My U.S. vacation continues. One day, I have breakfast at the IHOP. One thing I missed about the States were the great breakfasts, especially pancakes. While I am enjoying my buttermilk pancakes with bacon and coffee, an old truck driver, a typical midwesterner, approaches me shyly. "Lady, excuse me, but do you speak Chinese?"

"Yes."

"Can you do me a favor?" The man is polite, yet eager. He tells me that his name is Sam. Through a matchmaking company, he has corresponded with a Chinese woman named Ying from Jiangxi Province for three months. Although they have exchanged only five letters, Ying claims that she has fallen in love with her "Uncle Sam," who is thirty years her senior. When I hear of the age difference, I think of O'Keeffe and Stieglitz, although this romance doesn't seem to have the same chance of success.

"I never expected Asian women to be so direct and open!" Sam says to me. "Aren't we Americans ignorant about other peoples?"

"Thank you for telling me your story, but what can I do for you?" I ask.

"I've thought of calling her. Can you help me interpret on the phone?"

"Yes."

Five minutes later, we dial China from a pay phone near the restaurant.

"Hello, this is Sam. May I speak to Ying?" Sam speaks in English and I repeat it in Chinese.

"Darling, it's Ying speaking!"

"Thank you for the nice letters. I have one concern. What do you think of my age?" Sam gets to the point right away, showing his American impetuosity.

"Although you are thirty years older, you look young from your pictures. Your voice sounds young, too." Ying sounds sweet.

"Oh, I'm flattered." Sam smiles from ear to ear.

"When my heroes Anna Chan and Wendy Deng married General Claire Chennault and Rupert Murdoch, respectively, both of whom are older than the brides' fathers, age was the least of their concerns."

"But I was told that the Chinese believe in filial piety. What if your parents didn't approve of you being with an old foreigner?"

"There are prejudices and feudal thoughts in China, but I'm a woman warrior. I'll fight back!" Ying sounds determined.

"I admire you for saying this." Sam puts one hand over his heart religiously.

"Darling, I've been missing you so much that I dream of you every night. What do you think of me visiting you in America?" Ying's voice becomes more affectionate.

"Sounds like a super idea!" Sam answers cheerfully.

"Of course, you will have to pay for my trip."

"No problem. How much?" says Sam eagerly.

Ying speaks directly to me, "Hey, sister, you're also a Chinese, right?"

"Yes." I say warily.

"Then you have to help your compatriot. If this old guy is rich, I will ask more. If he isn't, I will ask less."

"Why don't you make up your own mind?" I say, thinking, she's already got her hand in his pocket. Now she is asking me how much money to take out?

"Ten grand," Ying says.

"Renminbi or U.S. dollars?" Sam asks in reply.

"Of course it's the green money I'm talking about," Ying says.

"I'd consider it, but I would like to know how you want to spend the money."

"I want to go to the United States via Hong Kong, the shopping paradise. I want to spend a week there to fully experience capitalism. Then, I would like to select a diamond ring, at least one carat. You know, the Chinese really care about face."

Sam shows hesitancy as he hears about the ring. "Darling, I'd love to buy you gifts, but I haven't even proposed yet. We're still in the process of getting to know each other. Perhaps it's too early to talk about rings, don't you think?"

Ying says, "In China, men spend money on women they are pursuing in order to show their respect to the women's parents. If I go to the United States to see you, we consider it an insult to my parents if you don't give me anything expensive."

As I repeat this part in English, I feel ashamed, but manage to translate Ying's words verbatim.

Toward the end of the conversation, Sam agrees to buy Ying something special (but not a diamond ring), and to wire her the money right away. Ying will go to apply for a passport immediately. They air-kiss good-bye to each other.

After the phone call, I feel obligated to warn Sam. So I ask him, "What do you think of Ying?"

"She sounds full of shit! She thinks that we Americans are made of gold. I can't believe she's so provincial." His voice is no longer sweet.

I am taken aback by Sam's answer, "But you wanted to send her money!"

"Are you kidding? I'm sixty years old. No way I'd be so stupid that I'd send some stranger that much money. I've never even given my mother a thousand dollars!" Sam says, shaking his fist emphatically.

"But you said yes to her…" I am confused.

Sam laughs, explaining, "Did I lose anything by saying yes? If I hadn't said yes, would I have found out her real thoughts?"

"I thought you were a fool for love!" I say.

"I pretended to be," says the wily Sam with an impish grin.

"You also had me fooled. You remind me of the Chinese saying, Jiang haishi laode la. 'Old ginger is always spicier.' "

I decide to call Ying and tell her to forget about scamming Sam. I redial the number from the same phone.

It's a man's voice on the other line with a local accent. "How can I help you?"

I try to mimic the man's accent. "I'm looking for Ying."

"My wife has just left to apply for a passport."

JIANG HAISHI LAODE LA: "Old ginger is always spicier."

I didn't anticipate that I would meet Yu during my trip to the United States.

Yu is the Shanghai girl that I met in Beijing a few years ago, whose biggest dream was to speak English every day. I had never met a person like Yu – she was so infatuated with English but had no language talent at all. I knew Yu's boyfriend, a kindhearted young Chinese man. Yu had dumped her boyfriend because his English was clumsy. She was determined to find a boyfriend who could speak perfect English. One time, she was caught with a Canadian man in his hotel room around midnight. Although she insisted that she was speaking English with him, her school expelled her. After the incident, the rumors of Yu prostituting herself spread around the campus and among her circle of friends. Nobody ever heard from Yu again. She disappeared. Many thought she might have ended up in a mental institution because of her obsession with speaking perfect English.

This time, I run into Yu in my friend's church, a church predominantly serving the Chinese community. Even though I am not Christian, I enjoy visiting churches and appreciate the beautiful architecture and songs. This is a luxury that people can rarely enjoy in China, where religion is watched closely by the government. Yu recognizes me first. For the first hour of our conversations, she talks passionately about her discovery of religion. "God is the Almighty. Other religions from Buddhism to Hinduism believe in deities. There can be many deities, but only one true God. Before, I was so unhappy in China. The reason was simple: I didn't find God."

"I thought you were unhappy because you weren't able to converse in English with native speakers every day," I tease her.

"Perhaps because English is the language that God loves," Yu replies in a serious tone.

"So how did you end up here? Fill me in!" I ask.

"It's a really long story." And Yu recounts…

After Yu was expelled by her school, she desperately wanted to leave China. Within three months, she found herself a middle-aged Chinese-American husband, Eric, who had been looking for a young wife in China.