Homecoming

View of Wasatch Mountains

Salt Lake City forms a valley contained on its east and southwest borders by the majestic Wasatch Mountains and on its northeast by the Great Salt Lake, a briny remnant of the Bonneville ocean which covered contemporary Utah, Idaho and Nevada 4,500 years ago. In the foundation story of the Mormon church, the bearded polygamist Brigham Young on July 24, 1847 peered down from 7,800 feet at the dry, cracked, mostly uninhabited, if you discounted the 20,000 predominantly Ute and Shoshone Native Americans he would directly or indirectly exterminate, Salt Lake Valley and said, “This is the place”. Young’s 16,000 followers having suffered a 1,375 mile westward journey, the murder of their church founder in Carthage, Illinois and religious persecution pretty much wherever they went were in no position to protest. Yet reality appeared before them. The Valley was not an obvious place to call home. It had been the passageway for many before who had intentionally chosen not to settle there. The Valley had a serious over-growth Creeping Jenny and Ragweed, which would have to be cleared. The large body of water that glistened and impressed from distance was too salty for irrigation or drink. Brigham Young himself carried title but was not a well-known entity. He was the designated church prophet, but his assumption of position due to his predecessors murder and his uniquely human form in light of impending hardship elicited collective doubt. As the caravan of Mormons descended down a seriously rocky path in what is now Millcreek Canyon, an omniscient narrative would have captured the panoply of expressions facing a group whose forthcoming days and years were uncertain. “Why here again?” “Faith. Faith.” “He is the prophet”. ”My feet are killing me.” “What the hell.” 

I have not been back to Salt Lake for almost two years. Each visit presents a personal paradox. I was born and raised in Salt Lake City where my parents still reside, but was taught from an early age to leave, “How about Berkeley?” my dad used to say. “What’s that?” I’d say. I am a Taiwanese-American who has lived and traveled the world, so don’t think twice about coming home to a sea of white faces at Salt Lake’s International in name only airport. But as a child, I faced periodic discrimination, the feeling, which still repels and muddies. I recall my first experience with racism. It was the near end of the Vietnam war. I was a Kindergartener walking from school. A blue Land Rover filled with white teens screeched to a halt. I was called a gook, chink, and faggot, then pelted with water balloons, then told to go back home, where I was actually heading. My class worksheet on shapes with three golden stars fell onto the ground soggy and ripped. I did not pick it up. As the group drove away laughing, one of the girls chanted, “Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these,” then lifted her shirt revealing a startlingly flat chest.

Later as a teen not knowing Mandarin, ironically because my parents thought speaking it would make it harder for us children to fit in, when subject to social interactions that separated me, I had insufficient cultural support to mitigate the effects. When my friends and I watched movies, I too associated myself with the protagonists on the screen, particularly the one that gets the girl. Later at night, the door shut, I would practice kissing that girl against the bathroom mirror. My touch was soft. My fingertips resting gently at her waist, this being our first time, I did not use tongue. But when I opened my eyes, I saw a face that was not the blond-haired, blue-eyes boy that I practiced to be. I was sad and confused and to the extent one can be this on a fictitious date, heart-broken.

Typical East High School dance, 1986

During prom, my friends would speak with excitement about the (white) girls they wanted to ask out but leave me out of the conversation. Though I would respond by dating those same white women excessively and exclusively into my twenties, a preoccupation with race killed each relationship. If the woman didn’t like me, I thought, was it because of my looks or what was on the inside? If the woman actually liked me was it because she was able to see beyond race? How exactly did she do that and did I want her to do that? Being a minority in America in essence makes you twitchy. It’s hard to know what is what; what is on you versus someone else; what is internal and what is external. When I learned to speak Mandarin, in contrast, entire worlds opened up to me. For the first time I felt what it is like to possess power related solely to the luck of being born into a group. I too could be the majority. I too could be a desirable figure. I too could act politically in company yet out of the mainstream. Speaking Mandarin even exposed me to other Asian Americans, who didn’t speak Mandarin, but who understood the fine line of wanting to be different and not different at the same time and being able to walk it. The point was it was our choice. I can say this realization of self in the context of language, culture and community has been my life’s most profound privilege and pleasure. One morning you wake up and 1.5 billion people suddenly and naturally have your back. No group of white kids dare pelt you in this construct. In contrast, as a non-Mandarin speaking Taiwanese-American growing up in Utah during the 70’s and 80’s, I was like a frog living with chickens, which is made fun of for understandable chicken deficits. Worse, not only couldn’t I jump or swim, there weren’t other frogs.  What then was my recourse? The same fate as the chickens I dare say: The butcher.

