My friend (Zexum)

Zexum is a name I made up in 30 seconds, and I immediately liked it. It has less to do with the name, I guess. It has more to do with the person I want to blog about now. After I finished “Urby” blog, I skipped a little all the way to “Z”. I know this blog will take me some time, so I should start right now. It is Jan 5^th, 2006, three days after a fateful day in Hangzhou. Now I am in Hongkong, and I think of Zexum. I hope she is here with me right now, in this lonely hotel room, writing my blog and preparing my presentation for tomorrow. Different from all the blogs before, I am going to try my best to just tell the facts and let my readers to judge how I feel about her in this blog.

I got to know Zexum back in high school, when I was “Gao Er” and she was “Gao Yi”. We were both in Literature Club. She was the president and I was the vice president. That time, I was very good in maths, physics and chemistry, and was confident enough to take on a new thing: literature. For her, literature came naturally, as she was sympathetic, intuitive and outspoken. Both of us were model students and did not make mistakes in our studies.

Quite some stories in the Literature Club. We had a small office, and I often liked to study there. We tried to organize “Literature Salon”, but it went nowhere. I carved a stamp for the club, just for fun. Through this club, I met another good friend, Wondre, appearing in another blog. One day I put a fake “Reader’s Letter” in the mailbox with the signed name “Xiao Wang”. Zexum thought it was real for a long time until one day I told her the truth. I guess I liked to see her puzzled or surprised, because her innocence struck me as something very pure.

We also put on a show “Venice’s Merchant” by Shakespeare. I forgot most of it, but believed it was fun for putting up the show. I am still struck by how brave I was back then. I think I still had the pictures somewhere. Probably my grandma or my parents are keeping them right now.

Sports meeting. Zexum was, and probably still is, a good long-distance runner. She stayed on campus because her home was quite far away. After getting up, she sometimes ran with the athletes. I am still impressed by her well-round development (For me, I can barely make the passing grade in P.E. classes). In my “Gao San” year, she finished first or second in woman 800-metre event. I went to the vender to buy some flower. I intended to get some carnation, but since that was the last of the sports meeting, it sold out. So I got three red roses. I was shy back then, so I asked a young kid to deliver the flower for me. I could not remember whether I was secretly happy to know that rose was my only option.

Some time during my “Gao San” year, my mom had a stroke (See my previous blog about my parents). I decided to do something meaningful for her. Because she could not talk then, I wanted her to listen to good stories. So I picked up two or three short stories I liked, and then I asked Zexum to record her stories on the tape. She did it. My mom later never mentioned the tape. Maybe she just threw away the tape because the stories were quite bullshit. I was very happy that Zexum recorded the stories without asking me too many “whys”. Maybe I just wanted to bring back a young and healthy mom, and asking Zexum was a natural choice, as I was not embarrassed to let her know my love-and-hate relationship with my parents.

The high school period was ending. During the summer vacation, I invited Zexum to watch a movie together: Forrest Gump. I wrote an essay afterward as a weekly writing assignment. And Forrest Gump is still one of my favorite movies. She also seemed to like it. I still remember that we biked back from “Ying Du” to her mom’s shop. It was a sunny day, and I was in a high spirit.

During college, I often dropped by her mom’s shop in vacations back home. Zexum was a good daughter, so she watched the shop for her mom. Sometimes I would bike through the shop unannounced to see whether she was there. If her mom was there and she was not, I would just fade away without being noticed.

One summer or winter night (I forgot which year), I asked her out to McDonald’s. We finished the food and walked back. I was pretty sure that the following exchange happened. When we walked through the intersession of Zhong Shan Lu and Kai Ming Jie, I told her, “If I was as grown-up in high school as I am now, I would have pursued you.” And she replied with something equivalent to “Me too.” (Okey, now I am sure it is after I broke up with my girlfriend, otherwise I would not say things like that. It is very possible that it is the summer of 2000, just before I took off for the United States). Then we laughed, as if it was an indication about our trusting friendship. I walked her all the way home, and did not remember any other things.

She finished college and then went to Beida for master’s degree in 2001. I saw her three times afterwards.

