CC decides to go back to England. As she tells me about the decision, I'm shocked.
CC says, "It's been five years since I returned to China. I did my best to become more Chinese, but it didn't work."
"You don't like China anymore?"
"Sometimes, coming back to China is like living in Hong Kong twenty years ago. It's so hard to find people who are at my level. I'm a misfit here."
One of CC's problems is that she's too far ahead of her time. In China, it's considered cool to carry a credit card, for instance, but CC has five or six. It's considered cool to drive a Buick, but CC was chauffeured in a Bentley as a young girl. It's considered cool to drink Blue Mountain coffee, but she's gone through her coffee-drinking phase and has moved on to green tea. It's considered cool to drop English words into your con versations even if your pronunciation is incorrect, but CC speaks fluent English. It's considered cool to know how to bowl, but she grew up playing golf with her parents. It's considered cool for young educated women to discuss works of the Beat Generation such as Jack Kerouac's On The Road and Allen Ginsberg's Howl, but she read them when she was a student.
"I can't stand people who show off their brand-name clothes that are at least two years behind New York and London fashions. I have to lower myself again and again in order to stay popular among my Chinese friends. I'm getting tired."
"There are two choices for Western-educated Chinese who return to China," I say. "You either hold on to what you've learned abroad, applying it to your new life in China to become part of its native-born expatriate community, or you try to hide your Western values and pretend to be native all over again."
"Apparently, Niuniu, you have chosen the latter. But for me, that choice is a step backward. I don't really want to go native," CC replies, as her arms flail ab out in desperation. "For a while, I tried. But I can never forget that, at a beauty salon, some women thought I was the second wife of a Hong Kong man," she adds, as if it was the ultimate insult one could receive.
"What happened?" I ask.
"I told them I was local, but they knew that the clothes I was wearing could only be bought at The Peninsula shopping arcade in Hong Kong. So, they concluded that I could only be a second wife. I guess they must have a lot of experience. From then on, I decided not to hide my Hong Kong roots anymore," CC says with a tone of finality. "I like China, but I don't like to be a Chinese woman living in China. I lost Nick and I don't find Chinese men attractive. We used to make fun of this, but it's not fun anymore. I want to go back to see my online date in London or find a former classmate to get married."
"You feel the urgency to get married?" I ask CC.
"Yes. And you, Niuniu? Don't you want to get married?"
"Yes. Someday, but not now," I say.
"I really would like to have my own family by the time I reach thirty-three."
"So you don't think you can find Mr. Right in China?"
CC sighs. "I don't want a rich guy. All I want is a man I can communicate with. But most men I've met here are so shallow. Those who aren't shallow often become so popular that they don't want to stay faithful. China isn't a paradise for educated women to search for spouses: that's the sad simple truth."
After my failed relationship with Len, I came back to China to return to my Chinese life. I didn't want to fall in love immediately. I have chosen to become a detached observer of other people's lives; my passion has been left in the States. CC's words make me wonder: Do luck and love have anything to do with location? Sometimes it seems as though in certain places, you're luckier than other places. Perhaps, that's why so many Chinese tourist groups take Chinese women to Silicon Valley for matchmaking, Japanese girls spend romantic holidays in Bali, and European tourists escape to Thailand for sexual adventures. But if China is really like CC says, a wasteland for educated women, what about America? Why did I fail there where I had no shortage of admirers and sex partners?
"If you want to go back to England to get married, what about your career here in China?" I ask CC.
"My career in China? Don't you see those job ads? Women over thirty-five are hard put to find jobs here. This is another sad truth. But the saddest fact for me is that my Chinese friends are all becoming CEOs and their companies are going public. Even though many of them are clearly behind the times in terms of fashion and philosophy, they've become part of the superrich, whereas I'm still a PR account manager. I'm not stupid, and I've got a great education, but they have occupied the resources here. If I can only be a member of the middle class, I'd rather be middle-class in Great Britain where my kids don't need to breathe smoggy polluted air every day."
"What about your parents?"
"They'd love to give all of their money to me if I married a Hong Kong man. It's my freedom that they want to buy. I won't sell myself short."
"So you're determined to leave."
CC isn't listening. She's admiring a woman's shoulder bag dangling off the back of a chair a few tables away.
"Niuniu, is that Prada real or fake?"
I say, "You said that it's not a matter of what one wears; it's where one wears it that counts."
"Yes. A real Prada can look fake here in China. But a fake Prada can look real in London. She should be walking in London now."
Listening to CC, I realize that CC really misses England, which is her home. China isn't.
Where is my home? I wonder. Ernest Hemingway says Paris is a movable feast. Can I carry my roots with me? Wherever I go, I make that my home.