Nearly a year ago, I signed a contract for a job offer in Singapore without having ever been to Singapore and knowing very little about the nation and its culture. All I knew was that people in Singapore spoke English, and that it was a developed city-state. In the proceeding 10 months, I learned more and more about Singapore until I felt like I knew it, and as I absorbed everything I could about Singapore and Asia, I was also slowly releasing myself from being a “North American.”

On August 26, I flew from Nanjing, China, to Singapore Changqi International Airport, a six-hour direct flight. Although I had only been in Nanjing for two weeks, I felt weird leaving it. I was struck, once again, with the melancholy of goodbye. Even our travels did not go very smooth: at check-in, we found out that we were only allowed 20 kg per person checked-in baggage (as opposed to two check-in bags weighing 20kg each). We had four luggage bags with us. I ended up paying 3400 RMB in excess baggage charges. It was the same as the price of my airplane ticket. It was absolutely ridiculous, absurd, ludicrous! I was fuming but what could I do? At that point, two of the bags had already gone in, and I couldn’t just leave the two remaining bags (they were the most important), and my uncle who had dropped me off at the airport was long gone. We also had trouble getting money out because there was no currency exchange desk after we went passed through security.

Suffice to say, I had a horrendous headache when I landed in Singapore. Everything that should have impressed me – the spacious airport, the clean washrooms, the courteous service, the cheap taxi – didn’t. Even after I arrived, the auntie that was to be our host wasn’t home (nor was her husband or daughter), so we ended up waiting in her lobby for nearly an hour (until her husband came home, it was two more hours until she came home). I understand that they can’t help getting off work late, but she said her daughter would be home, and her daughter was actually the last to come home (came in at 8pm, hadn’t picked up her phone all afternoon). Wouldn’t this be something they talked about/coordinated ahead of time?? And if it wasn’t possible to coordinate having someone at home, they should have told us, especially since we called her as soon as we got off the plane.

Perhaps it was because I knew so much about Singapore ahead of time that I didn’t feel that wowed by it when I arrived. Or perhaps it was because I had gone to Hong Kong, which is also one of the most developed cities in Asia, that I wasn’t so impressed. I expected Singapore to be Hong Kong but even better: cleaner, cheaper, friendlier, better service. Instead, it was pretty much the same, it did not seem that much cleaner (certainly not the way everyone seems to hail Singapore for its cleanliness) or advanced. I felt a little disappointed, even if it was my own fault for building it up in my mind. Moreover, seeing my working friends’ long hours and stress made me even less enthusiastic about starting work. Had I fantasized too much? Was there no such thing as the paradise island with the perfect job that I had built up in my mind?

Don’t get me wrong, Singapore is great. It is definitely one of the all-around best cities I have ever seen (or heard of) in the world. The natural environment here is beautiful, all the pros of a tropical landscape (warm breezes, tropical plants) without the cons (insects). The cultural environment is to my liking too, because food is a big deal here. There is so much variety that I don’t think I’ll get to try every type of “famous dish” even in two years! Public transportation is so efficient, it’s incomparable. Life in general is very convenient, considering there are food courts (hawker centers), grocery stores or markets, shopping complexes, and public libraries everywhere, not to mention the condo facilities; each condo is like its own resort with multiple swimming pools, fitness rooms, clubhouses, tennis courts, and sometimes even golf and mini-golf ranges.

Since I arrived, I have spent all my waking hours condo-hunting. On my first full day in Singapore, my agent took me around to five different units. I left the house at 9am and didn’t return until 9pm. It was a long-ass day. Of all the units we saw, the most impressive was a brand-new condo that’s just been built. Normally it would be completely out of my price range, but because they are building another condo beside it, construction is really noisy and the units facing the construction have been discounted. So at the end of the first day, I signed a “Letter of Intent” (which is like a draft contract) with the agent for the unit at the new condo. The condo facilities are state-of-the-art, and everything is sparkling new. We would be the first tenants, and all new furniture (that we requested) would be bought for us. It sounded too good to be true.

And it was. After busying myself the whole day (and night) viewing condos, signing contracts, making overseas calls to my roommate/colleague and negotiating with her (she’s in Italy right now), this morning the agent called to say the landlord retracted the contract. For some reason, he was no longer prepared to rent us the unit, perhaps because he thought he could get a higher price for a fully furnished unit. So today I met up with the agent to view another unit in the same condo, except only partially furnished, and signed another LOI, and now I’m waiting to hear back from her.

