At least 6,800 miles, 50 years, and one-half of a language barrier divide me and many of my elder relatives in China. At our family reunion dinner there, when I sit only a couple feet from them, they hastily push towards me a plastic bag full of zao––a fruit which I only recently discovered to be called jujubes in English and which I have never even seen in the U.S. Their excitement to see me eat their beloved fruit bombards me from every direction: they jab their index fingers at me and the zao, smile their toothy grins, and target their gaze at my sheepish eyes. So, despite our differences, what choice do I have? 

I reluctantly bite into a zao and fabricate a smile to beam back at my elders as my tongue nudges the stale, pale flesh, as hard and dry as the tree branch from which it grew. My taste buds, intoxicated with blandness, lie disappointed. My relatives’ grins swell as I force my lips to smack generously at the zao’s nonexistent juice, and before I have the chance to swallow, they jump up and furiously applaud me, as if I’m performing for them. Over the applause, from an audience I never asked for, they shout, “Ah, amazing job!” or “Small child, zao will make you live longer! It’s good for your body, you know!” At least, that’s what I think they said based on my patchy knowledge of Mandarin, anyway. And with their spotlights all on me, I can’t help but silently retort with a mental spectacle of my own.

Come one, come all! I present to you: the zao! If you consume the flesh of this fruit, you will achieve immortality, at least according to the baseless account of my grandparents and first cousins once removed and second cousins once removed and all their spouses as well. Ladies and gentlemen––if the lingering taste of soggy cardboard kindles in you the spark of immortality, then by all means, go ahead and pick up some zao at your local Asian market. Splendid, now only the sensible audience members are left. 

You would think that underneath the skin of a zao––tainted a pasty green and pockmarked with coarse, brown sores––their flesh would, at the very least, burst with refreshing juice like their long-lost cousin, the Chinese pear. I, a sore victim of this misconception, affirm that when bitten into, they gush into your mouth nothing but a coarse dryness. Therefore, I urge you to buy zao only if you are an elderly Chinese grandparent with tender gums and teeth dulled over decades of eating this fruit. Do you have tender gums and decades-worn teeth? Are you an aging Chinese grandparent? 

Finally having thoroughly chewed the stony zao flesh, I snap out of my mental spectacle and force the flesh down my throat. However, now I face the core of my problem, black and the size of a paperclip, lodged between my four front teeth, and hidden by my dry lips. 

What do I do with the pit? 

Take it out and place it in the open, and I risk a brief but humiliating scolding from my mother about etiquette around elders. I will then be the star of the show once more, with my relatives spectating the entire lecture, some of whom will probably nod consolingly at my embarrassment and others who will simply stare with dead-panned faces. Later, on the taxi ride back home, I will have to endure an infinitely more extensive lecture in Mandarin about embarrassing her and my dad in front of our family.

Alternatively, drop it on the ground, and my dad, like a predator pinpointing its next meal, will somehow carve the outline of the pit desperately trying to camouflage with the dark brown carpet. He’ll silently scold me with a raise of his eyebrows, his stern gaze, and a droop of one corner of his mouth in disappointment. Then, I’ll have to stand up and awkwardly pick it up and place it on the table––where my mom will inevitably see it and subject me to a scolding in front of my relatives and a lecture in Mandarin on the taxi ride home. And all for the sake of maintaining our pretense of politeness around my elders––whom I have barely spoken to before and can barely communicate with now, and who, when they compress me into a fleshy ball with a hug, probably just pretend to know which scraggly branch of our tangled family tree I come from. I would know; I act the same way towards them.

Ten minutes later, I still hold that pit behind my lips, wiggling it back and forth with my tongue. While my parents erupt into laughter at another ridiculous story of some relative, I fake rubbing my nose and discreetly spit the pit out into my palm. Except now, I remember I’m a germaphobe. And at this point I want to tear through this paper-thin façade of courtesy towards my elders, whom I barely see every few years. And even if I cannot tear through this paper-thin façade, why not poke one hole through, just this one time? 

But I couldn’t. This was not the first time I had been next to one of my relatives and needed to decide what to do about a spat-out pit. The last summer I was in China. Four years ago. One of the eight sisters of my dad’s mom. The one who had let my dad stay at her home in Beijing when he attended college and worked for a graduate degree nearby. The one who gave him dinner and a roof over his head and a bed and directions to a shower he could use in town because she never had enough money to cover the water bill for both of them but always enough money to take care of him all of his college years. She probably bought him some zao, too. I didn’t know her then. I don’t know her now. I guess I just. Never bothered. To try. All I have is what my dad can tell me. 

And this one moment. 

We visited her. Once. I sit down on the couch with her next to me. A couple of years over ninety. She picks up a small peach and takes a bite and keeps eating until she is done. And then she spits the pit out into her hand. Right in front of me, without a worry or care. Because why shouldn’t she? She’s not like me. Six times my age, thirty-six times my experience, two hundred sixteen times my wisdom. Enough to know that spitting out a pit in front of your family will not kill anybody. 

But she drops the pit. Germaphobia automatically shackles my every muscle. Tendon. Ligament in my body from helping her as she bends her decades-worn back down. The back that laid the foundation for the mere idea of my family’s future. And will ensure their longevity for decades to come. Even when your elders do not urge you to do something, you obey. And so, respect for her and the desire to honor her disintegrate the shackles of germaphobia on my body and mind. I reach down and pick up the pit. Saliva and peach juice coat my right thumb, index finger, and middle finger. But I don’t care. No. This is my last opportunity. To repay her. For the sixteen years of life she has given me: through the money and food and bed and roof over my father’s head and chance for higher education that she gave him; through the dedication my father has since sunk into fashioning and encouraging every cubic inch of my body and mind. 

I pick the pit up and throw it in the trash. And as she leans her decades-worn back on the couch, the little smile that traces the corner of her decades-worn lips wipes my fingers and the disgust in my mind clean. Cleaner than water, soap, and a towel ever could. And that little smile traces the corner of my decade-old lips as well. 

As that summer fell into fall, her body fell away with it. Yet, her soul, bearing her undying passion and persistence for family, merged with the base of our family tree and fossilized into petrified wood. Establishing an indestructible foundation from which us future generations could build our lives.

Now, I bear in my palm this zao pit. I look up and gaze around me at my relatives’ ebullient grins and gleeful eyes. I hear their guffaws resound throughout the dining room, like a country band beckoning their entire village to break into song and dance. And I realize that this familial passion is the juice I thought was absent in my zao. This sweet, enlivening juice was not meant to be enjoyed by my tongue, but by my heart when I ate the zao which my relatives had so considerately spent their time and money on for my sake. 

As I gently roll the pit between my thumb and forefinger, its lined ridges nestling comfortably into the folds of my skin and massaging a faint warmness into my fingers, I can’t help but imprint a warmness of my own into the pit. Now, I understand: hidden behind the zao’s stale, coarse façades of nonexistent juice and bland flesh, lies the pit of familial appreciation. And I know that within this pit resides the question of familial love and dedication, awaiting my answer.

  My promise: to fossilize my family tree’s other scraggly, withering branches into foundations from which my own branch will grow, no matter the distance, age, time, or language differences that separate us. And with this promise, I almost feel the pit snuggled between my fingers rattle with a petite, hopeful life of its own. Not as a pit, but as a seed. So, in front of my parents and other relatives, I nestle the seed back on my now perked-up taste buds. With my tongue, I give the seed one more tight embrace against the inside of my cheek. And I swallow.