Last Cruise

After noticing my zits on my right cheek have got much better, after feeling getting more used to say “cheers” instead of “thank you” to a bus driver and after finally reducing the times of saying “hao”, which means "OK" in Chinese on the phone, it has also come to the end of my journey.

My last evening in the UK, sitting on the cozy red sofa listening to people accusing each other on Jeremy Kyle's show, I felt the urge to get away from the ugly side of humanity and have a last cruise of the city.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop. Listen to the certain, confident but easy clop from my boots when they kissed the chilly ground, I found it interesting that in both ends of my journeys to Germany and to the UK this time, I felt I’ve lived in both of the cities for much much longer than just five and fifteen days. 

Walking down Cathedral Road, I passed the grocery store, the old lady's vegetable shop, the butcher's shop that I had been to and then some beautiful waiting-for-let houses with their winter sleeping gardens. I started to wander between the reality and my fantasy. I picked a house I liked and began to picture what if I really live here, what I would be doing right now in the evening.

"Hmm…will I be crouching on my chair in front of my desk, having shit Chinese food from Tesco alone with a legal textbook on my lap and also trying to swear at the same time while eating it?! I may have no choice since I was as homesick as my best friend Gina used to be and being a student here has already made me too exhausted to cook...... OR…after all these years here, I have been totally assimilated that I will be sinking into a dark blue cheap cotton sofa from Ikea, stroking my gradually bigger and bigger, thicker and thicker belly and thighs with a remote control in my hand and thinking about what is the junk food I am going to have next…" 

Imagining both of the pictures along the road, I tried my best not to grin like a dumbass and continued my walk toward the shopping centre.

When getting closer and closer to the city centre, besides trying to buy myself a pair of shoes in this country, I discovered the second frustrating thing living in the UK – It was just about 7pm, but most shops were ready to close, even coffee shops. And the only available cheap food seemed to be Burger King or Subway this kind of place. The voice-over resounded in my head and said, “No wonder binge drinking is such an issue in this country - Cos they don't have many choices of entertainment in the evening! Poor British people…”

It was Hobson's choice that I walked into the Burger King. The young girl in her uniform standing opposite the counter had a very familiar face and reminded me of someone. It was not because of her black hair, yellow skin and her Chinese name suggested by the name tag on her left chest. It was Wei-Wei’s ponytail and hard-working attitude that reminded me of Sylvia, a friend whom I had visited and stayed with for two weeks in London in 2007.

Sylvia had a BA degree in Music in Taiwan. Her major and minor were Vocal Music and Piano. I still remembered the evening she was in her slivery white dress being radiant and singing on her mini graduation concert. She looked very elegant and her performance was beautiful.

When I saw Sylvia again in 2007, she has just got her MA degree in Arts Administration and Management in a university in London and also just started to work from early evening till early morning as a waitress in a night club. There were many times I wondered if those customers knew the waitress, who just took their orders and brought them their fancy cocktails could actually play wonderful piano and sing like an angel.

I could still recall a few times watching Sylvia dragging her stories with heavy steps going to work. And if I dug out my memory, I could still hear Sylvia's sobs when she told me parts of the stories and the reasons why she was rather being bossed around and working like a dog in the UK than coming back to Taiwan to have some claps she deserved on the stage. 

Sylvia had lost a very close family member due to a serious car accident when she was studying in the UK. And because of many many family and her emotional issues, Taiwan has become a place that’s too sorrowful for her to live in.

Even though the journey in 2007 was full of fascinating memory, after coming back to Taiwan, occasionally even till now I still think about Sylvia's story and wonder to what extent or because of what incident that I'll make such a sudden turn and find a new balance, like Sylvia did, in my life. 

Wei-Wei handed me my tea and stopped me before I went any deeper to my question this time. I smiled at Wei-Wei and tried to squint gently down as if it would make me discover what story she was dragging to work in such a cold evening with her. 

Time is never enough for remembering all those good and sad old days. But tea is always helpful when it comes to digestion, even when it's about memory. I quickly finished my tea after doing some writing and then kept cruising to the rest of the evening. 

Didn't really look down while walking, but I think, like Sylvia, we all drag some stories behind those smiley faces with us, no matter where we are or how hard we try to forget.