葉子 (思華)

 我記得那個美麗而有力的聲音 -那是奶奶的聲音，一個穿透黑暗的聲音。那個聲音在告訴我該數葉子了。

“數葉子？” 我問道。
“數葉子，一片一片地數， 這樣你就能睡得著。”
“我已經在數羊頭了，” “難到數葉子比數羊頭更好？”我疑惑地用耳語嘟囔著。
“不要數羊頭， 數葉子吧！ 你試一試， 連一百片葉子數不到你就得睡著。”

我傾聽著耳旁的聲音 - 那親切，甜蜜，老人般的，充滿著肯定和自信的聲音，永遠縈繞著我的耳邊，輕柔的讚許聲。那聲音在告訴我一切安好。我 一片片地數著葉子。那些葉子從我夢裏的那棵樹上，一片接著一片，緩緩地落向大地。我輕聲地數著：一，二， 三 ...九十九， 一百--”數著我的葉子，我漸漸地進入了夢鄉。

葉子，一種數葉子而不數羊隻的神奇文化的象征；葉子， 一根把奶奶，奶奶的聲音和我的過去聯結在一起的錨鏈； 葉子，那根把我和現實生活鏈接在一起的錨鏈。

我的中文很糟糕， 可我還得使用它-如果我今天不用它， 那它就會死去， 而我也會因此而感到悲哀。要是我的中文死了的話，我會感到悲哀。要是我的中文死了，我真的會--

“爺爺，你就要死了， 你知道嗎？如果你繼續抽煙的話，你會受到很重的傷害，你會死的。” 我說著，但不知道自己的這種直截了當的詛咒究竟想要表達什麽。我究竟想要說什麽？我想說，爺爺，請不要抽煙， 因為我的老師說抽煙會得肺癌，肺癌是一件很不好的東西。請不要抽煙。 我知道在中國，人們抽煙，他們抽呀，抽呀。可是， 這是在美國。這裏的人不抽煙。 爺爺，請不要抽煙。請不要死。“你就要死了，”我吞吞吐吐地結束了蹩腳的講演。 我既不能和爺爺分享我剛學到的科技新知，在他身旁，又跟不上他那無限大的步子；他一隻手扯著我，另一隻手裏夾著一根香煙。他認真地看著我。目光從雪白而又濃密的眉毛下凝視著我的小臉。他太蒼老了， 我心裏有點害怕。爺爺是黑眉毛， 黑胡子，黑頭發，可身邊的這個人卻不是。我害怕了。

“我以後不抽煙了。”“什麽？”“從今以後我戒煙了，莫娜，我永遠不抽煙了。”

他不抽煙了。三十年了， 那黑色的煙霧一直籠罩在他的子孫們的生活裏 - 可是現在， 一個四歲孩童口中支離破碎的字語所表達的科學發現以及死亡威脅，使抽煙這個奇怪的鏈條就此終止。它終止於爺爺的一個承諾。爺爺手裏現在握的不再是香煙，而是我的手。 爺爺給了我一個承諾， 一個直到永遠的承諾。

然而， 我在中文這種棘手的語言上的成功沒能延續多久。我知道， 從某種程度上， 我一直被幼稚無知那把無形的傘保護著。 包括象我的爺爺，父親和母親在內的人們屈尊地，深情地擁抱著我的頭 - 他們說我才四歲， 四歲是一個無知可以被人們接受的年齡。不能用中文恰當的交流正是我的可愛和招人喜歡之處。不會區分“兩”和“二” 這兩個字的意思也不值得慚愧 - “二 ” 和 “兩” 是兩個不同的漢字，以差別很大的寫法和發音，同時表達同一個數字。四歲的孩子更不該因為不會說象“肺癌”那樣的術語而感到丟臉。可是， 我並沒有永遠生活在這種保護之下。我能嗎？

歲月把我的那把保護傘無情地吹走了，我長大了，到了一個不得不麵對無知所帶來的羞愧的年齡。 七歲的我成了一個可抨擊的對象。 當我用中文說“兔子也是人！”的時候， 我的爺爺哈哈大笑之後，訓誡我，並仔細地解釋為什麽兔子無論如何也不可能是人，為什麽兔子和人不一樣。可我在想，“人”有不同的， 更美麗的含義 - 對我來說，“人”是一個字，它捕捉了所有有生命的，能呼吸的，看得見，摸得著的東西，而不是隻看它有沒有毛，或者是在解剖學上是不是稱作人類。 然而， 對父母，爺爺奶奶而言，“人”隻能是人。這種排他性定義，限製和遏殺了我對世界的看法。“人”隻能是人 - 人類， 男人， 女人，成人， 大人。沒有我想像中的“人”；沒有生活的群落，友愛和情感以及生命 - 隻有人。我強忍著憤怒的淚水， 但憋不出憤怒的詞句。我無語， 無論是中文還是英文。我的字典裏的詞匯貧乏得可憐， 那些詞匯不屬於我，我不知道它們的表達方式，它們如何為人所知，被人吟唱， 被人理解。沒有五個額外的“R”， 我不能發出“WORLD WAR II”的音來， 我隻能避免那些涉及“WAR”， “WHIRLPOOLS ”或者“WISTERIAS”字 的發音。到了晚上， 我猛烈地，無休止地數著我的葉子， 從一百， 一百零一，數到 五百七十二，五。。。

