A Chinese Affair

by Isabelle Li

  I haven’t told you about my initiation into the tropics when I went to university in Southeast China. On the first day, coming back to the dormitory, I picked up a biscuit, put it in my mouth and quickly spat it out: it was covered with ants. Since then, I’ve learned to be vigilant. I’m from the north, where landscapes are frozen into permanence for most of the year, where life is long and longing eternal. We are a handsome people accustomed to silence and burying our secrets below freezing point.

  Still, there are moments of repose. At a garden, I stop on a wooden bridge over a granite pond, to read the stories of the moth orchid, the shape of its flowers resembling a moth’s triangular body with outstretched wings. Some have markings on the petals, like the intricate, eerie patterns of the real insects, though without the fine powder. I take pictures of the masses of pink, white, purple and orange. I hear the koi before I see them—swimming such rapid laps, they must be happy.

  I left the city state, despite its prosperity and security. I had been suffocated like a bird with dampened wings under a sky laden with inky clouds. I went further south, to the island continent, the advertisement for which featured a man standing midstream in a creek, bending down, then straightening up with a huge fish in his hands, which he raised above his head.

  I didn’t tell you all my stories. I was preoccupied with yours, in the long nights under the silver sparks of the Southern Cross, when the half-moon with her stern profile was our only accomplice.

  Subject:

  Amoeba Island

  Date:

  18/09/2012

  Status:

  Not Sent

  Earth from above: the islands dot the deep blue ocean like big amoebas, each encircled by a white brim of foam and a cobalt-blue shoal of coral reefs.

  The Airbus 320 is filled with attendees of the Global Carriers’ Conference, who greet each other like long-lost friends. Some are standing in the aisle, sharing snacks, bringing each other up to speed with the latest gossip. I’m new to the occasion. So is the gentleman from India next to me, who’s vegetarian and sleeps for most of the flight. I signed up for the trip, thinking that a change of environment might facilitate memory erasure.

  The hotel is on the peninsula at a corner of Mactan Island, part of Cebu Province, Philippines. My room looks out to the swimming pool, parkland, beach, ocean and some other islands beyond. The pool is so blue that the ocean is grey in comparison. There are many dead termites on the balcony, their wings scattered, forming oracular messages I can’t decipher.

  No message from you though. I dreamed you sent me an email. I delayed opening it, to prolong the anticipation. But when I tried to read it, the concentration woke me up. Despite what we agreed, I thought you’d be in touch. I was checking my phone so often that I decided to leave it behind, but then I went back for it. We conducted ourselves in an old-fashioned way, didn’t we? Correspondence, infrequent meetings, total discretion. I’ve filed our emails under ‘Unicorn’, which looks inconspicuous among other project folders: Dragonfly, Mammoth, Sentinel ... I plotted the number of emails by month, by week, and checked the occurrence of certain words like ‘miss’, ‘kiss’, ‘tenderness’ and ‘rain’, looking for clues. I concluded that the trajectory of our narrative was like a symphony, starting hesitantly, building up slowly and ending with a crescendo, and the ensuing silence. Our last conversation was about an epiphany: ‘We have to part before …’ I can’t recall what we said after that. And never, never did we speak of love.

  The staff here wear uniforms, but even if they didn’t, it would be easy to recognise their beaming smiles. On the way from the airport, I saw the corrugated iron shacks people live in, and some very skinny goats feeding on the roadside vegetation. I want to ask the staff members who’ve grown up here which world they think is real.

  My first meeting is with an Italian customer. We spend most of the time talking about Korea, where he’s going to transit and take a day off for sightseeing.

  Then I’m meeting with a Japanese customer for the first time at the exhibition hall, where carriers, wireless service providers, cable operators and system integrators set up stands to showcase the latest technologies and products for network design, data transport and cloud computing. His SMS reads: ‘I wear white shirt with black hair.’ I find him in the crowd— only someone with such a humble smile could have identified himself in such nondescript terms.

