new paved streets

Ms. Cummins tried her best to pronounce it correctly, I remember. She asked carefully if she was right before trying — trying — to impart the knowledge upon my delirious classmates. But it was of little comfort to me.

Every morning, I wouldn’t stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. At first, they thought it normal among my other behaviors of non-native ignorance. Tony doesn’t understand what we’re saying. He doesn’t want to stand, he’s just a little confused. Let him be. Even when their instincts felt the time had passed for a neurotypical eight-year-old to have received and interpreted the social cue of just standing up — not even mouthing or forcing his way through the words with a scrambled tongue, but just standing — they didn’t try too hard. My message was clear, my patriotism ran through me. My shell, my only friend — I wasn’t American. I belong back home.

Every Christmas season starting in middle school, I watched Youtubers string tinsel and lights around Christmas trees, and my classmates blasted “All I Want For Christmas” in every room and hallway.

I think back to standing under the sagging awning of Wai Po’s village home with my Da Yi Ma and Da Yi Fu (大姨妈，大姨夫), and my uncle and aunt (舅舅，舅妈) on New Year’s Days. Jiu-jiu would carry and ignite small fireworks meters away from our cozy cluster under the awning, then retreat back to join us in waiting. The fireworks blossomed brilliant reds and yellows, sparks I can see even now if I close my eyes, only slightly crowded with new memories of noisy Fourth of Julys.

With American clothes and Chinese-manufactured shoes, an almost-banana brain but hopefully still truely-Chinese heart that yearns for American things and Chinese comfort food— nowadays I see myself in pictures, and discover too much change. What defined me had started to fade, and the American at the end of this metamorphosis was a stranger I feel uncomfortable with calling “me”. Tony? Tony Lee? Please call me 晨晨.

“听不懂抚州话勒？” Wai Po had started asking since middle school, on the rare occasions I remember to video call through WeChat. In our dialect the pronunciation slides the Mandarin words from ting-bu-dong to more of a ting-bu-dewng. She asks if I’m losing my comprehension of our regional dialect, and I shamefully list out the words I can still decipher from her and Mama’s lips: 恰饭 (吃饭), 困告 (睡觉). Eat, sleep.

When will you come back?— 什么时候回来啊？晨晨小时候说了大学会 在国里上，毕业后在国里找工作。小晨晨没说谎吧？晨晨会回来看外 婆对吧？哎，乖孩子。多听听妈妈的话，多听听外婆话。多跟外婆， 大姨妈大姨夫通通话。我们想你。 I could only nod and half-heartedly promise her yes.

On the verdant paths on my way to class at my American boarding school, I listen to the Taylor’s Version of “Fearless” and reminisce about the good old days of 2010, my first year in the U.S. after leaving China.

Come Christmas I’ll hide myself in my now familiar winter puffer (just my teal uniform was almost suffice for breezy Fuzhou winters, despite my constant complaints), and feel at home with Mariah Carey’s vocal runs. The only Chinese song I remember from my early childhood is one vague verse of “Superstar”, a dated S.H.E. single from 2003.

Wai Po, I want to say, the streets outside are paved with gold. Wai Gong had passed away in 2013, and Wai Po, Da Yi Ma, and my uncle have all moved to Shenzhen, a bustling, young city neighboring Hong Kong. Geographically so close to our home province of Jiangxi, yet so far from our Fuzhou roots in east Jiangxi. Our pitiful village houses were replaced with dazzling skylines; from their apartment views in the new city, the stars can probably no longer be seen.

But I left in 2010 — the urban development that had started when I was young must have enveloped even my family and our land that was once on the budding city’s periphery. The stars must have already been gone for years.

Ten years after moving here, after leaving home, I find myself staring at the night sky and imagining dragons in the blossoming American fireworks on New Year’s Days — not lunar, but the Western ones. Like dried forget-me-nots pressed deep in an old love letter, the fireworks dragons smile wistfully at me, hoping I would hold on to the fading memories. Remember me, they seem to whisper, so I’ll always whisper back: 不会忘.