This article is published in number 40 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until October 5, 2021
The soothsayer had said it: “You will marry and you will be happy.” Anna, the Chinese girl with a Milanese accent, and Davide, the Milanese boy transplanted to Shanghai, looked perplexed at the almost blind man who was studying their faces by passing a piece of wood over them and meanwhile predicting the past, present and future.
The idea of going there had not been theirs, but of Mrs. Haiyan, Anna’s mother who, after a rather adventurous life and thanks to an allergy to pollen (which only the very polluted Chinese air could, at least as long as the
breathed, to stop), had returned home for a few months and, like any self-respecting Chinese mother-in-law, wanted to know if that marriage “had to be done” or not. Then when the soothsayer had told David a story about his right ear that no one could know, they had decided that perhaps, sometimes, one can even believe in magic.
Anna and Davide had met in Canton one evening when Davide wanted to share a dessert with someone. “I’ll take it with you,” said Anna, sitting at the same huge tableto. The voice was feminine, the open vowels definitely Lombard, but the only girl in the group – Davide noted – was Chinese. “Hey, I spoke,” she insisted, seeing him confused. Neither of them remembers exactly how sweet it was, by convention they say: “Chocolate cake”.
Anna was born in China, in Wenzhou, in the province of Zhejiang, which, she explains to me, is the place where the overwhelming majority of Chinese immigrants in Italy. A brother of his grandfather was among the first to move to Milan: he came by ship, and when he arrived he discovered that there were only two other Chinese in the city.
The restaurant that opened (it was called La Pagoda) fueled a migratory flow of relatives who left knowing they had a more or less secure job. Anna’s parents also said to themselves: why not? And, using up all their savings, they bought four tickets for a hallucinatory journey in containers and truckloads. “I don’t remember anything, it was 1990 and I was only four years old. My brother was very small. But I know that when we were almost there, my mother was stopped and sent back to China ».
So Anna’s dad finds himself in Milan, illegal, with the children he can’t look after because he only has to do one
what: to work. “And so the Municipality has entrusted us to a family home of nuns, in Cusano Milanino“. They stay there for almost five years, until their maternal grandfather sells the family shoe factory and gives all the money to their daughter, so that she can try the journey again, hug her children again. “When mom came back we became a family again, but it wasn’t easy, especially for my brother because he didn’t even remember her face and they didn’t have a common language: he only spoke Italian, she only spoke her Chinese dialect ».
The rest of the history of this family resembles that of many other immigrant families: the doubles and triples
work, a little luck if all goes well, two languages, two cultures, the children who feel the weight of that effort, and study,
and they are good. After the bachelor’s degree, Anna decides to go to Beijing for a year, to learn Mandarin like
must. Shortly after (we are in 2011) Davide also arrives in China, sent to open Ferrari dealerships.
They could have met in Milan, where they both grew up, in one of the many university clubs in which they will almost certainly have touched each other, and instead fate puts them sitting at the same table in Canton. Are also colleagues without knowing they are: the day before Anna had been hired at Ferrari, this was his first business trip to Canton.
«After the trip we all went back to our headquarters in Shanghai. And I, as I do with all newcomers, try to take care of her, I invite her to lunch so that she doesn’t feel alone. The truth is that she has no need for my company: she already knows everyone and I become the one who joins her lunches with others », says Davide. But something happens and that New Year’s Eve, at the stroke of midnight, 2013 begins and so does their love story. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, he gives her a weekend in London (from Shanghai) during which they just sleep, due to jet lag. Meanwhile, mother Haiyan arrives in China who, when she discovers that her daughter is dating an Italian, invites her every Sunday to Wenzhou to introduce her to other future Chinese husbands.
«In China, especially outside the big cities, marriage is an obsession. Chinese kids are shy, they study a lot and then work Likewise. They don’t have time for social relationships, so their parents take care of getting them engaged: they organize everything from first outings to arranged marriages. In Shanghai, in a park called People’s Square, there are dozens of mothers and fathers who display photos and resumes of their children. I know a lot of people who got married like this, and their marriages are also happy, ”says Anna.
That we also dated a couple of these suitors, but she didn’t like any of them. And when a year and a half later Davide asked her to marry her, she replied, happy, yes. There were actually two weddings: one in Milan “with 170 guests, including 110 Chinese and almost no one I had ever seen before”, says Davide, and one in Wenzhou, which he defines as “a fairly strong experience” and laughs about a gazebo decorated with purple pythons and a video of the “yes” edited with techno music – Chinese, of course.
“If there was any cultural friction between us, I never noticed it, because ten years of China have erased any possible difference, and the esteem I have for what Anna’s father did, for his fatigue, his never surrendered, nor ever complained, they make me love all his people through him. What my grandmother said, that “wives and oxen of your countries”, no longer makes any sense ».
At the end of 2019 Anna and Davide, driven by a job opportunity, returned to Milan, a moment before that
the pandemic began. “We were tired of pollution, of filters for everything, of seeing the sun only for
a few weeks a year. And then we wanted a child. Which, we were told, would never get there natural”. But it happened when no one expected it anymore, and now Zeno is 15 months old and it is tangible proof that worlds can merge. Anna speaks to him only in Chinese, Davide in Italian and sometimes in English.
“My parents are a little sorry that his mother tongue will be different from theirs,” says Davide, “he seems to less Italian. But they are from another generation, they struggle to see that what Anna is giving them is one resource for its future, a resource that I lack: I tried to learn Mandarin, but I never succeeded ». As for the educational style, Anna feels that her Chinese piece makes her a little more demanding, a more pressing thread. “A little tiger mom.” And so, before the nursery school, she sent Zeno to socialize at the “play groups”, and she inquired: if she will go to the Italian kindergarten during the week, she will be able to do the Chinese one over the weekend. As for the schools, he would like one with the Italian program, but in English. But does it exist? I ask. “I’m looking for”.
While David shakes his head and in a low voice he says: «Fifteen months … The other day he said ‘dad’».
NB The soothsayer said that the children will be two, boys.
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Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