  As the day goes by, the air grows warm and humid, and then comes a thunderstorm. The evening is not as hot, but still sultry. I’m a morning person, as you know. The buoyancy in the advent of a day inevitably gives me a swift, uplifting rush. The memory of you overtakes me at dusk, when the day and I are largely spent. And I wonder how you are. Not knowing pains me more than anything. You are far away, and I don’t know what has become of you. You would have finished dinner with your family by now: I’m two hours behind you.

  The reception dinner is held on the beachfront. The band has begun drumming stirring rhythms, urging people to abandon everything in hand and gather at the Coral Cove. Waiters in tawny kaftans and waitresses in turquoise dresses greet the guests with small glasses of juice in various colours: mango, pineapple, guava, watermelon. One is called Four Seasons, with the look of a cocktail, and the bottom layer is a poisonous blue, like oxidised copper. They distribute necklaces, hats, flowers and ribbons. ‘Good evening, Sir!’ ‘Good evening, Ma’am!’ Their honey-sweet voices line the stone stairs.

  I join my colleagues from other international offices. Three Korean delegates at the table have started on dinner. Rather than filling up their individual plates, they take turns to bring back different foods in bulk to share. A round of introductions is followed by multiple card exchanges. I sit in one of the chairs wrapped in white cloth, which starts to sink into the sand.

  Just before the edge where the beach starts to slope down, a row of stalls are set up offering local and international cuisines, with an endless supply of seafood, pig on a spit, fruit and ice-cream in coconut shells … The cooking smoke smells of burnt hair.

  The theme for the night is Woodstock Festival. A singer on the stage has tied a yellow gerbera on her underpants between her legs. From time to time, she lifts her miniskirt and flashes to the audience her ‘flower power’.

  ‘Is it a tiger?’ The Korean delegate next to me squints his eyes.

  The music is very loud. I rush through my food.

  Next to the unlit jetty, a security guard is patrolling. He sees me, smiles and goes back to supervising some boys, who are picking up plastic and twigs and other rubbish trapped in the corner down below, and dragging them away in bags. I walk to the tip of the protuberance to the sea, tasting the salt in the breeze. We bear traces of our oceanic origin in our tears.

  I wander along the beach and meet a tall man with broad shoulders. After a brief introduction, we realise we are from the same city in China. We stare at each other in amazement. His name is Qiuyu, working for an American company in Beijing.

  ‘I’ll show you something,’ he says. ‘Look at the dark patches in the water. They are fish.’

  We squat. With the dim light coming from the marquee, I can see a shoal of small black fish surfing the waves, forming different squadrons, risking being stranded on the sand. Then there’s another shoal, and they join to form a large shoal. We find many more patches, thousands of fish, dancing in the rising tide to ‘Unchained Melody’, the singer’s voice mellowed by the mist.

  Subject:

  Waiting for the Tempest

  Date:

  19/09/2012

  Status:

  Not Sent

  I wake up when the sky is still fish-belly white and the clouds scaly silver. From my balcony, I can see the workers are also up, sweeping the pavements, hosing the pagoda roofs and putting out umbrellas and chairs, toddling nonchalantly. The morning light has a touch of yellow, and in a blink it turns pink. In the far distance, over the palm trees and other densely green plantations, some tiered white buildings emer
ge against the red sky, like a mirage.

  The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. You came to my dreams last night, disguised as others. But I recognised you at once, and my heart leaped.

  I almost have the shell-shaped body of water to myself, save for a cleaner scrubbing the bottom of the pool in his scuba-diving gear. The other guests must be recovering from the night before. Do they dream of swimming in a vast blueness, and do their fingers and toes wiggle? The cool air smells of jasmine and hope, though short-lived, because the sky has turned mercilessly blue, and a reflective glare starts to shimmer on the water. I feel the heat of the morning sun; the palms don’t provide much shelter. A couple of early-risers have arrived, looking grumpy in their dressing-gowns, their hair ruffled and their faces still wrinkled from being pressed against the pillows.

