"Hello, may I speak to Boshen?" "So your friends text you from Beijing?" "Yeah." "But how does that work?" "Your keypad doesn't have Chinese on it." "Hey." "Why do you think I'm here?" "I just want to be sure." "I've heard from friends that Yang is prostituting again." "You know, the whole thing between Yang and me was never a big deal." "If you never cared for Yang," "How did this ever happen?" "I wasn't a fan, Sasha." "I tried to help him." "I gave him a place to stay." "He took money from you" "It was that simple-- and you were not the only one." "Well, I've got to get back to work." "It is-- it is funny to you?" "Sasha." "That is personal." "You shouldn't be going through my things." "Sasha, I have someplace I need to be tonight." "Get dressed." "You're coming with me." "What's the plan that you talk about in the letter?" " Boshen." " Alvin." " I'm glad you could make it." " Thanks again for inviting me." "My pleasure." "I hope you don't mind-- I've brought a friend." " This is Sasha." " Sasha, nice to meet you." "This is perfect." "I have lots of food." "This is my wife Mary." "Hi, Sasha." "Nice to meet you." "Come in." "Make yourselves at home." "I'm also known as the guy who saved his ass." "Come on." "I'll get you a drink." "So I'm gonna tell you something you already know I'm sure" "Boshen is fabulous." "He is, isn't he?" "I tell my husband that Boshen makes me feel less Chinese by comparison." "Have you tasted his Kung Pao chicken?" "Or Kung Pao anything?" "No?" "You'll have to try it." "You don't know what you're missing." "It's a shame what happened, though, isn't it?" "A shame?" "What do you mean?" " What happened?" " Well, the circumstances in China." "His deportation?" "Hmm." "So-- you are from China, right?" " Yeah." " Oh." "Okay." "Well, I'll get you that drink." "I have family in Beijing." "More than $100 million." "Can you believe it?" "The Red Sox paid" "More than $100 million for Matsuzaka." "You know, I don't care what you say" "Nobody cares about baseball anymore." "Huh." "That's exactly wrong." "The Americans care, the Japanese care, and I'm sure that Matsuzaka himself cares." "Okay, this is what I'm saying:" "In 20 years, there is going to be 1.5 billion people in China, and 1.5 billion Chinese will care." "Well, I just got back from Shanghai and the brother of a customer of mine-- the guy's 30 years old and he can't find a wife because of the one-child policy." "His parents are desperate." "They're going all the way to Vietnam just so that he can get married." "Well, you know, that's really just the tip of the iceberg, because I've read where in 10 years there's going to be something like 30 million Chinese men who won't be able to find a Chinese woman to marry." "And what's really ironic about that is, historically, it's always been the Chinese male baby that's been the most valued, and pretty soon it's going to be the reverse" "It's going to be the young Chinese girl baby." "Well, I'll tell you:" "It's certainly not going to be 10 years." "I mean, that's going on already." "Young Chinese women nowadays, they're looking for the rich, overseas Chinese, Westerners." "They're looking to get out of China." "I was recently speaking to some 20-year-old female students from Beida." "I asked them about the Tiananmen Square incident with the tank man, and they knew nothing about it." "Isn't that amazing?" "Sasha, do you remember the tank man?" "I heard a little from my grandmother." "So, Sasha, you're a friend of Boshen's?" "No, I don't really know him." "In Beijing, we share the same preference in men." "Oh." "Boshen, please, tell us more." " Yes." "We met though a mutual friend." "Boshen, we heard you were an activist of some kind-- an AIDS activist?" "No no, not an AIDS activist." "I just was helping the BBC reporter who was doing a project on AIDS." "Sasha, what do you do?" "Precisely what you think." "And that is?" " Nothing." "Nothing." "Tell us-- what does that mean?" " Mind your own business." " Oh!" "You guys know nothing about China." "You guys are not even Chinese." "You know, when I was in Beijing," "I found a place with the most unusual jiaozi." "It was a little bit like this ravioli-- they had cheese inside." "They were really really good." "Sasha." "Who do you think you are?" "Paris Hilton?" "I like her." "So what?" "People give her shit." "She just does what she wants." "You are embarrassing me down there." "I might be okay with it," "But it will cost you." "I think you'd better go through with your plans for tomorrow-- by yourself." "Mmm?" "Got a light?" " Hey." " No." "Chinese?" "I just want to go look around the city." "What's your name?" " Sasha." " Sasha, who's paying for these drinks?" "I am." "What do you wanna do?" "I want him to fuck off." "Okay." "Nice meeting you, Gene." "My name is not Gene." "Yeah, his name is Genghis Khan." "So... what brings you to our little Mongolia?" "Nothing." "I just wanna go look around the city, but it's no better than Omaha." "It's in Nebraska." "It's where I go to school, sort of." "Hey." " Who's your friend?" " Sasha." "Sasha." "To a new friend." "New friend." " New friend!" " And to old friends." " Old friends!" "This James." "Hi." "Sasha, James." "Thank you for everything that you've done for me." "Of course, we didn't expect it to go this way, but the accountant is always left with blood in his hands." "Still you didn't give them anything." "When they pressed you, you said nothing." "Thank you." "Can I help you with something?" "Oh yeah?" "He was beautiful." "A student in the Peking Opera School." "A lot of people fell in love with him-- both men and women" "And they end up the worse for it." "We went to a movie once." "We saw "Pretty Woman."" "He said it was silly." "It is silly." "Everything happens here." "A prostitute can become a princess overnight." "A prostitute can never become a princess." "You don't know that." "Is Sasha a Russian name?" "I don't think so." "I think it's the name of a heroine in my mother's favorite book." "I wish it was Russian." "Sasha, Sasha, the Princess of Russia." "Come with me." "We