Unfortunately, I have been gestating several new Substack articles, but they are nowhere near finished. So what if I post my old undergrad essay from my East Asian Studies course on my substack? Once again, trigger warning: SA.
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-1-
“This is our newfound secret corner!” I said to my other three besties, while watching drops of water trickle on the newly planted seeds.
“Yes! But we need someone to water the plants…and I don’t think we could get in after school…”
“I can do that! I stay at the school for lunch. I can just sneak out of the classroom.” said Alice.
Alice then became the one who undertook the great responsibility of watering the plants while hiding from the teachers during the lunch period. A week before, we found this secret path, too narrow for a grown-up to squeeze and pass through, between the fence and the calligraphy classroom at our elementary school. We then decided to convert this place into a mini garden. We brought lettuce seeds and planted them. The seeds sprouted faster than we thought. Soon, fine oval-shaped leaves appeared. And after several gloomy rains and Alice’s care, the leaves became greener, fuller, with zigzag edges.
Snails playing hide and seek-
One on top of the leaves,
One on the bottom.
April arrived. The sterile chlorine smell of swimming pools, the never-ending cicadas, and the white, fluffy, annoying kapok seeds flying everywhere signaled summer in Shenzhen, as early as usual. We became interested in collecting kapok seeds for the cotton fiber. We also started to raise silkworms, so we scouted around all the mulberry trees in the neighborhood, stripping the fresh green leaves to feed the greedy silkworms. We all seemed to lose interest in the secret garden we once so dedicated ourselves to.
Ten years later, we now live in different places in the world. I forgot the last time the four of us gathered. We were once floating side by side in a narrow stream, but it got broader and broader, until one day we entered the estuary, adrift in water. Somewhere in a coastal city in China, an abandoned secret garden sits quietly in a narrow path, waiting to be rediscovered by a new group of fourth graders.
-2-
The summer when I turned eleven, you decided to take me to Europe and travel around there for about twenty days. Dad was busy with work, so it was just the two of us.
We arrived at Stockholm airport. I spent too much time staring at the dangling poppy flower growing at a corner until you told me that we should hurry up because he had arrived.
He greeted us. A man in his forties. Squared jawlines and in good shape. He had immigrated to Sweden. I immediately recognized him as someone I had met at the Shanghai Expo a year before. And I remembered his name, a name that popped up several times on your iPod screen— a three-character name, poetic and gender neutral, just like the name you gave me.
“Why are you here again?” I asked.
He seemed unbothered by this young girl’s question, smiled, and replied, “I am just here to pick you guys up,” while reaching out and grabbing her suitcase.
You and I then began our tour in Stockholm. Several days later, sooner than I had expected, the novelty of Sweden had worn off. I got tired of sightseeing during the day and returning to the hotel only to eat rock-hard bread and yogurt with rice in it. I was relieved when you announced that we were going to Germany.
We arrived at Frankfurt Airport. He showed up again with his daughter, who appeared to be around five years old. Her name was Fanny, a common name in Sweden. She could speak Swedish and English. Fanny was five, but her loving dad still traveled with a stroller in case she got tired from the long trip.
From the window of the car he rented, I glanced through the view of suburban Frankfurt: golden hay rolled in cylindrical shape glistened in the bright sun on both sides of the highway.
To break the silence, he started to talk about how deer were often found in his yard grazing on the strawberries.
“That’s so cute! Can I visit your place when we go back to Sweden?”
He didn’t reply. It was that kind of silence from adults that I was far too familiar with by this point.
But somehow, I chose to pester, “What’s your wife’s last name? Can I see her as well as the deer?”
“Her last name is Chen…”
“Does Ms. Chen…”
“Wendy! Stop! We are not going…” You frowned and interrupted me.
The silence resumed.
-3-
The ground is shaking and cracking. I flee from Miller Library with many other people. There is a shuttle waiting on the side of the road to rescue survivors. Suddenly, the ground in front of the flagpole cracks. The thin tree with dainty leaves has in fact, dark, winding, dragon scale-like roots that drill deep down into the soil. I don’t have time to take a second look. I hop on the last shuttle.
All passengers on the shuttle are in great distress. The shuttle driver manages to maneuver on the damaged road. Then the rain starts pouring from the grey sky relentlessly. There is a reservoir in front of us. As we are approaching the reservoir, the sound of the overflooding siren becomes increasingly penetrable.
My phone is vibrating. It is the flooding alert message from iPhone. We finally arrive at a deserted indoor amusement park. There is a rusty roller coaster entangled with vines and covered with moss. The roller coaster is already half-filled with people seeking higher ground. The roller coaster is not functioning anymore, so the other people have to climb clumsily up the staircase on the side. When I reach the top of the loop, I see two familiar faces: my mom and dad.
They are both too numb to greet their daughter. I sit silently by their side. My mom’s eyes are still red, and my father is holding a tote bag with a rabbit in it—a small, furry animal with piercing red eyes.
I start to notice people around me crying, and I can’t help but cry too. Some of them are frantically typing something on their phone, perhaps their last message to loved ones. It is all meaningless. Soon we will all die of famine, flooding, earthquake, or hyperthermia. It is all meaningless, like the rabbit my dad tried to rescue— it will die too. The roller coaster, though towering over the surrounding area, can’t even move. Where can a Noah’s Ark take us on a dry, barren land?
Suddenly, I opened my eyes and found myself panting in the breaking dawn. Thank God it was only a nightmare. I checked the time, and it was around 5 a.m. I was in a house in Malden, Massachusetts. I looked at the window. The cars with the “MA” license plates on the road reassured my existence in reality.
-4-
I have to hate him. Because I could never hate you.
After dinner, we returned to the hotel. Although he and Fanny had a separate room, they all went to our room. You suggested that we could go for a walk. I said I was not interested. Fanny was still half-hiding in her stroller while reading her children’s book without even bothering to raise her head.
You then went out with him, leaving Fanny and me in the same hotel room. I guess I was supposed to look after Fanny. I went out to the balcony and was immediately surrounded by a warm breeze. I stared at you and him. Two middle-aged Chinese, etched in the golden sun, among a sea of white locals. I stared at the two slanted, elongated shadows until they vanished from the horizon as well. I slid the glass door on the balcony and returned to our room, trying to say something to Fanny. And there she was, unfazed, still reading the children’s book in Swedish, which I couldn’t comprehend a single word of. But I ended up saying nothing to her. She was only five after all.
One night at the very end of our trip to Europe, I woke up in the middle of the night to some noise. The bathroom light was still on. You were in your pajamas, crouching, facing another direction, without looking into my eyes.
“Mom? What are you doing?”
You didn’t look at me. But I noticed your eyes were red with tears.
Without turning your head, you slowly moved your arm to show me what was inside your palm. It was the stuffed cat toy. The one you got me when we were in a touristy souvenir store in Stockholm. It’s a small décor- two grey tabby cats, made of faux fur, side by side in a small woven basket. They were very cute. When I saw them in the store, I got so excited and demanded that you take a look. Without any hesitation, you bought them for 20 euros. The cute kitties, they look identical. Their eyes bright orange like the tangerines of fall. In 10 years, I will learn that this is a technique in fine arts called doubling.
“No, nothing. I couldn’t fall asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you up. The fur is a bit messy.”
-5-
The summer when I was twelve began with an ongoing fight between my dad and me. I blamed him for not taking Rita, my pet rabbit, to the vet when she was sick, subsequently resulting in her death.
The summer in Shenzhen, usually spanning from April to November, is long, hot, and humid. The weather is as fickle as your temper, flipping between scorching heat and pouring rain in any second. The Cicadas chant from dawn to dusk, and gradually their voice becomes a white noise that we can easily filter out. That day, I went to my math tutor’s house. It was a hot and humid day. The rain that had lasted for several days had finally stopped, yet the temperature was so high that it felt like living in a steamy pot.
“I have a question!” I raised my hand.
He bent and grabbed my pencil. Before I thought he was going to write something on the sheet, I felt his hairy, wrinkled hand on my face. Hair against my soft skin. Stroke. And stroke. The leaves stopped waving in the wind, and the cicadas stopped singing. Time was frozen in that second. It was a moment when memories of the past and the future converged: a thousand boars roaming in the damp forest, dad asking me why the pregnant guppy fish, stomach burst and shed a million kids, died; in a few years, my kitty Nicole, an outdoor cat, will be coming back to home from her rendezvous with her fur glistening in rainwater, her waving tail the smell of semen…
I went out of the tutor’s place. I stared at my reflection in a small puddle, the tiniest world that harbored the whole me. I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t know how to face you. I didn’t know how I should feel. I didn’t know what I should say. So I continued to stare at the puddle— until my reflection was serrated by the ripple as my tiny world fell apart.
Wanna take a bite of the green apple?
Unripe, sour, and juicy
Just one bite, one bite only
-6-
My favorite sentence in Japanese, you ask me. It is not a sentence from some serious literature. Nor is it an anime quote. It is from an advertisement for Suntory beer: “The bright summer. The transparent summer. The noisy summer. The quiet summer. The summer we go on a trip. The summer from a balcony. Loving in summer. Wanting to be in love in summer. Today is summer. It will always be summer. The summer of Kinmugi. ”[1]
-7-
Rabbits are such a docile species. The type of herbivore that rarely makes any noises, even under great distress or pain. They seldom attack humans, either. They just keep chewing hay, or your charging cables, or your sofa, or your rug.
My friend once asked me what kind of person you are. To which I scoffed,
“Me. Prettier but dumber.”
But I was wrong. You are no dummy than I am. We both dissuaded ourselves quietly in a secret corner. We chewed and we swallowed.
Mom, on a quiet night, do you falter?
I do.
-8-
Dad said we should all live somewhere characterized by perpetual coldness at least once in our lives. It would toughen you up, he said. I guess in that way, having grown up in Dongbei and attended college in Beijing, he is a man of top-tier toughness.
Waterville is a small town dominated by snow for most of the year. There is a patch of snow (or ice) that has never thawed outside of Cotter Union, which I tripped over many times when I attempted to catch the shuttle. If I get up early enough for class, there is always a thin layer of snow on the surface of the sidewalk, glistening softly. And if I crouch and look at them closely, I can see those tiny hexagonal flakes. When I get back from class, the snow is no longer there. There is only salt on the road, scarring the pavement with blotches of whiteness. And a piece of dried-up, crystallized salt in the middle.
I remember when I was in kindergarten, you once made me a Christmas card. You took out a piece of paper and folded it in half. You used white-out to draw the snowflakes. I thought it was so smart. You are always artsy, just like me. But back then, I didn’t really know what snow looked like. I remember when we went to Harbin for the ice festival, it was so cold that I cried, begging to go back home. My uncle had to hold me to console me. This year, I dropped my biology major. I am only a studio art major from now on. Mom, do you think I made the right decision? I guess you would probably disagree with me. After I submitted the form at the registrar and exited the office, I stood outside Lovejoy for a while. I thought of your Christmas card again. My memories are salted.
-9-
I killed Rita. I blamed dad, but it was me. I was neglectful. Rita should have drunk more water and eaten more fresh vegetables in the summer.
And I was the bad kid.
-10-
The summer of 2012 was a rich one. Many years later, in a small café, I was on a first date with a Texan girl. I was telling her that growing up in southern China, I am so used to the heat, and any temperature that falls below 15 degrees Celsius or above 28 degrees would make me unhappy. She started to look it up in Fahrenheit, and excitedly told me, “No, I prefer even hotter. Like 30 to 35 degrees! I am talking about really hot!” And at that moment, I felt instantly so close to a stranger.
Grown-ups hate summer. After all, summer means sweating in a suit, trudging in the steel forest of the central business district with barely any shade of green shielding you from the sun. Or trying to squeeze yourself like a canned sardine after an entire day of work to get on Line 2 of the Shenzhen subway. But for us, summer means summer break. It means freedom and joy. Gradually, when I think of childhood, when I think of Shenzhen, I think of summer, as if it has erased other things and monopolized my memory. I guess growing up in Shenzhen, I am not used to seeing the endless summer coming to an end.
Since then, I have never had a rabbit again—they only belong in my art. We got a kitten. Guess herbivores and I are just not meant to be.
[1] “ 鮮やかな夏。透明な夏。にぎやかな夏。静かな夏。旅に出る夏。ベランダの夏。恋する夏。恋したくなる夏。今日も夏。ずっと夏。金麦の夏。” Translated by me.