\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I met Gordie on board a Pan Am flight in the summer of \u201966.\u00a0 It was my first time on a plane and I was scared.\u00a0 Not that I\u2019d admit this to my parents, since it had taken the entire three years at Chinese U while finishing my BA to convince them to let me go study in the States.\u00a0 Luckily, they respected Frank Carter, my American professor who helped me get a fellowship at NYU.\u00a0<\/p>\n I was staring out the window, trying to wave to my family who had monopolized one corner of Kai Tak\u2019s raised outdoor lookout, trying to fight the nausea and trepidation, when Gordie crashed into the seat next to mine.\u00a0 He was complaining to the air hostess, an older woman with a beehive so stiffly sprayed you could balance an egg on its crest.<\/p>\n \u201cBut Dad flies for Pacific American.\u00a0 I always <\/em>ride up front.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps on Pacific,\u201d she smiled.\u00a0 \u201cNot with us.\u201d\u00a0 Her tone was condescending and final.\u00a0 It was one of the few times I ever witnessed Gordie failing to charm a woman.<\/p>\n \u201cGoddammit,\u201d he muttered as she walked away.<\/p>\n We stared at each other.\u00a0 What with my unease, the newness of everything, I blurted out what, in retrospect, was a pretty odd question.\u00a0 \u201cAre you American?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy?\u201d he snapped.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I need to make some American friends.\u201d<\/p>\n He looked at me like I was nuts, but something made me barrel right on.\u00a0 \u201cDo you live in New York?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd do you listen to jazz?\u201d<\/p>\n He cracked a smile and my stomach began to settle.\u00a0 \u201cYeah,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cDo you?\u201d<\/p>\n That was how our friendship began.\u00a0 He was eighteen, headed to Yale as a freshman and I was twenty-one, a virgin, and a jazz head.\u00a0 You understand, of course, how weird this made me back home, the jazz part I mean.\u00a0 My family didn\u2019t understand that, anymore than they understood my desire to major in American Studies, having completed a BA in a mish mash of languages and modern Chinese history.\u00a0 My oldest brother entered government after reading philosophy at Hong Kong U (he was the smart one), my second brother helped run the family fish business, and my sister became a primary school music teacher.\u00a0 With three respectable siblings, one weird child my parents could almost tolerate.\u00a0 Besides, being the baby, as my sister says even now, I get away with suicide, if not murder.<\/p>\n Of course, we did not talk of this during the flight, but of everything else under the stars.<\/p>\n About an hour before landing\u2014we hadn\u2019t slept at all, having talked continuously about all the jazz and life that mattered\u2014Gordie showed me his newly coined Chinese name, and said he was going to major in Chinese.<\/p>\n \u201cKinda strange, isn\u2019t it?\u201d\u00a0 I said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou sound like my mother.\u00a0 She thinks I\u2019m crazy to study Chinese.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot that, I meant your name.\u00a0 Ya Gao-daan <\/em>is synthetically phonetic in Mandarin, but sounds terrible in Cantonese.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad\u2019s buddy, Jimmy Kho, gave it to me.\u00a0 He speaks better Cantonese than Mandarin, I think.\u00a0 But I\u2019m not sure.\u201d<\/p>\n I frowned.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t mean to insult your father\u2019s friend, but frankly, Aa Go-tan, <\/em>the Cantonese pronunciation, sounds Japanese.\u00a0 Besides, the characters mean Mr. High Beach.\u00a0 That\u2019s absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n Gordie laughed.\u00a0 \u201cSo can you give me another name?\u00a0 I gotta have a Chinese name, right?\u201d<\/p>\n I ruminated a moment.\u00a0 Then, I wrote two characters.\u00a0 \u7070\u679c<\/p>\n \u201cHui Guo,\u201d<\/em> he repeated after me.\u00a0 \u201cWhat do they mean?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe first character is \u2018ash\u2019 although it can also mean the color gray.\u00a0 So that\u2019s appropriate because it\u2019s the first syllable of your name, and your eyes are gray.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHazel,\u201d Gordie corrected, \u201caccording to Mother.\u00a0 That\u2019s almost like a gray, but they\u2019re green, according to my license.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, that works more or less.\u00a0 So hui <\/em>or fui <\/em>in Cantonese.\u00a0 Then, guo <\/em>or gwo <\/em>means fruit, but is also like the genus for berry, I think.\u00a0 But the sound<\/em> is like the first syllable of your Christian name.\u00a0 It\u2019s also almost a homonym for \u2018nation\u2019 which elevates its possibilities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Being young, I was impressed by my own brilliance and pleased that Gordie seemed taken by what I said, because he listened attentively.\u00a0 This was long before anyone was forced to listen to me, before I taught and lectured sleepy undergrads.<\/p>\n I continued.\u00a0 \u201cThat fulfills both criteria of a properly constructed name for a foreigner.\u00a0 It resembles the sound of your origins, yet also has a relevant Chinese identity and meaning.\u00a0 The art of naming in Chinese is a balance of beauty and meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n He nodded slowly.\u00a0 \u201cBut that\u2019s only two characters.\u00a0 I thought Chinese names were always three, like the one Uncle Jimmy gave me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, many use two, and some even have four.\u00a0 We\u2019re negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAsh Fruit,\u201d Gordie said.\u00a0 \u201cI like that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Want to read more?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The full novel is now available from C&R Press at http:\/\/www.crpress.org\/<\/a>. Or, for more information on the forthcoming US edition, visit http:\/\/mongrelintl.wix.com\/xuxitmil<\/a>.<\/p>\n Novel synopsis<\/em>: This tale of lifelong friendships features\u00a0Gordon (Gordie) Ashberry, a wealthy, dilettante Sinologist \u2013\u00a0a.k.a.\u00a0Gord or Hui Guo (\u7070\u679c) to his two closest friends Harold Haight and Larry Woo \u2013 a character in three of Xu\u2019s earlier novels.\u00a0The story opens in March 2003 when Gordie deliberately disappears during a flight delay in Tokyo. The pre and post fallout around that disappearance informs this drama about the friend who was always around in your and your family\u2019s lives until he isn\u2019t, and how much or little we know of those we think we know well. Originally inspired by John Adam\u2019s opera \u201cNixon in China,\u201d a large cast of characters traverses the globe in search of this missing protagonist, a Gatsby-ish figure with Chinese characteristics.\u00a0That Man in Our Lives\u00a0<\/em>is\u00a0Xu\u2019s metafictional response to the Chinese classic novel\u00a0Dreams of Red Chambers<\/em>\u00a0by Cao Xueqin.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"That](\"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/That-Man-In-Our-Lives-by-Xu-Xi.jpg\")
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