The following post is something I wrote more than five years ago now on an earlier iteration of the Not Minimum Coverage blog I had when I first moved to China. It’s the story of how I met Ben. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed re-reading it.
Spring semester 2012, I took an intermediate salsa class at Georgia State’s Recreation Center. As in any salsa class, one develops a preference for dancing with particular people. In this class, I had a few favorites, including Ben. Ben was very good at leading; I always felt confident about where he wanted me to go. He also had a better memory for the dance patterns we were learning than many of the other guys. My favorite part of the class, however, was when it was over and Ben and I would walk the very short distance to the train station. You see, the class was late in the evening, and it was normally the last thing we did before going home.
During our short walks, we’d share tidbits about our day, and he would teach me some basic Mandarin since I was going to China for the first time that summer. Ben went the other direction on the train, so he waited on the other side of the tracks, but sometimes we’d do the dance pattern from class even with the tracks separating us. I always liked that he was silly enough to dance in public with a woman on the other side of the tracks.
I didn’t take any more dance classes after that semester, and I didn’t see Ben much anymore either. I ran into him once a few months after my first trip to China. I was on my way to a Mandarin class at the Confucius Institute. My Mandarin class was in the same building as the nutrition program at GSU. Ben was working on his MS in nutrition. We stopped and talked for a bit about a program he was currently running to encourage people to be more active. I took one of his pedometers and a list of places to go to on campus by a certain time that day. After my Mandarin class, I realized I was crazy and would certainly not have enough time to take part in the activity. I still have that pedometer at home in the States. Every once in a while, I would run across it and feel guilty, wondering if he had needed it back.
Just a few weeks before I moved to China for work the summer of 2013, I began to see Ben a lot at the different salsa bars that I frequent. He asked me to dance, and I did. He was still one of my favorite dancers. We spent a lot of time dancing together those nights because we felt comfortable with each other, and we made each other laugh. It came up that I was moving to China, and he mentioned he would be going back as well. We had both finished our master’s in May. He invited me then to visit his family during Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) in Shanghai. I was very excited to have plans for Mid-Autumn Festival and readily agreed. Oh wait, I thought, did he say Spring Festival? But that’s so far away ( normally late January / early February). Okay, I guess that’s fine. We exchanged emails, knowing our phone numbers weren’t going to be very useful in the near future.
Shortly after I arrived in Beijing, he emailed me to find out how I was doing. I told him I was doing alright, and if he wanted to learn more he could read my blog (I’m too lazy to repeat myself). He replied with his Skype name, and we started Skyping. Initially, we would talk every now and again. For example, the morning when I got sick and couldn’t teach in Beijing, he kept me company via Skype, which made me feel a thousand times better. I enjoyed those conversations like I always enjoyed talking to him in person. His English is downright superb, so it’s easy to explain myself. And he’s hilarious. His sense of humor really suits mine. In Beijing, he was someone in the back of my mind. Someone I began to think about more often with time.
After my summer teaching position ended in Beijing, I traveled around South Korea for a month. As time progressed in Korea, Skyping with Ben became routine. We talked about his job search, his successes and disappoints. I began spending my days wondering about how his interview went, or if he had heard back from a particular hospital. When I arrived in Shantou, where I would be working for that academic year, I was stressed by my lack of phone, internet, and other types of communication. One of the people I needed to tell I was okay was Ben. I had promised to message him when I landed, and I couldn’t. When I finally got internet access, we were both relieved. He had been worried because he hadn’t heard anything, and I had been worried because I couldn’t tell him I was okay. The next day I wrote: “가끔보고 싶어요.” I write in Korean when I don’t want him to understand but I feel like I must express how I feel. The following transcript is a snippet from that Skype conversation:
Ben: what did you say in Korean last time? Can you tell me now?
Me: You really want to know? Why?
Ben: Because you didn’t want me to know that time. [I had said it before]
Me: HAHAHAHA… it just means, “Sometimes, I miss you.” It literally means… “Sometimes I want to see (you)”… but the better translation is the one I stated
Ben: Sometimes, huh?
Ben: Sorry for picking a wrong time to be a smart ass.
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHA. It’s fine… a little levity never hurts in moments of clear vulnerability. (facepalm) [Smiley shows a person hitting themselves on the head with their palm]
Ben: 我也想你。[I miss you too]
Me: I feel I should explain the sometimes… It just means… even though I talk to you every day these days, when I’m not talking to you, I… you get it?
Ben: Yes. The feeling is mutual.
Me: :$ [blushing smiley face]
Ben: I really want to save this until we meet in person, but, would you go out with me?
My heart stopped. I didn’t know what to say. So, I eventually said: “Can I ask you a few questions first?” I already had the answer in my head, which was that the nature of our relationship probably wouldn’t change very much even if I said “yes.” All we could really do at our distance was what we’d already been doing: Skype a lot. However, I still went through a series of questions that took over two hours, but I eventually got him to say what I had been thinking initially. Ben lived in Shanghai, and I lived in Shantou. It’s as if I lived in Florida and he lived in South Carolina. Not that far away, but certainly not close either. I would have said “yes,” though, under better circumstances.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the nature of our relationship did end up changing. He took to calling me 宝贝 (darling; treasure) and I to calling him 老公 (husband), at his request. I had suggested calling him 老头子 (old fogey) as his nickname, but for some reason, he didn’t like that one as much. I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of my writing in my blog a month earlier the following:
I know many people joke about me marrying someone Asian, but I think the odds are pretty slim. I’d need to find someone proficient enough in English (who’s otherwise a kind, open-minded, attractive person) and whose parents don’t oppose my non-Chinese-ness (worse yet, blackness, blackness). Don’t hold your breath. 😛 It seems though, there is some hope among the 九零后 generation [90’s babies], but they’re too young for me. Aw, shucks!
On only my second day in Shantou, I had been asked out by someone from the 八零后 [80’s babies] generation, someone who is proficient in English, kind, open-minded, and attractive. As for his parents, only time would tell. He is the same person whose pedometer I borrowed indefinitely and who danced with me from across the tracks. Fate?
About two weeks later, I went to Guangzhou for the weekend. It was the first time I couldn’t Skype with Ben. It was hard to fall asleep that night even though I was so tired. The next day I had about 30 minutes I could Skype with him, and fortunately, he was free too. So, then I said: “I really wanted to wait until we met in person, but will you go out with me?” He was gracious enough to say, “of course,” even though he told me he wanted to say: “Can I ask you a few questions first?”
I did end up going to Shanghai for Mid-Autumn festival that year, and then for the Chinese National holiday, and then again for the 6 weeks of my winter holiday including Spring Festival. On my first trip there, we made a verbal contract. We agreed we were going to give this relationship a real go (after all, he, like other Chinese men I know who were born in the 80s, only dates women he would consider marrying). So, at that point, 老公 was a nickname, but it eventually became true.
老公,因为你,相信缘份. 我爱你. (Ben, because of you, I believe in fate. I love you.)
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