我瞪大雙眼，望著漆黑的天花板，耳邊傾聽著奶奶和爺爺那柔和的酣睡聲，我思忖著他們是否也是人。突然間， 我意識到-在某個時候， 在我無意之中，我的這棵樹變成了孤山頂上的一棵獨木，樹上的葉子象淚滴一樣飄落進了一個一眼看不見底的峽穀裏。我不再數葉子了；因為，當葉子飄落的時候，我也和它們一起飄落。

我漸漸長大了。 我的親人們不再對我講中文了。我的叔叔,用他那緩慢而又謹慎的英語詢問我的主修課程是什麽；我的嬸嬸，用她純正的， 準確無誤的英語同我交談，這使我第一次體會到湧來的嫉妒和羞愧所帶來的痛苦。我的親人們對我體貼入微。 我愛他們，他們也愛我。但是， 他們每個人對我的無知和詞匯貧乏，以及對中國文化傳統的缺乏， 抱有一種經過掩飾的 (或者說掩飾得不那麽完美的) 不以為然。然而此時，我學會了微笑。在每年一度的感恩節的晚餐結束時，我對每一位和我的家人們共度晚餐的親朋好友們綻開了笑容。當我不理解時我笑；當我理解時我也笑；可是，我笑的時候，真想從人們眼前溜走，消逝。可就在此時， 父親插話了：“什麽事那麽好笑？”笑容是我對未知事物的一貫反應。這笑容隻不過是一種偽裝的理解和事實上的無知的表現。父親這個不經意地，簡單明了，居高臨下的問話， 殘酷無情地掠走了我用以逃避現實的最後的角落。“不， 我不知道，” 我回答道， 仍然微笑著。“你聽不懂更多的中文真是丟人。”

我長大了， 到了一個知道數葉子不單單是數數的年齡。奶奶要我數葉子-那是數數。 “一二三四五，”- 可是現在， 每當到了難以入眠的夜晚，我的腦海裏便重複地浮現出“芝麻街”裏的那個叫抓酷拉的數數玩偶節目中的滑稽模仿秀。嘲弄人的大方塊積木上的數字漂浮在我視野的四周， 取代了腦海中的那些落葉的甜蜜的記憶。“一一一，”那又尖又細，友善的輕聲細語。“二二二，”那聲音仍在繼續。 “今天， 二 - 把你帶進芝麻街。”

他是中國人嗎？ 你會講中文嗎？你從哪裏來？中國？ 台灣？廣州？母親在電視上一看到東方女演員便立刻會把注意力集中到她們身上；父親在大街上一見到外貌長相看上去象中國男人的人便會悄悄地跟上他，興高采烈地，從某種意義上說， 有點不顧一切地走上去和他攀談。是的，乍一看，我父母的對陌生人的這種不顧一切的行為帶有某種奇異和絕望的色彩。這些陌生人有著與我們相同的黑頭發， 黃皮膚， 或者種族遺傳。當你想到你能見到另一個“我們” 也生活，呼吸， 生存在這片新奇的土地上的時候，你真的會有一種奇妙無比，被誘惑的感覺。從五顏六色的海洋裏鑽出的那一張張熟悉而又陌生的黃麵孔， 至少證明給人們這樣一個事實，那就是，樹根向上生長的樹也能在異國他鄉的土壤裏生存。透過那些麵孔， 我們可以發現一點點的自我， 那些因環境微細差異的折射而變得扭曲的自我。

環顧四周，我所見到的都是財富的遺產： 費思魯道夫門， 南福可納大道，思卓斯默文理學院和斯坦福大學，卡內基音樂廳和卡內基-麥倫學院。 我的父母們並沒有這種奢侈的遺產。在這裏，他們既沒有曆史也沒有任何真正屬於自己的美國的聯係。這裏沒有張氏大道， 張氏圖書館，也沒有張氏藝術中心。 這裏沒有李氏， 楊氏或者陳氏音樂大廳；更沒有單氏，許氏，高氏大學。不，這些名字不會出現在那些顯著耀眼的建築物和地方-它們在那裏沒有立錐之地。 因為在那些地方， 曆史早已被那些來自遠古的某個移民的大手筆所創造。隻有在那些醫生診所門前的灰蒙蒙的門牌上，在髒兮兮，褪了色的實驗室的白大褂上， 在中國餐館黑色的大門上，你才能見到這些名字。我的父母是以張博士和李博士，一位 藥理學家和一位康複醫師， 一位哲學博士和一位醫學博士的方式存在的 - 他們不是某某某的兄弟或姐妹或鄰居，某某市的市長， 某個企業家或外交官。 在這裏，我父母並不具備賴以獲得迅速成功的先決條件的根。他們有時會把“霧”讀成“青蛙；” 他們在“老海軍商場”裏討價還價；他們自以為有了一個在普林斯頓念書的女兒就會立刻被人們所尊重。他們用隻有在中國才用得著的價值觀- 用人民幣的“元”而不是“美元”計價算賬。我父親來美國時，破舊的工作衣袋裏麵隻有二十四美元，可不知為什麽，我一直相信他身上的錢一定比這個數目要少。或許， 這就是為什麽他們寄希望於下一代的原因 - 失去了自己的根，他們不可能在一個新的國度裏獲得成功。在母國，他們可以成為市長和企業家。在這裏，他們所能做到的隻是為自己的孩子們打下一個賴以成長的物質基礎， 使孩子們能在這個陽光缺乏的未知世界裏尋找到更多的陽光。

