Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom

You could say that Chang Xiqai and Sung Mayli met over a test tube, since they were biochemists working in a research lab in China. The chemistry was such that they fell in love and got married. It used to be that, if you gave a young couple one year to eighteen months of privacy, they usually ended up with a little bundle of joy. However, Chang Xiqai and Sung Mayli wanted to wait until the time was right. Ten years passed before Sung Mayli finally got pregnant. Then, when Mayli went in for her first ultrasound, the doctor told them that the unborn child was a girl. “You can still have the abortion,” the doctor told them gravely, understanding that they probably wanted a son, “but it's more complicated the longer you wait.”

Mayli realized that her husband, Chang, wanted a son, but she didn’t want to have an abortion. Any woman who has had an abortion, or who has friends who have had abortions, knows that an abortion is painful. One of Mayli’s friends said that it was like having someone pull your lip over your head. “You might as well have the baby,” the friend said.

First, they give you a drug that induces labour. Then they have to go in there and clean up. A DNC, done in the first trimester, isn’t very complicated: just a little bit of suction, and the vacuum cleaner cleans it all up. An ETC, which they do in the second trimester, is more complicated; they could miss a little hand or a little foot, if they don’t do it right. An XTC―what certain people in the United States call a “partial birth abortion”― is really complicated. Most of these are done when the unborn child is already dead. Most women who have had partial birth abortions aren’t worried about what childbirth would do to their figures, unless they are topless dancers.

You might say that China is a great place to go if you want to have an abortion. Even if you’re nine months pregnant, you can find someone who will inject a saline solution into the unborn child’s head. They say that the state has been known to force women who have violated China’s one-child law to have abortions even when they were about to deliver. However, Mayli didn’t want to have an abortion. It wasn’t all her fault that the unborn child was a girl, and why should she have to go through the pain of childbirth just to abort it? Besides, there are loopholes even in China’s one-child law. If you marry somebody who isn’t Chinese, like a Tibetan or a Uighur, you can have as many children as you want. As well, those born in Hong Kong before that fair island changed from a British Crown Colony to a Chinese territory, could be British Subjects, if they can provide the proof to somebody at a British consulate. And if you just happen to have a baby while you’re on vacation in some exotic place, like Bali or Thailand… The reason why people hire lawyers is to explore all their options, right?

What options did Chang Xiqai and Sung Mayli have? One is that they were both working in a research lab when they met: that bomb that we call “love” exploded in both of their faces at the same time. That’s to say, they were both educated, and they had the option of world travel that a peasant in the province of Szechuan probably wouldn’t have had. What’s more, the lab that hired them was one of those multinational firms that set up an office in China to take advantage of the cheap labour. Why pay somebody in San Francisco hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to find a cure for AIDS when you can pay somebody cents to the dollar in China to do the same thing?

For Chang Xiqai and Sung Mayli, it all came down to two countries: the U.S and Canada. In both countries, most people speak English, and if you can get the right visas, you can work in one country and live in the other. Thousands of Canadians cross the border to work in the U.S every day. Americans would also work in Canada, if Immigration Canada wasn’t paranoid about U.S citizens taking jobs away from Canadians, but that’s another pair of sleeves. Immigration Canada expected Chang and Mayli to be able to work and live in Canada at the same time: Immigration Canada didn’t want them commuting across the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor or the Bluewater Bridge in Sarnia and tying up customs.

Let’s be fair about this. Originally, Chang and Mayli wanted their daughter to be born in the U.S, because that would have been simpler. Their firm had an opening in Seattle, so Mayli took it while she was in the second trimester of her pregnancy. The problem was, the company did some downsizing almost as soon as she arrived in Seattle. They closed their laboratory in Seattle in a manner not very different from the way Boeing suddenly grounded all its staff in Washington State and moved to Chicago. Some people at the lab in Seattle lost their jobs, but Mayli was offered a position in Omaha, Nebraska. However, Mayli was committed to a thirty-year mortgage for a house on Bainbridge Island that she had just bought; she didn’t want to give up the house, even though people were walking away from mortgages all over the U.S to find work in other cities.

Another biochemical research company from the U.S opened up a laboratory in Victoria, British Columbia, just across Puget Sound from Seattle. Nobody knew for sure why, but maybe it was to take advantage of a perceived bias in favour of Asian immigrants in Canada. That is, people thought that Asians were "smarter" than Caucasians in the U.S and Canada. Canada was receiving lots of Indian immigrants with degrees, in part, because both Canada and India have a common history of being part of the British Empire. Canada was also accepting people from China, like Mayli. However, there was one problem: Mayli was living in the U.S. Immigration Canada was unwilling to give her a work visa because she didn’t have a resident visa. As well, she was clearly showing.

Maybe it all depends on who you talk to, but the person that handled Mayli’s case voiced some concerns about Mayli wanting to work in Canada only so she could have her baby there and become a Canadian citizen that way. She also had to have a sponsor, and Mayli didn’t know anybody in Canada. What’s more, there was some problem of her husband, Chang, coming over from China to live in Canada when he could belong to some opium triad, for all they knew. But if Mayli could get a sponsor, all her paperwork would be in order and her husband could join her in Canada.

Language was never a problem, except for those who spoke English and had to talk to Mayli. While Mayli was a student at the University of Beijing, she and her classmates often spent the entire afternoon at a cafe in Tiananman Square conversing in English. Mayli could answer most questions put to her in English, once she understood the question. The problem was that immigration officials who spoke with her often didn't understand what she was saying. That’s because the retroflexive liquid, or the “r-sound,” doesn’t exist in Han Chinese; the Chinese only have the lateral liquid, or the “l-sound.” Therefore, not many people in the U.S or Canada have heard of Balak Obama, even if Obama was the "plesident" of the United States.

