He has been on the boat for nearly six months now. The journey from the country he had called home for eight years has been hard and difficult, not only because of the sea and the utter boredom of the ride, but also because he missed that country. Now he could see in the offing a hint of Hong Kong harbor, that chaotic colony ceded not too long ago. It would be such a strange welcome, the chaos, the stink, the danger, different in every way from where he had left off before getting on the ship. New England was a place of tranquility, had an atmosphere of civility, a place for the learned, and represented a country of boundless and bottomless ideas and innovation. Yung, being the first Chinese to have graduated from an American college, felt a bit of the remaining pride in taking that place in history, but now that degree, tucked nicely in his suitcase, means nothing much for his future, at least not to his knowledge.
On the boat he had met a few Chinese merchants. They told him stories about what had been happening in China the past eight years, more chaos, more humiliation by the foreigners, more corruption. In fact, a war was brewing, raised by a Christian rebel. He thought about his Christian education, and the experience with Christians in New England, of which there were many (actually all of them were professed Christians). He thought it was strange that Christians were waging war in the backyard of his family. But even more shocking was how little he knew Chinese. He could have a conversation with these people, but every time they tried to show him something written, he couldn't understand most words. They were amused, shocked, or disappointed. Being the first Chinese to graduate from the US, and from Yale, no less, suddenly was a minus point when he couldn't even read the language of his native tongue. He was always embarrassed in front of these merchants, though in private he was very angry.
Now he saw the distant gray city of a colony in the horizon and he wondered what the future held for him. All this love and discipline he had learned from Christianity, a religion he never really accepted, meant nothing to him now. Neither would be Confucianism, which he had even less education about. He had left home to go to a missionary school at the age of seven, and ever since then there was little contact with Chinese culture. No wonder he couldn't read Chinese, but it didn't matter what he understood; his native culture, which was about to re-embrace him, had a lot of complaints to make.
His feelings had been written down in his memoir that he started the second week he had been in sea. It was a way for him to live a bit longer a past that was drifting away like the thick smoke that was bellowing from the humongous chimney above. He recalled his departure from China, then his arrival in Mondon, Massachusetts, the high school years, and the fondest of all, his years at Yale. His first classes, his first sports activities, his first induction into his fraternity, and it was all the "first" for China. But for a while he had forgotten how Chinese he was, at least in his memory. He looked different from others at first, but by the time he had entered Yale he had cut off his queue and suddenly became a modernized man.
Some nights he cried as he wrote the stories, his feelings, when memories leaped into his head and yanked open the floodgate of feelings. He had to restrain himself lest his roommates get woken up. He would leave the room and go out to breathe the chilly sea air. In the total darkness of the world around him he would let his tears flow freely but not utter a single sound. Now that he saw more and more clearly the island, first the Victoria Peak where the wealthy live away from the poverty that engulfed them, then the junk ships that stray from the island seeking something positive momentarily in the abyss of the world, and he knew that soon he would feel the slowing down of the ship, and see the harbor he had been dreading for some time now. He was still wearing his New England outfits, rather warm for the climate here but not uncomfortable. He was a modern man, a modern Chinese man who had grown up in a Western world longer than he had been in China.
He walked back into his quarters, where his roommates had already left with their luggage, probably already standing out near the exit. He gathered the remainder of his belongings still outside the suitcase and stuffed them in. The realization that his Yale diploma was in that suitcase brought a slight pang to his heart. And yet, somehow, he clenched his teeth and said a short Christian prayer. He didn't know what Chinese people would say in such circumstances, and though he didn't believe in Jesus, he asked that he bring him comfort as he embarked on a new journey in an old world that was completely new to him.
He sat down and waited until the thunderous horn was blown as the ship pulled into the stinky harbor.
