Can You See Me?

By Catherine Wang

Last winter, I notice a poster on the subway that reads THE CHINESE LADY. I am immediately curious. I am, after all, a Chinese Lady myself. But who is the Chinese Lady? I look again at the poster featuring a silhouette woman on a red background. It advertises a play called The Chinese Lady, written by Lloyd Suh.

Two weeks later, I walk into a Boston theater for a mid-week performance. I look around as I take my seat, wondering how many other Chinese Ladies are in the audience. I am not surprised to count only two.

The curtain opens. I see a Chinese Lady sitting onstage, wearing purple hanfu – a stiff-looking embroidered jacket with wide sleeves and matching floor-length skirt. Her hair, pulled into a tight bun, is adorned with a spiky hairpiece resembling tree branches sprouting from her head. She sits in a chair, in a box, decorated with Oriental paintings, silks, and vases. Not dissimilar to my own family’s living room. The Chinese Lady addresses the audience from the stage. 

Hello. My name is Afong Moy. It is the year 1834.  I am fourteen years old, and newly arrived in America. 

Afong’s voice is earnest and full of hope.

According to the playbill, Afong Moy was the first female immigrant from China – the first Chinese Lady in America. She was sold by her father to American merchants for a period of two years, and was put on display in museums, marketed as “The Chinese Lady” for American audiences. 

I shall assume that you have paid your twenty-five cents– ten cents for children– because you are curious about China. Curious about what a Chinese Lady might look like. I understand it is my duty to show you things that are exotic, and foreign, and unusual.

I watch Afong Moy walk around the stage, on her broken and bound feet. I watch her pour and drink tea, in a ritualistic way to demonstrate its importance in my culture. I watch her eat rice and vegetables with chopsticks. 

I know how it feels to sit in a box, to be observed, to feel like my actions represent an entire people’s. In my private Los Angeles middle school, I was the only non-white girl in my grade. I answered my classmates’ harmless, good-natured questions. Do you know karate? (No.) Does your family eat dog? (No.) Can I hear you speak Chinese? (Okay.) Can I touch your hair? (Oh, sure.) Like Afong, I initially played this role with delight.  

*

The next scene begins like the first. 

Hello. My name is Afong Moy. I came to America in 1834, when I was fourteen years old. It is the year 1836, and I am sixteen years old. The agreement was that I would spend two years here. Those two years have now expired, yet here I am.

At some point in middle school, I grew tired of playing the part I thought only I could play. I quit piano lessons. I stopped going to Chinese School. I dyed my hair lighter, ate Lunchables, watched every Tom Hanks movie. In eighth grade, my school chose Grease for its spring musical. I auditioned for Sandy, the blond-haired beauty, and the lead role. I wanted to change what others – my classmates, teachers, even my own family – thought that a Chinese Lady could do. Instead, I was cast as Susie. (If you can’t remember Susie, it’s because she’s not a real character). I had no lines. I wondered if I was being punished for trying to escape my appointed role. 

I am the first Chinese woman you have ever seen. I am the first Chinese from nobility, the first educated Chinese, the first with bound feet, the first the first the first. 

And so, you see, this gives me a great responsibility. 

I am delighted to share with you the news that starting next week, we will begin a forty-week tour of the Eastern United States, in some fifteen different cities, where I will be on display for people all across this great land. 

Like Afong, my mother was a First. The first in her family to go to America. Her mother – my grandmother – was the first woman in her family to go to high school. At age 13, she walked for three days to reach a wealthy uncle’s home and beg him to pay for her school fees. 

I am a First, too – my parents’ first child, their first chance to prove their success as immigrants. I felt great responsibility to represent our family and our culture well. In high school, I returned to following my script closely, working hard to get into an Ivy League college. I went to a science camp the summer before my senior year. We solved Rubik’s cubes at breakfast, took college-level physics courses during the day, and used a telescope to monitor the skies for asteroids every night. This role– “Industrious woman in STEM”– felt natural, and I loved every second of it. Why had I been fighting it?

*

It is the year 1837, and I am seventeen years old. 

Afong recounts the highlights of her American tour. She saw the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, met “Emperor” Andrew Jackson in D.C., visited the Cincinnati Zoo.

While describing her visit to the Zoo, Afong comes to terms with the reality of her life.  

If I am in a cage, what sort of animal am I? 

It’s easier not to know. Or to try to forget. I forget that I’m seen as a Chinese Lady, until I get called the name of another Chinese Lady at work, reminding me that Chinese Ladies are collectivized, seen as interchangeable. Or when cat-callers yell Ni Hao out their car windows, or when classmates tell me that I’m “cool for an Asian,” or when a salesclerk asks me “what breed I am.” 

