Stargazing

By Julia Chen

December 5th, 1939

江苏州，中国 (Jiangsu province, China)

A young woman stares at the night sky.

Snow is sporadically falling from the air, dusting the nearby rocks with flecks of white. The woman seems unbothered by the cold despite her thin, much-mended white dress and weathered sandals. The tips of her extremities are blushed red. She takes a deep breath and exhales; her breath crystallizes in the air, condensing and falling back softly to the ground.

She gazes outwards towards her family’s fields. The delicate plants that once inhabited the land are now buried in a layer of snow. It's not like many plants were growing anyway, she thinks sadly. 

She’d tried every flora and fauna under the sun: rice, wheat, vegetables. But nothing flourished. No matter how hard she tried, she never cultivated enough crops, remaining dirt-poor. 

She thinks of her original family surname: 星. Star. Growing up, her father said that the surname made them special, lucky. He said it represented their unique connection to the world around them. 

Clearly, he had lied. 

She looks back at the small house she shared with her husband. A small lantern inside the house turns the interior an incandescent yellow. Still, the house looks hollowed out. Seeing the quiet house emanates a pang of emotion within her, something she cannot and does not want to describe. 

She thinks of her husband. She thinks of the empty jar of money that sits beside her bed, of the funeral and sorrow that drained it. The pair had met at the mosque, the only two of their age with the same faith. It was only natural that they ended up together. Yet, as they took over her family’s farmland, the farming lifestyle weighed on her husband. Perhaps that’s why he slowly abandoned his faith, finding solace in bottles of cheap rice wine instead of saving for a brighter future. Perhaps that’s why she discovered him hanging from the old willow tree one day. 

The winter wind loudens, howling some unknown distorted message, and the snow seems to be falling incessantly now. The woman turns, heading back to the house. Her shoes crunch in the fresh snow with every step. The land, her land, is slowly being buried in a layer of white. Soon, the whole landscape will be gone. 

As she walks, she spots what seems to be a white iris lying on the path to the house. She sighs. Must be left over from the funeral. 

She picks it up anyway, figuring the flower’s beauty would soon die in the bitter cold. She twirls the flower in her frozen fingers, then gently tucks it behind her ear. A couple of petals fall off; she tries to kneel and collect them but is blocked by her protruding belly.

Resigned, she slowly hauls herself back up, nearly falling several times. Once stabilized, she turns to look at her beautiful fields. She remembers the lush green promise it once offered: the soft green grasses, the song of the morning birds. Now, the grasses’ color is blanched away from its leaves, and all she hears are the quiet coos of the few remaining mourning birds.

She turns back to look at her house. Her hands migrate towards her belly, softly cradling it. Her son, she knows it will be a son, will come any day now. 

She thinks of her unborn son. She thinks of the life of poverty he is destined to be confined in. She thinks of the successful life they would’ve had.

She cranes her head up towards the night sky. Above, she spots a particularly bright star. Silently, she makes a wish. 

Let my son become more successful than I could ever be.

October 21st, 1970 

江苏州，中国 (Jiangsu province, China)

A young man stares up at the night sky. 

The crisp autumn air flows through, occasionally carrying crisps of dried leaves in its current. The man is unbothered despite the relative cold. The wind gently deposits a yellow leaf in his hair. He doesn’t pay it any attention.

He’s standing in his family’s old fields, or what they used to be. The main plot still remains empty, devoid of life. The surrounding withered, brown grass towers over him like the skyscrapers of his new adoptive home. After his mother died, he sold the worthless land to a contractor to pay off his debts. He hasn’t returned in years. He wondered if he failed his mother in some way. His poor, aging mother, who spent years slaving away at the land, trying to cultivate some form of success for them. 

He thinks of the nights they went hungry together. He thinks of the quiet desperation that filled their now-demolished home.

He wanted to become a doctor to pull his family out of poverty. He studied relentlessly for years to achieve his goals. In doing so, he neglected his other duties: his family’s fields went unplowed, his friends abandoned him, his girl never called again. The second he could, he left home without as much as a backward glance. He buried his rural roots as he buried his elderly mother, abandoning them and fleeing to opportunity in the city. And when he enrolled in medical school, he got turned away immediately. He discovered that he was colorblind, and thus could never become a doctor. Who’d ever want a doctor who couldn't tell between an artery and a vein?

Reluctantly, he became an engineer. He rose quickly through the ranks, working tirelessly until he became the head of his firm. He can’t count the amount of nights he spent sleeping at his desk. During that time, he met his wife, a fellow co-worker. Through many sleepless nights, he built a stable life for them, one he could only have dreamed of in his youth. But part of him still wasn’t satisfied. 

