Late one night in the 1980s, I was tackling a gnarly physics problem in my dorm room at Harvard. My bedroom was sparsely furnished – unlike that of my neighbour, who had not only hired movers but likely an interior decorator as well for hers – but it was all mine. I rubbed my eyes as I scribbled equations on a notepad. It was long past midnight and the darkness beyond the small circle of light cast by my single lamp seemed immense. This was all I’d ever wanted, I told myself. As a first-generation Chinese immigrant who had grown up in poverty, I knew I was beyond fortunate.
Still, something bothered me. I’d developed an intense friendship earlier that year with a guy I’d met. He had a smokey voice and liquid eyes, and was wildly passionate about political causes I’d never considered. We weren’t in love, not exactly. We were both dating (several) other people, but we were at that age when the boundary between friendship and romance isn’t set in stone. He often stayed over in my room after our long talks and he slept in my bed, spooning me. It was comforting and delightful and nothing happened – OK, maybe with an exception or two. But neither of us took those rare incidents to mean anything.
He’d broken off our friendship recently. There wasn’t a dramatic fight or disagreement. He had simply moved on to new friends, who were, I assumed, cooler than I was. Instead of dropping by all the time, he hadn’t called me in weeks. We never talked about it; perhaps we should have. I felt an ache in my chest that lonely night. I missed him.
I started doodling on my notepad and then, suddenly, my hand started writing words and when I glanced down, I gasped. I’d written a poem about him. I was as stunned as if I’d laid an egg. It had never occurred to me to do such a thing before.
My plan was to become a physicist. In fact, I’d been so sure of my path that I’d skipped a year when I entered Harvard so that I could graduate with a master’s in physics in four years.
I spent most of my childhood in a vermin-infested apartment in Brooklyn that was literally falling down around our ears. The worst thing about that apartment was that it didn’t have a working central heating system, and the window panes were covered with a layer of ice on the inside throughout the bitter New York winters. We kept the oven on day and night, leaving the door open, to have a tiny bit of warmth.
My family worked in a clothing factory in Chinatown and, from the age of five, I’d gone along to help. There was so much fabric dust in the air that I could barely breathe. I was not the only child at the factory. When the inspectors came, we would hide in the bathrooms or underneath mountains of clothing. Many entered as children, grew into the better-paying jobs like seamstress as we got older, and left when we were too old to cut the thread off button holes.
My traditional Chinese family thought my only hope might be to find a man willing to marry me, something they despaired of since I was a dreamy, impractical girl who had the ability to cook food that was simultaneously burnt and raw. I set my sights on Harvard instead and somehow, despite all odds, I had made it.
For most of my life, my only goal had been to find a real profession so I could escape the factory. I loved books, but it never crossed my mind to become an artist of any sort. Even if it had, I would have banished the thought immediately. I was an immigrant. I couldn’t afford to have insubstantial dreams. My family and I had fought to survive in a new country, struggling to learn the language and customs. Who has time for art when you are trying to keep your head above water?
And yet, as I read the poem I’d written, I felt something inside unclench. There on the page was the truth about how I felt towards him, and how much it hurt to lose him. That tiny poem was a seed that rooted in my heart. I realised I could possibly become a writer and from that moment on, it was all I wanted to do.
So I changed my field of study to English, giving up that master’s in physics. After I graduated, I moved to New York and worked as a professional ballroom dancer for three years as my day job before getting a master of fine arts in fiction from Columbia University. I published my first short stories while I was still a student and went on to write my debut novel, Girl in Translation, which became an international bestseller and is taught in schools around the world.
That night, I learned that art isn’t a luxury. It’s at the core of what makes us human. Although I’d believed that immigrants couldn’t afford to be creative, I understood then that we had always been the ultimate artists, recreating ourselves again and again as we try to adapt to a new landscape.
• The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok is published by Viper (£14.99)