You’d think they’d be begging me to sign a two-year contract (worth nearly $100,000 SGD in rent) but instead, people are fighting over these units as if they were free! The units we saw yesterday were already gone by today, so I couldn’t even consider my second-choice unit. Who knew spending exorbitant amounts of money on real estate could be so difficult?

My entire week consisted of two principal activities: shopping and eating. I did far too much shopping for my own good, considering things in Hong Kong are actually more expensive than mainland and I don’t have any luggage space for Singapore whatsoever. I also did far too much eating considering the food was mostly Western food that I could have had anytime I wanted in Canada. I did manage to slip in two dim sum trips, because how could I go to Hong Kong without having some dim sum? I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves².

Lunch at a tiny but busy Japanese joint near Causeway Bay MTR. They are known for their fatty tuna sashimi.

Lunch at an apartment-turned-restaurant near Sham Shui Po, Western-style cuisine, prix-fixe menu that included appetizer and entree. The dessert (every single dessert on their menu) was compliments of the owner, who seemed to know my friend’s aunt.

Brunch at 霞飛點心拉麵 (Xia Fei Shanghainese Restaurant). Each dim sum item was better than the last!

Brunch at a traditional Cantonese dim sum place, 蓮香樓, Lin Heung Tea House. This was actually the most disappointing meal, I don’t know why this place has such great reviews (is considered the best Guangdong dim sum place in Hong Kong). It was extremely chaotic and dirty, the food was also terrible.

Dinner at a cafe/diner in Lan Kwai Fong. The food was average.

Breakfast at The Brunch Club.

1. I often had to wait until past midnight to have “dinner” with them because they didn’t get off work until midnight or 1 am, and even 10pm on weekends!
2. Unfortunately, there are three fantastic meals I didn’t get pictures of because my camera ran out of batteries. One was the first dim sum meal at a Shanghainese restaurant. The second was a Western meal on an island where they only travel by golf carts (no cars). And the third was a midnight excursion for some street food, including curry fish balls, lobster meatballs, roasted octupus and deep-fried calamari.

LAC was a friend of a friend’s and arrived a little after we did. I saw him standing next to the table with nowhere to sit, so I asked the two girls beside me to scooch in so he could have a seat. I hadn’t even been introduced to him or gotten a proper look at him, and the opened-up seat wouldn’t be beside me, so it was clear I wasn’t doing it to sit next to him and flirt. I was just being nice. I knew what it felt like to arrive at a party and only know one other person and stand awkwardly on the outside. He did notice me for my nice act though, and half an hour later, when a seat opened up next to me, he sat down and introduced himself. It was only at this point that I noticed how cute he was. He was Cantonese but raised in L.A., and now he was working in Shanghai. He spoke Cantonese, English, enough Mandarin to get by, a bit of Spanish (because of LA), and a bit of French (because his grandparents were living in Ottawa). We were only chatting harmlessly for a few minutes when WAF came over to ask me if I wanted to go dance. I assumed I would excuse myself to the dance floor and come back in a few minutes, but he surprised me by getting up and taking my hand. He was coming with me? I led him on the dance floor and when I turned around, I saw that WAF had not followed us. A few minutes later, she appeared with MBB‘s best guy friend. Apparently she had felt the need to grab a dancing partner at the last minute. I couldn’t blame her. Unfortunately, MBB‘s best friend was not into her at all and barely danced; his disinterest was so immediately obvious that I don’t know how she got him to go to the dance floor with her in the first place.

LAC was not a great dancer by any stretch of the imagination, but at least he didn’t create his own rhythm to interfere with the music. Nonetheless, I avoided the dance floor most of the night and we just sat at the table, talking and cuddling. WAF was miffed that I found arm-candy so quickly, but I wasn’t worried that she would be able to find her own. By some strange twist, she couldn’t, and almost ended up making out with my friend, MBB.

LAC wasn’t very talkative and I noticed that he asked very few questions about me. But I had no doubt he was into me because he asked for my number very quickly and was physically keeping me next to him. Maybe he wasn’t a talker but his actions told me enough. He was among the hottest guy I’ve ever picked up, and he was also among the sweetest. When I couldn’t find my clutch¹, he walked around the whole club with me twice to look for it. He didn’t seem as concerned as I was, but in the end, it was still he who found it. He asked me to go outside with him, and we sat outside the club for a long time just talking. When he kissed me, he didn’t try to stick his tongue down my throat. Instead, his lips were soft and surprisingly gentle.

