image of his ex-girlfriend out of his mind.
Because of the construction along the road, it took him almost a whole day to cross the Carolinas, and not until evening did he arrive at Chamblee, Georgia, a suburban town northeast of Atlanta. He checked in at Double Happiness Inn on Buford Highway, managed by a Korean man who spoke Mandarin fluently but with a harsh accent. Tired out, Nan showered and went to bed without dinner, although Pingping had packed a tote bag of food for him-instant noodles, a challah, two cans of wieners, fish jerky, macadamia cookies, dehydrated duck, pistachios, clementines, as if none of these things were available in Georgia. She had also wedged in a coffeepot, with which he could boil water for oatmeal and tea.
The next morning, Nan went to see Mr. Wang. The Gold Wok was in Lilburn, a town fifteen miles northeast of Atlanta. It was at the western end of a half-deserted shopping center called Beaver Hill Plaza, where several businesses and a small supermarket clustered together. Among them were a fabric store, a Laundromat, a photo studio, a pawnshop, and a fitness center. A few suites were marked by for rent signs, which gave Nan mixed feelings. The vacancies implied that it would be easy enough for the restaurant to renew its lease, but it might also mean there wasn't a lot of business.
Mr. Wang, tall with withered limbs and a scanty beard, turned out to be much older than Nan had expected. His back was so hunched that he seemed afflicted with kyphosis, and his neck and arms were dappled with liver spots. As he spoke to Nan, he kept massaging his right knee as if he suffered from painful arthritis. He made an effort to straighten up but remained bent. He grimaced, saying that his chronic back pain had grown more unbearable each year. Somehow Nan couldn't help but wonder whether he had a prolapsed anus as well, since both afflictions, he'd learned, were common among people in the restaurant business. The old man and his wife were glad to see Nan and eager to show him the place. Nan went into the kitchen and checked the cooking range, the ovens, the storage room, the freezers, the dishwasher, the toilets, the light fixtures. He was pleased that all the equipment was in working order, though the dining room looked rather shabby. In it there were six tables and eight booths covered in brown Naugahyde, and the walls were almost entirely occupied by murals of horses, some galloping, some grazing, some rearing, and some frolicking with their tails tossed up. From a corner in the back floated up a Mongolian melody, which was supposed to match the theme of the horses on the walls. The Wangs had hired only one waitress, a dark-complexioned young woman from Malaysia named Tammie, who spoke both Cantonese and English but no Mandarin. Nan opened the menu, which offered more than two dozen items, mostly for takeout, none of which cost more than five dollars. Although it was unlikely to generate $100,000 worth of business a year as the ad claimed, the restaurant was in good trim.