  Three of my meetings today are in the open lobby. The Pakistani customers are two meticulously made-up ladies dressed in salwar kameez, one peacock green, the other royal blue and magenta. I congratulate them for representing their company in a male-dominated society. They respond with proud smiles and favourable trading terms. In the meeting with a small and dignified Bangladeshi customer, I make reference to Tagore. His face lights up, because he reads his poems as a daily spiritual practice. Another Bangladeshi customer is a retired general. He perspires profusely and uses up my entire packet of tissues. The air is so balmy that I feel like hanging my skin out to dry. Everyone’s anxious, waiting for the tempest.

  When you and I parted, I was prepared to suffer a sort of Seasonal Affective Disorder (aptly abbreviated as SAD) for three months, and I thought when the weather turned I’d get better. But over a warm autumn and a mild winter, you became habitual, or chronic, like an allergy triggered by unknown sources. For no reason, my eyes would suddenly become watery.

  SMS: ‘Fancy going swimming? I’ll be at the beach soon. Qiuyu.’

  I text back in Chinese: ‘A few more sessions to go. See you at dinner.’

  The next meeting is with two customers who look like the Russian mafia—Vulgar and Vigour, you’d have called them. Rick wears a Caribbean shirt and a pair of non-see-through wraparound sunglasses. Colin wears their company’s T-shirt in a concrete grey with a logo that looks like the former USSR flag.

  We find a table on the lawn under an umbrella. The sky is a bathtub of curdled milk, the heat of the sun emanating from behind the foaming clouds. Light has bleached all the colours from the day—every object glitters in pale white. Even in the shade, the air is steamy and scorching. The lining of my dress clings to my skin: surviving the tropics requires humility rather than elegance.

  Rick and I don’t see eye to eye. To his request for a ridiculous rate to direct voice traffic into Australia, I say, ‘No way.’ To my suggestion of collaboration, bilateral relationship, win–win problem solving, he says, ‘No point.’ I follow my brief and soon run out of script. So I play the passive aggressive game and stay silent unless he asks a question. Colin doesn’t seem to care. In spite of a couple of cold beers, he still perspires uncontrollably—his T-shirt is virtually salt-encrusted. Rick has kept his cool. We part in obvious hostility.

  I feel rather energised by the confrontation, as if I’ve picked a fight and am ready for more, like someone suffering from Mango Madness going troppo.

  I seldom told you about my work, because anything unrelated to you seemed uninteresting to me. I’ve relived the details of our time together, the weather phenomena, your clothes, your mood, the topics of discussion, the diversity of views, the fervent agreements, references, quotations, anecdotes … But some of the physical aspects have become blurry, with periods of amnesia. I can’t remember the prelude to our first kiss. (Who made the first move?) I can’t remember what preceded the first intimate touch. (Was it an intentional accident?)

  SMS: ‘I’m in front of the thatched roof to the left of the stage (facing the stage).’ Such precision—Qiuyu studied engineering. He told me last night about the complex number system including the imaginary unit i, which equals the square root of -1.

  After dinner with our respective colleagues, Qiuyu and I meet again. Away from the beachfront is a winding path elevated on rocks, punctuated by lookouts. We stop at the highest pagoda. There’s no moon or star, but the dark sea reflects a metallic light. Bolts of lightning strike at the horizon, and the sky and the sea shiver. The distant thunder slowly rolls in.

  At the marquee, they’re running a beauty pageant judged on audience reaction. A female contestant’s on, and her male colleagues make a great spectacle of applauding and whistling. The MC announces she’s the winner. One of the CEOs tells a story using all the participating companies’ names, causing roars of laughter.

  Qiuyu recounts his afternoon adventure. ‘You can see a great variety of fishes just in the shallow water.’

  We agree to go swimming together in the morning.

  Subject:

  Coral Sea Vibrations

  Date:

  20/09/2012

  Status:

  Not Sent

  Could I whisper in your ear a dream I’ve had? You’re the only one I’ve told this to. I dreamed of a kiss, so tender that it felt like sorrow, like a glimpse at the happiness of one’s childhood.

