AMWF love stories | Speaking of China

Chapter 23: The Sound of Silence in Love

My Chinese boyfriend, John, by the West Lake in Hangzhou — My Chinese boyfriend, John, became increasingly quiet, and I wanted more words, instead of more silence.

In Chinese, you can say so much, with so little. Four-character idioms could say what a sentence or two in English might. One character could even do the work of a short sentence or sentiment.

But sometimes simplicity invites questions — when one character could mean so many different things. Think about the character 到 (dao). Depending on how you use it, it could say: arrive or reach; to go to; up until, or up to; or thoughtful.

After spending several days touring Beijing with John, our conversations went from so much to so little, where silence filled more of our moments, as if our relationship, like one character, could say more than so many words.

Yet, despite our understanding, I longed for words. I found strength and security in John — in us as a real, lasting couple — through words. Without them, questions began to fill in my mind as we passed National Day together. Continue reading “Chapter 23: The Sound of Silence in Love”

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Chapter 22: Hitting the Great Wall(s) of Beijing

The Great Wall of China, cascading over a mountain — Sometimes, you hit walls in life in China. And sometimes, you hit walls on the way to the Great Wall.

When I think of Beijing, I think of walls. I think of the Great Wall, that fortress meandering over a panoply of mountains surrounding Beijing, built to keep foreign invaders out of China.

Today, foreigners can be found all over Beijing, a city that in 2008 warmly welcomed them to the Olympic Games. But sometimes, no matter how open things seem to be, the walls still remain.

I was hitting a wall of my own in Beijing when I couldn’t get in touch with my Chinese boyfriend, John. It was past nine on the evening of September 28, and he had promised to arrive in Beijing on the morning of September 29. But he hadn’t called to say he would definitely come, or that he had bought a train ticket — and his cell phone had lost power, so I couldn’t call or send a text message. I was in my hotel room, without the distractions of the day — a walk around Tian’anmen Square, a visit to a replica of the home from a Dream of Red Mansions — and all I could think of was this vacation couldn’t move forward without John.

A bath, I thought. Just take a bath. So, as I slipped into the tub — my last refuge from a mental breakdown — and my phone rang. It wasn’t John’s number, but I picked it up.

And, sure enough, it was John. “I just got on the train — I’ll be arriving at 7:45am in the Beijing station.”

Just like that, his words broke through the barriers in my mind. He was coming. Our National Day vacation would happen. We would be together again.

Yet, all of my elation never prepared me for the walls that awaited us, after John arrived. Because, when you’re young, in love, and traveling independently — on a budget — in China, something’s bound to catch you, sometime. Continue reading “Chapter 22: Hitting the Great Wall(s) of Beijing”

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Chapter 21: A Foreign Face in Beijing

Western woman meeting the governor of Hangzhou, China — As a foreigner in China, sometimes your "foreign face" is your most useful asset. (Pictured: the company introduces me to the governor of Hangzhou, because I'm the token foreigner.)

Attending the conference in Beijing is the closest I’ll get to feeling like a model — because I’m valued more for my appearance than my intellect. My foreign appearance, that is.

Our company has a booth enviably located near the main entrance and the stairs, guaranteeing just about everyone will pass by. We’ve stacked our tables high with the company’s free manufacturers’ directory — available in exchange for a business card.

Standing behind that table, I want to be more useful than just a face. I help the sales reps unload boxes of directories. I collect business cards, hand out directories, and shake hands, just like everyone else. But in the end, I am still a curiosity, and still largely ornamental — and the attendees can’t help but remind me of it, especially once I speak in Chinese. Continue reading “Chapter 21: A Foreign Face in Beijing”

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Chapter 20: The Forbidden Heart of My Ex-Chinese Boyfriend

Tiananmen gate, just before the Forbidden City in Beijing — Frank, my ex-Chinese boyfriend, used language to create distance, making his heart as fortified as the Forbidden City in Beijing once was.

Sometimes, life doesn’t keep the people you love the most by your side. As John left on September 19 for Shanghai, I still spent every workday in the office with Frank, my ex-Chinese boyfriend, sitting right by my side. And on September 23, I would have to attend a conference in Beijing with Frank.