The United States and Canada have the longest undefended border of any two countries in the world. Even in the world after the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, most people can pass the border between the two countries with just three pieces of identification. Every now and then, customs officials will take you aside and question you. They might even strip search you. However, few people are pulled aside, and even fewer people get strip searched. Most people pass through customs without any problems.

Most people. Mayli was pulled aside the first time she tried to cross the border at Vancouver. This was because she was showing and her citizenship was Chinese. All her papers were in order, and the customs officials understood that she was a probably biochemical researcher, not a textile worker who was paid under the table while working illegally. However, the experience was very disconcerting. Mayli wondered if she wasn’t entering a totalitarian police state like China.

Mayli was about to be turned back when she heard a voice from behind her say, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her.”

When Mayli turned around, she saw a young man in his early twenties who looked Chinese. He was bamboo shoot thin, about five-foot-seven, with black hair creeping down his neck, wearing a long sleeved white cotton shirt and black corduroys. She wondered if he wasn’t a hoodlum. However, the customs official seemed to know him. “What if she goes into labour?” the official asked.

“I know they don’t pay you to think,” the man replied, “but if she went into labour now, she would probably have a miscarriage, eh? She obviously isn’t far enough along yet.”

When the customs official was still hesitant, the young man said, “It’s all right. I’ll show her the sights and send her home. She only wants to visit, right?”

The man looked hard at Mayli, who quickly nodded her head and said to the customs official, “Yes, I only want to visit…”

When they were alone, the man introduced himself. His name was Robert Lee and his family was from China, but the Chinese language was as incomprehensible to him as it was to other Canadians his age; he couldn’t speak a word of it. “It’s amusing that people think I’m a genius because I’m Chinese,” he said. “I helped a white woman change a flat tyre once. When I was finished, she shook my hand, thanked me and said, ‘You people are so brilliant!’ All I did was change a flat tyre.”

Mayli told Robert about herself and her husband’s visa problems. “Chinese government not want him come to United States because I not have U.S citizenship,” she said.

“But you would rather live in Canada, right?”

“No,” Mayli replied. “I want work in Canada. I want live in United States because of my house.”

Mayli explained about her house on Bainbridge Island and the impending transfer to Omaha. The housing market was very bad and didn’t want to let the house go into foreclosure if she couldn’t sell it. “A pharmaceutical company in Victoria wants to hire me,” she said, “but I can’t get work visa because I am pregnant. I don’t know what to do.”

“Maybe you should let the house go into foreclosure,” Robert suggested.

“No!” Mayli replied with unexpected vehemence. “That is intolerable. It is crazy!”

Robert and Mayli spent all day seeing the sights. Vancouver lived up to its reputation as one of the most liveable cities in North America. Because it was early spring, Robert was able to show Mayli the Japanese cherry trees in bloom. “The Japanese sent annual gifts of these trees to the city all through the 1930s,” he said, “and then they started World War II. I don’t get it.”

By the end of the day, they were in love. Robert took Mayli back to his place, where they had sex for the first time. Even though Mayli was pregnant, sexual intercourse was not out of the question; Robert just couldn’t penetrate her as deeply as he normally would have. The next morning, Robert made her breakfast, and then he showed her Victoria, just across the Vancouver Sound from Vancouver on Vancouver Island. He showed her some of the sights, such as the stone lion that guards the gate to Chinatown, and the totem pole at Inner Harbour. While eating lunch at the fishermen’s wharf, she asked, “What do you for a living?”

“I’m a landscaper,” he replied vaguely. “I cut grass, trim shrubs, and put in gravel for people’s gardens. There may not be a lot of money in it, but I like the work. I’ve been to college, but I didn’t like it.”

Robert sensed that his choice of career might be a problem for her, because she had a doctorate. But Mayli said, “The problem is my husband. He may never be allowed to leave China, but if he leaves China, there could be a problem.”

“Do you love him?” Robert asked.

With eyes cast down, she muttered, “I don’t know. I not see him in long time.”

As Mayli’s pregnancy went through its natural progression, Robert continued to see her. Robert liked Maili because he thought she was shy and demure while Mayli considered Robert brash and outspoken. The truth, however, was that Robert considered himself socially awkward while Mayli considered herself to be too blunt. Most of the time, particularly after it got late in her pregnancy, they met at her place on Bainbridge Island. After Robert spent a longer time than usual passing through U.S customs, Robert cursed when he arrived at Mayli’s: “Borders suck!"

But Mayli only replied, “It’s time. The baby is coming…”

Robert had to drive her to the hospital, where she gave birth to a daughter. “She looks just like you,” the white nurse said to Robert after the baby was born.

After six months, Robert and Mayli decided to get married. By now, Robert was sponsoring Mayli as a landed alien of Canada while Mayli was working in Victoria. She still kept her house on Bainbridge Island, though it had lost value even after the collapse of the real estate market. Mayli wrote a letter to her husband, Chang, telling him that she was divorcing him. She didn’t have to tell him why; he already knew. Chang wrote back, telling her that he had also met somebody. While waiting for his application for a passport and visa to be accepted, he had fallen for another female research assistant and wanted to marry her. Mayli didn't doubt that her husband was telling the truth rather than saying it to be spiteful.

Robert and Mayli were married in a little United Church of Canada chapel in Vancouver. Robert was only twenty five years old while Mayli was nearly forty.