Where do we start? OK, I know. We start at the beginning. DUH! Once upon a time in a country far, far away, a cliché was born… I went to America on this Work & Travel program for college students many years ago. I went there two summers in a row actually. The first summer, I visited Cape Cod and spent about four months on that beautiful peninsula. Had a good time, but too many of my countrymen were there, and this was quite a small place, so I didn’t really get to immerse myself into different cultures or live the ‘American dream’.
I had good times and bad times, much like any trip anyone’s ever had. Bad times, at least for me, always, I mean always, include me falling for a girl, the girl not falling back, and me being miserable about it. But the good times were all in New York City. I spent less than a week in that place and felt completely at home. We also visited Washington D.C. and Boston before we came back to the motherland.
By the way, nobody calls their country the motherland or the fatherland… maybe the uncleland? Sister-in-law-land? Anyway, I don’t understand why I always see it in movies? Especially Russians, “comrade” and “motherland” in every movie they are in… in 2021!! I have met countless Russians and not one of them has ever used these words or their like! No, not even in their own language. Stop it, Hollywood! Or, even better, hire somebody from Eastern Europe who can fix your very, very, extraordinarily stereotypical lingo that don’t nobody uses. Yes, I used a stereotypical getto double negative in my fight against stereotypes, sue me!
The second summer, I was supposed to go with a good friend of mine from college, but she didn’t have the finances, so I ended up going alone. Blessing in disguise. OBX or Outer Banks in North Carolina, the place was Rodanthe but the nearest town resembling a civilization was one shaky bridge and two hours away with a car, the infamous Kill Devil Hills. People killed the devil on these hills, man! And I am SURE that it was their resident John Snow that did it, not his miniature, albeit quite murderous sister. I can’t believe they named it so, but man, some of the towns in America have hilariously genius names. They may have Athens (IL) and Berlin (CT), but they also have Nowhere, Colorado and even Nothing in Arizona. This is one of the reasons I really love America over other countries, they don’t take themselves too seriously.
Rodanthe is the place where they filmed that movie with Richard Gere, and my summer dwelling had a view of the house from the movie. Many people would come to my place of work to ask about the house and I would dully point the way. I only saw the movie years after that summer and years before this post. Nope. My house housed a hazardous huddle of habitants. America was represented by two surf-loving boys and one smartass girl and then: two beer-drinking Czech girls, one weird Chinese girl, one pretty Croatian girl, one funny Romanian girl who actually lives in England, my Polish roommate from Nigerian descent and of course, le moi, the dumbass Macedonian dude (now, apparently North Macedonian).
We had our ups and downs, but that was an extremely cool group of people. Some of them left earlier for greener pastures or sheer boredom and others joined us later. Romania left us first, if I remember correctly, and then my Polish-Nigerian friend. He still is one of the coolest people I have ever met. I remember I taught the bastard how to ride a bike. I am such a good teacher – or dude didn’t need a lot of teaching (either or), it took me less than 15 minutes to get him pedaling like a maniac down the muddy Rodanthe roads… I mean… alleys? What’s smaller than an alley and also lacks modern paving? mudpath? Is that even a word?! (ooooh, I’m thinking of mudbath, but like hot chicks wrestling in it)Well, there you go, I shakespeared it again… One of the Czech girls had her sister visit for a month – she became and remains one of my best friends. But the Chinese girl is the one that deserves an honorable mention. We didn’t become great friends or anything but later on she planted an idea in my head, much like Leo did to people in Inception (talk about entering people without protection). That idea would come to fruition years later and would change my life forever. So America DID change my life, if only indirectly and I will always be grateful for that.
Chinese people like to give themselves English names, for whatever reason, and this girl’s name was Ashley. We kept in touch throughout the years between my American and Chinese adventures so she was there to say the last goodbye in Kill Devil Hills and the first hello in Hong Kong. But that was basically it between us. If you didn’t guess by now, she is the one that stole my summer that heart. But she repaid me many times over since then, even though I have only seen her like twice since I first came to China in 2017.
After America, I focused on finishing college and trying not to waste my 20s like I wasted my teens. College was going well, much weller than high school and I read many books in English during those years, so my level was becoming of a sufficient height that I was able to express anything I wanted in spoken or written word. I always preferred the written one. Even though I had fallen behind on some exams, I actually passed almost all of my exams in a little over 4 years. Took me one more year and maybe 3-4 tries to pass my last, the elusive French Cultural Studies exam and then another year to defend my thesis and pick up the useless paper more commonly known as a Diploma. My thesis was on Led Zeppelin and I got the highest marks from my professors (to this day, I still can’t believe this!). I got my BA in 2015, which sounds like I’ve been to college for 7 years. God damn lazy motherfucker… although… I have never actually fucked anybody’s mother and that is most likely the case with the majority of people who have acquired this adjective throughout the years. Go figure.
Ashley and I would talk from time to time on WeChat, that’s like China’s answer to Facebook and Instagram… and Twitter… and Whatsapp… and Snapchat… and Linkedin all rolled into one. I would always complain that I don’t want to get a job because I want to travel, she complained about her family pressuring her to get married. It’s another Chinese thing, if you are 25 and don’t have 5 kids in China, you are an old lady and nobody likes you anymore. So we kinda supported each other. I told her to ignore her family and patiently search for the right guy and she suggested I come teach English in China, as many foreigners do it, especially Russians. And the seed was planted (so the condom within a condom worked not). I would spend the next year trying to make some money while interviewing for jobs in China. Making money seemed easier than actually finding a job in Shenzhen where she lived. Shenzhen seemed to be a very desirable location for expat teachers, so it seemed impossible. Took me more than a year to find a job close to Shenzhen (2 hours by train) and several more months to actually appear there. But basically, two whole years after my college graduation I met my friend Ashley in Hong Kong. And the adventure began…