(no subject)
2000. Our two-year visa expires. We remain in America because of my father’s work. I will never go to school in China again.
2002. I barely speak Chinese anymore. But every so often I dream of running up the street to my grandmother’s house. I dream of sunlight spinning over traffic. I dream of the flag rising at 6 in the morning over a field of children.
I go back to China for the first time that summer. I speak Chinese again.
2004. I am back in China again, and I finally have the courage to ask my grandmother about Yuanqian. She tells me she’ll try to get his contact information. I am terrified.
2006. I am sitting by the phone holding his home number. I chicken out. Another missed opportunity.
2008. No one picks up his home phone. I am again terrified. This time, I’m terrified that I am never going to see him again. I’m terrified I gave up the chance. I’m terrified of forgetting him as time gets longer, and longer.
One day, I google him.
One day, I Chinese-google him.
One day, I look up our elementary school. It doesn’t exist anymore.
One day, I madly speculate if maybe, maybe he’s going to college in America too.
One day, I would toss a coin in a Buddhist temple, and watch it swerve into a brass pipe and fall out onto one of five possible platforms: 随缘 (let fate run its course). I do it again. And again. 随缘. 随缘.
Sometimes, I very much wish fate would run faster.
July, 2010. I am at a barbeque with my dad’s colleagues to welcome a new colleague. He has a daughter my age. She went to school in China up until high school. She shows me 人人网(renren.com).
She tells me that almost every college student in China uses it.
She tells me that many of them have put up their elementary school information due to nostalgia.
I look up Yuanqian. There are way too many results.
I look up Yuanqian and our elementary school and hometown Shanghai. There are no results.
I look up Yuanqian and our elementary school. There are again no results.
I look up Yuanqian and hometown Shanghai.
There is one result.
For a moment, there is crippling hope. For a moment, there is a hope so strong but so fragile. The moment passes.
I go to his page. I see an unfamiliar, grown-up face.
I think, he looks kind of aloof.
I think, he looks really cool.
I chicken out for a few hours before I message him
There, a new chapter begins.