*  *  *

This three and a half day trip to Salt Lake is organized around adult agenda items: My Dad wants me to move items from the garage to the store room. I am accompanying my mom for eye surgery. It is my 30-year high school reunion.

I stopped asking my Dad years ago the logic of moving items that no two people on earth want from one side of the house to the other.  My Dad is eighty and a frugal man, who still reminds me of the time I threw away twenty dollars when I was seven years old along with a prodigious number of gum wrappers crumpled in the same pocket. This combination of age and compulsive memory gave my father extreme advantages in as a scientist but leaves him hard of learning in many social settings. Policemen who stop my father for driving 30 mph in a 25 mph zone beware. At least know your standard deviations. 

One set of backbreaking items to be translocated consists of multiple lasers.  My Dad was a physical chemist for forty years. I believe he subconsciously believes that these large steel cased objects contain brain remnants because he cannot fathom parting with cutting edge (in 1990) laboratory equipment without compensation. While my dad and I scrape these items with red veined facies and bulging eyes to their new destinations, my Dad somehow utters the single word, “Ebay.” Then there is the ski equipment that we children wore when we were in elementary school, 1/3 unpaired, half home to black widow spiders, “Don’t get bitten! We still have more to move!!” My personal favorite items juxtaposing mortality with futility are stacks of Newsweek and Journal of Physical Chemistry magazines which one would have you believe may become collectors items. It’s his house. Lift with your legs. Fu*k. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change… Random words and phrases flit through my head simultaneously zapping and bestowing strength.

Mom, (Drew), and Dad

My mother has macular degeneration in both eyes. Watching my Mom slowly lose her vision is really scary. Eyes may be the principle way we humans first learn, but they become even more important with advancing age as the body risks falls due to divots and step-offs from walkways and the elderly become progressively isolated due to a larger defect in American culture. Practically speaking, in America’s West at least, one needs eyes to drive across large distances to obtain food, toilet paper and company. My mom swears she was never taught about the blind spot as she leans forward into her car mirrors instead of looking over her shoulder when changing lanes. With macular degeneration her field of vision is compromised further by absence of the center portion of her retinas. The road she sees is like that seen in a semi-thick fog: The quickly advancing path is illuminated by a dull beam of light in sharp exclusion of the periphery. No change in accommodation or drivers’ re-education can change this.

Over the last year, my mom’s right eye has deteriorated further due to an additional condition called a macular pucker or epiretinal membrane (syndrome). Call me mama’s boy. Call me physician. My mom won’t even consider the procedure without me. Yet, she needs the surgery. Our pre-op interaction went something like this:

“I read that pineapple and yoga helps people see better,” my mom said.

“Pineapple and yoga are great but they have little to do with your eyes,” I said, “unless you’ve become a sailor.  Your doctor tells me that there is a film stuck to your retina, which makes your vision blurry. It just needs to be peeled off.”

“Just needs to be peeled off? I don’t like surgery. I am old. I drive fine. Did I tell you that that driving is freedom?”

“Uh…let’s just say that I’m glad that you drive a big car and have liability insurance. Mom you only have two eyes.”

“Exactly. Besides, I don’t want to trouble you. You are busy. You need to sleep more. You are too skinny. 你太瘦瘦-- Ni(3) tai(4) shou(4) shou(4). ”

“I was thinking about coming for my 30th year high school reunion anyway. I didn’t think I would go, but decided what the hay.”