我終於認識到，可能這就是為什麽我的父母那麽害怕他們的孩子們失去屬於自己的語言的真正原因。因為，在這樣一個無根的國度裏， 孩子們沒有歸宿。於是， 他們隻能朝著陽光，向外延伸， 延伸， 尋找著自己的方向。直到有一天，他們有能力不再回首眷戀身後的祖輩們。不管這些孩子們如何鄙視，恐懼和怨恨他們的祖輩，那些祖輩們還是會不停地小聲地囑咐他們，教誨孩子一種無形的，不可或缺的智慧。他們的聲音一直存在著，而且還會長久地縈繞在孩子們的耳邊。

在孤山上，我那棵孤樹的地方， 我聽到了祖輩們的那些聲音。我還看見了許多樹叢 - 那些樹叢長在我的身旁，那是一片似黃非黃的， 數也數不清的樹叢的海洋。我吸氣，從一數到七。然後， 我呼氣，從七數到一。一二三四五六七， 七六五四三二一。我的每次呼吸把一種微弱的聲音送入這間黑暗的屋子裏，那聲音從一個小孩子的小嘴裏輕柔地吹出， 吹進這小小世界裏。此時此刻， 我真的不曉得在這個世界上，除了呼吸之外， 我還能再做些別的什麽 - 那些比數五四三二一那些數字更美麗，更美妙的事情。這裏的人們叫我“思華，”意思是“思念中華。”

我九歲了。 那年， 我第一次去了中國-那是一個陌生，無愛的地方，一個記憶和期盼中從未觸及到的國度。那裏， 放眼望去， 到處是黑頭發和黃皮膚的人們。突然之間， 你身邊的每一個人都成了你過去生活中的兄弟，姊妹和朋友。我中有你，你中有我。 我剛想開口，可那張臉就變了模樣，我又看不見了兄弟，姊妹和朋友。我看到的是一個個的陌生人，一個個有著陌生麵孔和陌生習語表達方式的人， 甚至一個個有著更陌生的語言的人們。僅靠注視他們的麵孔，我無論如何也不會了解他們。他們的每一個姿勢，都有著更深一層的涵意，有著我這個九歲的孩子眼中難以理解的涵意。

在湖南， 我見到了我的表哥，李程。 李程哥哥把我抱起來在空中旋轉， 他笑著，猜我有多重 - 他猜我有四十五公斤重， 我們一邊笑著，一邊把數字翻譯成中文和英文 (當我意識到四十五公斤大大超出我的體重時， 我們大家都笑了)。 李德馨妹妹拿出了三隻黃色，毛絨絨的小鴨子給我看，她把每隻小鴨放進盛滿水的水桶裏， 尖聲叫著：“鴨鴨， 快遊，鴨鴨， 快遊！”李程帶我們去了一個布罩著的， 黑暗的，拱廊的通道。母親帶我去了一個廟宇， 在一個無名的，不知是誰的墓前， 我們向一個不知出處的神靈祈禱。母親告訴我那是我的曾外婆的墓。我相信她說的話， 因為當她告訴我這一切時， 她哭了。母親還告訴我她自己的故事，盡管我連故事的一半也沒有聽懂。第二天， 母親帶著我們去了一個野生動物園。和一群搖搖擺擺的人們一起，我們登上了一輛搖搖晃晃的旅遊車。靠近旅遊車的前座旁， 有一個破舊的搖搖晃晃的金屬籠， 籠子裏的那些蘆花母雞們在格格地叫著。在我們乘坐的旅遊車和車外的獅子之間沒有柵欄，有人一把從籠子裏抓起一隻母雞，拎起它的脖子，把它扔到車窗外。瞬間， 母雞不見了， 一團雞毛飛舞在空中。窗外的獅子們看上去很得意，它們的嘴上沾滿了蘆花母雞的羽毛。“他們不能這樣，”哥哥說著， 眼睛瞪得溜圓。黑頭發的頭匯成的黑色的海洋轉向我們。那些黑色海洋裏的目光， 一半帶著恐懼，一半帶著讚賞。 或許， 在哥哥與我談論蘆花雞和獅子那一幕時，哥哥流利的英語使他們感到驚訝。然而， 那些投過來的目光裏，不隻是好奇和驚訝， 還有恐懼。 我和哥哥是真正的獅子 - 我們是中國文化真正的危險所在。因為，我們代表著一族失去了中國語言， 失去了華夏大地悠久曆史中最美麗的一切的人們。我們是坐在旅遊車裏的獅子，吞噬著中文， 嘴上沾滿了支離破碎的漢字。

