Though a Ph.D., Shubo respected Nan and often bantered with him, saying that Nan was a sad case and shouldn't waste his talent by running a small restaurant. He once read Nan 's palms and said with a straight face, "You were born to be an official, deciding the fates of thousands. You know, you should've risen to prominence long ago. But now you're a phoenix grounded and stripped of its wings, inferior to a chicken."
Nan rejoined, "Why don't you go back to Szechuan? With your Ph.D. from UGA, I'm sure you can get a professorship at a Party school or a police academy."
"I'd prefer to be my own boss." Shubo's face fell.
In fact, Shubo often said he'd never return to China, because when he was applying for his passport so that he could go to the University of Georgia to do graduate work, all the officials had treated him like a semicriminal and wouldn't issue the papers to him until a whole year had passed, after the school had withdrawn its financial aid. He told Nan that not a single Chinese had ever said a good word to him when he went to their offices, and that only a young American woman of Indian descent at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, noted for her record of turning down most visa applications, had beamed at him, saying, "Congratulations!" when she handed him his visa.
Although Shubo could joke about his situation, his wife had lost her peace of mind. Now that it was unlikely that he would find a teaching position, what should he do? Niyan often spoke to Pingping and Nan about him. Recently his cousin, Yafang Gao, had promised that if he went to New York, she could help him find a job at Ding's Dumplings; but he'd have to work there at least a whole year because her former boss, Howard, wouldn't hire a temporary hand. Niyan told the Wus that Yafang herself had left Ding's Dumplings a few months earlier to attend business school at NYU.
Shubo talked with Nan about the restaurant work in New York; he wasn't sure if he should go, reluctant to be away from his wife. Nan was uncertain whether Shubo still meant to remain in academia, but his friend assured him that he wouldn't think twice about leaving his field if he could find a full-time job. Shubo hated teaching and had once taught an introduction to sociology course to more than thirty students, some of whom wouldn't turn in their homework on time and would frown at his accent, a few even pretending they couldn't understand him. During the first few weeks of teaching, he felt sick and often knelt on the floor of the bathroom at home and vomited into the toilet, his guts twinging while his wife slapped his back to ease his pain. Later, he attempted to make a joke or tell an amusing story from time to time in class. Once he even compared Americans to turkeys (fat) and the Chinese to cranes (thin), but only one big black woman laughed besides himself. The whole course was sheer torture to him, yet he had to get the teaching experience so that he could find employment in the future. In the course evaluations one student wrote "Bathetic amp; pathetic!" Now, still haunted by that class, Shubo wouldn't hesitate to leave academia. On hearing that he really wouldn't mind abandoning his field, Nan suggested he go to a bartending school. Once Shubo knew how to mix drinks, he could always find work at a Chinese restaurant. Niyan and Shubo thought this was a good idea, so Shubo paid $3,000 and enrolled in a bartending class in downtown Atlanta.
Different from the Wus, Niyan and Shubo were still like newly-weds, seeking each other's company whenever they could. They loved Georgia for its low cost of living and warm climate, which resembled that of their home province, and they didn't think about moving elsewhere. Yet they had been so busy struggling to survive ever since they landed here that they wouldn't dare to have children. Some of their friends had given birth to babies and then sent them back to China, to farm them out to the grandparents. But both Niyan's and Shubo's parents were in poor health and couldn't look after a child, and neither could they come here to help them if Niyan had a baby. As a result, she was still wearing an intrauterine ring. "Look, I'm already thirty," she said to Pingping one afternoon. "How many years do you think I can wait?"
"I know how you feel. Back in China I was never worried about bringing a child into the world."
"Maybe Shubo and I will end up adopting a baby like the Mitchells," quipped Niyan with a grimace.
"You're too young to think like that."
Since it was impossible to have their own child now, Shubo and Niyan had grown very fond of Taotao. They'd tell Pingping and Nan that they envied them their fine son. Whenever Taotao's report card arrived, they'd look at it and sing his praises. Many times Shubo said Nan was a lucky man who had everything-a devoted wife, a smart son, a lakeside house, and a business of his own. His words would put Nan in a reflective mood and make him wonder why he himself didn't feel as content as he should.
4
IN LATE SPRING Taotao, with the help of his friend Zach, who was an eighth grader, assembled a large computer. The machine was so powerful, he told his parents, it worked like a small station. With the new computer, he spent a lot of time surfing the Internet and chatting with his friends-they mainly let off steam by bad-mouthing their teachers. He also played games with some children in Europe and Asia. Because his parents were always busy working at the restaurant, they couldn't supervise him. Once he was online, he'd enter cyberspace unknown to his parents, who would accept whatever he told them about it.
Both Pingping and Nan tried to curb him from surfing the Internet, warning him over and over again not to waste too much time. The boy promised not to use the computer very often when his parents weren't home. At work, every evening Pingping would call back at least twice to check on him, but most times the line was busy. Evidently Taotao was using the Internet. Whenever this happened, Nan and Pingping would get angry and take their son to task when they came back at night.
Taotao had never been really close to Nan, perhaps because Nan hadn't spent enough time with him and had left for America when the boy was merely two. In recent years Nan had worked constantly and tended to confine himself to his business and books. As a result, father and son didn't talk much. If Nan spoke to him harshly, Taotao would ignore him or mutter "Shut up," at which Nan would lose his temper, calling his son a heartless ingrate. Yet the boy always listened to his mother, who knew how to make him behave. Sometimes she called him "Little Donkey," meaning that as long as she coaxed him, he'd be obedient.
One evening in late May, Nan phoned home. At the busy signal he got enraged, telling his wife he was going back to catch Taotao red-handed. She was angry too and couldn't stop fulminating against their son under her breath. Nan set out for home along the dimly lighted street. The air was very humid, and his hurried pace made him pant a little while the cries of insects cascaded from the trees. He wondered whether they were chirring to attract mates or were maddened by the heat. As he passed Mrs. Lodge's, the old woman, lounging in a cane rocker on her porch, waved at him. "Closed early today?" she asked cheerfully, flapping the palm fan Pingping had bought for her from a Korean grocery store.