“You mean you were planning to come here anyway? I wouldn’t want you to spend extra money on account of me. Will Christine be there?”

“That’s exactly why I would spend extra money, but sure, yes, I will arrange your surgery around the reunion.” 

Class reunions are fun. At my last reunion, half were dead so it’s a good change to connect with friends while they’re still alive.”

* * *

East High School occupies a storied place in the history of Salt Lake City. It’s famous alumni include the great American writer of historical fiction, Wallace Stegner (read Angle of Repose); (dis) graced foul-mouthed Trump aficionado Actor Roseanne Bar; and brave child advocate Elizabeth Smart, whose abduction from her bedroom window not blocks from my family home led to a great debate on child safety, religious zealots, race (there are more missing non-blond children) and our nation’s vile fascination with the rape of young girls.

As important, East High until 1989 received the city’s most established families. The school’s northern boundaries originally drew from the Avenues overlooking the city, whose residents included famous basketball star Karl ‘Mailman’ Malone, Mayor Ted Wilson (which meant after snow storms our streets were the first to be cleaned), and the former Mormon prophet Gordon B. Hinkley, who was famous for allowing blacks into the Mormon priesthood and his ability to talk directly with God. East High’s southeastern boundary still draws students from Yale crest—144 square blocks between 800 and 1300 south and 1900 and 1300 East. This area is comprised of some Salt Lake City’s oldest homes with canopies of giant venerable maple trees and winding residential streets.

If pedigree doesn’t impress, East High School was the shoot site for the popular 2006 movie High School Musical featuring teeny bop stars Zack Effron and Vanessa Hudgens. High School Musical became Disney Channels most successful film ever produced and its soundtrack was the number one album sold that year. And the future trajectory of Zack Effron?  Drop that Mic right now!

East High School’s Class of 1988 30th reunion is held at Cottonwood Country Club, an elegant but not overly done angular wooden structure that stands like a modern green lodge. On one side there is a pretty man-made pond. On it’s others are well maintained tennis courts and the edge of an 18-hole golf course.

Walking into the club I wonder whom I will meet; if I will remember names; how real or not real will be the interactions. The night previous, I stayed up until 3 a.m. studying my 1988 Class Yearbook—my pentultimate secondary school test. I had successfully memorized ¾ of my classmates’ names when it occurred to me that my methodology was flawed. Cross-checking the paper pictures against electronic Facebook posts, I saw that most of us looked little like our previous selves: Substantial weight gain, hair loss and aged-skin had done a spy-caliber job of distortion. It was as if I had been studying children’s faces in order to identify parents. My ability to name faces on Facebook dropped to a measly 25%. With this realization, I collapsed into the student club and extracurricular activities section. I woke up forty minutes later not unlike in High School Biology class again with Mr. Kendall, confused, with a start, and in a pool of drool.

I am dressed in a new modern tailor made sports jacket (Thailand) with textured white dress-shirt (Thailand) and form fitting jeans. My three decade 40-pound weight gain has actually made me look better than the 6 foot 135 pound waif I used to be. There now exists a 21st century innovation called hair-gel. I have no abdominal pouch. I rub my belly like contemporary Buddha and think at least I have this.

The first person see is one of the reunion organizers with whom I used to play on the Freshman basketball team. But he is now a man with a mane of gray. He possesses the the same flared nostrils that I cannot help but look into. He gives me a name-tag (phew!) and a man-hug. I man-hug back.

The second person I see is a childhood neighbor who has the same mannerisms, goofiness and innocence as he did when we were nine. I learned from this individual that if you work hard at something everyday, there is no choice but to become skilled-- Maybe not Michael Jordan skilled. But really good. When we first met, MK was the the most uncoordinated individual I knew. He walked with the exaggeration and instability of a six string puppet. On the basketball court, opposing players would delight in pushing MK to his right hand when he got the ball, causing MK to switch to his “strong” side where they would be waiting to pounce. On defense, one could run pretty much run through MK. Even my 135-pound figure occasionally enjoyed the feeling of force against stick-like flesh. But being neighbors, everyday for 10 years, I watched and heard MK practice shooting and dribbling the basketball 2-3 hours a session. By the time Senior year rolled around, to the chagrin of those who could not forget how MK was, MK more than held his own. MK’s family incidentally had a cabin at a Salt Lake ski resort so was an excellent downhill and mogul skier. Not many people knew that.