這是我們在中國的最後一天。 我們泛舟在頤和園的昆明湖上。我閉上了眼睛。 “這是我們在這裏的最後的一天，”我輕聲對自己說。我們的最後一天， 過了今天，我在這個父母稱之為家的國度裏便什麽都沒有了。然而，對我而言，我想這裏曾經會是我的一個家。 我在這個家裏遇到了許多人都可能是我的兄弟和姐妹的人們，假如我曾經在這裏生活過的話。 我們的龍舟穿過了那座古老的十七拱玉帶橋。我慢慢地， 仔細地數著每一個橋拱， 這樣，我會讓自己記住石橋的每一塊石頭，每一個橋拱和每一個瞬間。

龍舟切割著晶瑩的湖麵， 紅色光滑的船體在水中閃閃發光。突然，一種莫名的恐懼向我襲來，我害怕。我害怕這裏的波浪會消失，“莫娜”會在中國消失， 而中國會在我自己的生活裏消逝。為了掙脫這突如其來的， 非理性的恐懼， 我拽下了一縷黑發 - 它包涵著部分的我和我的遺產- 我把它拋進了波光粼粼的湖水裏，一直望著它， 直到它沉入深深的湖底， 在我的視線中消逝。

這是我們的最後的一天， 我輕聲地對自己說。中國， 我會永遠思念你。我希望，中國也會永遠記著我。

落葉紛紛，越落越頻繁。無論是在夢裏， 還是在普林斯頓的校園， 這裏都是秋天。 一個紅黃橙色般無限美妙的秋天， 一個藍色般的無限美妙的秋天。飄落，樹葉不停地飄落，飄落得讓人目不應暇， 數不勝數。樹葉飄落在看不見的風中，落葉斑斕的色彩點綴著藍色的天幕。在我從前的夢裏， 我從未見到過如此幽藍的天空。天空藍得令人陶醉而難以理解， 藍得難以形容。十月的早晨， 天下著雨，坐在廚房的飯桌旁， 我聽爺爺講他自己的故事。 此刻，我意識到，不管我能否聽得懂爺爺講的每個字， 或者每兩個字， 或者所有的字，這些都無關緊要。從他那斷斷續續的沉默中， 我聽到了他那不為人知的生活片段 - 曾經每天吃發黴的饅頭；有個從未見過麵的弟弟 - 從一種未知的語言中，我朦朦朧朧地聽見了他痛苦和成功，以及工作的艱辛。我還聽見了一種未被聽到的聲音的那種絕望：那是 一種沒有人聽到， 也不屑於被人聽到的聲音；一種不可打破的沉默，一種對共同文化和語言的沉默和不了解。爺爺告訴我，他不知道自己的母親是誰 - 突然間， 我意識到，盡管過去的日子裏，父親的奚落和嘲弄曾給我帶來過許多痛苦和屈辱， 但與爺爺的相比，我知道爺爺失去了更深更多的東西。他失去的不僅僅是受過創傷的驕傲，而是更重要的東西。他失去的是他的根和他的全部， 他象是流落在一片無名土地上的一根浮木，失去了屬於自己的所有的希望， 除了那片他精心耕耘的，整齊，幹淨， 充滿綠色的美麗菜園之外 - 那菜園真美，裏麵長滿了黃瓜， 豆角，薄荷 和西紅柿；長長的瓜藤懶洋洋地纏繞著棚架， 美妙地環繞著整個菜園；菜園被小型的綠色尖頭柵欄圍著， 象哨兵，靜靜地望著我家的另類居民-那隻非常美麗，而又很失望的土撥鼠。

象很久以前他拉著我的手那樣，我拉著爺爺的手。 此刻， 我聽著他的故事。我不理解他在說什麽， 可是，我在聽， 我聽到了。從他的聲音裏，我聽到了自己的聲音。 我知道他是我的爺爺， 現在是，直到永遠。

秋天， 普林斯頓的秋天。秋，秋天 - 無論我用何種語言來描述秋天，秋天依舊是秋天。但是，不知為何，我覺得，我生命裏的秋天仿佛已經過去。每當我回想起我童年的樹， 在那一刻，我依舊會數葉子。但是， 我已經不再需要那些樹了。在這裏， 在接納我的這個美妙的桔黃色的氣泡中， 一種升騰的歸屬感 - 以及持續性睡眠不足，每個夜晚 都能成功地把我送入甜蜜的夢鄉。我記得， 在黯淡的火車站旁邊，我握著母親和父親的手，笑著，手舞足蹈，身心蕩漾，身體瘋狂地扭來扭去，變換著不同的姿勢。這是另一類飄落 - 一年前那次飄落 - 我拆開了一封大學錄取信函， 那封信來自我在今後的四年生活中將把它稱之為家的地方。在我的記憶裏，我用一種混合的中-英文，一種自發的，混合了各種生活經曆和思想的語言說： - “是的， 你們是我的根， 我們的枝幹現在終於可以伸到這兒， 這兒，還有這兒。。。。”

即使在今天， 我們的思緒依然沉浸在過去那些日子裏的犧牲，悲傷和屈辱的認知裏。現在一切都成了過去。父母親移民的艱辛終於結出了果實 - 那是一種堅實，純真，實實在在的成果- 他們能夠把這個消息帶給遠在中國的家鄉的親人們。在離開家鄉十八年以後， 我的父母需要重新肯定自己的人生目的；他們需要認證他們的這種奮鬥和犧牲是值得的 - 過去的一切一下子變得值得了， 還有現在的一切。 過去的 一切都結束了。他們可以安心了，因為他們知道， 在這個未知的世界裏，他們的孩子們能夠生存 - 甚至還能夠生活 - 有吃， 有住， 甚至還有一點點歡樂。

