Prodigal Son

By Stephen Ling

In this coming-of-age novel, David Chen Long, son of a wealthy Chinese family, studies English in college in the hope of working for an international company or in the diplomatic service overseas. His Chinese American professor, Professor Wang, introduces him to the excitement of American culture. His extracurricular activities distract him from his studies: “I wished I had paid more attention to my books and professors than to my endless pursuits of leisure and pleasure and sex. To Professor Wang, I am a playboy, a prodigal son, with questionable morality and wasteful spending on drinks, girls, sex, travels and hotels.” He attempts to be a responsible adult, pursuing his ambitions to go abroad and satisfying the expectations of his caring family.



“PRODIGAL SON is a fiction but reads like a real story. A must read!”
- Dr. Henry You Li, University of Canterbury, New Zealand



“An exciting first novel about a rich but decadent youth in modern China.”
- Dr. Alex Qi Song, Harvard University, USA

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664126374

Stephen Ling

The author pursued journalism and economics at the University of Texas. He lives in a country house outside Seattle because he loves the peace and quiet outside urban American. “I grew up in a farm.” After spending 7 years in China as a visiting professor, he continues his mission to share his front-seat, first-hand experiences in China with the publication of THIS IS CHINA. BONSAI KIDS (9th book) is his third book about China. PRETENDER is his 2nd fiction.

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 by Stephen Ling.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/26/2020

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

816066

REVIEWS OF BOOKS for Stephen Ling

FOR MY HANDS ONLY

This is a lively book with a funny, thoroughly enlightened author doing his best to tell his story and the story of one Chinese village in Malaya with tremendous insight, detail, and compassion. The wok is waiting, with a thorough mix of oils and flavorings. Dig in! – Lucas Smiraldo, playwright

An inspirational writer! – Assunta NG, Publisher, Northwest Asian Weekly

CRAZY AMERICANS

In Crazy Americans, the reader is transported to a world rich with descriptive socio -political and historical information as Ling unravels his personal ‘coming of age’ experiences in this very candid, and humorous style. An intimate and soul-baring journey. Crazy Americans is a visual feast of words that whets the appetite and leaves the reader wanting more. – Patricia Ang, author of Poetic Echoes

Stephen writes with passion and flair. – Dr. Junid Saham, Director, Areca Capital (Malaysia)

Ling’s style is boisterous and overflowing, reminiscent of Henry Miller’s. – Northwest Asian Weekly

GROWING UP CHINESE

Overall, this memoir is action-packed and often engaging. Kirkus Reviews

The book’s pace is quick and smooth. Ling’s tone is open and inviting, even as it carries the tension, agitation, and energy of his youth. Clarion Review

THIS IS CHINA

"A colorful, bicultural journey." Kirkus Reviews

Stephen is passionate, open and articulate. – Prof. Zhuang Hongming, Chairman, School of Journalism, Xiamen University, China

DEDICATION

To

Lothar Shou-heng Deng

May all your dreams come true

In modern China

As China continues to pursue

Urbanization, modernization, and globalization

And its win-win strategies for

World peace and prosperity

It is a cliché to say we do not choose our parents, but the truth is I would not be here to write this book without them.

Many men of my father’s generation did not have the opportunity to attend colleges, partly because many of them came from poor families, but mostly because Chairman Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, decided, in order to solve employment problems in the cities, to send many urban youth to the rural countryside in remote areas to establish or to work in the farms as part of his reeducation program. Mao’s assertion in 1955 that the countryside is a vast expanse of heaven and earth where we can flourish would become the slogan for the Down to the Countryside Movement. From the 1950s until the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976—the year Chairman Mao died—many young people left the urban areas, either willingly or under coercion, to live and work in many rural areas in mainland China as part of the movement.

We know that President Xi Jinping’s father, once a vice premier, was purged during Mao’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, and was in prison when fifteen-year-old Xi was shipped off to Liangjiahe village, Shaanxi province, and returned to study at a university in Beijing after five years in the countryside.