Even though I was born in America, hold a blue passport, and speak with a Valley Girl accent, I will always be seen as a Chinese Lady.

*

It is the year 1849, and I am twenty-nine years old.

My age. 

I am back in New York. Peale’s Museum has been sold to our new employer, Mr. P.T. Barnum.

The audience groans in recognition.  

Food is too expensive, and Mr. Barnum insists I manage my weight. So I just demonstrate the use of chopsticks by grasping at the air. 

Yes. 

Which brings me to one other thing I should mention before we jump ahead in time a little bit once more. I’ve decided to retire from the entertainment business.

In college, I wrote scripts and studied film, but majored in Economics, succumbing to parental pressure and self-doubt. After I graduated, I took a bold leap. I worked as an assistant at a Hollywood talent agency (its founder inspired Entourage’s super-agent Ari Gold). I watched TV for work. I ran into celebrities in our office bathroom. I was living my dream. 

But I retired from the entertainment business after only seven months. There was one other Chinese lady in my 100-person department, and I noticed our creative input was often ignored. I felt pigeonholed – valued more for my perceived work ethic, rather than my creative potential. But I reminded myself that my input might be disregarded because it simply was not as valuable, unrelated to my identity. Regardless, the wondering became tiring. 

I ran in the opposite direction. I found work as a business consultant, trading scripts and coffee runs for slides and spreadsheets. There were a lot of Chinese Ladies at my new company. My manager praised my Problem-Solving Skills and Conceptual Analysis. Maybe this was where I’m meant to be.

*

It is the year 1864, and I am forty-four years old. 

Audience members murmur Oh No Oh No.

Perhaps you are surprised to see me still here. 

I am not. I think of my mom, the most important Chinese Lady in my life. 154 years after Afong’s journey to the U.S., my mom boarded a flight from Beijing to Los Angeles. She came with my dad, a man she had known for less than a year. She was 23. She never imagined she would still be in the U.S. in 2023, 35 years later. 

I will take my leave of P.T. Barnum

I will take my leave of the Room

I will ride the Transcontinental Railroad to San Francisco, California

and from there

maybe further

maybe China

maybe the edge of the world, 

but I’ll decide.

*

I spent the last two years as a graduate student at Harvard – every Chinese Lady’s parents’ dream. I went to Harvard to study public policy, but instead, I rediscovered my love of storytelling, enrolling in creative writing classes every semester. I found confidence and conviction, and I feel ready to redefine my role. I wanted to be a writer.

*

It is the year 1882, and I am sixty-two years old. 

Like many Chinese Americans, I immediately associate that year with the US’ Chinese Exclusion Act. Afong recounts the anti-Asian atrocities since her arrival in the US: In 1871, 52 Chinese Americans living in Los Angeles’ Chinatown were tortured and lynched, in 1885, a Chinese American community in Wyoming was burned to the ground, in 1887, 34 Chinese American miners in Oregon were tortured, their bodies dumped in a river. 

Somehow, Afong feels responsible for these events. 

The Room was built with a hope that it might serve as a platform for understanding, for learning, for sharing. But just as the Room did not fulfill its purpose, I offer to you, my friends, my deepest and most sincere apology. For I too did not fulfill mine.

Perhaps if I had done things differently. Perhaps if I had been more worthy of the task. If I had shown you more of myself,

I am so, so sorry. 

I want to reach out to Afong, tell her that it’s not her responsibility to change how they see us. But don’t I feel the same, almost two centuries later? Maybe that’s why I write. To show you more of myself, and my people. To show you that we are not robots, animals, aliens, or viruses. To show you our humanity.

It is a beautiful thing to look at something long enough to really understand it. But it is so much more beautiful to be looked at long enough to be understood. 

So let’s do that. Let’s look at each other.

I’m looking at you. Are you looking at me? 

The stage lights fade.

Can you see me?

Tears stream down my face. Can I see me?

*

Here is the full story: I have returned to my business job. I tell myself that coming back will give me financial freedom to write in the future. I have promised myself to write whenever I can – during my commutes, on the weekend. 

It will be a year– two years, max. Then I’ll apply for an MFA program with the stories I’ve written while working my day job. I assure you – it’s a means to an end. 

Lately Afong feels close– everywhere. I can see her shaking her head and turning away, like my mom used to do when I failed to meet her expectations. If I listen closely, I can hear Afong mutter that she didn’t spend her life sitting in a box, so that I could crawl back into mine.

*

All italicized text quoted from Lloyd Suh’s “The Chinese Lady” (Dramatist’s Play Service, 2018).

Catherine Wang is a Chinese-American writer based in Bangkok.