We vaguely made plans to see each other again the next night, but when nighttime rolled around, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him again. Meeting a cute guy and having one great night together was something I was used to, but I wasn’t used to there being any follow-up. The way I saw it, follow-ups were a lose-lose situation. Either I would realize the guy was a complete jerk/idiot and wonder how drunk I must have been to think he was cute in the first place, or I would totally love the guy and feel emotionally torn-up that I had to leave (since I was only in Shanghai for two more nights). The Girl and WAF thought I was crazy. If everything the first night was amazing, how could I possibly not give it a chance? How could I even consider walking away?

LAC was texting me to make plans, and we decided we’d go to karaoke at 10:30pm. However, WAF and I were so tired that we fell asleep and didn’t wake up until LAC called me at 10:29pm. Fuck.
“Were you asleep?” He asked when he heard my sleepy responses.
“Um… yeah. We took a nap and forgot to set the alarm.”

I knew how it seemed. It seemed like we had made plans with him, and then went to bed, and if he hadn’t called, I would have stood him up. Luckily he was still at home because the karaoke place was right next to his place. We didn’t arrive until 11:45pm and he was a bit pissed. “If you didn’t want to come, you should have just said so,” he told me, even though I apologized profusely and tried to convince him it was a real mistake.

He was there with his cousin, and the four of us were shown to a medium-sized room with a flat screen TV and an awesome sound system. They ordered two bottles of vodka and so much food that we couldn’t fit it on the table. The servers mixed the vodka with OJ in this serving contraption that looked a lot like a blender at first. Once the singing started, all tension melted away, and I was glad to see that even WAF was having a good time, even though she had told me she didn’t like karaoke and was only coming as a favour to me.

LAC and I were so close and comfortable together, no one would have guessed we had only met the night before. He held my hand as we sang, at first secretly and then openly. He would squeeze my hand whenever there was a line in a song that he wanted me to hear. He put his arm around me and pulled me closer when he thought I was sitting too far away, as if that small distance made him miss me. When I wanted to go to the washroom, he’d go with me and wait for me. I loved seeing his profile as he leaned against the wall waiting for me, for me! And his face would break into a smile when he saw me, and he’d instinctively reach out one hand to take mine. One time when we were in the hallway, he spontaneously stopped and pulled me against him and kissed me, purposefully but sweetly. It made my head spin.
Yesterday, when he had kissed me, I felt nothing. It was a great kiss, but nothing. Tonight, his kisses made my spine tingle. When he looked at me and gave my hand a squeeze, my heart skipped a beat. What was this feeling?

WAF watched us openly sometimes, and I knew seeing us cuddle made her stomach turn. She got drunker and drunker, until she got to that stage where she was inconsolable to reason. She wanted to go to a club, she told me, and get hit on and flirt and feel attractive. LAC didn’t see her at all, he only had eyes for me. I have to admit it felt like a small victory, to let WAF see with her own eyes that not only could I attract great guys, but that they would treat me and my friends just so they could spend time with me², and be sweet to me the whole night. I was so tired and didn’t want to go to an after-hours club, but WAF was, like I said, inconsolable. I finally agreed just so she’d stop whining, and we decided to leave³. The boys weren’t going to come with us.
One thing I found weird was that LAC didn’t seem that sad to see me go, even though he knew I was only in Shanghai for one more night and this was probably the last time we’d see each other. Considering the way he couldn’t take his eyes off me all night and was unwilling to let go of me for more than thirty seconds, I was very surprised that he didn’t make some sort of goodbye gesture. He also hadn’t asked me for my email or Skype⁴. When we said goodbye that night, I got little more than a courteous nod and wave. His bizarre behaviour was ultimately explained after I left – he never intended on keeping in touch.

Does that hurt you to read as much as it hurt me to realize?
I never let people in, especially not people I meet in one night. I told The Girl later that I regretted seeing him a second night, even though it was an amazing night. Why? Because I started to fall for him. I can’t deny it, my spine tingled when he kissed me, and that’s only happened to me with three guys, ever⁵. And of course I shouldn’t be surprised, because I wasn’t planning on keeping in touch with him, or any guy I meet at a club, normally – but the second night changed my mind. The second night made me want to stay with him, made me want to believe he was falling for me too, made me almost wish for a relationship with this stranger, something I never let myself wish for, precisely to protect myself from getting hurt. And I big fat did it anyway.

Instead of wasting my time wondering what happened – Did I read his signals wrong? Was he not as into me as I thought? – I am simply accepting that this was the end one way or another, and someone had to get hurt. In some ways, it was better me than him, because then I wouldn’t look back in the future and wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t written “that guy from Shanghai” off. And at least now I know that I am capable of letting someone in and putting myself in a vulnerable position.

In spite of all this, or maybe because of it, Shanghai has been among the most memorable nights of my life, and I leave with no regrets.