My father avoided talking to me about his experiences in the countryside. So when the opportunity came knocking under the leadership of Deng Xiaopeng, Mao’s immediate successor, many ambitious men, including my father, were ready to embark on new adventures to further their entrepreneurial dreams without fear of incompetency, competition, or failures. They followed their instincts to make money as natural as one would thirst for a cold drink in the middle of a hot summer. My American visiting professor aptly told our class one day that we Chinese are labelled by some in the West as the Jews of the East!

Thanks to the emergence of a new China after the death of Chairman Mao Zedong in 1976, a flourishing and unstoppable country was on the way to becoming a formidable economic power on the world stage. Deng was the man responsible for the reform and opening up of China to the rest of the world from the 1980s.

My mother was of a different breed and had a college education but decided to become a full-time housewife to raise me and take care of my father, who spent most of his waking hours running a family factory making plastic products for domestic use and some exports. She reminds me of a Japanese mom, someone who always makes sure her child has the best education money can buy, that her child is enrolled in the best kindergarten, especially one that is connected to a prestigious university in town. This is one way to guarantee a promising future for her child. For some of the new wealthy mothers in China, going to the USA, and giving birth to a child with promise of an American passport, is their gift of a brighter future for their child in the twenty-first century. Ironically the USA is still the top choice of many young people who want to further their education in a foreign country.

It is the dream of many Chinese parents to send their children to study in the West, preferably the USA, and having a superior education in China is a key to achieving their goal. And that is how I started learning the English language at a very young age in an English school each day after my regular classes at a local Chinese school. And that is why I would major in the English language when I attended college.

= = = = = =

My father wanted the best for me and introduced me to playing basketball when I was about eight years old. In my early teens, he and Dudu, our family dog, and I would go jogging every Saturday morning up a hill behind our apartment or around a small lake in our hometown. He also exposed me to computer when I was old enough to use the keyboard because both he and my mother were convinced the computer would play an indispensable role in my future and my career. And whenever he had some leisure time, he would take me fishing. My father would disappear for days going fishing when he was not working at the factory. And of course, my mother would never question his whereabouts because my father would always bring home some fish. But she was a little worried because of his long business trips to Taiwan because of rampant rumors of Chinese men having mistresses over there. I do know women of my mother’s generation are either more trusting of their husbands than today’s independent feisty women or simply that they have learned to accept their husbands’ infidelity as long as they continue to bring home the food or cash and support their family.

Growing up as the only child of my parents, I know my parents love me, and I have no reason to question my father’s duty to my mother.

Somehow after a few times fishing with my father, I decided I would prefer to spend time with my computer than fishing. Because every time when I successfully caught a fish, he would tell me to release the fish back into the water because it is still a baby and it needs more time to grow. I got tired of this after a few times. To me a fish is a fish. But my father insisted we could only take home fish that are big enough for cooking. That was the beginning and the end of my interest to become an amateur fisherman. But my father continued to work with me on my basketball skills all the time I lived at home before I left for college.

My mother was instrumental in my education. I remember one day I came home from junior high school and my mother had invited a few mothers to our apartment to pursue a rather unusual idea on how to improve our English in school. She told the mothers, We should encourage our school to initiate some kind of program to bring students together from the local international school and our school to improve the students’ English learning skills because some of the students now attending the international school are native speakers of English. Some of the students are children of parents who are here from English countries like England, Canada, Australia, and the USA, now working in China for world-renowned international companies or corporations. This would give our children a chance to learn authentic English also from native speakers of English.

No matter how hard they tried or how beneficial the idea was, the school refused to consider the suggestion and repeated their stance that to do this, the school would have to seek the approval of the higher authorities in the province. And that was the beginning and the end of the parents’ hope to pursue the school to implement a new policy for the betterment of their children, especially those who are anticipating or preparing to study abroad one day.

My mother was never keen on sending me abroad to improve my English during long summer breaks even though we have relatives in Australia and the USA. Personally she knew of friends who would send their sons or daughters to Mexico to improve their Spanish or to Germany to improve their German during major national holidays in mainland China.

