We got back to Puerto Iguazú fairly early, and spent a long time recuperating in the hotel pool. Ed mentioned that there was a Chinese restaurant in town. We thought that was quite novel, and wondered why anyone would come here to open up a Chinese restaurant. One thing that always amazes me is how spread out the Chinese are. It seems that most every place I go to, I can find a Chinese restaurant. We didn't exactly know where the restaurant was. We were a little lost and walked around in circles for a while. We paused at a street corner looking around. A woman came from behind us, and stopped to ask us if we were looking for the Chinese restaurant. Beats the hell out of me how she guessed. She spoke in Spanish, but her hand gestures made it pretty clear how we should go about finding the restaurant.
The restaurant is rather out of the way, at the end of a stone-paved street. Beyond the restaurant, there is no more street. As we approached the restaurant, we saw a sixty-ish woman at the front smiling and welcoming us. I greeted her in Mandarin. She showed us in. The restaurant was rather large, and harshly lit with rows of overhead fluorescent tubes. It seemed particularly large since we were the only customers there at the time. The restaurant served buffet. I looked at the dishes. There was a large selection but all were pretty simple and plain stuff. I suppose that there are so few Chinese in this part of the world that people here don't really know what Chinese food is. Anything that doesn't look Argentinean and is served by a Chinese can pass as Chinese food. I asked for a menu. There was no menu. It's buffet only. I guess the same people who don't know much about Chinese food wouldn't know what or how to order either. Neither the food nor the ambiance was anything special, but the immediate rapport between the owner and us and the ensuing long conversation was one of the most memorable experiences I had on this trip.
She was visibly happy to have us at her restaurant and welcomed us as if she knew us. She offered us some special red-bean soups, a dessert, free of charge. She asked us what we would like to have and said that she would ask her chef to cook a Chinese cabbage dish. We said anything would be fine. We kept talking to her. Somehow we weren't in any particular hurry to get seated to start dinner.
When I first spoke to her in Mandarin, I detected a very characteristic and familiar accent. No, it can't be, I thought. I asked where she was from originally. She told us that she grew up in Shanghai, and left to go to Hong Kong right before 1949. She moved to Argentina in the sixties, and has lived in Buenos Aires for most of these years since then. "I grew up in Shanghai, and he grew up in Hong Kong," I said referring to Ed. I was surprised and quite amazed at the coincidence. No wonder I found her accent to be so familiar. But her Shanghainese is still as pure as the day she had learned it, without a trace of corruption even after all these years. Since I don't speak any Cantonese, but Ed can speak Mandarin with some effort, we conversed in Mandarin.
As we were talking, a young Chinese couple walked in. They are actually Singaporeans. They had been here the previous nights, so the the owner knew them and were expecting them. We invited ourselves to sit with them, and they gladly accepted. She works at Fiat on assignment in Córdoba in central Argentina. Her husband was visiting her, and they had been here for the past few days. She had become sick of eating steaks all the time and longed for some Chinese food, so they came here every night while they were in Puerto Iguazú.
We frequently changed languages in the course of the night in order to best accommodate whoever was in the conversation. When the owner came to chat with us, she spoke Cantonese at first. Realizing that I was shut out of the conversation, she switched to Mandarin. The curious thing is that Mandarin isn't the first language for any of us. When she was away, the four of us switched to English to better accommodate Ed. I spoke to the owner aside in our native Shanghainese; the rest spoke Cantonese.
She told me that she was quite well known in the Chinese circles in Buenos Aires. People knew her as Wang Gu-niang, or Miss Wang, because she used to go to her parents so frequently even after she was married. (The translation to English is imprecise here. The term she used can be more literally translated as Girl Wang. It refers to an unmarried woman, not necessarily very young, but it is not a title like the word "Miss". However, neither "maiden" or "girl" seems very appropriate.)
We learned that all her four children now live in Canada. She had been to Canada to live with them for a while, but returned because she's used to Argentina after all these years and because she didn't speak any English. She told us that Argentina was pretty good and that it was easier to settle here. She had sponsored many people to come here because she owns business and property. She told us that when she and her nephew opened this restaurant seven or eight months ago, they had to build this building and pave the street in front it. There was nothing here before. They had more customers then during the high tourist season, but business hadn't been good lately. Her nephew decided to back out of the partnership and went back to Buenos Aires to manage a restaurant there. She stayed on to see the business through. It's now just her and the chef.
"I like it here. The air's fresh here," she said. It saddened me a little. I had often heard such hollow proclamations from elderly immigrants. Many left behind things and friends they knew well to move to the U.S. to live with their kids in suburbia. Imprisoned by the language barrier and the cultural differences, there is so little to like about the new life, the only redeeming feature often cited is the fresh air. I can't imagine the loneliness and the boredom out here. She was so happy to see some Chinese faces. Maybe she's more used to Argentina than Canada, but I wondered how much she feels Argentina to be her home.
