Wanton Soup

Her name was Han Han. She was a showgirl. She cooked the best rice in rice sauce south of the Yangtze River.

I met her at work. It had been a long day of teaching “Engrish” to a bunch of rice-paddy-tending yokels who “want go Harvard.”

Most of them would.

I decided to treat myself by going down to the local skin joint and enjoying some rice beer while trying to discern the pole dancer from the pole in that dimly lit, smoky dive.

When she first came on, she didn’t strike me as anything great. Just another village pole dancer in another village in another rural Chinese province. But as she got closer, I noticed something special about her. Her hair was somehow straighter and blacker than the straight, black hair of all the other dancers. Her thin, curveless figure somehow thinner and less curvy.

By the time she had stripped fully down, to only shorts and a light spring jacket (this was the provinces, after all), I knew she was special.

I went backstage after her performance and asked around for her. She had gone home, I was told. Home to cook rice in rice sauce for her ailing grandmother.

After much cajoling and a promise of a bottle of real Kikkoman soy sauce, straight from America, I got her address:

Hut #7
Barren Plain
China

I knew the area well, for I lived in the next town over, Empty Field.

I had grown up in a region not dissimilar, among hardy cornraising stock in central Nebraska. I knew how this kind lived. I knew how they thought. I knew what stirred their souls, fired their loins.

After one final glance at my surroundings, confirming I was in a barren plain and not simply a field that was empty, I strode right up to Hut #7, knocked confidently upon the wicker door, and walked through the cloud of dust it made as it fell to the floor.

There I saw her in all her tender glory—Han Han, gingerly chopsticking out rice in rice sauce to her frail old grandmother, who looked as if even the typical chopstick-sized serving of four-to-five rice grains would be too much. This, I assumed, was why Han Han was using extra short sticks to only deliver a grain or two at a time.

I knew sincerity and honesty, forthrightness and lack of pretence was the only way, and a sure way, to win these people over. I walked right up to them, looked the grandmother in the eyes, and said, in my best Chinese, “Dear, revered, and wise elder, I am most sincerely in love with your kind granddaughter who comes home to cook, feed, and care for you without a second thought. I can think of no one and nothing else. If you’ll only give your blessing, I shall make it my passion in life to provide her with everything she could ever need or desire, with all the love a man is capable of giving, and with all the passion that can be wrung from a single soul.”

Her response was the kind of old-world poetry that cuts to the heart of human experience and understanding—the kind that has most certainly been lost in today’s manneredly insincere society.

“How much you give for her?”

Of course, how was I to answer that? What could recompense a woman losing the kindest caretaker, the most loving companion, her own flesh and blood? What could possibly be worth the love of this dedicated, tender, straight-hair-and-straight-figured beauty who’d captured my heart?

“Two goats, fifty dollars American, and new door.”

“And watch,” she said, indicating my watch.

“And watch,” I said, removing my watch.

After placing her new watch in the old crone’s lap, I took the hand of my fiancée, and the two of us gaily walked away, over the door and into a new life.

As we were almost out of earshot, we heard one last hearty bellow from the demanding hag.
“Door’d better be wood!”

Life wasn’t easy for Han Han and me. Especially because wooden doors aren’t cheap. She continued her work at the local spring jacket joint; I continued teaching the future engineers of America. It was rewarding work, but trying. Each night, we would fall into each other’s arms, exhausted, and sleep the sleep of the young, poor, and rural Chinese.

One day, Han Han awoke with severe nausea. It continued for a week. Finally, after much begging and pleading, I let her see a doctor. He told her she was pregnant. I told her she hadn’t needed to worry.

Over time, she lost her resemblance to a pole and acquired one to a speed bump. She ate and ate—sometimes up to two cups of rice a day with an additional cup of rice sauce. I was beside myself. I didn’t know what to do—we could barely afford a cup of rice and a half cup of rice sauce per diem prepregnancy. Now, with her sexy figure gone, she was barely making anything in tips while our food bill had skyrocketed.

I knew something had to be done, so I packed up my things and headed for the city. I offered to teach the children of the rich, but they already had teachers. I tried to steal a panda and sell it to a foreign zoo, but they’re violent suckers. I then tried to steal medical supplies from the hospital where I was convalescing from furorem pandiosum, but when they ran out of supplies, I was forced to use them on myself. I tried to set up an all-you-can-eat hamburger buffet, but everyone just made fun of my accent, and someone started a nasty rumour that I used beef instead of dog.

I went back home. To the plain. To Han Han. To our foetus. And what did I find but a dirty Chinese fellow sleeping in my bed. With my wife. And our foetus. He greeted me with a disturbing forthrightness. Almost a familiarity.

“Hello, sir. Thank you for the courtesy of your bed and your wife.”

“I offered no such courtesy,” said I.

“I told him you had,” said Han Han.

“Oh,” said I.

“I want to marry him,” said Han Han.

“Oh,” said I again.

“He makes a good living. I don’t have to degrade myself anymore, wearing a spring jacket in the dead of winter.”

“What does he do?”

“He teaches Chinese to American businessmen.”

I turned to him.

“Whence do you know such people?”

“I met them at Harvard, sir,” he said.

Of course! I’d taught English to this conniving backstabber years before!

He must have seen the recognition in my eyes.

“Recognise me now, sir?”

“Why, Zhang Xiao-Zing! I always knew you’d go far! I just didn’t know it’d be with my wife!”

“Yes, sir. It came as a big surprise to me as well.”

“I was surprised too,” said Han Han.

No one paid her any attention.

“Sir. Let me buy you some General Tso’s dog. It is the only honourable thing to do.”

“No. I must mourn the loss of my wife. I have been shamed and need to leave this land, never to return.”

“I understand,” he said. “I’m surprised you’re still here,” he added.

I smacked him once.

“I understand,” he said.

I grabbed my bags, which were still packed, and headed for the door. I turned around, walked back toward them, and smacked him again, for good measure.

Then I left.

As I was almost out of earshot, I said to Zhang Xiao-Zing, “Say hi to your grandmother-in-law for me.”

“What does he mean, Han Han?” I heard, as I faded out of their lives.