1. I had left it with MBB and they had moved tables and I couldn’t find the new table.
2. LAC had mentioned that he was “broke” but tonight he did not hesitate to spend hundreds of dollars on karaoke, food, and booze.
3. To my relief, we ended up just going home because we didn’t have the address of the club she had in mind and the cab driver had no idea.
4. Having my phone number is useless because I would be using a different number in Hong Kong and Singapore.
5. One of them being MFL.

But Shanghai is still on my mind.

WAF and I stayed with The Girl was Goosed for five days and she was an absolutely fabulous host. The first night we got there, we went on a pub crawl that was themed “Around the World” with mostly expats. The first bar was an Irish bar, not that exciting, but I wasn’t going to complain about free food and drinks. We then went to an Australian bar, Dada (I don’t know what part of the world this was supposed to represent), and finally an insanely cool club called D10 Departure Lounge. It was shaped like an airplane, with a flight attendant that opened a sliding door and little airport windows looking out onto the hallway. It also came complete with overhead cabins, a first class area (VIP lounge), and a luggage hangar (dance floor and DJ area). During the pub crawl, WAF and I met ShanghaiShorty, a very cute Shanghai-boy who grew up in the U.S. and was visiting Shanghai for the summer. He was not very tall though, so although WAF was flirting with him first, she told me I could “have” him because she didn’t want a short boy. I started chatting with him at Dada and realized he was actually two years younger than us. I don’t normally like guys who are younger because their perspective on life is still undeveloped and I can’t stand trying to have a conversation with them without breaking their naivety. Unfortunately, he was the rule, not the expection, but he told me he liked talking to me, and I was pretty tipsy, so I stuck with it. There weren’t any other good-looking Asians on the pub crawl anyway. Although he didn’t make a move on me at Dada, we sat together on the bus on our way to the last stop, D10 Departure Lounge, and he put his head on my shoulder. Not the manliest move that’s ever been made on me, but again, I had to remind myself that he was a 20-year-old that didn’t party much in Shanghai and couldn’t even legally drink in the U.S., so meeting a girl in this context couldn’t have been a practiced act. When we got off the bus, WAF kept flirting with him, and when he went to buy another drink for me at the bar, WAF started grinding him. Instead of moving away, he danced with her, right beside me! I was miffed, but I didn’t care enough to do anything about it. He was really cute, but other than that, not a great catch – if he was more attracted to WAF, she could have him.

After I moved away, he came and found me, and asked me to go dance with him. I don’t know what happened, why he didn’t just go dance with WAF, and I was reluctant to be his ‘second choice’. So I asked him nonchalantly, “What do you think of WAF?”
“She’s pretty wild,” he said, “But not my type.”
“What is your type then?”
“You’re my type.”
It sounded like a line to me, so I pressed him a little more. “Why?”
“You’re fun, energetic, interesting. I like you.”
That was enough for me. With a last swig of champagne, I let him lead me on the dance floor. I knew that by appearances alone, WAF was hotter than me. I’m cute, but I don’t do sexy very well. She does sexy. So first impressions at a club, WAF is usually always picked up. I always expect her to be noticed first, and she is. I never expected that anyone who noticed both of us would pick me over her.

In truth, I knew I had zero feelings for ShanghaiShorty, but WAF and I had both hoped he would be our tour guide the next day. He had no rhythm on the dance floor and was a very mediocre kisser, I was completely bored after only two minutes with him. Meanwhile, WAF got drunker and drunker to the point where even the Mexican guy that had hit on her earlier in the night no longer wanted to dance with her. But to me, this was her on a good night, she was nowhere near as drunk as she normally got; for a pub crawl, she was on her best behaviour.

This first night partying with WAF in Shanghai started to make me realize something that would be reinforced in the following days: WAF may have been physically more attractive than me, but I was mentally/emotionally 100 times more attractive than her, and anyone who talked to both of us would realize that immediately. WAF is so desperate for attention, validation from guys that she is attractive and lovable, that she has her insecurities written across her forehead. She’s also not a graceful drunk, and gets way too drunk when she does drink. Most of the time, she looks pathetic, and I always feel embarassed for her when I see her like that. In Canada, when I went out with WAF, this was never “a problem” to her picking up, because in North America there are plenty of guys in every bar that would be interested in a girl like WAF for the possibility of a one-night stand. But in China, among Asians, one-night stands are rarely part of a guy’s expectations, and when that is ruled out, a girl like WAF suddenly holds very little appeal. This was the case with ShanghaiShorty, and also with other guys to come. WAF knew she was more attractive than me, and it drove her crazy that I had ‘picked up’ and she hadn’t. Not only had I found someone for the night, ShanghaiShorty wanted to see me again the next day, and agreed to show us around Shanghai. He texted me as soon as we got home from the club, asking when we were going to meet up the next day. Then he texted me as soon as he woke up and continued sending text messages throughout the morning. WAF didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to, jealousy was coming out of every pore. I wanted to explain that I always had that effect on guys (this was actually a conversation that WAF and I had had before, but now she was seeing it firsthand), that boys usually did call or text or add me on Facebook ASAP¹, but in her current state, I thought that would do more harm than good.
Later in the trip, when I met LAC, it made her so jealous I couldn’t talk to her about boys at all. I guess she never saw me as competition until we came to China.