但是， 這一切並沒有結束。我的生活仍在繼續， 我從未奢望一切會有一個完美的結局。因為在這裏， 在普林斯頓， 我仍然能夠感受到一種無可名狀的， 現實中的失落 - 或許， 是一種失去了語言的失落， 或許， 是失去了某種更多的什麽的失落。或許，我一開始就忘記了我究竟失去的是什麽。這裏是一個很容易一下子忘記父母，爺爺和奶奶的地方； 他們的聲音， 那熟悉而又親切，微弱而又遙遠的聲音，在閱讀和寫作的重負所籠罩下的無眠之夜，消逝得無影無蹤。

中秋節的夜晚， 我給家裏打了電話。 我幾乎完全忘記了這個節日。中秋節是爺爺奶奶的一個重要的節日。對我而言，這個節日無關緊要。我從來就沒能理解為什麽圓月意味著家園。可是， 當我從電話裏聽到那遊絲般的聲音時，我突然奇異地感到那廣袤的無涯，突然想知道這是否就是天各一方，海角天涯的感覺 - 這是爺爺和他的妹妹的那種感覺；是爺爺和他的親朋好友的那種感覺；這是一種非常痛苦的，生離死別的距離， 一種當親人過世時，在電話裏聽得到， 而在現實中卻不能見到，甚至不能在床榻前觸摸和擁抱一下親人的那種距離感。此刻，我聽到了奶奶那快樂，有力，美麗的聲音。 我記起她說過的話，“數葉子吧， 乖乖。。。”

深夜，我漫無邊際地在富比士學院遊蕩，在那個幾乎被人遺忘的娛樂室的角落裏，我聽到一些不熟悉的聲音們在講著一種熟悉的語言 - “你好。 你好。 再見。 再見” - 這使我感到無比的驚奇， 這裏的人們在講中文，在熱切地希望講中文。 我閉上眼睛，一動不動地坐在那裏， 傾聽著每一個說話人所說的每一個字的音調，這使我想起了我的父母， 我的家， 我的文化遺產。我坐在那裏， 想到了我為什麽在這裏；想到了我是如何到了這裏； 我記起了父母共同的希望和對我的耽心， 他們希望我超越他們，但又害怕我會離他們越來越遠。 我希望，我也害怕， 因為我已經超越了他們。

普林斯頓有個吳氏餐廳。在它的身後， 有一條楓林大道。 十月初的早晨，我漫步於這條楓林大道，望著那一片又一片的金黃-血染般的楓葉，我默默地數著。。。我終於認識到，即便我的那些葉子並不是現實中真正的葉子，那也有過許多奇跡發生：它們 能夠讓我熱愛一種未知語言 - 擁抱一下屬於自己的一種解釋。隻是把一種迥永而美麗的語言當作模板和起點，便創造出了屬於我自己的人生意義。

至今， 我依然默默地數著葉子。

I remember a strong and beautiful voice—my grandma’s voice, I suddenly realize—reaching out through the darkness, telling me to shu ye zi. To count leaves.
 “Count leaves?” I ask.
 “Count them, one by one by one, and eventually you’ll be able to fall asleep.”
 “I already tried sheep,” I whisper doubtfully. “What makes leaves any better?”
 “Sheep? Pah. Try ye zi, and you’ll see. You won’t even be able to get to a hundred.”
 So I listen to that voice—that sweet alto of reassurance and honey and elderliness that always wraps around me and whispers that yes, everything is going to be okay—and I count leaves, one by one by one, as they fall from a slowly materializing tree that exists only in the sleepiness of my mind. Disembodied leaf after disembodied leaf falls to the ground, and I whisper to myself, “One, two, three…ninety-nine, a hundre—”
 I fall asleep, counting my ye zi – ye zi, the symbol of the magical culture that counts leaves instead of sheep, the anchor to my grandmother and her voice and my past; my anchor to reality.