1 (summer 2002). I saw Zexum and her mom together in Beida. Forgot most of it, but remember vividly that we had dinner upstairs of a place whether students watched videos. The food is “Bao Zi’, as I can remember. Wind blew away our napkins at one point.

2 (winter 2004). I was teaching in Renda then. I saw her and Wondre together in Beida. They treated me with some coffee in some basement coffee shop. That day, Zexum had a boyfriend, tall and shy, probably not as smart as me (sorry, unknown guy, but I did make the comparison that day). I went back. My roommate in Renda also wanted to talk, because a little girl was pursuing him rigorously although he did not like her at all. So we turned on the TV and took the Channel V. We talked and talked. He talked mostly about that little girl and how to get rid of her without hurting her. I talked about all the missed opportunities of having a girlfriend and all I did was running away and running away, from home to Beijing and from China to the States. I did tell him that I had the feeling of “Chi Cu” when I saw Zexum’s boyfriend. I am still surprised by my wording, but “Chi Cu” was the exact word I described my feeling to him. We talked until 4am.

3 (Jan 2^nd, 2006).

At the night of Dec 29^th, I had the realization that I have already liked Zexum. The reasons for the realization are probably the following two: 1. I finally had a complete ending with my one and only girlfriend; and 2. I realized that I had been running away from my feelings all the time. If I ran again this time, that is it. Before, I could always regret and come back. However, this time is different. Now I am graduating and the visa issue would probably prevent me from coming back easily for a while. I could still try, but without a legit reason, I do not believe I would try at all. That night, I was very excited and had some trouble sleeping.

Dec 30^th night, keep thinking of it.

Dec 31^st, I decided to test myself. I told myself, if I could run the loop in my city, I should be able to have the courage to give it a try. I ran it, passed all the passengers like a breeze, surprised most with my sports shorts. I did it.

Jan 1^st, I got the disappointing news that Zexum could not come to my hometown for a meeting. All my planning was ready to fall apart. I met Wondre and her husband at night. Right before the meeting, I made up my mind to go to Hangzhou the next day.

Jan 2^nd, Hangzhou. I saw her….. I am not ready to describe the meeting in details for now, as I consider it to be private. For example, if she eventually says no, I do not want this blog to remind me about my failure for the rest of my life, and I do not want other people, even my dear readers, to show pity for me, even it is sincere. I will write about it if she says, “Yes, please. Come back in March and let’s give a try!”

That’s my story with Zexum. I have been describing facts all along, and now I am ready to present some subjective views, thoughts, feelings and hopes. Please bear with me if they are highly biased.

I’ve tried my best to reconstruct my story with Zexum. These interactions are mostly short but memorable. The memories are bits and pieces, but putting together, I believe that Zexum is the best girl I know of right now. Really think about it, our story has all the ingredients of a great love story (Yes, I am biased, but I still want to say that). I am quite puzzled by why I finally admitted my feeling towards her and why now. Is it because I am more mature now? Or am I tired of being lonely? Am I tired of pursuing some idealistic love? Or do I finally look deep into myself and find out that I have already met the best girl? These are all tough questions, and I am not able to answer any of them for now. All I know is that I want to give two of us a chance to start and to see how it goes. For that, I am willing to sacrifice or compromise my stubborn self.

This is the last post of my blogs about 26 friends. I will keep putting in new friends as I see fit. They will probably follow greek letters. Looking back, I am quite satisfied with all 26, or to be precise, 27. This last friend is myself. In all these blogs, I never detached myself. Rather, I want myself to there in each single one. As I described my friends, I knew myself much better. I make friends and peace with myself in the process. I know I care about the people around me even though I do not want to admit it sometimes. I also know I am deeply flawed myself, in ways that have not been realized by even my dearest friends.

It is the first month of 2006, and I still do not know what is my future and what will make me the happiest person in the world. But believe me or not, I am getting closer to figure them out, day by day, blog by blog. Thanks all my friends, whether they have appeared in my blog or not. You are my heroes, and thanks for having entered in my world, touched my heart, noticed my vulnerability, made me think and write, and taught me love and care. Happy 2006.