A Hollywood Romance Made in China
How I met my husband (regardless of what he may tell you)
I’m holding a snapshot my mother took of me at the Ming tombs on the day my husband claims we met. Having just visited the excavated Dingling burial chamber — a dank underground mausoleum that the Red Guard trashed and emptied during the Cultural Revolution — I was making my way up the ramp to the wing-roofed Soul Tower when Mom told me to turn around.
She caught me in full tourist kit, hands full of camera equipment, LeSportsac slung over my shoulder, my dark hair yanked into a long ponytail. I’m wearing my personal uniform of that era: a collarless white vintage grandfather shirt tied at the waist with a bright colored Indian sash that Mom gave me. I’m by myself except for a couple of Chinese passersby. I look sober, annoyed by my mother’s insistence on framing me in her shot, but also alert and expectant, as if some part of me knew that my life had already begun to pivot on that warm gray day.
Although finding a husband was not one of my official goals as I toured China, the prospect made sense to me. Even as a child, I knew I’d have to travel far and wide to meet my man. My reasoning was basic fairy tale logic: if I was destined for one true love out of all the millions of men in the world, what were the chances I’d find him next door?