1. My theory is that WAF just puts all of herself out there at once. I do the exact opposite, I’m very hard to open up, so to guys, all they see is a confident, mysterious creature, and it keeps them coming back.

- Been staying with The Girl was Goosed, and she is awesome!
- Went to a pubcrawl an hour after arriving, met tons of expats, went to so many funky bars and all the drinks are so cheap! And met a cute Shanghainese boy, let’s call him ShanghaiShorty – more on him later
- Spent most days shopping, got sooo many adorable dresses, jewelry, purses and even a wig! The Girl was Goosed was raving about the wigs she got from this one lady, which look like real hair, so WAF and I went and got ourselves long-haired wigs too!
- We all got sick manicures, wish I could post a photo but this isn’t my computer :( Mine is a pale pink base with silver glitter tips and one horizontal line of white dots – like a dressed up french manicure
- Two of my friends from the BusinessSchool invited us out clubbing last night at this massive (amazing) club with tons of hot Chinese and expats. They had a table so we were drinking Grey Goose all night long and I didn’t have to drop a dime! Met a hot Chinese-born, Los-Angeles-raised boy working in Shanghai now. He was unexpectedly perfect – more on him later too

And that’s it! Gotta run, we’re going to the fabric market today for custom-made dresses and fabulous jewelry. For dinner, we’re going to a converted-slaughterhouse-turned-restaurant, and later tonight, we’ll be cracking open that bottle of Grey Goose that WAF and I got The Girl was Goosed.

Did you know that 300,000 people were slaughtered by invading Japanese soldiers? This started before World War II but ended with the Japanese’s surrender. Although the official position of the Chinese government is that the Chinese people “won” an Anti-Japanese movement that lasted for 14 years, my position is that the Japanese had to surrender to the U.S. and China was just lucky.

Did you know that in addition to mass slaughters of soldiers, they indiscriminately included civilians in these mass slaughters? According to the correspondence of certain Japanese generals, the “invasion” of Japan into China wasn’t an official war, and therefore, the soldiers that surrendered were not protected under international treaties (with regards to captives). Moreover, they murdered cilivians on the basis that soldiers could hide themselves among the civilians. But really, is that justification for hauling out ALL the men in a town and bayoneting them into the Yangtze? Were the four year-old civilian boys also suspected of being soldiers?

Did you know that thousands of women in Nanjing were raped? As one journalist put it, “No woman in Nanjing is safe.” They raped the ugly, the pretty, the old, and the young, all the same. There was evidence that they cut off the vaginas of some women, or pierced their pelvic area with a bayonet. The Japanese soldiers were no longer acting like soldiers, but beasts.

Did you know that there is evidence in the dug-up bodies that people were being used for bacterial and toxic experiments?

Did you know that entire cities were looted and many cities burned for days, weeks, or even months? There are a few cities that burned for so long that nothing remained whatsoever except the bodies of the dead. The burnings were to hide the evidence of the mass slaughters and other atrocities that took place. Meanwhile, Japanese newspapers were heavily censored and no real images from Nanjing ever reached the public. Instead, Japanese newspapers said that Nanjing was a peaceful and even calm place. To this day, the Japanese government claims that the Nanjing Massacre never happened and it is left out of Japanese textbooks. All the Japanese people I’ve met have never heard of it.

Did you know that even in the “Safe Zone” established by foreign missionaries, Japanese soldiers came and killed and raped as they pleased?

Did you know that after the war was over, only one Japanese general was given the death sentence as a war criminal? ONE.