Mr. CEO, the head of this Chinese Internet company, had asked me to go to the conference. “I’d like you to help represent the company,” said the sprightly 30-year old with a hand cupped over a slight smile, almost as if embarrassed. Maybe Mr. CEO had so much more to say, but simply kept it to himself.

Frank, however, wasn’t about to keep to himself his assessment of why I was going. “You’re there for ornamental purposes,” he announced confidently, almost with a smirk on his face. I wasn’t a Christmas tree, yet it was obvious that Mr. CEO needed me there to make the company look more international. Still, Frank’s words smacked of such sarcasm, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was how he pushed me away and created space between us — even when that space, physically, didn’t exist.

When you’re forced together, against your will, sometimes language is all you have for separation. Continue reading “Chapter 20: The Forbidden Heart of My Ex-Chinese Boyfriend”

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Chapter 19: Only Mandarin-Speaking Foreigners Belong in China?

Western woman sitting with Chinese graduates. — Are Mandarin-speaking foreigners the only ones who can integrate into China? Or will foreigners always be foreigners no matter what (and stand apart from the crowd)?

Even in a city as large as Hangzhou — with over 6 million people — it’s hard to escape your past. My ex-Chinese boyfriend Frank still sat next to me at work in the Chinese Internet company. And far across the West Lake sat remnants of my ex-life in Hangzhou, when, in 2001, I endured four months in an international NGO struggling to be a technical writer.

I wanted to leave that place behind, because, like Frank, it left me with painful memories. A dictatorial Chinese director who blocked me from doing the writing I was hired to do. A European roommate who harassed and humiliated me, in an effort to drive me away from our coworkers. Poor facilities, from the broken washing machine to the dank, windowless basement kitchen filled with crickets. The only thing I could be proud of was that I managed to survive for four months.

So when Camille — a new European volunteer at the NGO — got in touch with me, it was like getting a call from an ex that I wasn’t even sure I wanted to talk to again. Continue reading “Chapter 19: Only Mandarin-Speaking Foreigners Belong in China?”

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Chapter 18: The Parts of My Chinese Boyfriend Left Behind

More than a month ago, John’s duffel bag mysteriously appeared in my apartment — as he moved in with me. Now that blue duffel bag had turned into a maroon wheeled suitcase we bought at the corner supermarket, and that suitcase would be leaving with John for Shanghai. There was no mystery in it — John was going into a master’s program in psychology at a university in Shanghai.

We had our official sending-off dinner at the formal dining room in Hangzhou’s Town God’s Temple, perched on a hill just above Wushan Square. As we walked up the winding trail to the restaurant, weaving in and out of the shadows of pine and oriental plane trees, I sang “Rainbow” by Yuquan, a song that had become ours ever since John gave me the CD with it on my birthday. Yuquan was John’s favorite Chinese rock group, and now I was using the music he romanced me with to romance him back.

But, even as I sang to John — in the music John loved best — he wore a salmon, Italian-style buttoned shirt and slacks, one of the many outfits I had bought after discovering that, in fact, John had only two decent T-shirts, a worn pair of jeans and polyester pants with frayed hems that fluttered in the wind.

So much of our recent lives had been lived together, and influenced in subtle ways by our shared presence. Continue reading “Chapter 18: The Parts of My Chinese Boyfriend Left Behind”

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Chapter 17: A Dream Of Life Without My Chinese Boyfriend

Foreign woman sitting next to a pagoda by the West Lake in China

Sometimes love isn’t enough, as A Dream of Red Mansions — theÂ classic Chinese novel of the demise of a powerful family during the Ming Dynasty — tells it. It’s not enough that Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu love each other — love is not theirs to choose, but chosen by their parents instead. And the weepy, sensitive, and critical Lin Daiyu just can’t win hearts like the well-behaved, more presentable Xue Baochai. Xue Baochai and Jia Baoyu are married, and Lin Daiyu dies not long afterward.