The third person I see I don’t remember at all. To boot, because of height differential, I can’t see her name tag without appearing like I am ogling at her breasts. I focus on exclusive eye contact. From the woman’s expression and refusal to use my name, it turns out that she doesn’t remember me either. This surprises me as I was only on of four Asians among four hundred students in out class (Is that the point?). I thought I was a pretty visible East High Student. I was Senate President, starting guard on the basketball team, President of the National Honor Society, and member of the elite if you are a geek 14-member Madrigal singing squad. So much for egotism.

The fourth person I see reminds me much of why I left Utah. 

“Wilson, is that you?  You look great. Can you believe it’s been thirty years?”

“Man, GC you look the same too. Yep, time flies. I hope we’re not dying or something.”

“Ha!  Say that again. What’s up with you? Where you living now?”

I explain to GC how I live in New York City: Harlem, 114th and St. Nicholas to be exact. How I have a 2 ½ year old daughter, Drew. How I have spent a good part of my work life living abroad. He tells me about his divorce but how he and his Ex are cool. I ask how that works. He tells me that it’s the kids that helps them work things out. He still hangs out with WD, skiing at Alta and in the summers going down to Moab to bike.

The conversation is smooth. It’s chit-chat but not insincere. The details come quickly because of trust and history, much of which you inherit, much of which you control. 

“Hey Wilson, can I ask you a question? I feel comfortable asking but I want to make sure because I really respect you.”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Well, I just want to say that I remember when you first came to Salt Lake, you didn’t speak a word of English. And now you speak without even a hint of an accent. It’s really awesome. You are so successful. How did you do it?”

 “I was born and raised here, GC.”

 “But…I thought you immigrated from Vietnam.”

“Nope. I am Taiwanese-American. As Utahn as honey and Seagulls.”

“But I thought you came on a boat.”

“I’ve been on a boat. You must be mistaking me.”

“No, I can’t be mistaking you. I was sure.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you.”

An hour into the reunion, the party is in full swing. The approximately one hundred and fifty participants have moved into the main room overlooking the pond. The sun is setting, effusing a warm forgiving light on the crowd. I have had two glasses of rosé, which has filed down residual edges. Originally, I had wondered what people might think if I drank from the cash bar. I never drank as a teen in Utah. But, turns out intemperance is easy. In fact, I am now treating many around me to wine and beer-- the relative positive about living in New York: Being generous in Utah is cheap! There’s a photo corner with props on sticks to hold over yourself and others: A hat, a pair of glasses, the words “LOL!”, big red lips. I take a few pictures until the backdrop is pulled down. A scrumptious buffet of lasagna, grilled potatoes, leafy salad and cut french bread lie mostly untouched amidst all the conversation, selfies, laughing and reminiscing. I meet BA, PS, PM, SS, LA, SC, WJ, CJ, TJ, GJ. Their personalities even after all these years are enjoyable and familiar. WL still loves horses but now with children on them. SS is a sweetie who is so pumped up, he looks like he could kill you. BA is a die hard advocate for everything that demands help or cries. MI is formal and smooth but now in Armani suit.

Who am I? I am forty-eight from the class of 1988. I ask myself this question during a temporary lull in festivities. I mean how often are these moments? Should one not confidently self-critique each day? I look at the tens of intimate faces and familiar postures around me. In a few hours these new old friends will be gone. My glass naturally perches at chest level as if in spontaneous toast to the rare scene. I resolve not to reach conclusions on this night. Better be more ocean sponge than land mammal: Contorting not distorting. Inspiring and expiring. Relaxing and contracting. Filtering and holding. There will be punctuated evolution. This I know— a Poriferas’s outgrowth of antenna; a bud of arm; a bulge of leg. It won’t be full development but really it’s never been this way.