= = = = = =

Meeting Professor Wang, a visiting professor from America, during my first year in college, would change forever my thinking about myself, my college education, my future, my parents, and the world around me and beyond the four walls of mainland China. It was the best thing to happen to my young life, aspiring from the start to learn more from him—inside and outside the classroom—about the most powerful nation in the world—America—and hopefully to have him as my guide and mentor as I continue to prepare myself for a rewarding career in modern China. Because China needs young people like me, who can contribute to its growing importance and dominance in the world, now and in the years to come, since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001. The rest, as they say, is history!

After years of watching faithfully many American movies and NBA games, listening to and singing American popular songs, I have become proficient in both written and spoken English, and it surprised Professor Wang that he said, You speak like an American when we first met in the campus. Because, with more foreigners, students, tourists, and businessmen coming to China, I am preparing myself for a job in international business or a diplomatic career with the Chinese government in the English countries around the world. Mastery of the English language, I strongly believe, would give me a chance to introduce the culture and traditions of China to our foreign guests while visiting or working or studying in my country.

Who could forget our first class with Professor Wang—he wanted to know our names. Most foreign teachers have difficulty with Chinese names. How would a non-Chinese pronounce a name like Xu Zhenqin! Many Chinese characters, like the Chinese names, look intimidating, complex, and difficult to write or pronounce.

He explained it this way to us anxious students: Today, I want to get to know you better as my students. It is important that I know you and your name, so I could call you to get you involved actively in my class. Coming to class is one thing. Learning also means active participation in every class you go to. The American way! So knowing your name is very important to me from now on. Do not worry if you do not have an English name, okay? I will suggest one for you … one to your liking.

This was Professor Wang’s first months in China, totally unaware of a recent trend among students, especially those lucky or privileged to have foreign teachers teaching them English, to be given English names by their foreign teachers to facilitate easy communication between teachers and students. And by the time these students enter the universities, many of them would come with their English names, though many would avoid using them in public.

Something else is also going on in China. Maybe internationalization, globalization, urbanization, and Westernization are inspiring many young people today to adopt some form of Western names. The truth is after the reform and opening up in the late 1970s, many Chinese were exposed increasingly to Western cultures and tourists.

And because of their desire to learn English or to travel around the world one day, many young people in China are able to find new foreign friends via the internet and the social networks. And some are not shy speaking to foreign tourists in every corner of mainland China. Thus, the necessity and urgency to adopt a Western name. It became obvious to me that association with anything considered Western would somehow miraculously add some prestige to a person or his life.

Professor Wang also told us that each seat in the class would have a name, and if a student is absent, he would know immediately the name of the absent student. This is his way of taking daily attendance of his class. Essentially he was developing a seating chart of all the names of the students in each class and that is how he would mark his attendance without having to call out the names of all the students at each class session. A smart way to keep accurate attendance record! Every teacher has his or her own way of keeping track of their students. Having assigned seats, to me, is the smartest and most practical way of getting to know one’s students.

Right at the start of the class as students were coming in, many chose to sit far back in the room or far away from the teacher; Professor Wang was not about to let the students out of his sight! With the passage of time, it would soon become clear why some students would opt to sit far away from the glare of the professor, or any teacher for that matter. Some came to class pursuing their own agenda, indifferent to what was going on in the class.

"In America, we found that the best students, the smart ones, would sit very close to the professor. Most in front of the class. Why? Because they did not want to miss any words coming out of the mouth of the professor. But more importantly, if you want your professor to write you a letter of recommendation at the end of your college career, it is important the professor knows you well in class. That is why one way for the professor to know you well is for you to sit in front of him or close to him so he can get to know you better and that is why active participation in class is another way for the professor to get to know you. Now you decide, okay?"

Words have power to move people! Suddenly almost everyone—including me—moved to the front or closer to the professor. Something else I discovered sitting close to the front of the class: I could hear better and clearer what the instructor is saying to the class. Clear as the sound of the wind in the middle of the night. Most importantly, I learned my first lesson: that spoken words from my professor are powerful and can move mountains!

My name is Green, the first student said, assertively.

Suddenly Professor Wang was a little shocked by it. This was his first time in a Chinese classroom in China. He seemed to say, You could fool anyone but not me! How long have you used this name? he said, slowly and calmly.

Two years or more, the