Bo called me at six o’clock sharp the next morning.
“Hello?” I murmured. I probably hadn’t been awake that early since junior high.
“Hi, is this Michael?”
“Hello, yes, it’s Michael Wang.”
“This is Bo. Apologies, I realize I’m calling somewhat early—Asian hours. My niece Vivian told me good things about you. Care to meet for breakfast?”
“Yes, sure,” I said. “I know a good bagel place by Nob Hill if that works…”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I’m here at the Ritz Carlton. You know where that is?”
“I do, yes.”
“Good. We can meet here. I’ll see you in forty-five minutes,” Bo said, then hung up.
After showering and pounding a pre-meeting espresso, I headed to the Ritz Carlton and got there just before Bo. Bo was only about my height but densely built and looked like he was in his mid-fifties. He had the long, broad torso of a swimmer; short, powerful legs; and the long, flowy hair of a much younger man, all of which gave him an aura of intense virility. When he set his hands down on the table, I noticed that his wrists were extremely thick and veiny. I wondered how he got this way; maybe he was one of those old-school mainland guys that were constantly roided out on crushed-up tiger dicks. Bo ordered a big plate of eggs, sausage, bacon, and potatoes while I got a bowl of coconut chia pudding. I asked him what brought him to San Francisco.
“Meetings with my portfolio companies. Some of them are preparing for exits, so I’m here to help negotiate with potential buyers,” he said. I guessed that meant he was a venture capitalist. “Xiao Qi tells me you work in the technology industry as well?”
“Xiao Qi?” I said.
“Oh, sorry. I forgot her English name. Vivian.” Bo smiled.
“Right. Yes, I am an autonomous vehicle software engineer at General Motors.”
“That’s very good. We need more capable young men who can build things. And you are from China as well?”
“No. I mean, not really. My parents grew up there, but I was born in New Jersey.”
Bo nodded. “I see. And do you go back often?
“Not recently, no. My father used to take me to visit China every summer to see where he grew up. But the visits stopped after middle school.”
“And where exactly did your father grow up?”
“Somewhere in the north of Jiangsu Province, I can’t really remember,” I said, shifting a little in my seat. I remembered very clearly the sweltering humidity inside the crowded apartment, the clicking of the one tiny electric fan in the living room, and the sound of extended family packed in the kitchen: a cast of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins I hadn’t seen in over a decade. Then the backseat smell of the cheap cab rides that took me and my father to the rapidly modernizing city center, the office buildings and shopping centers with Western logos that kept popping up year after year. Each time we went back, my father would say, “Look how much this place has changed since last year. Maybe one day there will be a good opportunity for you to come back too.”
“China is very different today than the country your parents and I grew up in, even compared to ten or fifteen years ago—you must see it for yourself. Anyway, Vivian told me you have an interesting idea for driverless car computer vision. Maybe you can tell me about it.”
Over the next twenty minutes, I explained to Bo step by step what I’d built. I could tell by the way he listened, with his index finger pressed against his chin, that he had also been an engineer at some point. He seemed to get it immediately and asked a lot of smart questions about latency limitations and minimal network density, including some stuff I never thought of. Then at the end, he asked me if I had patented any of this.
“No,” I said. “I mean, not yet. I haven’t really thought about that. But wouldn’t the code technically belong to General Motors because I wrote it for my job?”
“Let me take care of it for you. Send me your source code and I’ll have my legal team do the rest. A favor.”
I was taken aback. I hardly knew this guy, so why did he want to help me?
“Sorry, that’s very kind, but I’m afraid there could be some legal problems and I don’t want to cause trouble.”
Bo poured another cup of tea. “No problem, I understand you’re worried about the red tape. But you should remember—good ideas need the right soil. Especially an idea like this, that can change everything, needs to grow up in a place where everything is changing. I have some friends, former classmates from Tsinghua University who are now on the faculty there. They’ve organized an academic conference on autonomous driving in Beijing. Perhaps you’d like to attend—meet a few colleagues in the industry, exchange some ideas?”
“Attend an academic conference!” I blurted out. “But I don’t even have a master’s degree.”
Bo waved his hand. “We don’t care about stuff like that in China. Beijing is a meritocracy of ideas. Do you know the term haigui? It means ‘sea turtle’—we use it to describe overseas Chinese, particularly in the United States and Canada, that come back to China, in reference to the sea turtle’s migratory habits. It’s only natural for outstanding science and technology haigui like yourself to visit the motherland, even if only for a short while, to disseminate knowledge from their travels.”
But I hadn’t migrated anywhere, I thought. I was born here.
“Anyway, the conference is next weekend,” he said finally. “Vivian will also be in Beijing at that time. Maybe she could show you around.”
“Oh, she didn’t mention that. I’ll go.” Why not? It was a free trip. I could use a getaway.
“Great, I’ll have my assistant book arrangements for you,” he said, rising from his seat. “Very pleased to meet a promising young technologist like you. I have to get to my meeting now, but I look forward to welcoming you to Beijing in one week’s time.” He took a business card out of his pocket, pressed it into my palm, and left.
BO SONG
FOUNDER AND MANAGING PARTNER,
TERRA COTTA CAPITAL
The card was off-white and cut from thick paper stock. I slid it into my wallet with care and sat in the restaurant for a few minutes by myself while I finished my coffee.
My conversation with Bo had brought back some nearly forgotten memories. I thought back to our first house in New Jersey, a wood-paneled, lilac-colored, one-story building at the end of the block. It was seven o’clock in the evening and my mother, my dad, and I were gathered around the kitchen table. I was still sweaty from tennis practice. Dinner was rice, stir-fried egg and tomato, and sautéed bok choy. My dad was in a giddy mood, eating heartily and already pink in the face from his second beer. Then he announced (I suspect only to me, because it seemed like my mother already knew) that tomorrow he would be leaving for a “business trip” to China.