And how could he? He was a man born of poverty. Poverty made him. And poverty didn’t understand satisfaction.

He shifts his weight on his feet, the leaves crushing underneath him. He thought coming back to his fields, his roots, would satisfy him. That it would somehow fill the hole someone gouged in his heart. He’s not sure if it did.

He turns around, surveying the land. He sees his pregnant wife standing near the edge of the field. Her dress is billowing in the cool, yet borderline biting, night breeze. She gives him a shy smile and waves at him. Her hand rests gently on top of her protruding stomach. His wife is due any day now. 

He thinks of his unborn daughter; he knows it will be a daughter. He hopes he will be a good father to her.

He thinks of his own father, someone he hadn’t thought of in years. His mother said his father died in the war before his birth. He thinks of the silent resentment his mother hosted within her after she lost so much: her savings, her land, her last name. 

He makes a silent promise never to become like his father. He vows to be a better father than his father could’ve ever dreamed of being. 

From across the field, his wife gestures that it's time to go. She seems slightly disturbed by the dead-silent countryside in comparison with the bustling city. He takes one last good look at the land, then turns to leave, pushing the long grass out of his way. 

The sight of his pregnant wife stirs something within him. His dissatisfaction, now renewed, gnaws at him. He thinks, pausing near the old dying willow tree. Standing by the tree, he makes an executive decision. Admittedly, it’s not the most benevolent one, but he has to be selfishly decisive. It’s the only way. The only way to avoid a life of misery pining over what could’ve been.

He cranes his head up towards the night sky. Above, he spots a particularly bright star, despite it being partially obscured by some clouds. Silently, he makes a wish. 

Let my daughter become the doctor I could never be.

May 21st, 2007

Elkins Park, Pennsylvania

A young woman stares up at the night sky.

The air feels sticky, and the world seems to be moving slowly as if the heat is slowly encasing it in amber. The woman’s hair is plastered to her forehead. A cool summer breeze occasionally sweeps through the suburbs, providing fleeting moments of comfort. It is quiet for the first time in seemingly ages.

She’s standing in her backyard, which consists of exactly three square feet of yellowed carpet supposed to be grass that the neighbor’s dog keeps using as a bathroom. 

In the background, a train horn blares, breaking up the calm of the night. That neighbor’s wretched dog starts barking again. The woman takes a deep breath and exhales: she feels as though she has just aged another year.

She tries to convince herself it’s better than what she grew up with, crammed into a bustling Chinese mega-city, forced to do her homework under the dim light of nearby skyscrapers as water dripped onto her book from the overhead pipes, all whilst under the watchful surveillance of her authoritarian parents. 

She left that life behind when she was in her mid-twenties, following her dreams across an ocean. Or more accurately, her father’s dreams of her dreams. 

Ever since she was little, her life was predetermined by her father. Doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, he chanted, almost like an incantation, through her earliest years and into adulthood. She never figured out why. He wasn’t even a doctor, he was an engineer: exactly the career she wanted to pursue. What parent wouldn’t be happy at their child continuing their legacy?

One day she’d had enough of it. She gathered her strength and her father’s engineering books and prepared to confront him. Ba, I don't want to pursue medicine. 

Those words broke her father’s spell, and the roar of her father’s anger soon dissipated any hope of resistance. 

She pursued medicine.

But somehow it worked out. She had begrudgingly found enjoyment in her studies. She met her husband. Yet she could never unshake the image of her father’s rage: how it shattered a vase, how it launched a book over her head, how it shook the very foundation of their home. It was the reason she fled the country so quickly after graduation. 

Her parents never forgave her.

But I don’t need them to, she thinks stubbornly. She’s perfectly successful without their assistance. She found a new life in the new world of Pen-, Pen-is, Penn-is-sylvia? No. She sighs internally. Chinese is supposedly the hardest language to learn, but this one tumbles off her tongue like a drunk walk home. 

The sky above is deepening into a deep indigo. Aloud, she repeats the word very slowly, enunciating each syllable carefully. Penn-chil-. She curses at herself. Penn-schyl-vania. Good enough. She lies back in the grass, heaving and red with exertion. Her tongue feels like lead. Of course the only place where she got accepted into medical school was one she couldn't pronounce.

Habitually, her hands migrate to cup her protruding belly. She can feel her daughter, she knows it will be a daughter, kicking. Feisty one. She will be due any day now. 

Laying in the grass, she relaxes for the first time in weeks. Between having to re-enroll in school, working as a researcher, and raising a family, time is a finite resource. Relaxation, whatever that is, is non-existent.

