First, a disclaimer. I do not have a trick for winning the Green Card Lottery. If I did, of course I would share it (for a price…). What I can do is detail the process. 

I left you here, with our little family unit all psyched up to try and get ourselves into the US. 

But what The Daddy had failed to tell me, as he was speeding through the night on the Metropolitan Line, was that the closing date  was midnight.

That very night.

And so, as he arrived, dinner was forgotten. It was probably best forgotten anyway, I am a terrible cook.

The adrenalin was flowing. We searched through our available photos. We found some acceptable shots of us, but they had foliage in the background. No recent decent shot of the T-Bot. Luckily he was not yet asleep so we threw him up against a white wall and took a hundred poses, just to be safe. He wasn’t blurry in about three of them. We tried to throw each other up against a wall but the resulting pictures were horrible, like zombies.

Then while I put T-Bot to bed, The Daddy got busy with Photoshop. 

It was approaching 11pm when we finally had our online forms completed, photos at the ready, and we were ready to Pass Go. At this moment, the US government servers, who were probably very tired and under an unprecedented onslaught from all the last-minute-hopefuls, gave up on us.

(cue frenetic music)

It took us until 11.52 to submit three simple forms, but - like a Hollywood movie where the heroes prevail 2 seconds before the bomb is to go off - we did it. 

And by the next morning, we had forgotten about it. Because, after all, we had never won before. 

(Look out for Part Three, coming soon. I apologise for feeding this in dribs and drabs, but it is still summer vacation time and I am feeling it here…)

It was a typically chilly winters day in London. I was at home bathing the T-Bot when The Daddy called me on his cellphone from his Daily Interminable Commute on the Tube. 

“Hey!” he shouted, “You know the Green Card Lottery we used to enter every year?” 

“Yes” I yelled back. Because I did know. 

“And then we stopped entering because there wasn’t a chance we would ever win?”

“Yes?” 

“Well! This year… phppphzzzzhhhhhhhhhhhpht.”

“What??????”

“I said! Phpppzzzzppppphhhhzzzzzzzt… and then…phhhhhhhhtzzzzztttt”

“What?!” I said “you’re breaking up! What did you say again?” 

“I said, this year is the first year they are only taking entries over the internet. That’s going to rule lots of people out. People who only have a rickety old community typewriter which is missing the z key. We could be in with a chance!” 

You’ve got to love The Daddy and his crazy schemes. We had started casting our lot with the US Diversity Visa, commonly known as the Green Card Lottery, in the early 90’s. Back then we used to write the few details required (name, address, DOB, country of citizenship) in longhand on a piece of paper, carefully attach a passport photo with tape, and mail it off to a physical address. We did this for a good few years because

hey!

why not?

It only cost the price of a stamp and after all someone had to win. 

In the meantime, life went on. We moved from New Zealand, where we were living, to France to the UK and back to New Zealand again. Then from New Zealand to the UK a second time. We declined a couple of offers to go work in the US because they were on H1B visas. We personally knew several people who had arrived on temporary visas, fought to stay in the US, and ultimately failed. Finally we stopped sending off our sad sheets of paper, and settled in London. 

So this is how I came to be in  a two-bedroom apartment in the London suburbs, giving the T-Bot his bath, while The Daddy tried to communicate from his rickety train.

“Phsssszzzzzzzt” said The Daddy. 

“Are you in a tunnel?” I asked.

“Pzzzzphhhhhhhhzzz….hhhhht”

“So… I’m guessing Harrow?” 

“Pshhhhh…gaohgaaaaaoooohhhhzzz” 

“We’ll talk about it when you get home. See you around eight.” 

“Pzzz…Yeah around then. As long as they don’t find leaves on the line.” 

(Look out for Part Two, later…)

(A Simple Tale…)

My favorite doll growing up was a Chinese doll. Not in today’s sense of a doll made in China - she was made in France and would probably be worth a fortune today if I hadn’t, very inexpertly, cut her hair (she does look a little evil now, but remember - she used to have bangs*). She wasn’t a collector doll either, to be stood on a shelf and brought down only for the obligatory 6-monthly dusting. No, this was an honest to goodness, full size, ready-to-play-with doll who just happened to have tanned skin and Asian features. 

I loved her, very probably because she was different. And I still remember the day I decided to give her a name. I must have been quite old, I think around six, but if she already had an identity I had decided it was unsatisfactory. She needed a Chinese name. 

(Was it around this time that the Chinese government was sending out propaganda posters to foreign schools? I vaguely remember one which looked like it should be an introduction to life in the People’s Republic, but upon closer inspection was just a bunch of poorly reproduced photos of various PRC politicians, with captions singing their praises. Yes, I went to that kind of elementary school -  if there was a bare wall they would fill it with anything that came to hand).

I have vivid memories of following my parents around the house pestering them for a list of Chinese monikers. Actually, I can clearly see myself following my mother into the bathroom and my father the length of our very large yard, including through a heavy gate, all the while insisting that they must have a name for my doll. And they just couldn’t come up with anything to my liking. 

I should note that at this time we lived in a rural area where there were plenty of white and brown skinned people but very few of any Asian variety. My parents, though fairly well travelled, had very possibly never met anybody Chinese, at least not for long enough to be on first name terms. And I have to assume (to be fair to them) that they did try to fob me off with the standard fare, such as Lily or Willow or Jade. 

(A few years later we moved to the city, to an area where the mix was about 10% Chinese, but there, inexplicably, all the girls were called Jenny).

No, more likely the issue was with me being a persnickety child. Nothing would do. 

Until finally, my father, exasperated, yelled out “Mao Tse Tung”. And then, I could not be dissuaded from using this very Chinese sounding name, even through talks of  repression, cleansing and famine. That’s just the kind of kid I was. And that is how I came to have a girl doll called Mao Tse Tung. 

(*English speakers: that means a fringe. Yes, I always used to wonder what Laura Ingalls Wilder was going on about too. All those girls with bangs on their head, what on earth was the matter?).