Seeing pictures of the piles of bodies, reading the accounts of journalists and eyewitnesses describing the thousands of bodies floating down the Yangtze, which ran red for months, and even seeing the skeletal remains of the mass slaughter grave sites, made me seriously wonder how this all happened. The Nanjing Massacre was not a genocide, the soldiers were not killing because of some higher belief. It was competely and utterly senseless. There was no purpose, no excuse they could even give themselves to appease their conscience. This may not seem like an important distinction, since killing is killing, but I think it is. I think that belief can drive people to do crazy things, and belief in racial supremacy surely drove some people toward atrocious genocides. That was not the case here. There was no calling for the soldiers to act this way, they simply turned into out-of-control beasts. How do you go from being a responsible husband, for example, to a killing, raping, pillaging animal? I believe that the Japanese people and the Chinese people are more alike than they are different. We look the same. We value the same things: honour, pride, knowledge. And fundamentally, we are all human beings. Surely, a soldier recognizes the look of a mother trying to protect her child. How can there be no compassion, and at the same time, no higher (albeit crazy) belief? What was driving the beastiality?

The Nanjing Massacre was inhumane to the infinite degree, but to this day, the event isn’t even acknowledged, much less apologized for. Near the end of the exhibit, one quote by some important person said, “The Nanjing Massacre can be forgiven but never forgotten.” How? How can it be forgiven? How do you even forgive something that the perpetrator has never apologized for?

In the end, the exhibit held a message of peace. That China would not seek revenge for the blood debt. I suppose this was a smart diplomatic move, considering that Japan was the strongest country in Asia. But if China had been stronger, I don’t see them giving the same message. I mean, one war criminal to account for 14 years of slaughter, rape, and horrific abuse? When 911 happened, the U.S. immediately launched the “war on terror.” And sure, the war might have been an excuse to get their hands on some oil, but the message was loud and clear: You mess with us, we’re not just going to sit here and take it. And what has China demanded of the Japanese? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Friendly relations were established within a decade of the end of the war.

Perhaps it is better to forgive. To seek revenge would only bring about another war. What would I have them do? Well at the very least, I would have them acknowledge the event¹ and apologize. And then I would have them include it in their history books so that the Japanese people would know what truly happened.

1. To this day, there are people who deny the Nanjing Massacre ever happened. Really? There is so much photographic proof, plus the mass grave sites, plus the accounts of Japanese soldiers that actually carried out the killing orders, plus…

A week ago today, I packed my life’s belongings into two suitcases and left Toronto, with the song “Leaving on a jet plane” fittingly stuck in my head.

Although I’ve only been in China for a week, it feels a lot longer than that. I’ve already adjusted to the rhythm of life here, the heat, the horrible traffic, the delicious (but often salty) food, and so on. Usually on my visits to China, I regard everything with a somewhat temporal indifference, knowing I’ll return to Canada sooner or later, as if I expect to be awoken from a dream at any moment. This time it’s different. Sure, Singapore and China are vastly different, but they are also quite alike, and I am getting myself ready (for Asia in general) through these similarities: the heat, the fact that the population is a homogenous sea of black hair, the intensely flavoured food, and so on.

In light of my more permanent outlook, I have tried more consciously to adopt the new culture, which means opening myself up for new experiences. Thus, this past week has contained a lot of firsts for me.
It was my first time moving, permanently, away from home. It was my first time having to say goodbye to all the important people in my life. It was my first time eating (and actually stomaching) lamb hot pot and tofu soup and freshwater lobsters. It was my first time taking cold showers. It was my first time exploring Nanjing on my own. And tomorrow, it will be my first time traveling in China alone¹.

There are also a lot of non-firsts. This is my third time traveling to/from China alone². This is my second time moving away from home (although not permanently), the first time was for university. This is my fourth time in Nanjing (including my being born here), eating deliciousness. And tomorrow, it will be my third time in Shanghai.

I feel rather isolated in Nanjing, as I don’t have any friends here. Although my relatives are in awe of my courage to move halfway across the world on my own, I don’t think they could really appreciate the gravity of these firsts and non-firsts. So I share them with you.

1. Tomorrow I go to Shanghai by train, a few days later, I’ll be flying to Hong Kong.
2. Notice the distinction between TO/FROM China and WITHIN China. When I was six, I travelled from China to Canada alone. When I was twelve, I travelled to/from China again.

Let’s walk through a typical day of eating for me in Nanjing.

Breakfast starts at 5am² and is usually at a xiao chi dian which is kind of like a dim sum stand with road-side aluminum furniture. Sketchy? Yes, a little. Delicious? Definitely. Luckily, I’m not someone with a sensitive stomach and I have never gotten sick from eating in China.

In the last four days, I’ve had quite a variety of breakfast items: plain steamed buns (man tou), veggie or pork-filling steamed buns (bao zi), glutinous rice buns (shao mai), fried dough sticks (you tiao), soy milk or tofu soup (dou jiang, dou nao), congee (xi fan).

