(no subject)
September 1st, 1996. I am 6 years old, and it's my first day of school at 二师附小 in Shanghai, China. My grandmother walks me to school, because my parents are in Japan. I go to class 1(A), one of two foreign-language classes reserved for the brightest applicants to this school. My class has 40 people. We're seated by height, and I'm in the first row, breathing in the chalk dust, sitting upright and doing my best to look intelligent. 同桌, or deskmates, are assigned by opposite gender and height. My deskmate for the next five years is 袁谦YuanQian. He looks.. tiny and rather nerdy.
He becomes my best friend for the next two years.
He's late to school. Again. And our homeroom teacher, who's like our mother and beautiful, yells at him. Again. He 罚站s (stands outside of the classroom) for an hour. He looks guilty. And very very small.
He's late to school for the umpteenth time. This time is a little different. He lives over an hour away, and sometimes he is in such a rush that he eats breakfast while running between bus stops. Today he throws up after getting to school late. 周老师 takes pity on him, and doesn't make him stand outside for an hour for once. I laugh at him about it anyways.
Today we're learning how to fold shirts in our activities class. We have a classwide competition. Our two rows wins. It was Kind Of Awesome.
Today my grandmother's late picking me up, so I follow him to his nanny's house, who lives close to the school. We play there until his parents come home from work to pick him up, and I go home. I am in so much trouble because I disappeared without telling my grandparents where I went. But I still remember the endless stairs, the sunlight hitting the balcony, the wind and sky and banisters on the 天桥 on the way from school. Perhaps we might have lingered there, laughing about school and classmates and failing gym class. Or perhaps we might have walked on the 天桥 without noticing a thing.
Today a girl is mean to me in class again. They're always mean to me because I'm second in class, and their parents ask, why can't you even beat a kid whose parents aren't even around? She steps on my tennis shoes to leave an ugly print on white. She draws on the back of my shirt during class with a pencil. I turn around in the middle of class and slap her across the face. 周老师 tells me to stand up and apologize. I stand up and refuse, and tell her why I hit her. 周老师 tells her to stand up and apologize also. Later, my grandmother would tell me she's proud of me.
June, 1997. I have an 106-degree fever. Today is the day of math finals. In the end, the class-wide average is 100, and we are the top of the school, top of the county, top of the world. I am hospitalized for three days and stuck with an IV-drip. I am bored out of my mind.
Summer, 1997. I go to Japan to visit my parents. When I return I bring a small statue as a gift for YuanQian. 13 years later, he would ask me if it is a horse or a pig, and I tell him it's definitely a pig since it was for him, even though it was probably actually a horse because both our zodiac signs are horses.
Second grade. We move up one floor, and become class 2(A), and we're smarter than ever. It's time for division!
One day, YuanQian bullies me, and I get angry, and I pinch him. Hard. And turn the pinch until he is howling in pain. He's back at it the next day. When his mother asks him why he has bruises on his arm, he tells her that he ran into a door. Again.
One day, someone bullies YuanQian. I yell at them until they cry.
One day, someone shoves YuanQian into the girls' bathroom. I make them cry again. They bother him less.
One day, I am arguing with someone from another table, and YuanQian takes their side. I am so, so angry. And hurt. And on the way home I yell at him and hit him and he takes it all. When my grandmother comes, he admits to her that he has been Very Stupid today, and he doesn't know what he was thinking. He says, how could I have been so stupid? How could I have helped someone else? I forgive him. In a few days.
One day, our desks are the rows right against the wall. My desk is on the inside. YuanQian refuses to move in his chair so I could get to my desk. I have the climb my desk to get to my seat. 周老师 comes in right as I am climbing the desk. She's angry, and I am called to her office for the first time EVER. I rat him out without a single trace of regret.
March, 1998. I tell 周老师 and the class that I'm leaving the school in a week. My parents are taking me to America! I am happy that I get to be with them again year-around. 周老师 buys me a card and two journals. Everyone in the class signs the card. I still have all three today.
March 31st, 1998. YuanQian comes to my house. We go to a nearby park, where we lay on our stomachs in the mud and catch tadpoles in the pond. He has brought me my favourite food as a parting gift. And when he has to go, he cries. His mother takes him home. This is the last time I see him for over 12 years.
April 1st, 1998. I board the plane for New York with my mother. We meet my father in Japan, and together we arrive in New York on the same day because of time differences.
April or May 1998. I miss my grandparents. I miss YuanQian. I wish he still went to school with me. I've been writing to my grandmother. I write a letter to YuanQian. I never get a reply. That summer, we are kicked out of our house after a neighbor reports our landlord for illegal modification on the house. We move to another part of New York.
1999. YuanQian writes back, but his letter is returned, because we no longer live at that address. That chapter of our lives end.