As I read A Dream of Red Mansions on the afternoon of September 14, 2002, I am reminded that life is not always ours to choose — that sometimes, things happen. Sometimes, things just die…like the power.

I was all by myself that rainy afternoon, while John went to spend the day saying goodbye to his close male friends from high school and college, his “brothers” — in just five days, he would go to Shanghai to start graduate school. I spent the afternoon with the love triangle in A Dream of Red Mansions — Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu and, yes, even Xue Baochai. But as I turned the pages, approaching Lin Daiyu’s inevitable demise, the power suddenly went out. Not long after that, so did Lin Daiyu, on the pages of my book.

With no John, no power, and no Lin Daiyu, my world — from the pages to the present — felt so dark and lonely. If John was saying goodbye to his “brothers,” I seemed to be saying hello to what it would be like without him by my side. I wonder if that alone could have sent Lin Daiyu — who was ill even as a baby — to the sickbed. Continue reading “Chapter 17: A Dream Of Life Without My Chinese Boyfriend”

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Chapter 16: Foreign Girlfriend or Fascinating Moonlight Tale?

In China, the Autumn is a time of separation, like the solitary confinement of Chang’e, the woman of the moon. Early Autumn is when we celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival, gazing at the moon and paying homage to Chang’e. Chang’e once had a loving husband, Houyi, who saved the earth by shooting down the nine other suns that were scorching its crust. It wasn’t enough for her to have a husband who was hers; she wanted more. She wanted his immortality pill, the one he received from the heavens themselves. After she stole the pill, the immortals banished her to the moon, forever apart from her dear Houyi.

On September 2, 2002, after we visited Daqi Mountain, John sent me back to Hangzhou on a bus, and returned to his village in the countryside for most of the week. His trip made me wonder — was I asking too much out of him, to have a foreign girlfriend? Continue reading “Chapter 16: Foreign Girlfriend or Fascinating Moonlight Tale?”

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Chapter 15: Climbing Back Into Love With John

John brought me to Tonglu, his hometown in the Chinese countryside, to climb Daqi Mountain. If only I knew I’d have to do more than just climb the mountain — I’d have to climb out of the mess I created this morning.

John didn’t see the best of me on that bus, complaining about the indirect, circuitous route, the precipitous driving, the secondhand smoke, the unpredictable pickups and drop-offs. It was only a couple of hours — why did I say anything at all? After my display of intolerance and impatience with China, did John wonder if the girl he fell in love with — the girl who opened herself to China, who wanted to understand — was still there?

As we sat down at one of Tonglu’s restaurants, dining on a feast of vegetarian delicacies for lunch, I laid myself out — with all of my flaws — like the dishes before us. “I’m so sorry about this morning. I don’t know what I was thinking. I may have been here in China for two years, but I don’t understand everything. I should have been more understanding.” I exposed myself for what I behaved like: a foreigner who only saw the shadows of China. But all I seemed to eat during lunch was shame, and the deep, persistent feeling that I was pushing John away. Continue reading “Chapter 15: Climbing Back Into Love With John”

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Chapter 14: The China Road of Misunderstanding

I really want to be on the new highway leading to Tonglu, John’s hometown in theÂ Chinese countryside. The smooth concrete is perfect, unblemished by potholes or cracks. Each side of the highway has a new guardrail, with newly transplanted trees beside it, propped up by four wooden supports and rope tied around the trunk. And on the highway, a bus cannot stop to pick up new passengers — it must go nonstop to its destination, so the passengers know when it will arrive. It is China’s future, right next to me.

I, however, am currently in the present on this Sunday in early September, 2002

The present is a rickety minibus on road etched with cracks and potholes — as the minibus hits them, the feeling becomes amplified through the floor and seats like a cacophonous sound in an auditorium. Everything on the bus, from the exterior to the furniture, is stained by a brown veneer, like the patina of a dirty teacup.

The bus rambles along this road next to the highway — stopping every now and then to pick up a passenger, or drop someone off — and with each passing moment, my patience rambles along towards anger. Continue reading “Chapter 14: The China Road of Misunderstanding”

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