Coming to America

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Chen has come of age in the course of his long odyssey. He cannot hide his pride when he says he will keep sending money to support his family in China, even after he has paid off his debt. For the time being he works with 17 other Chinese, all from Fujian, as well as five Bangladeshis and one Indian--not a green card among them. Finding proper papers will come. "I haven't had time to work that out yet," he says, implying it will not be that hard. Meanwhile, he is trying to learn English so he can climb out of the dishwashing level of the economy. He has already dreamed up a business plan to import crabs from China. And at the right time he plans to get married, to some Chinese woman who also came over by boat. "They are tough and don't cry much, so they make good wives," he thinks.

His family is delighted that No. 2 Son made it safely to the U.S. When TIME shows his parents pictures of Canting standing outside his restaurant and sitting in a car, the mother rushes off to show all her neighbors, as proud as American parents displaying college graduation photos of their children. Like the knight who slayed the dragon, Chen Canting overcame the dangers challenging him, risking death on the high seas, imprisonment in four countries and abandonment in a nation where he knew nothing of the language or the culture. He broke the law and remains an illegal immigrant, which still poses a problem if he is ever caught. But for now he is here. And that, as he says, is the strangest, most wonderful thing of all.