A co-worker gave me a The New Yorker magazine last week and told me to read the article that writes about snakeheads in Chinatown, New York.  The article was very captivating and like many fuzhounese, I can more or less relate to stories like that.  The article focuses on a woman that was considered the motor of the sneakhead business, and she was known to every Fuzhounese, both in the U.S. and back in China, as "Sister Ping" (in fuzhou dialect as Yee Ping Jia).  Not surprisingly, both of my parents know her, and when I translated "Sister Ping" into Fuzhou dialect did I realize that I have actually been a patron at her restaurant. 

 

The arduous journey that many Fuzhou people took to come to the U.S. (mostly through illegal means) is audacious, but yet admirable.  When I was a little girl back in China, I had overheard many stories such as the ones described in the article.  Many people that my family knew, including even someone from our own family, had tried to go on a boat, over many months, to land on what they called the land that had gold all over the streets.  The stories told many successful one, but also many sad ones.  I remember the conversations usually went on with the word "Pa2 Shan1", in English, it means "climbing mountains."  Of course, no one can arrive in the U.S. by climbing mountains, but apparently that was the word people used to describe the journey that those people took across many mountains (at night) from China to Burma and then to Thailand.  Some people were then went on a boat that took them across South Asia, Africa, and eventually the Atlantic Ocean; some other people, the luckier ones (probably involved paying a higher fee to the snakehead), were sent on a plane, holding a fake passport in their hands, and arrived in New York.  The boat ride usually went on for months, and those people would hide in the cargo compartment, relying on dry peanuts, a little rice, and purified salt water.  Many died, and many were caught and deported.  Amazingly, many that got sent back to China tried again and again, and many were also caught time after time after being spotted along the Hudson River in New York. 

 

Now I no longer live in Chinatown and Sister Ping was sentenced to 30+ years in jail.  However, the number of Fuzhou people never ceased growing.  Is America truly a land that filled with gold?  Only time will tell...

 

For anyone that's interested in reading the article, here is the link and it's free: