by Lori Qian
Instead I said, “Hi,” and we started walking toward the steps leading up the mountain. I sensed that he was as nervous as I was. We had spent so much time together lately, but this felt different. This was the first time there wasn’t an excuse to be together. We were doing something together because we were interested in each other. I wanted to spend time with him and he wanted to spend time with me—simple as that.
As we climbed the mountain together, it was as if we were climbing into another dimension. With every step we took we arrived one step farther away from the walls of the community in which we lived. We were leaving behind our labels, our categories, our worries. It was no longer about our differences. There was nothing physical or material to define us, because those were not the things that had drawn us to each other in the first place. Sure, we were attracted to each other, but there was more than that to this, and suddenly I could feel it. There was an unspoken goal between us of getting to the top of the mountain and looking at each other in a way we’d never done before. It was as if we had known for forever that we were meant to be together, but we needed to get away from it all in order to say so.
As we sneaked by the guard toward the tower, William touched my back, guiding me toward the ladder.
“Ladies first,” he said.
I began to climb the ladder, aware of him climbing behind me. When we got to the top of the ladder, we took a few steps only to find another one. There were three ladders in all, in fact, and each step I took made me feel more exhilarated. Granted, what we were doing wasn’t truly dangerous, but it was just risky and surreal enough to feel like nothing short of magic. After all, there we were, at nine thirty on a Thursday night, sneaking up a TV tower in a posh community in the People’s Republic of China.
When we finally got to the top, I was super sweaty. I felt self-conscious about it and thanked God for providing a cool breeze that helped to dry my sweaty face and neck.
The top of the tower was no more than eight feet in diameter, but the view was more than I’d imagined it would be. We stood there for a few minutes, catching our breath and looking out at the Estates and the stores. In one direction, we pointed out our school, the grocery store, and the tennis courts. Behind us, though, was what I referred to as the “real” China: housing for the workers—temporary shacks that look like a small breeze would destroy them. Farther on the horizon, rice fields and open space. Another world.
We stood still for a while, both our hands visibly shaking. Finally, we began to talk. We talked openly and honestly. The topics flowed naturally and freely—unfulfilled dreams and regrets, as well as hopes and ideas for the future. We talked about our families and our responsibilities toward them and the love we had for them. We talked about the past and the future and as he talked to me, I had a kind of epiphany. I could see everything. I could see our pasts and our futures, and I could see them intertwined. I knew that as a child I had lived in America and he had lived in China, but I could see us together. All of a sudden I was aware that when I was ten years old and Jake Marley was taunting me on the playground, William was there. When I was in high school, thinking there must be more to life than cheerleading, Friday night dances, and superficial boys, William was there telling me I was right. When I couldn’t sleep due to anger at things that had hurt me, or a society that wasn’t fair, or a dying father, or a struggling mother, William was there singing me to sleep. When I forgot about the beauty of life, William was there telling me to wait, that there might be a reason to hold on. When I accepted a job in China and then promptly wondered what on earth I was thinking, William was there to assure me it was the right thing to do.
I hadn’t known his name was William at the time and I hadn’t known that the encouragement I’d gotten my whole life was tied to him. But at that moment, as I stood there listening to this man, something in his voice and his eyes and the way he carried himself told me I knew him. I saw his past and I really saw him. I saw our future and our children and grandchildren. I saw the life we could have together, and it was as real as anything I had ever known.
I recognized him. There is no doubt about it. I knew this man before me, and I prayed to God that he knew me too.
He told me that he’d come to Guangzhou from his hometown in the hopes of finding a good job. He hadn’t wanted to teach English, but there hadn’t been any positions available in the business fields he was interested in.
“When I came to Guangzhou,” he said, “I got confused.” He said this as though he were still trying to figure it out. He’d come in search of any job other than teaching English, and he’d ended up doing just what he didn’t want to do.
Something about the way he said this made me love him. It was in his honesty and humility; it was as if he were saying it to the stars, admitting that he was still confused about how he ended up here. Even after he’d had the interview at my school, he hadn’t been sure he’d stay in Guangzhou. Yet he had.
As William looked straight ahead, seemingly still thinking about why he’d become so confused when he came to Guangzhou, I wanted to say something kind of bold. I didn’t know how he would react, but I suddenly I knew I needed to say it aloud.
“Maybe you came here for a reason,” I said.
At that, he smiled. He smiled a big, genuine smile, as if he already knew this and was glad I had caught on. He looked down as if to gather courage and said, “Maybe now I have a reason to stay.”
Now we both smiled. There were those uncontrollable grins again. I wondered where the conversation would go next. I was filled with questions.
He answered before I could even ask the question.
“Do you know what I’m thinking right now?” he asked.
“No, what?” I asked.
He took a slow, long breath and said, “I love you.” As soon as the words left his lips, his smile became even bigger. He stood up taller and said it again, as if to be sure I had heard him: “I love you.”
For me the world and more specifically the tower was spinning. I was so glad he’d said it twice because if he hadn’t, I might not have believed it. I just stared at him. His gigantic smile seemed to get bigger and brighter with every second.
“William,” I began, “I . . . I’m so happy you told me that because . . . because I feel the same way. I love you too.”
I didn’t know if that was adequate. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t believe any of this was happening, but it was.
“May I embrace you?”
William’s English was good—maybe too good, as he hadn’t thought of saying “hold” or even “hug.” Nevertheless, I said “okay,” and he did in fact embrace me. He touched my shoulders, then my face. A wisp of hair blew across my mouth and he gently pushed it aside, staring into my eyes. He leaned toward me and said, less formally this time, “Kiss you?”—and then he did.
chapter 23
Over the next two months, William and I didn’t leave each other’s side. We began to hold hands in our little community, letting people know that we were indeed a couple. This was quite a shock to everyone around us. At that time, it was very unusual for a Western woman and a Chinese man to be romantically involved—one simply didn’t see that very often. The response was mostly positive; there were a few exceptions, but we didn’t let those get to us.
I think at first people weren’t sure what to think of us. It wasn’t as if we announced to any of our friends that we were a couple. Rather, when someone invited me somewhere, William came too—his hand in mine. It was the same with his friends. I liked that we made this decision to let people figure it out for themselves. Of course, our closer friends knew the bits of our love story we’d chosen to share with them, but all the other curious people were left to wonder—and, of course, gossip.
We could tell certain people were jealous of him or resentful of me. Other people raised issues that didn’t need to be raised, such as how a couple could possibly work together without there being a conflict of interest, but we didn’t
let it bother us. We were so on cloud nine that nothing much else mattered.
We talked late into the night almost every night. I asked William if he had any interest in going to America and he replied that he had never thought about it.
“I know many Chinese are crazy about America and can’t wait to visit there or study there,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I never thought about that.”
“Is that because you don’t want to go to America or just that you never thought it was possible?” I asked.
“Maybe both. It’s just not an option. I have, well, I had no reason to care much about America.” He looked up at me and smiled. “Do you want to live in China forever or would you want to live in America again?”
I considered the question. “Well, I could see myself living here forever, but at the same time I would want to keep living in America as an option.”
The truth was, I really could see myself living in China until the day I died. I don’t know when that became true but at the moment, it was. I’d recently spoken with Chrissy about it during one of our phone conversations. She asked how long I thought I would stay, since initially I’d only planned to be there one year. I guess it was then that I first said I didn’t necessarily see an end in sight. I hadn’t thought it through, but I knew I was in no hurry to leave.
One Saturday morning, William and I met for breakfast at the local jiaozi restaurant. The conversation turned to religion. He asked me about my church.
“So every Sunday you go to the church. What do you do there?”
He had no concept of church. It was completely foreign to him, and I suddenly found myself at a loss for words, but I tried to put something coherent together that would explain why I spent three hours there every Sunday.
“Well,” I said slowly, “we basically learn. We have lessons and learn about, well, about the teachings of Jesus Christ, about serving others, about . . . about how to be happy.” How could I explain taking the sacrament without going into the atonement of Christ? How could I explain Sunday school without explaining the scriptures? This was harder than I’d thought it would be. I’d had people ask me about my religion before, of course, and I’d always been very comfortable talking about it. However, those who had asked me in the past had some frame of reference, or some comparison to other Christian religions or Judaism, Islam, whatever. William had none of that. He was simply interested in what I did every Sunday.
I didn’t know where to start. After some deliberation, I decided to start more generally.
I began by sharing some of my basic beliefs about the importance of family, service, and having an eternal perspective. This led into interesting discussions on culture, particularly about how Chinese culture also placed great emphasis on family, honor, and education. I had mentioned the fact that in my religion, we believed marriages and families last forever, even beyond death. I told him that although I had not had good experiences with romantic relationships, I still believed that marriage was sacred.
I realized I had probably been rambling a bit, though I hadn’t meant to. I decided to eat for a minute and let him talk. He had been listening so intently.
I had just bitten into a jiaozi when he said it.
“Lori.” He paused and looked at me very seriously. “Do you think we should talk about marriage?”
I was stunned and thrilled; I felt like I was floating above my chair. For the first time in my life, I did indeed want to talk about marriage—and it was with a man I’d been dating less than a month. Had he only brought it up because I had mentioned it? No, I already knew him well enough to know that he didn’t say anything that he had not already thought about. He took everything seriously. But how could this be real? This was the first time in my life I had wanted to have this conversation, but I had only been dating William for a few weeks. Is this crazy? I wondered.
Still, this conversation felt so natural. His approach was honest and straightforward. He was matter-of-factly stating that since we loved each other, wasn’t marriage the next step?
So I responded, “I would love to talk about that.”
And we did. We talked about what we wanted in the future and how happy, how ecstatic, we were to have found each other. He talked about the fact that it would be hard because he didn’t have much right now, but he knew we would be happy.
I had no doubt about that.
As the days and weeks went on, I observed William carefully and completely. I watched the way he lived his life—so thoughtfully. He was confident but in the most humble of ways. He was one of the few people I had ever met who honestly did not care what other people thought of him.
I noticed that when we attended functions together, he never seemed to feel pressure to make small talk with people. I was not embarrassed by it, but at first I felt a little awkward, as if I had to take up the slack to keep the conversation going. I wondered if he was just plain nervous or insecure about his English, but as I watched further, I noticed that it was just the opposite: He was definitely not arrogant, but he also had this tremendous sense of self-confidence. If he didn’t want to talk, he didn’t, and he didn’t feel pressure to make idle conversation. When he spoke, it was because he had something to say.
I came to wish that I had that ability. I was a master of superficial conversation and could chat with anyone at any time. I didn’t necessarily enjoy that, but since I was good at it, I’d always found myself playing that role. I think growing up I’d taken on that role in my family, as well. I was concerned with what others thought of us, afraid they would think we weren’t good enough. I so often felt ashamed of our home, of our car, and sometimes, of my parents. I wished they were younger, that my mom were fit and fashionable, that my dad could hang out with the other dads. It was never the case, so I tried to represent the family in the best way I knew how, talking—filling any awkward silences. Desperately wanting to take the focus off what our home looked like or whatever else might seem wrong with my family. I hated that I felt that way sometimes.
Through our conversations, I realized how very little I knew about the world. Here was this guy from inner China, and he knew American history better than I did. It seemed to me that there wasn’t a single subject he couldn’t discuss, and it impressed me so much. In those early days, it was fun to ask him all the questions I had ever wanted to ask about China but had been told never to voice aloud. One night, when we went for a walk near the lake, I brought up the “three Ts.”
“So, William, someone once told me that in China there are some things that I should never talk about with a Chinese person,” I began.
He smiled and seemed surprised. “Really? Why? What kinds of things?”
“Well, I didn’t hear it directly, but Kassie told me that someone told her that there are three “Ts”: Tiananmen, Tibet, and Taiwan. Supposedly, these are really emotional issues for Chinese. Do you think so?”
He liked the question, I could tell. He loved to think and loved to share ideas.
“Yeah,” he said, “that’s interesting. Those are important issues. Tibet, um, not so important really, but Tiananmen and Taiwan are major issues.”
As I listened to William talking, it occurred to me how much his English was already getting less formal, less textbook-like. I supposed we had been spending most waking moments together lately, so it made sense.
“Well, I know when I asked Hong An about Tiananmen last year, I got a really weird response,” I said. “She was very defensive, and I really didn’t say much about it. I just told her that it was powerful to visit there because of what happened. Her response was shocking. Her whole demeanor immediately changed and she kind of freaked out.”
“Yeah, that’s not unusual. It’s a sensitive issue.” William went on to explain the politics behind Taiwan—the history and different perspectives.
He was like a walking history book.
Things moved quickly for us. Once we told one another how we felt, it was as if we skipped a lot of the superfic
ial stages that many relationships must go through. We knew we were each other’s reason for coming to Guangzhou. Everything clicked in a million ways and on every conceivable level. Even things that could have been obstacles, such as having completely different religious belief systems, were not obstacles for us. We knew that everything, every single thing, would work out.
I wanted to tell my family about William. He was, really, my first true boyfriend, and I knew in my heart that he was the man I would marry. I called them up early one morning before work, since that was evening their time.
“Hello?” my sister’s voice answered.
“Hey Chrissy, it’s Lori.”
“Hi! What’s up? Mom was just talking about you.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, some visitors from church just left and she spent the whole time they were here bragging about you. Nothing’s changed, Lori, you’re still the golden child.”
She tried to sound annoyed but I knew she was glad to hear from me. It was kind of an ongoing joke with Barb and Chrissy that I could do no wrong in Mom’s eyes and I was the favored one. Chrissy especially felt this way. It bothered me, yes, but at least we’d gotten to a point where we could joke about it. The truth was that any objective observer could see they were right. I think Mom loved us all equally, but she did talk a lot about my accomplishments. She always had.
“So, what’s up?” Chrissy asked. “How’s life over there?”
“It’s really, really great. Hey, how’s Dad?”
“He’s the same, Lori.” She had a little edge in her voice, and I could understand why. I didn’t want to get into that right now, though.