“Don’t call it that,” my mother snapped. “They didn’t even pay for your ticket.”
My father sheepishly shrugged off her comment and took another swig of beer. I asked him what kind of trip it was.
“Son, it’s an academic exchange conference for Chinese scientists around the world, sponsored by me and your mom’s alma mater,” he said. “We’ll be discussing some big problems in computer science. Many of our college classmates will be attending.
“You remember them, Min?” he asked, giving my mother’s shoulder an awkward squeeze. “I’m sure you remember our old friends Zhengyu and Xiaoming. Ah, the three of you were always the top of our class! I heard Zhengyu is CEO of his own company now—hard to believe he was such a prankster back in the day! And Xiaoming just got tenure at the university. Too bad you can’t come with me this time, even though I invited you. Maybe next time you can come.”
“What’s the point of me coming? There’s nothing for me to update Zhengyu and Xiaoming about,” she said coldly. My father looked down at his plate.
“But of course, those of us that came to America are considered the real VIPs,” he said, turning to me now. “After all, that has always been the dream. Actually, it was your mom’s dream to begin with. She was one of only three students at our entire university selected to work for an American company right after graduation. Since she was on a management development track, they flew her to Chicago for training. Such VIP treatment, how jealous we were! She came back with so many stories, convinced me that we needed to build our life together in America and find a way to get there as soon as possible…”
I glanced at my mother and was surprised to find her looking uncharacteristically flustered.
“Luckily, at that time the technology industry was booming and everyone needed engineers,” my father continued, “so I got a job at Xerox and we moved right away. The plan was for your mom to start looking for jobs once we got settled in New Jersey, but guess what—as soon as we got here, you were born! So, you had your mom with you all this time. You’re a lucky boy.”
My mother stiffened, then slowly rose from her seat, walked to the sink, and started on the dishes. After a few more stories, my dad abruptly excused himself and darted away from the table. Later that night, as I studied for my biology final, I saw him through the crack in my bedroom door flitting through the hallway between his room and the bathroom trying on different outfits. My dad had never been one to care about keeping up appearances, almost always showing up to work in jeans and a polo shirt. I remember he would wear the same beat-up brown shoes every day. But that night he must have tried on at least eight different outfits, until the light in the hallway finally went out a bit after midnight.
The next morning, my father was gone before breakfast and I found my mom up early surrounded by papers typing away at the PC she had set up in a corner of the living room. She was applying for jobs.
A week later, my father came back at eleven o’clock in the evening. He was in a much less talkative mood. When my mother asked him how Zhengyu and Xiaoming were doing, he just said, “Fine,” and left it at that. Then he dropped down to his knees, opened up his suitcase, and beckoned for me to come over. With a wink, he handed me a box of ten Nintendo DS game cartridges, obviously illegal burns purchased at some electronics store, which delighted me. Then he took out an oversized Louis Vuitton bag and presented it to my mother. Unfortunately, it had been squished flat in his suitcase—my father had never possessed that elusive quality called “showmanship.” And neither had my mother, for even as she performed her excitement, something in her expression fell as she looked at the bag more closely.
“Don’t worry about the cost, I got a good deal,” my father said.
On my way to my room, I glanced back at them. Their two figures, hunched over the suitcase, looked weary.
For the next few years, my father would go on these trips once every couple of months. Each time, he would be in an agitated, excitable state for a week leading up to the trip. Then he would return inexplicably dejected and disappear into his study. During these years an aura of resignation settled over our home. Old mail piled up on the countertop, broken furniture went unreplaced, and Christmas trees lingered until February. As my father withdrew from the world, I felt sympathy for my mother, who had few friends to begin with. All of our family friends were my father’s connections from Jiangsu who lived within a ten-mile radius of Tenafly, Bergenfield, and New Milford. Every month was the same potluck where we gathered in some family’s tiny kitchen and the women brought out Chinese dishes in aluminum pans while the men played cards, drank Tsingtao beer, and reminisced about their lives back in Jiangsu. I remember my mother looking restless and out of place in these drab settings, which could not have contrasted more starkly to the dazzling America she held in her heart from seeing Chicago as a young woman. She spent many mornings and afternoons taking online English classes and applying for office jobs in Newark and New York City. Though for the most part she kept her head held high, I think even she was surprised by the volume of rejections that came back. Around the summer before eighth grade, she suddenly stopped. None of this ever seemed to register for my father.
At a certain age, maybe the end of middle school, I started to think that maybe my father deserved to feel disappointed for trying to live a double life. But whenever I found myself harboring too much scorn for him, a vague sense of guilt would well up inside me, sprouting from an inkling I’d started to form that he was not entirely himself to blame. As these memories seeped into the foreground of my mind, an acute sense of dread descended upon me. I didn’t wish to think of myself as retracing my father’s meek footsteps. My anxiety waxed when I remembered that I had not been back to China since middle school; I had, in fact, more or less avoided all of the sponsored trips during college, for fear that a place once so important for my self-mythology would prove disappointing. I’d always thought of China as somewhere my distinctness would be instantly recognized, but some part of me must have known that I would’ve felt like just another uninvited guest in a foreign country. Well, there was no more putting off the question. With a new sense of purpose, I finished what was left of the now-cold coffee and went back to the office.
I was surprised to find that by the time I got back to my desk in the morning, Bo’s assistant had already forwarded me the itinerary for the following weekend. Business class from San Francisco International to Beijing Capital International Airport. Three nights at the Park Hyatt. Filled with anticipation, I didn’t get anything else work-related done that day and took off promptly at five o’clock.