Amy Adoyzie

I was huddled by a crusty public phone in front of the Yueyang train station with a dirty handset pressed against my ear.
“I've got a half hour to kill before my train leaves,” I told Amy Kirch.
We talked a few minutes before she asked about my train's departure time.

“It' 7:30, so I'l get into Changsha at 9:30.”
“Your train leaves at 7:30? But it's 7:30 now.”
“Really? Oh shit!”
The train station clock was a half hour behind.
I ran to the waiting room and the K535 train was gone.
“Kai le,” was all I was told when I asked the station attendants for help. Four middle-aged women in dark navy uniforms brushed me off by stating the obvious, telling me that the train had left. They kept talking at me as I repeated that I didn't understand, “Ting bu dong.”

“Ting bu dong?” They all looked at me with the usual air of exasperation and disdain, the Hunanese snarl across their faces. With skepticism, they asked where I was from, “Ni zai nali lai?”
I pushed through my frustration and flashed my toothiest smile and said, “Mei guo.”
Typically this is met with contempt, but my cheesy grin worked because their snarly fa�ade faded long enough to explain that I had to go back to the ticket window and exchange my ticket for the next train.
When I returned to the waiting room, the ladies chatted me up with routine questions about why I was in China. I explained that I was a Chinese-American, volunteer English teacher at a middle school. They asked about my family and if I had a boyfriend.
“Wo mei you nan peng you. Tai ma fan la!” I told them that I didn't have a boyfriend because it's too much trouble. The predictable round of belly laughter ensued.
One of the women eyeballed me from the top of my black hair down to my tattered canvas Vans sneakers (Made in the USA!). I expected her to criticize my appearance, about my weight or how I could afford better shoes. She puckered her lips and furrowed her brow, like she was taste-testing a piece of candy and contemplating all of the varied flavors.
She nodded slowly and said, “Hai ke yi. Bu cuo.” Acceptable. Not bad..
I couldn't believe my lil' yellow ears. I finally got the Hai ke yi, Bu cuo lines!
Being told that you're acceptable and not bad doesn't sound like much of a compliment in the States, but in China it's the most flattering because the understatement leaves room for modesty. The two other people who I've heard receive this compliment are Nat and Daniel, both of whom speak beautiful Mando.

“Nali, nali,” I said as a polite “Oh, not true…”
I said that my Mandarin was still really poor, but she pointed out that I can understand a lot. She was probably more impressed with me being in China than with my spoken Chinese. Maybe she figured that I had a plentiful life in the States, but I gave up basement house shows and trivia night at the Pub to come teach their kids for less than 1/10th of what I used to earn in Los Angeles.
“Hai ke yi le,” she repeated.
It only took eight months, but I was finally bestowed the honor of being acceptable and not bad in China. For the first time in Hunan, I felt comfortable as a Chinese-American.

Two days later, on Sunday night, we went to 4698 to catch another underground hip-hop show. The performers were Canto rappers from Guangzhou called Dumdue, who repped south China with their non-Mando rhymes. A surreal moment came when everyone raised their fists, ala Black Panther pride, for their motherland. In the middle of their set, a half-Scot and half-Hong Kongnese kid got onstage and rapped in English about bitches being on his nuts and throwin' green to get pussy. Daniel, Amy Kirch and I couldn't believe our ears. After the set, in my half-drunkenness, I approached the Scottish Hong Konger and said, “That shit about bitches on your nuts is so uncool”
“Yeah, well…” was his reply.
(Didn't he get the rap community memo about the Imus-induced hip-hop reform?)
We were loitering outside the club after the show when we met Will, who was tagging along with Dumdue. Will's English was great, I was convinced that he's an undercover Chinese-American, which he denied.
Will used to have a real job, but now he “don't gotta deal with no motherfuckers.”

He's an entrepreneur. He objected to being called a drug dealer.
“I hook people up. That's what I do.”
We nodded.
“Niggas gotta live!” He added.
While discussing illicit substances in the Middle Kingdom, I said that I'd never do LSD, especially in China where quality is mediocre.
“I don't trust that shit,” I said.

“It's because you're American,� he replied with a condescending tone emphasized on my nationality.
During my time in China, I've always thought nothing of this accusation. I was more miffed when folks negated my Americaness because of how much I looked like them. I was so busy defending the red, white and blue part of my identity, that I was never bothered by those who questioned my yellowness.
“But I'm Chinese too.”
In high school, I was called a Twinkie and a Banana, yellow on the outside and white on the inside because I didn't drive a Honda Civic and my interests reached beyond getting into college and being in an Asian gang. The names didn't bother me then neither.
“Nah, you American.”
There was something about a Chinese drug dealer refusing the acknowledge my Chineseness that really burned. Especially since I was finally praised with the coveted hai ke ye and bu cuo compliments.

“You're saying that I'm not Chinese at all?!” I was appalled and followed with this gem, “But I grew up eating rice everyday!”
He wasn't impressed. “You're American. You didn't grow up here. Our lives are different.”
Touche.
I wonder if he spent an entire school year hiding in the girl's bathroom during his fourth grade P.E. class to get away from Richard Sanchez's relentless stream of racial slurs. Has Will ever suffered the indignity of pretending like he didn't understand the bigotry shouted from a truck, adorned with a confederate flag sticker, so that he wouldn't have to translate it for his parents? When was the last time someone denied Will's family's history, their struggles that run through bloodlines and darkened their yellow skins, based on his birthplace?

“You don't think I'm even a little Chinese?” I was having a conniption fit. Our debate about my ethnic identity was triggered by my refusal to use sub-par Chinese hallucinogens. The situation was beyond ridiculous, but I still wanted him to acknowledge me as a bonafide Chinker.
“Okay, a little,” he conceded. I think he saw the sadness in my slanty eyes and pitied my American-passport totin' ass.

Riding the hyphen as an ABC has been sweet and sour. I'll never be a true American or Chinese, dependent on a hyphen to connect, to emphasize or negate parts of my identity.

Jin the Emcee sums it up best with his latest single, “ABC”. It's all in Canto, so even if Will's English isn't up to par, he can see where we be comin' from.