The arrival of her daughter further complicated things. Residency and fellowships were demanding, and the prospect of potential poverty, of ending up with a daughter and no steady source of income for many years induced a sense of fear in her so intense that it felt as old as time itself. 

So she gave up her career as a doctor, stepping down to the less intensive yet less respected position of Physician Assistant, relegating herself to a life of submission. The decision felt emotionally devastating, throwing away all her hard work. Simultaneously, it was incredibly liberating, throwing away all her familial expectations. Even so, a part of her wonders if she made the correct decision.

She is happy this way, she keeps telling herself. But not in the way she once envisioned, not in the way she was raised to measure happiness. But what other choice did she have? She was a victim of the cruel responsibilities her life had demanded of her. Life forced her into paths, and she had no choice but to follow its lead, lest she fall back into poverty.

She thinks of her father, of the abject poverty he came from but refuses to talk about it. She thinks of the hours he spent staying late so food could be put on the table. She thinks of the hours he spent yelling at her. 

She thinks of the missed calls on her phone. Every week he calls her, interrogating how her career as a doctor has been going. Every week he pleads with her to return home. Every week she hangs up as soon as either subject is brought up. Every week she ignores his subsequent attempts to call again.

She thinks about an old family tradition her father told her when she was young. When she was young, he’d taken her to the countryside to go stargazing. He’d pointed at a star and said That’s the one I wished upon the day before you were born. Each person in our family gets one wish to come true. My mother used hers on me, her son, and I used mine on you, my daughter.

She thinks of her own daughter, of raising her in a foreign land. She thinks of the unhappiness that plagued her life. Yes, she’s content now, but being content isn’t a replacement for being happy. 

She cranes her head up towards the night sky. The stars are dimmer now than what she remembers in her youth. Above, she spots a star that seems ever so slightly brighter than the others. Silently, she makes a wish.

Let my daughter become happier than I could ever be.

November 30th, 2023

Portland, Oregon

I stare up at the night sky. 

Evening has fallen, turning the greens of the grass field into dark blades of black. A crisp breeze blows from somewhere unknown, cloying the air with the scent of irises. I sniff and rub my nose to prevent sneezing from the pollen.

The wind howls incessantly, and I feel a shiver crawl up my back despite my many layers. It’s that time of year, the changing of the guard when autumnal warmth becomes the biting sting of winter. It starts with the crunch of my step, with the red-yellow bruising of leaves, and eventually spreads to old wounds. 

I feel the sting creeping into my joints when I flex my fingers on a cold, powdered white morning. I feel it physically weighing on my body when I stare at a blinking cursor, an empty screen, a dark sky, and feel like my heart has been gouged out with a butterknife.

I think of my name. My father picked my first name, and my mother picked my middle name. My father picked my first name without much of a second thought or deeper meaning. My mother, however, labored over what my middle name should be. Eventually, she settled on a Chinese name:悦宁 (Yuening). 悦 (yue) meant happy, pleased; 宁 (ning) meant peaceful, to pacify. My mother truly intended my name to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

I am neither of those things. 

I think about my mother. When I was little I constantly begged her for a dog. Please ma, I want a doggie, please, please, please, please. However, the depth of her disapproval quickly dissipated any hope of rebuttal. She claims it's because we were allergic, it was too much work, etc. We already raise you, we don’t need another animal in the house.

I sniff my nose even more aggressively. The cold is stinging my eyes now.

To distract myself, I think about the pile of papers on my desk, scattered in heaps across the room. I think about the ever-increasing to-do list that I bury myself into to ease the sting of the world. Once, when I’d snapped at my mother for the hundredth time for interrupting me as I worked, she had bitterly accused me of being a workaholic. As if that was insulting. As if that wasn’t precisely what I’d been raised and cultivated to do. So what, I retorted, would you rather me be a workaholic or an alcoholic? Pick your poison.

Afterward, her mouth had thinned and straightened. I knew I’d struck a nerve. She turned and left without another word. Yet I was left with a vague pang of emotion.

I wondered if I failed her in some way. 

I think about my family. My parents are well off now since we are comprised of a doctor, a physician assistant, and a selfish child. Still despite our comfortable lives, true communication is far and few between the three of us. I know practically nothing about my parents’ respective childhoods except for the fact that they had it worse than me. Any other details are seemingly irrelevant. 

It seems we can afford every luxury except for words.

I exhale the breath I didn’t know I was holding; it crystallizes in the air. I can almost see the letters form in the smoke, of family secrets, of words unspoken.

I follow the letters into the biting night air. I watch as they float upwards towards the heavens.

I crane my head up towards the night sky. The sky is blanketed in a thick, odorous, blackened smog. I cannot see any stars.

By Julia Chen