The first four years of my life took place in Beijing. My parents lived in an apartment within the Beijing Hydrological Sciences yard (北京水科院) where my grandfather worked. Both my grandparents on my father’s side were scientists: my grandmother a famed geologist and my grandfather a dam engineer. My dad has two siblings, one older sister and a younger brother. I have an older cousin, my aunt’s daughter, who is 8 years older than me. Both my grandparents on my father’s side were originally from Nanjing and went on to settle in Beijing during the 1950s.
My mother’s family on the other hand all came from the southern province of Hunan. My grandfather on my mother’s side (外公) was a geologist and died in an avalanche before my mother was born. My grandmother then remarried and gave birth to two sons. My mother would often tell me about how she was severely mistreated by her stepfather. My mother’s parents would reside in Hunan for the rest of their lives.
My father was missing from my earliest memories. He had left for Canada before my memory started about doing its business. My father studied Chinese at the esteemed Beijing University for four and a half years but transferred to the law faculty and studied there for 2 years. He later taught law at the Beijing Legal Administration Department (北京司法局) for 7 to 8 years before making the decision to come study in Canada. Back in those days, studying abroad in a Western country meant embellishing one’s educational background with golden varnish. Western education was the fountain of career opportunities that attracted thousands of pilgrims every year, one of them was my father. He embarked on his journey to the west in 1992 and wouldn’t come back for another 3 years.
I lived with my mother in the small apartment room during those three years. After my dad left for Canada, my mother would pay a visit to my grandparents’ home every weekend and leave me there to spend the weekend with them. I was then sent to an old nanny’s house on a daily basis. This soon ended because I would cry for the entire day I was at the nanny’s house. I was later taken care of by an 18 year old country girl from Sichuan named Xiao Jiang. She stayed at our apartment and ate with us. My mom recalls nowadays how kind Xiao Jiang was to me. She was herself a poor young girl from the countryside in Sichuan with a large family and little education. I guess being a nanny in Beijing was the only way she could earn a living for her family. Xiao Jiang remained my nanny for quite a long time until my grandmother, that is my mother’s mother, came to visit from Changsha. She didn’t like the idea of a nanny watching over her grandson and persuaded my mom to fire Xiao Jiang. No one in my family has heard of Xiao Jiang ever since.
As I grew older, I started to attend kindergarten. I still have nightmarish memories of the first kindergarten I attended. As suggested in the previous chapters, I was a troublemaking boy from birth and troublemaking didn’t translate too well to the caretakers at that kindergarten. Whenever I caused trouble, I was locked in the bathroom for what seemed like eternity. I would yell until my throat was sore and nobody came to open the door. I would not be let out until I became quiet. It was the punishment I had to receive for talking too much in class or causing mischief. When my mom found out about this, she was furious and quickly transferred me to another kindergarten.
I have fond memories of the second kindergarten I attended. My mom would pick me up from school on her bicycle every day. Back then, a Japanese show called Ultraman was widely popular and every day after I came home from kindergarten I would immediately turn on the TV set to watch Ultraman. I had a lot of Ultraman-related merchandise; books, toys, even costumes and masks! I wasn’t alone in that. Practically every child in the Hydrological Sciences yard owned something related to Ultraman. I made a lot of friends at that kindergarten. I have since lost contact with many of those friends but tools like Xiaonei and Facebook can help me in my quest for reconnection. I often participated in cultural shows organized by the kindergarten, performing dancing and singing routines on stage. I still possess pictures of me dressed up in silly costumes performing on stage.
My father returned to China in 1995 to bring me and my mother with him to Canada. I saw in movies how everyone would buy a bouquet of flowers to welcome friends and family who come from faraway places and so I persuaded my mother to buy the best-looking bouquet she could find at the flower shop so that I could personally hand it over to my father when I meet him. I eagerly awaited my dad’s arrival at the airport, curious to see how much he resembled the man whom for me at that time only existed visually in the countless photographs we had at home and in the verbal descriptions my mom gave me. Three years of hard living as an international student in Canada didn’t change his appearance very much as I easily spotted him when he was entering the Passenger Arrivals Hall. My father, the pilgrim, back in China to whisk me and my mother away to a land called Canada.
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