  To my untrained eye, all beaches look the same, so do deserts and other sandy landscapes shaped by wind and water. To see a world in a grain of sand—are all worlds repeats? A man is flattening the sand using a T-shaped tool.

  I walk into the water, the sun warm on my skin, the water tepid. The seabed is covered with corals, prickly under my feet, and the water is too shallow to swim across. I go to the shop. They lend me a pair of shoes designed for walking on reefs, and a lifejacket.

  Qiuyu arrives. ‘Do you want a muffin? I took two on my way out.’ His room is in the luxury wing of the resort, equipped with its own cafe.

  In our high-school literature textbook was a story of seven soldiers during the war. They haven’t had any food for days, then they find an apple. They pass it around, each taking a bite. It comes back with half still left. That’s the part of me you don’t yet know. On the interior walls of my heart chamber, you won’t find poster slogans in large print of Individualism, Freedom, Self. What’s nailed there are incidents of small kindness.

  I eat half of my muffin. Qiuyu wraps our leftovers in paper and puts it in his pocket. There’s no rubbish bin on the beach.

  We go down to the water.

  ‘Where are your goggles?’ he asks.

  ‘I forgot to bring them.’

  ‘You need goggles to see the fish. I’ll get you a pair.’

  I soak my feet in the water, testing my new reef shoes.

  He comes back with an elaborate pair that covers not only my eyes but also my nose.

  ‘Did you need to pay?’

  ‘It’s included in my room tariff.’

  The water is a translucent cerulean. While it barely reaches our knees, we can already see schools of fist-sized fish dashing across. Further out, we are surrounded by more species than I read about on the noticeboard. The reefs are slippery. We hunch over, and float away.

  Sunlight shines through the water, illuminating the antipode with all its enchantment. Fish are dancing through the columns of light—music made visible. I reach out my hand and they change course and glide away. There are banded fish of yellow and black, or orange and white, and stripy ones with horizontal or vertical patterns. The parrot fish, about a foot long, fly slowly beside me, their pink, electric blue, aqua and yellow glistening with each graceful swing, spellbinding.

  Qiuyu points to a beaky fish that’s attacking his leg. I kick the water to draw attention, but the fish shows no interest.

  ‘It might be nesting here,’ he says when we lift our heads to breathe.

  The sun has climbed higher and the water is a gleaming mirror, clear and comforting. We walk back to the deckchairs where we’ve left our dressing-gowns.

  ‘Did you hear the rain last night?’ he asks.

&
nbsp; ‘No—did it rain?’

  ‘Very heavily, with lightning and thunder. You must have slept well.’

  ‘I dreamed of seeing fish in the sea. The water was black and the fish yellow. The real fish are more colourful.’

  He laughs. ‘You’re lucky to have dreams.’

  He’s leaving in the afternoon. Our goodbye is unceremonious, without even a handshake, as if we are going to see each other for dinner. Once someone has come into our lives, they stay there forever, regardless of whether we are meeting them in an hour or ten years. I wish I had let you know more about me.

  I meet with the US customers in their ocean view suite. It’s so cold, and I’m not sure if it’s the air-conditioning or their attitude. One of them was born in Hong Kong and grew up in the Netherlands. So we start talking about food, and the room warms up a bit. The Chinese customers are keen to practise their English, almost at the expense of the meeting. The Filipino customer is a beautiful and lively woman whose name is Lady.

  Our vice president has arrived, en route from Vietnam. As a Hillsong Elder, he likes to round up each meeting with a prayer in disguise. The latest is a pledge introduced by the senior vice president, which we have to read together across three countries through videoconference. As for himself, he’s remembered it by heart. It’s fascinating to watch him rock his head and recite the words in rapture. I can hardly concentrate, knowing what’s to come, like waiting for a grotesque scene in a low-budget horror film. But even without the distraction, I’m often lost in a meeting, not knowing why I’m there.