Going back to 1949, according to history.state.gov, the U.S.Ambassador had met with Communist Ambassadors to discuss U.S. recognition of the newly declared (as of October 1, 1949) PRC (People’s Republic of China.) Had Mao not declared his intention to side with the Soviet Union, recognition could have come much earlier than 1972. The United States stayed out of the Chinese Civil War, even though “the Truman Administration was prepared to abandon the Nationalists and allow the Communists to take over Taiwan, and…grant recognition to PRC.”
History has more twists and turns than we can handle in one sitting. The U.S. and China could not get enough of each other through the ensuing two decades of changes after the formation of the PRC. The Korean War begot the completion of the Sino-Soviet split. President Kennedy considered re-opening ties with China in 1963 The passing of the Immigration and Naturalization Act in 1965 allowed for more Chinese immigration. The Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966 and its painful impact on its society and culture probably made it impossible for any nation to welcome China back to the table of “normalized” relations, But President Richard Nixon’s February 20-28, 1972 trip to China, officially re-connected the two countries if more symbolically than ideologically. But for all Americans, the real question was where would this handshake take China, the U,S., and the world
This is a valid question that many are considering during this 50th anniversary year, including Annenberg School for Communication Institute for Public Service Director David Eisenhower. Eisenhower’s February 18, 2022 comments about the normalization are a nice introduction to discussing Gish Jen’s new collection of short stories Thank You, Mr. Nixon:
“The China opening was a leap, the product of imagination…Americans seem to take leaps for granted…On paper, American intentions were fanciful, utterly beyond the capacity of all other belligerents at the time…our enemies expected such feats of us.”
In Jen’s eponymously titled opening story, written from the perspective of a young girl named Tricia Sang and addressed to Nixon, the blunt directness is jarring:
“Dear Mr. Nixon,
I don’t know if you’ll remember me, especially now that I am in heaven and you are in hell.”
We know the image of China today. While the nation is now one of the United States’ largest trading partners, the image of Mao, the Red Guard brigade, detention camps, state censorship, surveillance, and imprisoned dissidents are still strong in the minds of many. That history is hard to wipe away. At the same time, China is a country rich with centuries of accomplishment and culture. In this sense, the shared complicated historical legacies of the U.S. and China made the nations more similar than they might want to think. In this opening story, the writer is entranced by the image of Nixon’s wife Pat and her beautiful red coat:
“We loved our country, but it was not red flags we wanted. It was red coats.”
Later, she reflects more on the gifts Nixon’s visit brought to China:
“…I realize you are nothing like a saint at all. At the same time, you brought so many coats into our lives…I can still hear what people used to say about the Western way of life…that it is imperialist…evil…You let a big genie out of a bottle…”
This is the only way Jen could have opened this collection. It perfectly embodies what this young girl and her Chinese family felt about a visit from the United States President. The idea that Jen starts with one young girl in the afterlife writing a letter to one of the United States’ most controversial Presidents, himself now boiling in hell, tells us everything we need to know as the remaining ten stories unfold. It’s going to be an interesting ride.
In “Duncan in China,” the titular Chinese-American man is a 27-year-old without much direction. He gets a job teaching English in Shandong and feels depressed during the experience. What he’d hoped would be a better experience going to the land of his ancestors ends up as another variation on a theme this story plays out that could serve as a theme of the entire collection. Duncan thinks about his experiences in China:
“He had not expected that it would be tinged with sad realism…all anyone wanted anymore…was to be left alone.”
In “It’s the Great Wall!”, Jen follows an assortment of travelers on a package tour of China in the wake of “the bamboo curtain” initiative of the 1970’s. Nixon might have opened relations in 1972, but that was symbolic, an eight day trip of smoke and mirrors and ceremony. The Iron Curtain begat the Bamboo Curtain, and a clear dissolve would take time. In this story, Grace is Chinese-American and her husband is Caribbean and Sephardic Jewish. Grace’s mother translates for the couple and the entire group while also having to deal with her status as a stranger in her homeland. The way you visually code yourself is not necessarily how you’re going to be identified in your homeland.
The strongest story in this collection, “Detective Dog,” comes at the end. Betty and her husband Quentin are a Chinese-American family living in New York. They used to live in Hong Kong, then Vancouver, but racism followed them everywhere. Their move to the United States was not going to guarantee a life free from those old ghosts. While dealing with external racism, Betty and Quentin have to consider their oldest son Theo, a 16 year old who wants the family to return to Hong Kong and participate in protests against the Chinese government. His mother responds: “No politics, just make money. See nothing, say nothing. It’s a beautifully contained story set in our Covid times, where enforced quarantine confinements between bickering generations reveal secrets that might have been better off concealed.
Jen’s reflections in a January 2022 New York Times interview speak volumes about her writing approach and how it speaks to her ethnicity. Though born in the United States and speaking only English, she sees a connection with her culture:
“I am an economical and efficient writer….They’re very good in the short lyric and leaving a lot out.”
Thank You, Mr, Nixon is a quiet collection of stories that speaks with grace, wisdom and humor. These are characters who speak to the struggles of straddling two cultures and not always feeling welcome in either. This is a collection that speaks to history but does not restrict itself to the format of historical fiction. Instead, Jen’s characters serve as products of a union that’s never been fully secure, before or after 1972. Jen is a fact finder with an allegiance to faithfully rendering her characters as people realistically reacting to a post-1972 China, where travel to and from the United States will not always be smooth (literally or figuratively.) Again, in the January 2022 New York Times interview, Jen reflected on how she viewed the sometimes ethereal and slippery nature of “facts” and her obligation to remain faithful to them:
“…I see them [facts] as the strings of the piano. It’s their job to make the strings and make sure they’re in tune. It’s my job to make the music.”
This brings us full circle. The facts of how the people of the U.S. and China have been transformed by the “normalizing” of relations in 1972 are an unfinished piano concerto whose next act needs more history before it can be written. Gish Jen’s Thank You, Mr, Nixon is a rehearsal for that next act. Its themes and refrains are audible now and will become even more resonant with the passage of time.