could be the Prince and Princess of Nebraska." ""Pretty Woman."" "My love towards you is so tender and so faithful." "Does that count as true love?" "I will show you my Nebraska." "Then we could go to L.A., London, New York." "Every night I play these roles" "For these fucking men in the bars." "Do you know what I do for them besides pouring them beer?" "I'm sick and tired of acting out other people's tragedies." "I look just like my mother." "She must have been beautiful." "She was." "She was from Beijing too." "Just like you." "My mother got sent to Mongolia in 1972 for labor re-education." "She got stuck in the grassland after having me." "I didn't have any legal residency in Beijing, so she had to stay with me." "My mother said that she never regretted having me, that I gave her life purpose, a place to be," "even if it was not the best place." " Ah-Ching?" " Yeah." "Oh!" "Coffee." "Thank you." " Thank you." "Great." "Bye-bye." "There's a parade today." "A lot of crazy parades in this town." "This one's called the saint stupid day parade." "It's one of a kind." "We can stay for it if you like." "I don't care." "I have to be at the health center at 2:00." "Can we talk?" "And our love will protect Yang." "You have to move on." "Yang is gone." "He's not here anymore." "His baby's here and I'm here." "Sasha, we're ready for you." "Hello, Sasha." "I'm Claire." "How are you feeling?" " I'm okay." " Okay, good." "I'm going to go over some information with you and I'll answer any questions that you have." "All right." "How long have  you been in San Francisco?" " About 20 hours." " 20 hours?" "Do you have an address here in San Francisco?" "A local address?" "Because the one I have here is in Omaha, Nebraska." " I don't live here." " So you still live in Omaha?" "Kind of." "What are you doing here then?" "It's a long way to come." "I don't want to remember all these things that happened in the clinic in Nebraska." "Okay." "I just wanted to come to San Francisco, 'cause that's what I always wanted to do." " And just look around the city." " Mm-hmm." "Okay." "Can you tell me when the first day of your last period was?" " I'm not sure." " Can you guess for me?" " About four months." " About four months ago." "All right." "May I ask you how or why it took you so long to make this decision?" "Can I talk to you like a real person?" "Sure." "Of course." "At first I didn't want to believe that I was pregnant." "Mm-hmm." "Then I was trying to call Yang and let him help me make the decision." "Yang's your boyfriend?" "Well, that's what my friend asked me too." "Mm-hmm." "And what did you answer when they asked you?" "How can I love him if he only loves himself?" "Mm-hmm." "So he's not aware and he's not aware of this decision either?" "Okay." "Well, it all started about two days before I left Beijing." " Mm-hmm." " Yang-- he's really attractive" "I had been seeing his performance in the Peking Opera Theater..." " Mm-hmm." " ...on and off, about a month." "And one night that-- we went to a movie, and after that we went to the hotel room" " and-- you know." " Mmm." "And I suggest that we use a condom, 'cause I had one, but he said no." "He said the condom is only for those people who touch without loving each other." " Mmm." " And I trusted him." "Yeah." "Well, have you explored all your options-- terminating the pregnancy, adoption, continuing?" "I don't really know." "You don't really know what you want to do?" "How do you think you're gonna make that decision?" "I want to keep the baby..." " You do?" " ...but I'm not able to afford it." "I don't know what to do, even if I do have the baby." "Is your family aware of the pregnancy?" " No." " No." "Are you gonna tell them?" "No." "If I tell my mom, then she will kill me." "Yeah, that's a common thing too." "Do you have friends that can help you?" "No." "Well, becoming a mother-- becoming a parent-- is a huge responsibility." "Well, the thing is that it's not even in my plan." " Mm-hmm." " I always wanted to go to college, continue my education, get a degree, then find a good job," "get married when I'm 28 and have a baby." "Mm-hmm." "Well, this would be a significant change in that plan." "Do you have any resources that you can think of that would allow you to do this if it's something that you wanted to do?" "No?" "Okay." "Do you want me to go over what the procedure would be if you decided to terminate?" "Okay." "It's called dilation and evacuation." "We put something into your cervix that expands over time." "It gradually opens the cervix so later on in the afternoon we can take out the contents of your uterus." "You'd be sedated, probably wouldn't feel anything." "There is a risk of infection and of bleeding, but relatively speaking it's a very safe procedure." "Do you have any questions about the procedure?" "No?" "Okay." "I also think it's really important that we do an ultrasound just to see exactly how far along you are, and I also think it will help you make some decisions." "All right?" "So that measurement's about 16 weeks and a day." "That's also 16 weeks, so about four months." "You're right." "Do you want to see the screen?" "Are you okay, Sasha?" "All right, let's do it." "# hope there's someone # # who will take care of me # # when I die # # will I go?" "# # hope there's someone # # who will set  my heart free # # nice to hold # # when I'm tired #" "# there's a ghost on the horizon #  # when I go to bed #" "# how can I fall asleep at night?" "# # how will I # # rest my head?" "# # oh, I'm scared of the middle place # # between light and nowhere #" "# I don't want  to be the one # # left in there # # left in there #" "# there's a man  on the horizon # # wish that I'd # # go to bed # # if I fall to his feet tonight # # will allow # # rest my head?" "# # so he's hoping I will not drown # # or paralyze in light # # and godsend, I don't want to go # # to the seal's watershed #" "# hope there's someone who'll take care of me # # when I die # # will I go?" "# # hope there's someone who'll set my heart free # # nice to hold # # when I'm tired. #"