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candidacy,
    Pingping wasn't sure what he was going to do. Though she knew he didn't love her, she loved him deeply. Before she'd married him, her father had warned her that she might not live a secure life with Nan, who, though a decent young man, was by nature impractical, an incorrigible dreamer. Yet she had never regretted being his wife, though she did feel hurt from time to time and was even tempted to drink (though she disliked American wines and there was no way to find the kind of fragrant Luzhou liquor here, of which she had used to pilfer mouthfuls from her father's bottles when she was a child). She was certain Nan wouldn't just walk out on her. For better or worse, he was trustworthy and dependable. Now that Taotao was here, Nan was all the more willing to be the head of the household. In his own words, "To be the draft horse pulling the cart of this family."
    "I'll look for a full-time job soon," he told Pingping one afternoon. Their son was napping in the other room.
    "What kind of jobs do you have in mind?"
    " Do I have a choice? " Again a caustic edge sharpened his voice.
    "Don't be nasty. I always can work too."
    That mollified him some. He sighed, "I'll keep my eyes open for jobs."
    Pingping remained silent, feeling guilty because Heidi didn't pay her during the summer. They had spent thousands of dollars recently and couldn't afford to stay home eating away their savings. Yet she wanted to teach Taotao some basics before his school started, so it was Nan who needed to look for a job.
    It was reported that the U.S. government was going to issue green cards to the Chinese students who did not intend to return to China. Professor Nicholson in Nan's department, a specialist in American domestic policy, had assured him that the United States would definitely keep the Chinese students here. This baggy-eyed scholar said to Nan, "Believe me, any country will be willing to have the cream of China 's young generation." That was probably true. Indeed, both Canada and Australia had just granted permanent residency to all the Chinese students and scholars living there. Pingping and Nan felt relieved to know they wouldn't have to spend thousands of dollars and wait years for green cards like most immigrants. Still, they were unsettled. Mentally they were not prepared for such a new life.

     

 

    THE FALL SEMESTER would be starting in two weeks, and if he didn't register as a student Nan wouldn't be able to work in the university library anymore. For days he had been looking for a job but couldn't find one. He had liked his job as a custodian in the medical building very much; it was not demanding and gave him some time to read, though he was paid only $4.65 an hour, and though his fellow worker Nick, the maintenance man, often carried a dime bag on him and smoked a joint in their windowless office, mixed with tobacco to hide the scent. For years Nan had adhered to the principle that he would sell his brawn but not his brain. He wanted to save his mind for his study. Now graduate work was no longer his concern, so he wouldn't be too picky about jobs.
    He responded to numerous ads, but no one was interested in a man without any employable skill. He went to several Chinese restaurants and they wouldn't use him either, because his accent betrayed that he was from northern China and because he couldn't speak any southern dialect. They didn't explain why, but he guessed the reason. At Nanking Village in Watertown, the owner of the place, an old woman with high cheekbones, told him, "If only you had come last week. I just hired a waitress, that fat girl." Apparently she liked Nan and showed him some respect, as if he were a poor scholar in dire straits but might ascend to a consequential post someday. Nan even wrote to several Chinese-language programs in local colleges, one of which did respond, but in a form letter, saying they couldn't hire him although they might rue that they had let "a pearl" slip through their