My Gang of Twelve

I stepped off the shuttle bus to the main terminal of Xiamen Airport and into a thick web of southern Chinese humidity and family.

My 17-year old cousin held a sign with my Chinese name traced in blue ballpoint pen on the inside of a Marlboro carton high above the crowd awaiting relatives and friends. I recognized the characters on the carton as it bobbed up and down with the black heads that surged to meet the bus. "That's me," I said, taking his sign and double checking the characters to make sure. Almost immediately, I was swarmed by young people. Two female cousins, hair swept back in identical, long pony tails, each grabbed me by the arm and tugged in opposite directions. "Oooh Jiu-Ru, welcome home. We're so happy to see you. we've been waiting for you for more than an hour."

Two aunts, two uncles, six cousins and the driver processed me through the baggage claim and whisked me into a large, air-conditioned van. "Here, sit in the front with auntie. Is the air-conditioning strong enough? Would you like some mineral water? Some fruit?"

"No thanks. So, uh. Who is who?"

Ming-Ke, the most outgoing of my cousins, did the honors. "These are your father's little sisters: Big Auntie and Little Auntie. Little Auntie's husband is sitting up front with the driver. This van belongs to the construction company he manages. Li Mei is your eldest female cousin, she's 22 and works at the bank. your eldest cousin, my brother, had to work so he's not here. Li Gan is 21 just like you and is a student at Overseas Chinese University. Li Peng, we call her Premier, because her name is the same as the premier's, is 17. Da-Wan is 16 and still in school. Your uncle, who is your father's little brother, and cousin Chong-Yi are following us in a car. Chong-Yi's 18 and wants to be an engineer. I'm 22, like Li Mei, and I work at the pharmacy."

"Well, hi," I smiled and looked out the window at flooded rice fields that reached from the sunset to the edge of the highway. We talked about my itinerary for the week: Xiamen, my grandparents' tombs, this and that famous temple and mountain; what I'd seen in Beijing: the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall; where else I'd been: Xinjiang, Xian, Tianjin.

It grew dark and the view of rice fields was soon replaced by that of gas stations, announced by blinking, green and pink neon signs and barren land cleared for construction. The road was crowded with trucks loaded with steel pipes. Our van jerked, swerved and cut past each of them.

"We're still two hours away from Quanzhou. Once the high speed highway is built, we'll be able to make the trip in 45 minutes," Mingke explained as she downed the rest of her mineral water and threw the empty bottle out the window.

My aunt saw me yawn. "Sleepy? The plane ride from Beijing must have been so tiring. Lay down in my lap." I hesitated. She leaned over and pushed my head into her lap. It wasn't very comfortable. When my cheek could no longer stand the rough polyester of her slacks and a crick developed in my neck, I tried to sit up. But my aunt forced my head back down. I gave up. As I "slept," I suddenly heard retching noises in front and behind me. I sat up. Li Mei and Li Peng were holding smalll plastic bags to their mouths.

"We're not very used to car travel," my aunt said.

My father had warned me that my family would be very poor, that I should expect little. He was mistaken. I, the daughter of a long-lost brother who had found success in America, was treated and fed like an empress. My uncle had made a special trip to the wharf, to buy my father's favorite fish for my welcome dinner. At dinner my cousins kept me supplied with the biggest piece of fish, the biggest shrimp, the biggest crab. Later, when he learned I had liked the Hami melons in Xinjiang, Li Gan made a special trip to the fruit stand. When we bicycled around the city, making a pilgrimage to my father's old high school or combing tape stores for recordings, Li Gan insisted on carrying the bicycle onto the sidewalk and locking it for me. We also stopped by the trendiest fast-food stand in the city, where after waiting in a very long line, my cousins treated my American taste buds to "kente"--a transliteration of Kentucky--fried chicken. They asked me how the whole chicken (neck and head included), deep-fried and seasoned with five spice, compared with the Colonel's. The Chinese kind tasted much better, I said.

The imperial treatment was extensive. Though not quite as attentively as the imperial doctor who sniffed the toddler emperor's feces to determine his health in "The Last Emperor," my aunts monitored all my bodily functions.

"I was wondering when you'd finally go. Jiu-Ru, you haven't gone to the bathroom all day," Little Auntie remarked as I emerged from their newly constructed, modern outhouse. She chuckled. "You know, when your father visited us ten years ago, and we still had to use the public toilets, he would wait all day before going. He made your uncle take him. He was so afraid of the smell."

She turned wistful. "When your father first came home, in 1979, your grandfather recognized him the moment he saw his head in the window of a car making its way up the street. That's him, that's him,' grandfather said. His eyes were brimming with tears. None of us had ever seen your father before so we didn't know what to look for. Your grandfather started crying. He hadn't seen his son for thirty years, but he still recognized him anyway."

We got up early one morning for dim sum at the local hotel. It was still cool when we emerged from a heavy breakfast of pork in testines, so we decided to bike over to the amusement park. Although it was a weekday, the park, which stood next to a courthouse, was very crowded. Li Mei explained it was because everyone had come to hear the criminal sentences. "Peasant, age 21," was all I understood of the loudspeaker announcement. We walked past the crowds and bought tickets for the park. I taught my cousins how to drive bumper cars. We went or five or six rounds, got tired and decided to go home. As we walked to our bikes, lime green-uniformed police officers, on foot and motorcycle, pushed us aside, clearing the way for an entourage. "They're going to bring the prisoners out," Chong-yi said Car after car, motorcycle after motorcycle drove past, us. Finally, a tall, open-bed truck drove past, lined on all four sides by helmeted police, equipped with machine guns. A skinny man, hair shorn to the scalp and clothed in a black smock, stood in the front, right behind the truck cab. He wore a sign printed with four characters, around his neck. "Gu Yi Sha Ren--Willfully killed a man," Chong-yi said, "He's going to be executed."

The crowd dispersed after the entourage passed. "Look, that's what happens if you're a bad boy," a mother warned her son.

On my last night, my uncles and aunts joined the young people in a karaoke outing. After a night of Shih family covers of canton-pop hits such as "My love becomes livelier and livelier each day" and "Pearl of the East," my uncles and aunts joined us in rousing, passionate renditions of "The East is Red" and "Socialism is Good." Everyone knew the words by heart.

"You know, Jiuru, you've become much prettier since you came home. Quanzhou agrees with you," Big Auntie told me.

Just as the entire family made the two and half hour journey to pick me up, so everyone, despite motion sickness, sent me to the airport. Though they could not go with me to the waiting-room for passengers, they said they would wait until they were sure my plane had taken off safely for Hong Kong. My aunt had a cousin who worked with the airport police and arranged it so that they could bid me a last good bye on my way to the plane. As I emerged from the waiting room and onto the tarmac, they were there, standing in two neat rows. They smiled and waved.

Michael Jackson toured Asia last summer, too. But--thank the Great Helmsman--he didn't make it to Quanzhou City, Fujian province, People's Republic of China. There wouldn't have been enough room for both our doting entourages.