64 THENEWYORKER,NOVEMBER18, 2019
preoccupation with status and wealth,
our envy of the West, our pride, our
tendency to self-criticize, your wife
would not know how to respond.
The cousin’s English was great. The
pie shop was run by an American who,
on his study abroad, had discovered that
China did not have pie, and thus opened
a store to remedy this. His wife said
nothing and looked down. Then the
cousin laughed and they gan bei-ed.
Back at the Langham, he told his wife
that she could switch to English with
her cousin anytime; they weren’t kids.
No, his wife said, and that was that.
What do you think about the pies?
he asked a little later.
Nothing, she said.
Really? he said. You have no thoughts
on the pies?
She said she really didn’t.
His mother baked pies and his wife
had thoughts on them. Come Thanks-
giving, his mother usually made four,
and his wife would look at the pies,
each a foot in diameter, and ask why
four modestly sized people—his mother
had remarried—needed four large pies.
Nothing to say at all?
No.
H
is mother called, but he was in the
shower.
His mother called again, and he
picked up. Did he remember this
teacher? The teacher had come in to
mail a package and mentioned that her
son used to be his student. The teacher
said her son was the best and possessed
a natural mind for math. I wrote his
letter of rec, the teacher said, and it was
an honor to. In the letter, the teacher
wrote about what it meant for some-
one like her son to have come out of
their little town; he emphasized how
rare that was. It had come as no sur-
prise to him when he saw in the local
paper, which was displayed at the store,
that his best student had graduated
summa cum laude from Duke, or, later,
in the same paper, that he was doing
his graduate work at Harvard, his post-
graduate work at M.I.T., and then that
he had been offered a place at a com-
putational think tank, modelling how
blood moves in the body, through ar-
teries and veins, saving lives, and now,
most recently, that he had just pub-
lished his first Nature paper—congrat-
ulations—which his teacher apologized
for not being able to understand, after
his mother had sent him a copy. Do
you remember his son? his mother asked
next. He said he remembered this
teacher, wonderful yet firm, but not
his son. Well, his mother said, his son
teaches math at the community col-
lege, where they have lots of Chinese
students now. Chinese students from
China. Supposedly very lucrative, but
I can’t imagine why Chinese students
would want to come here. Maybe no
one told them that there’s nothing to
do. Listening, he thought, I love you,
Mom, but I don’t like you. If he ever
told her that, his mother would want
to know when, at what point, exactly,
he had stopped liking her. He would
then have to say that it was gradual.
But when did it start? Probably when
he was eleven.
He did not read the local paper. His
mother sent it to him, but he recycled.
Only when a truly absurd headline ap-
peared did he keep it as a reminder.
One such headline was “Woman
Kicked in Face by Deer.”
His wife did not get involved. The
only time she did was when, one
Thanksgiving, he mentioned that he
was applying for a passport, as they
were going to Europe for vacation. Sud-
denly, his stepfather got up and un-
muted the television. His mother looked
at his wife and then at him.
Tell me, his mother said, do the two
of you have no interest in seeing the
rest of America? Yellowstone. The
Grand Canyon. The amount of natu-
ral beauty in this country is endless.
Then his mother began to reminisce.
They used to take road trips and go
camping. He used to play cowboys and
Indians in the back seat.
We are not trying to say that we do
not love Yellowstone, his wife answered.
He told his mother that it was just a
passport.
We started watching documentaries
about China because of you, his mother
said to his wife. We loved seeing peo-
ple eat with chopsticks, and the pan-
das—we loved seeing them play. We
even bought chopsticks. She went to
the cupboard. Do you want to use them?
His wife looked down, and, seeing his
wife look down, he told his mother to
stop talking.
Why do I have to stop?
He stared at her.
No, I don’t think I want to.
Please stop talking.
What’s gotten into you?
Shut up right now.
Later, his wife said that the entire
meal was surreal. She found his mother
interesting. Someone like her actually
exists, she said, almost excited. And
these places exist, and your stepdad
watches ESPN, and they don’t want
passports, they’ve never been on a plane,
all those pickup trucks, amazing!
But also, his wife said, somewhat se-
rious, it must be confusing for your
mom, how to stay involved without
being afraid—impossible now—and
fear can manifest in strange ways.
He didn’t think it was fear. He told
her what he thought it was. Ignorance
leads to fear, she said.
That year, his mother invited them,
as usual, to the family reunion and he
declined. They had a call about it.
So we’re not good enough for you
anymore.
That’s not what I said.
When are you coming back to see
me?
You already asked that.
At Duke, he had won an essay con-
test. He wrote about low expectations.
The problem with low expectations, he
wrote, is that they will often seem harm-
less or even kind. He won a thousand
dollars. In college, he worked part time.
There was a scholarship for first-gen
students and advisers told him to apply.
He opened the form but thought, If I
get this, people will know. If I never
tell, who would know? So he didn’t
apply and accrued ninety thousand dol-
lars in debt.
But what about high expectations?
his wife asked. To be groomed for a
six-figure career, do you know what
that’s like? I have a friend, she would
start. This friend was locked in a room