  My Chinese is horrid, but I have to say it—if not now, he would die, and I would be sad, and he would die and I would be sad and he would die-and-I—
  “You’re going to die, you know, ye ye, you’re going to die if you keep smoking and you’ll get very hurt,” I say, unable to express what I really mean in this inflexible, cursed language. But what do I actually want to say? Don’t smoke, because my teacher says you’ll get lung cancer, and lung cancer is a Very Bad Thing. Please don’t smoke. I know that People in China smoke and smoke and smoke, but this is America and People in America do not smoke. Please don’t smoke. Please don’t die.
  “You’re going to die,” I end my speech lamely, haltingly, unable to share my newly-gained knowledge, unable to reach my grandpa, who walks beside me with his impossibly long stride, holding a cigarette in one hand and my hand in the other.
  He looks at me intensely, scrutinizing my tiny face from underneath his bushy and whitening eyebrows. He is aging far too fast, and I am afraid. My grandpa has black hair, but this person beside me does not, and I am afraid.
  “I’ll stop.”
  “What?”
  “I’ll stop smoking, Muo na, now and forever.”
  And he does. For thirty years now, the blackened, Chinese legacy of smoke and cigarettes has overflowed into the lives of his children and his grandchildren – but now, with a few broken words, scientific discoveries, and death-threats by a four-year old, this strange chain of chain-smoking ends with a single promise. My ye ye no longer holds the cigarette; he holds my hand now, and holds to this promise, now and forever.
  But my early triumphs over this intractable language do not last. I know that I am protected, in a way, by the invisible umbrella of childish ignorance that others like my grandpa and father and mother all condescendingly and lovingly hold over my head – I am four, they say, sweet and unfailingly charming in my inability to communicate properly. It is nothing shameful, in these years of accepted ignorance, to be unable to distinguish between liang and er—two (liang) vastly different words used to mean “two” (er), in two vastly different ways – or to be incapable of saying something as advanced as “lung cancer.” But I do not stay under this umbrella forever. How can I? The inexorable passage of Time whisks away my umbrella now, leaving me to face the shame of being an ignorant, slightly-older child.
  I become fair game by the age of seven. Now, when I say that “Bunnies are people, too!” in Chinese, my grandparents laugh and laugh and laugh, before admonishing me and carefully explaining that rabbits cannot possibly be human beings, the way that human beings are. But “people,” I think to myself, has a different, more beautiful meaning – “people,” to me, is a word that captures what it means to live and breathe and be, not just the presence or absence of fur, or the anatomy of some entity called Homo sapiens. But “people,” to my parents and grandparents, takes on an exclusivity that encircles and chokes my vision of the world; “people” can now only mean ren – human being, man, person, adult, grown-up. There is no “people” of my imagination; there is no community of living, loving and feeling beings – there is only ren. I choke back angry tears, but cannot choke back angry words. I have none. In English, too, I have no words. I do not own words; I do not possess them in the way that they deserve to be possessed, known, sung, understood. I cannot pronounce “World War II” without five extra R’s, and I avoid conversations involving war, whirlpools, or wisterias.
  So in the middle of the night, I count my leaves furiously, unceasingly, counting to one-hundred, one-hundred one, five-hundred seventy-two and five… I stare into the darkness of the ceiling above me, listening to the soft snores of my grandfather and my grandmother and wondering if they are people, too. And suddenly, I realize – some time or another, when I wasn’t paying attention, this tree of mine became a lonely tree on a lonely hilltop, shedding leaves like tears into an unseen valley. I can no longer count the leaves; and as they fall, I fall with them.

  When I am older, my extended family stops speaking to me in Chinese. My uncle, uses a slow and careful English drawl to ask me what my major is,and he laughs while translating a joke solely for my benefit; my aunt  holds conversations with me in pure, unstilted English, making me feel the first bitter pangs of jealousy and shame. My relatives are considerate people. I love them, and they love me, but each holds a hidden (or not so hidden) scorn for my muteness, my ignorance, my lack of heritage.
  I have learned to smile instead. In the empty Thanksgiving dinners we hold every year, I smile at the single relative that has found the time to join our family. I smile when I don’t understand; I smile when I do understand; I smile when I’m secretly willing myself to disappear into who-knows-where.
  But then, my father interjects, “Do you even understand why that’s funny?”
  My smile, a generic response to an unknown situation, has been revealed for what it really is – feigned understanding, real ignorance. My father – he is an unintentionally cruel man, sometimes. He steals my last escape with a single, well-spoken and patronizing sentence.
 “No, I don’t,” I say, smiling still.
 “It’s a shame you don’t know more Chinese.”

   It is around this time when I learn, for the first time, that shu ye zi does not mean to count leaves. My grandmother meant for me to count ye zi—numbers. “一二三四五,” one, two, three, four, five – and now, in the sleeplessness of night, a vicious parody of Count Dracula’s portion of Sesame Street plays on repeat in my mind. Mocking blocks of numbers float into the periphery of my vision, and replace any memories I have of my sweetly falling leaves. “Ooneeee,” whispers a high-pitched, friendly voice. “Twooooo,” it adds. “Today’s Sesame Street is brought to you by the number twooooo!”