Some xiao chi items can be repeated for lunch, such as steamed buns. Nanjing has the best xiao long bao in the country, many would argue.

Another Nanjing delicacy is yian shui ya (salted duck). Salted duck in Canada cannot compare, mostly because the duck used in Canada is factory-farmed and incredibly fat, whereas the duck here are raised naturally and is all skin and meat.

Although not a Nanjing specialty, I also got to try pumpkin congee, which tasted truly delicious and is certainly something that could be made in Canada, what with our abundance of pumpkin.

Dinner can range from anything, as far as entrees go. I’ve had clay-roasted free-range³ chicken, sweet and sour fish, five mushroom soup, wintermelon and egg stir-fry, five spices beef, spicy freshwater lobster, and so on. Last night, however, I had hot pot. Hot pot in 37-degree weather? I thought it was a joke, but apparently not.

I was taken to the best lamb hot pot in Nanjing. Lamb hot pot is not a Nanjing specialty, so this was as good as you were going to get in this city. I don’t like lamb and I’m not preferential to hotpot either, but last night’s dinner was damn good. Usually, I refuse to touch lamb unless it’s completely covered in spices, to eat lamb that’s only been boiled in water is unthinkable. But last night’s lamb did not have a gamey smell/taste, and tasted great with some spicy oil and sesame paste.

I am trying a lot of new foods that I used to refuse to eat as a child. Even my uncle commented how I was much better about eating new things; until now, I’ve been rather infamous in my family for my picky eating habits.
Perhaps it’s because our palate changes as we grow. But mostly, I think it’s a psychological change. Whereas I used to feel that I was not missing anything by refusing to eat certain foods, I now feel the exact opposite. It seems such a waste to go to a city and not try the local cuisine. Some things take a little getting used to, but in the end, I believe cultural adaptation is definitely worthwhile!

1. When I say ‘everything’, I’m mostly referring to all Chinese food.
2. Everyone gets up really early here because mid-day and early afternoon is too hot to function, so that’s usually nap-time.
3. Although what poultry isn’t free-range here?

I woke up at 5am for the second day in a row, although today it was on purpose. My aunt and uncle had told me they always go hiking on the early mornings of weekends, so I got up early and dressed in my “most casual” clothes. I honestly didn’t bring any shorts or t-shirts, other than my fitness clothes which are a little bit awkward to wear on a hike (most people in China just wear shorts and a white t-shirt when they exercise). I ended up wearing an Esprit t-shirt and a pair of khaki capris.

We went to Purple Mountain, which also has a lake that my uncle normally goes swimming in every morning. I saw enough wrinkly old men in tight swimming trunks to last me a lifetime. The sad thing is, most of these seniors are in better shape than I am. I saw one old lady on the bridge who looked to be at least 70, and she could lift her leg all the way up to touch her head! I don’t think I’ve been able to do that since I was six years old.

We didn’t hike to the top because my uncle said we had a lot more to see, so I still had plenty of energy and was in the lead the whole time. Little did I know how much more climbing and walking we’d be doing the rest of the day.

We then went to the tomb of the first Ming dynasty emporer, Ming Kang Xi, which had been recently restored and was quite colourful. In China, when you say you’re going to see a tomb, most of the time, it doesn’t mean you actually see the tomb (although sometimes it does). Usually, it means you’re going to see the palace built to house the tomb, which is what we did. These palaces are stunning, with thick outer walls and colourful inner walls, with big arched gates and red doors with gold handles, with stone lions and dragons carved on bridges and stone fences. Everything had a fanciful name like “Heavenly Peace Gate” and “Stone Phoenix Bridge”.

Walking through the Ming tomb took an hour, then we went to the Sun Yatsen Mausoleum, which was several hundred steps to the top. The Sun Yatsen Mausoleum ticket also included entry into the ruins of a stone amphitheatre. Although the ruins weren’t particuarly exciting, there was a musical fountain there and a lot of doves. Although I am not a huge bird-lover, and the doves reminded me of pigeons, which reminded me of the phrase “rats with wings” (an expression indicative of our sentiment towards them), I went along with everyone else and fed them little purchased packets of bird food. The doves came in droves as soon as we started feeding, and many of them were not at all shy about standing on your arms/hands/shoulders/back.
We also went to the Linggu Pagoda, which had great views but was another tiring climb.

