Page 61 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL2

1The thin layer of fog that skims the green expanse of water reminds me of the film that forms on the skin of ash gourds left behind in fallow lands. The morning wind pushes moon crescents of rippling wavelets toward the bank. With urgent steps I go and stand beside the cluster of seaweed by the water’s edge – feeling as if in the embrace of someone.For many days I have woken before the first glow of dawn to find myself lying alone in a small corner of a very large house. After shaking off the weariness of the nightmares that seem to hide under my pillow every night, I cautiously pull the window curtain slightly open to take a peek at my visitors, two deer – a doe and her cub – who consider the bushes growing against my bedroom wall as their private smorgasbord. A little later I usually find myself by this pond, which is not far from town.I come and slip into the embrace of wavelets for them to soothe away my feelings.When l announced that we were to take our four-month-old youngest son abroad with us, some people didn’t hide their surprise. Both the child’s mother and I had heavy study schedules. Our time and our resources were limited. The weather in America can be downright inhumane. I had no reason to take away with us an infant whose feet were no bigger than jujube leaves. His grandparents were most willing to bring him up.“I don’t know if I can make it through my studies,” my wife remarked with worry.“Let him stay here with me. Don’t worry, I’ll raise him well,” my mother-in-law offered.But I wouldn’t listen to anyone. When it was time to fly back toAmerica, I tied my son to my back and stepped into the plane jauntily. Father, mother and son flew overnight across the ocean skyline to rejoin Ithaca, the small town where Cornell University is located. The plane landed in New York on 24 December 1984, Christmas Eve as it was.No one understood why I had to take my son with me.Or why I had exiled myself to Cornell years earlier.We reached Ithaca in the middle of winter and soon enough found that all the roads and all the trees were white with powdery snow. The first order of the day was to find thick clothing for the latest member of our family, Sing, to protect him from the cold. Then we purchased a child car seat so that we could take him with us anywhere.Several of the students at master’s and PhD levels had started families. Some had teenage children, but the dads still took their satchels along to school every day. A number of them were civil servants in Third World countries; before their hard-up governments could find the funds to send them to pursue their studies abroad, the poor guys were in their forties. Some landed without two cents to rub together, but suddenly found love amidst stacks of textbooks and, before their studies were over, an offspring or two had cropped up, and damn demanding too. Apart from them there were also those who didn’t want to go back to their homelands. As soon as they found themselves suitable mates they sired away in order to obtain permanent visas on the strength of their children’s US citizenship.We were close to one particular student family. The husband was American; the wife, Singaporean Chinese. They had two young children whose babysitter was a young woman from Taiwan. She was one of thosewho had followed their husbands without carrying on any studies themselves. The main work of young women in that position was to hire themselves out as babysitters in families where both the parents were students.We arranged for Sing to join John and Ming Fong’s children.The babysitter was named Lan Lan. She spoke only a few words of English and communicated with Ming Fong’s children mainly in Chinese. She took care of the children of both families three days a week. The other two days I had to take Sing to another babysitter, also a Taiwanese woman.A week hadn’t gone by when Lan Lan told us through Ming Fong that she couldn’t cope with three children and we should make other arrangements for Sing. Ming Fong and I tried to figure out why she didn’t want to take care of Sing and concluded that it must be because she wasn’t happy that we had raised her wages by only one dollar per hour whereas John and Ming Fong gave her three dollars per hour for their two children.But Lan Lan vehemently protested that that wasn’t the problem, so we had to be silent, because if we spoke too much she might think we were looking down on her for worshipping money, which not a few Asians hold to be demeaning. In any case, after several rounds of Mandarin parley with Ming Fong, Lan Lan relented. She would go on babysitting Sing. Ming Fong and I agreed that on payday I would give her one dollar fifty per hour, at least as a token of appreciation.I did as agreed and as soon as Lan Lan looked at the cheque, she sputtered out, “Money no ploblem ... money no ploblem ... one dollar one hour, no moll, no moll.” She tried to return the cheque. Luckily Ming Fong wasn’t there at the time, so IElite+ 59