  Is he a Chinese? Do you speak Chinese? Where you are from? China? Taiwan? Guangzhou? My mother sees an oriental actress on the television and immediately pays attention to the screen; my father sees a vaguely-looking Chinese man on the street and slinks after him, waving him down happily and furiously and, in a sense, desperately.
  Yes, there is a strange sort of desperation in the glances that my mother and father fling at complete strangers, who only happen to share our hair color, skin tone, and perhaps racial heritage. Something is just too fascinating, too alluring about the thought of seeing another one of “us,” living and breathing and surviving in this strange new land. Each familiar-yet-unfamiliar yellow face stares out from a sea of colors, proof that a newly uprooted tree can still survive in foreign soil. And within each face, we see a little bit of ourselves, in a reflection distorted by only minor differences in circumstance.
  I look around me, and see everywhere the wealth of legacy: Fitzrandolph Gate and Faulkner’s South, Strathmore and Stanford, Carnegie Hall and Carnegie-Mellon. But my parents do not have the luxury of legacy; they have neither the history nor connections to truly belong to the United States. There is no Zhang Street, no Zhang Library, no Zhang Center for the Arts. There is no Li, Yang, or Chen Hall; there is no Shan, Xu, or Gao University. No, these names simply do not have a place among these distinguished buildings or places – they have no place here, where history has already been made by those from a time far removed from the interfering interjections of an immigrant. The name Zhang hangs instead on the dusty plaques of doctors’ offices, on lightly burnished nametags of stained lab coats, and on the darkened store-fronts of faux-Chinese restaurants. My parents exist as Dr. Zhang and Dr. Li, pharmacologist and physiatrist, Ph.D. and M.D. – they do not exist as sisters or brothers, neighbors or mayors, entrepreneurs or diplomats.
  My parents do not have the pre-requisite roots for immediate success. They mispronounce “fog” as “frog”; they haggle in Old Navy; they assume that a daughter in Princeton demands immediate respect. They operate on a strange currency of values only applicable in China – they use the yuan and not the dollar, and suffer for it. My father came here with only twenty-four dollars in his tattered lab pockets, but somehow, I can’t help but believe that he came with much less.
  Perhaps this is why they push all their hopes onto the next generation – without roots of their own, they cannot achieve the same level of success possible in a country where they could have once been mayors or entrepreneurs. They can only establish a material basis, setting the foundation for their children to grow in their place and seek the sunlight of a world that seems unintelligibly sunless.
  And, I finally realize, maybe that’s why my mother and father fear the loss of language within their only children. In such an un-rooted world, children have no place to return to, and so they stretch onward and onward into the sunlight, the Icaruses of the Orient, until they can no longer spare a glance for those ancestors behind them, who continue whispering an intangible and indispensable wisdom despite all the disdain and fear and hatred shown towards them. But those voices are there, and will always be there.
  I hear those voices, and in place of my lonely tree on a lonely hilltop, I now see a grove of trees – trees of those who have lived alongside me, in this sea of yellow-not-yellow, of those who have mistaken their one-two-threes for trees.

  I breathe in seven, out seven. One-two-three-four…seven-six-five…one. Every breath sounds faintly into the darkened room, soft exhalations of a small mouth and a small child, in a small room and a small world. Back then, I didn’t know that I could do something other than breathe – that there were more beautiful, more wonderful things to count than numbers. Five, four, three, two…

  People here call me Si Hua, or “remember China.” I am nine years old now, and visiting China—an unknown, unloved country, untouched by any memories or expectation—for the first time. There are black-haired, yellow-skinned people everywhere you look, and suddenly everyone is a brother, a sister, a friend from a past life. I am you and you are me, I want to say, but then each face contorts and I do not see a brother, sister, or friend. I see a stranger, with strange facial and idiomatic expressions and an even stranger language. I cannot understand the people here merely by peering into their faces; there is something deeper in every gesture, something not easily understood by my nine-year-old eyes.
 When I visit my cousins in Hunan, Li Cheng ge ge picks me up and whirls me around, laughing and wondering how much I weigh—he guesses forty-five kilograms, and we laugh as we translate numbers between cultures (that is, we laugh until I realize that forty-five kilograms grossly overestimates my weight)—and Li Dexin mei mei shows me her three, fuzzy yellow ducklings, dunking each into a bucket of water and screeching, “Swim, duckies, swim!” Li Cheng brings us to the dark, cloth-covered doorways of arcades; my mother brings me to a shrine, and we pray to an unknown god in front of an unknown name on an unknown tombstone, who my mother tells me is my great-grandmother. I believe her, though, because she cries when she says this, and then she tells me her story, even though I understand a little less than half of it.
  The next day, my mother brings us to a safari. We ride a rickety bus with rickety people, and a poor, speckled chicken sits clucking in a rickety old metal cage near the front of the bus. There are no fences between our bus and the lions outside, and someone grabs the chicken by the scruff of the neck and throws it out the window. It disappears in a whirl of feathers, and the lions outside look satisfied, feathers adorning their jaws.
  “They can’t do that,” my brother says, wide-eyed.
  A sea of black-haired heads turn towards us, perhaps wondering at the fluent English pouring forth from my brother’s mouth as he chatters, half in horror and half in admiration, of the chicken incident. But some of these glances are not inquisitive or wondering; some are fearful. We are the real lions, my brother and I – we are the real danger to the Chinese people, because we represent the loss of language and the loss of all that is beautiful in the history of this ancient land. We are the lions who sit inside the bus, devouring language and leaving feathers of broken Chinese around our jaws.

  It is our last day here, and we are peddling across the lake in Yi He Yuan. I close my eyes. It is our last day, I whisper to myself. Our last day, and then nothing will be left of me in this country that my mother and father call home. It has been a home, I think, even to me, and I have met the many brothers and sisters that could-have-been if I had lived here.
  We pass through seventeen arches of ancient white stone, and I count each one, slowly, carefully, so that I might remember each stone and each arch and each moment. Our dragon boat, red and sleek and glistening in the water, cuts through the crystallized surface of the lake, leaving dying ripples in its wake. Suddenly, I am very afraid. There will be no more ripples now, no more Muo na in China now; and there will be no more China in my own life. Gripped by this sudden and irrational fear, I pull at a strand of my black hair—the hair that contains a bit of me and my heritage both—and drop it into the shimmering lake. I watch until it recedes into the unseen depths.
  It is our last day, I whisper to myself, but I will remember China, and China, I hope, will remember me.
  