When I was growing up in China, I heard stories and saw movies about the "Chinese expatriates of the South Sea." Still when I visited Southeast Asia in 1994, I was quite surprised at how many Chinese live in those parts. These are the descendents of Chinese immigrants from the past century. Yet, I found them to be so very much Chinese, and that they had preserved some archaic traditions and customs long out of practice in China. Certainly, many have been assimilated into the local cultures, but the overt and covert hostility towards the Chinese had forced them to consciously preserve a high degree of independent identity. This seems not to be the case in America. I find the term "melting pot" to be very appropriate a description. Second- or third-generation immigrants are often completely absorbed into the mainstream. What's troubling to me is that while I may consider myself to be an American, not everyone does, and a few will do their best to make me feel not welcome. Hostility towards immigrants in general and Asians in particular will always be a fact of life in America. Yet with its long tradition of immigration, America is still probably the most welcoming of all. I could never forget what a family friend, who had lived most of her seventy years in Europe, South America, and the U.S., told me, "I have been to many places. I have lived in many places. America is the best."
When I was in Singapore and met my landlady, I told her that I am Chinese American. When her friends came, she introduced me as American Chinese. While the difference maybe subtle, the distinction is important. I wonder how Miss Wang would call herself. Argentinean Chinese? Chinese Argentinean? Or just Chinese?
We heard some distant thunders. Fearing that it might rain soon, we decided to call it the night. Miss Wang came to tell us that it'd be fifteen pesos each. The buffet was six, we had some drinks, and an extra dish. For a moment, I wondered why it was so much. What she really meant was that it's fifteen for each party. I felt a little guilty and ashamed for ever having the doubts. Ed and I agreed that ten pesos for each of us two would be the minimum appropriate.
She counted the money and found the five extra pesos. She wouldn't have any of it, and insisted on giving the five pesos back. "Fifteen is fifteen."
I wouldn't have any of it either. "No, you just opened your restaurant. You should have it. "
She moved forward to give the money to me. I pulled back. She grabbed my arm and stuffed the bill in my hand. Round One. I lose.
As we were leaving, I left the money on the table. She saw it. More pushing and pulling and shoving. It must have looked very strange to the other customers or the manager or the waitress. This time she stuffed the money in my pocket. Round Two. I lose.
I knew I had no chance winning the fight, so I decided to stop there and not to make too big a scene. This is something so unbelievably Chinese. I used to see my parents and relatives do it all the time, especially when it came to Chinese New Year time when a lot gifts were exchanged. I suppose that this would be a prime example of cultural differences in customs and social protocols. Americans are taught to accept gifts. Express gratitude and thank the person profusely if you want to, but accept the damn gift. The Chinese find it necessary to express this gratitude by saying that the gift is too big, that he's undeserving of the gift, that he's refusing to accept the gift, and then physically fighting not to take the gift. Usually the outcome is that the person getting the gift gets the gift. Don't think that this is all so pretentious. It's all part of the social protocols and rituals. Just consider the very American surprise birthday party. It's rarely a surprise, but everyone pretends to surprise, and the birthday boy or girl pretends to be surprised.
The outcome of such struggle is less clear when two Chinese fight to pay a restaurant bill. In our present case, we both genuinely wanted the other person to have the five pesos. A strong argument can be made both ways who should have the five pesos, so the person with the weaker will, me, loses and gets the money in the end. I don't see my parents go very much beyond Round One any more. Ed and I divide restaurant bills right down the middle fair and square.
After we had walked out of the restaurant, Miss Wang thought of something and thought that I should visit her nephew's restaurant in Buenos Aires on our way back. I went back in with her to get the address. Even though the restaurant is very close to our hotel in Buenos Aires, Ed and I never did get the chance to go on the way back.
I was very touched by the night's experience. As we talked back to our hotel, I couldn't think about anything else. I walked most of the way in silence. Even though I hardly knew her, I felt a sense of abandonment. We'd be on a flight to somewhere tomorrow, eventually heading to some place I call home. What about her? Is there a place she could feel home? Is anyone calling her on this Christmas eve? What would become of this restaurant? This is not some made up Amy Tan's formulaic tear jerker. This is a real person and these are real experiences. There were no monumental tragedies fit for an epic novel, but the small personal struggles, the small sadness, and the small loneliness, in many ways shaped by the unfortunate history beyond anyone's control, are no less poignant and no less heart wrenching.
I told the Singaporean couple earlier that we wanted to find out the story behind this Chinese restaurant. I barely finished my sentence, when the wife said, "And they are all sad." Miss Wang had told us a few things about her background, the dry facts in an upbeat tone. I wondered why she left Hong Kong to come to, of all the places, Argentina. I wondered what she went through all these years. I wondered why she didn't stay in Canada with her kids. I can't imagine the heart-breaking sadness masked behind the cheerful proclamations. I had set out with the cocky mission to find out the story behind a Chinese restaurant in this remote corner of the world. Now I don't want to find out anymore, because "They are all sad."
We live in very different times, in very different places, and in very different circumstances - hers far more hostile than mine - but I felt that I could so easily identify with her experiences and relate to her. We are connected by some common experiences - of people who left behind a lot in search of a better life, of the hardships endured, of the tears and sweat shed, and of the longing to belong. I don't know whether I was thinking about her feelings and her experiences, or whether I was really thinking about my feelings and my experiences. I wondered a lot that night. I know, however, that she and her story made me think about where I came from and where I would be going.
It's not all sad.