Although I’d been here before when I was younger, I appreciated coming back again because I actually paid attention to the descriptions of the various buildings and temples and bridges and pagodas this time around. It turned out this whole area was a UNESCO World Heritage site, and many of the walls, temples, and bridges were built in the 1300s, which means they’re 700 years old! I couldn’t believe that they were still letting us walk atop the bridges or touch all of the stone sculptures! If it were me, I’d put all of it in a glass encasing to prevent 700 years of Chinese history be rubbed away by ignorant hands and feet.

It was 1 PM by the time we stopped for lunch. We went to a restaurant specializing in Yang Zhou cuisine, which is the region that my father grew up in. Although I should be familiar with this cuisine in theory, in reality, the most represented cuisine that is considered “Chinese food” in North America is Yue cuisine, which comes from the Canton region. It was in this tiny, tucked away restaurant that I had real Lion’s Head Meatball (Shi Zi Tou) or Stinky Tofu (Cou Dou Fu) for the first time. Both were better than what I had in Canada. The Lion’s Head Meatball was huge and practically dissolved in my mouth, it was so savoury (xian) because they used crab roe on the outside.

Food in China really is great. Two things I remember I loved when I first returned to China were coconut milk and beef jerky. Both of these things are 100 times better in China than anywhere else. Even coconut milk that has been imported from China to Canada tastes strange. And simple things like watermelon and peaches? They’re from real farmers instead of mass-produced from a million miles away, so they are so sweet. You can even smell the difference – local peaches smell fragrant from a foot away, mass-produced ones barely smell like anything even when you hold it up to your nose. Try it next time when you’re at the grocery store, you’ll know what I mean.

I nodded. ‘Goodbye’ had been on the tip of my tongue, but now I swallowed it, afraid to let myself speak at all.
He got in his car, and I waved to him from the porch. I continued to wave even after he drove out of sight.That would be his last memory of me, I thought, before letting myself back in the house.

I awoke to a loud knock. My mother had charged into my room and was waking me up. Apparently, my alarm had not gone off. I looked at the time, it was 6:13 AM.

I had been dreaming, it turned out, but my dream was surprisingly similar to what took place on my porch just under 3 hours ago. MFL and I had not kissed, and I had not delivered my ‘I love you’ monologue, but everything else had really happened.

I did not let myself dwell on my dream, instead, I jumped into the shower to wake myself up. It seemed I still wasn’t over MFL, would I ever be? I felt like a haunted woman, but what kind of exorcist could free me from my particular ghost, the ghost of my first love?

By the time I stepped out of the shower, all of these thoughts were washed from me. It was as if the dream never happened. Instead, I busied myself with some final packing.

On the way to the airport, I was feeling particularly emotional. Even though I knew I would be coming back to visit my parents and friends, I wasn’t sure I would ever move back here. I hid my face everytime my eyes watered though, I didn’t want my father to see me cry. My parents, after all, were probably already feeling sad to see to me go, if they saw how hard it was for me to say goodbye, they would tell me to call the whole thing off and stay. But I couldn’t.

My flight to Nanjing was complicated. I would first be flying to New York, then getting on a 13.5-hour flight to Beijing, and then getting on another 2-hour flight to Nanjing. It was a full 24 hours of travel time in total; add in the 12-hour time difference between China and Canada and I was fully disoriented by the time I got off the plane.

On the whole, my trip was extremely successful. The 13.5-hour flight across the Pacific was very comfortable by economy-class standards. The flight was only half-full, so there were empty seats next to each passenger. I had checked-in early, since I had a 5-hour wait in JFK (there is no pre-check-in for Air China, so they weren’t able to print boarding passes for me in Toronto), so I was sitting relatively forward in the plane¹, and there were no screaming children around me. Anticipating jet-lag, I only allowed myself to sleep five hours on the plane, even though I was quite drowsy. When I got off the plane, I knew it would be night-time, so I’d be expected to sleep again. I passed the time by reading ‘Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows’. I’d read the whole thing in six hours the night it was released, but as I re-read it, I realized I had very little recollection of it. It took me closer to nine hours to read it this time around.

Heat and humidity hit me like a wall when I stepped off the plane in China. I was thankful for my short hair, which I’d cut only two days before leaving. I had been apprehensive all week about the haircut, because I haven’t had short-hair since I was in elementary school, when my parents cut my hair. It had essentially taken me a life-time to cultivate my long hair, not to mention the hundreds of dollars I’d dropped on it months before. But I bit the bullet and had it all cut off. Now my hair was an angled bob; it was so short I barely recognized myself in the mirror.

My aunt and uncle met me at the Nanjing airport and soon I was home, or at least home for the next week. It occurred to me in the airport that between now and September, I have no home, so I’ve decided to call all my temporary lodgings as ‘home’.

1. I hate sitting behind the wings, it’s too loud.