  The leaves are falling now, faster and faster. It is autumn here both in Princeton and in my sleep, and it is a wondrous autumn of reds and yellows and oranges and, most wondrously of all, of blues. The leaves fall and fall and fall and I can barely count them all as they skim across invisible currents in the air, a flurry of colors against a blue backdrop. I have never seen this blue in my dreams before, but it is a sweetness that I can hardly understand, and can hardly even begin to describe.
  I am sitting down at a kitchen table with my grandparents on a rainy October morning, listening to my grandfather’s story. I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t matter whether I understand every word, or every other word, or even no words at all. Through the fragmented silence, I hear the unspoken moments of his life—of eating moldy mantou every month, of his little brother whom I have never met, of his days as a political commissar—and I can hear the pain and the triumph and the bitterness of hard work through the haze of an unknown language. I also hear the desperation of an unheard voice: a voice that no one hears or cares to hear; a voice suppressed by an unbreakable silence of mutual cultural and linguistic ignorance.
  He tells me now, of his father and mother that he never knew – and suddenly, despite all the pain and humiliation of suffering years of ridicule from my own father, I know that my grandfather lost something deeper, something more significant than just wounded pride. He lost his roots and his entirety; he is a piece of driftwood in an unknown land, with no hopes for himself except for the little vegetable garden that he keeps meticulously neat and clean and green and beautiful—so very beautiful, with its cucumbers and mint and tomatoes; with its trailing vines wrapped lazily and wonderfully around home-made trellises; with its miniature green-picketed fence standing silent sentinel to our resident possum—so very beautiful, and so very sad.
  I hold his hand, as he did long ago for me. I listen, now, to his story, not understanding, but listening, and hearing. I hear my own voice within his, and know that he is my ye ye, now and forever.
  
  It is fall, here in Princeton. Fall, autumn, qiu tian—autumn is autumn is autumn is autumn, no matter what language I use to describe it—but somehow it seems as if the autumn of my life has already passed. I still count leaves sometimes, when I recall, suddenly, the trees of my childhood. But I no longer need those trees. Here, in this marvelously accepting orange bubble, a heightened sense of belonging—that, and the perpetual lack of sleep—sends me into a blissful hibernation every night, without fail.
  I remember standing on the edge of a darkened metro station, holding a hand from my mother, my father, laughing and gesturing wildly and sporadically with hands and arms and legs and feet and mind and body. This is a different fall—a fall of one year ago—as I open an acceptance letter from the place I would call home for the next four years of my life. I am speaking, in this memory, in a frenzied Chinglish, a language of spontaneity and life and effusion of ideas – “Yes, ni men liang ge shi wo de roots, and xian zai wo men ke yi finally put out our branches here, and here, and here—”
  Even now, we are still reeling from the realization of all these years of sacrifice and sorrow and shame. It is finally over. My parents’ hardships as immigrants have finally yielded results—solid, pure, tangible results—that they can bring home to their friends and family in China. After abandoning their home for eighteen years, my mother and father needed reassurance of their purpose; they needed proof that the struggle was worth the sacrifice – and suddenly, it was. It is. It is over, now, and they can rest knowing that their children can survive—and maybe even live—in this unknown world, with food, shelter, and even a little bit of happiness.
  But it isn’t over. It doesn’t stop with happily-ever-after, and I don’t suspect it ever will. Here, in Princeton, there is a certain, vague sense of loss that I cannot name – perhaps it is a loss of language, or perhaps it is a loss of something more. Perhaps I’ve forgotten what exactly I’ve lost in the first place. It is far too easy to forget parents and grandparents here; their voices, faint and distant and lovely in their familiarity, have disappeared under the weight of sleepless nights spent reading and writing papers.
  I call home during the Moon Festival, barely remembering that this is an important holiday to my grandparents and parents, even though it means very little to me. I have never understood why exactly the roundness of the moon means home, but when I hear disembodied voices on the phone, I suddenly feel oddly far away and wonder if this is what it feels like to be oceans apart—this is what my grandmother and her sister felt; this is what my grandfather and his closest friend felt; this is the distance that was so very painful when loved ones died over the phone and not in reality, not in a bed where you could at least touch and embrace them. I hear my grandmother’s voice, happy and strong and beautiful, and I remember her words, “Shu ye zi ba, guai guai...”
  Wandering around here in Forbes College, I can hear unfamiliar voices speaking familiar words in the nearly deserted lounge—“Ni hao. Ni hao. Zai jian. Zai jian”—it surprises me, to no end, how many people speak—and ardently wish to speak—Chinese. Sometimes, I sit very still and close my eyes, and listen to the intonations of every word that remind me of my parents and my home and my heritage. I sit, and I remember why I am here; I remember how I have gotten here; I remember my parents’ simultaneous hopes and fears that I would leave them far behind. I hope, and fear, that I have already.
 There is a Wu Dining Hall here. Behind that, there is an avenue of trees. On early October mornings, I walk through the row, watching and counting golden-red leaf after leaf after leaf… and I’ve finally realized that even if my ye zi, my leaves, weren’t actually leaves, there were wonders in being able to love a language I didn’t even understand – in embracing an interpretation of my own, and creating my own meaning using an old and beautiful language as only the template, and only the beginning.
  Even now, I still count leaves to myself.