《On The Same Days》橄榄树

22、8th November Friday 2002 Amsterdam

　　Het is geen kunst om boer te worden, maar om boer te blijven
　　(It is no arts to be born as a farmer, but staying a farmer)

　　Dragged a very big suitcase with some clothes and samples, another even bigger one with only samples, Tina managed to get in Schipol airport at 3 pm after waved good-bye to Jenny.

　　Two hours to go, the checking in procedure already started. Picked up a luggage trolley, she wheeled up to the checking in counters to Beijing. Without consideration, she stood after a shortest queue, returned a smile to a Chinese man in suit in front of her, noticed then it was for the Business Class, red cheeked, she moved away to the last counter on the opposite side.
　　Many Economy Class Chinese in the queue talking Mandarin with all kinds of accents, her red cheeks got more heated up with the crowd, she took off her jacket, threw it over her shoulder, on her extremely high heels she felt like an awkward giant among her own folks. Without any reason, Tina felt her eyes get warm.
　　It didn’t feel right, she wasn’t ready to go back, to that land, that country, not like this, as a tiny nobody who went back through some cheap class flight fishing some cheap tiny hair accessories for a tiny firm of a tiny country…
　　Never before had she realized her superficiality, she thought she’d never care for those class distinctions, she even hated the shinning attitude when Lisa talked about those high position executives of those big firms, yet, she does care how she would be judged by her own folks. How she had been in Holland didn’t matter that much, what matters would be how her own people would value her. She was rather scared, to drop all the way back in that huge country, that classified society, to become the tiny farmers girl again without a penny, (she did brought the only 200 euros with her, she’d have to buy gifts, and leave some money for her parents), to become the tiny graduate of a 3rd class university without even getting a diploma due to tuition shortage…

　　“Your passport, please!” the nice Dutch lady behind the counter asked automatically in English.
　　“Alstublieft.” Tina handed in the residence permit at the same time.
　　“Would you prefer a seat by the window or …” still English,
　　“Yes, by the window, please.” Tina stopped trying to sell her broken Dutch.
　　“Your final destination is to Shenzhen, would you like to transfer your luggage directly to Shenzhen or …”
　　“Yes, to Shenzhen, please.”

　　Took off the handbag, watch, mobile and her big metal bracelet, Tina went through the security check, it beeped, as always. She had to go back, walked through it another time, still beeping. A black stout lady with curly hair waved her aside with some electronical detecting stick at hand, then touched her all the way up from the hair till the heel of her shoe, front and back, there was nothing except textiles. She was allowed to go after a few minutes. She must have too many illegal bones, even without carrying anything illegal; she’d be caught every time by the machine. The machine wouldn’t lie, would it?

　　Changed her Euros into Dollars at the ABN Amro bank counter, Tina strolled to her departure gate along all those tax free shops. At one of those delicacy shops, she stopped for loads chocolates, gifts for those girls in the Taiwanese’s firm. Yes, ridiculous that a client had to buy its supplier gifts, but Chinese liked that, some friendly personal touch aside from business context. Besides, she really carried some very tough tasks, in no way would it be easy to make a claim on behalf of Kui Lao’s firm from her own folks, they’d hate her and blame her as a betrayer.

　　Although she listed every order in the past year and marked all the remarks and problems customers feed back, yet, she hadn’t got all those bad samples at hand, which means, she had no facts but only words from Happy Concern and its customers.

　　She told Johnson to relax. But her nerves got weaker with every minute passing by. The departure time was getting closer and closer. One month time ahead, 10 places to visit, 15 appointments with different toymakers, Tina took a deep brave breath. The doctor even gave her a rare compliment saying that it is not so common for such a young woman to go on business trips so far and so long, though she didn’t really get it why a far and long business trip would be abnormal for a young woman, she believed he was somewhat satisfied at her performance which justified his decision to gave the guarantee to foreign police for her for the extension of her residence permit. Yet if he ever knew that her bank account just turned to negative again after she cashed the last 200 euros. He might regret for his guarantee after all. She knew Anna would transfer some money for her help in making those little sculptors, a bloody shame that she had to get money for some help to a friend.

　　Anna and Maria were both so positive, when she cheated them through a dinner with some half ready Chinese meals from the snack bar downstairs, the other half she had to do was just threw the boxes in the microwave for a few minutes and poured them onto different plates.
　　They were much more excited then she was, wondering how would she feel after more than a whole year away from her fatherland, re-enter cultural shock and alike, they were artists, they had a pair of eyes that could identify beauty even from the most ugly thing in this world, a farmer’s girl from a tiny village in North China went back on a business trip from Amsterdam was just a fairy tale, or at least a piece of snow flake in a fairy tale in their artistic mind.
　　Tina smiled a lot during the dinner with them, seeing Anna staggering around with a pair of walking sticks joking and laughing, her heart softened, for their joy, for their care, if she’d never come back to this little country again, she’d feel incomplete too. Be wherever it was, a place, if you stayed there, got to know people, streets, trees and flowers there, then you’d knit yourself in a center of a spider net, the longer you stays, the longer it became hard to get loose and leave.

　　Now, back to China, the ever strongest spider net of her life, for 22 years she had been knitting. In the absent year, she didn’t allow herself to think about it much, not families, not friends, not the people, not the culture, nothing, except when the Dutch TV programs showed some □□ refugees abusing the government oppress, or a mine accident somewhere in the North, an earthquake somewhere in the West.

　　Only at those times, she couldn’t control herself, she had the urge to crash the TV set every time when it reported those news, you just never hear anything positive from the media here about China, be CNN, BBC or NCRV, yet every time she hold back her fist when she remembered the media about the US, or any other western countries when she was in China, she decided not to be tricked. It had been very good training of her patience, now she learned better to just pick up the facts and numbers leaving out any adjectives and adverbs.

　　Boarding time, holding her boarding pass and chocolates, she queued up among her folks and some Dutch, stopped at every footstep, to get in the plain, then stuck in the aisle to wait for those who hold small seat numbers to settle their suitcases and themselves one by one, why couldn’t any airline or any of those stewards just arrange the queue in the order from largest numbers to smallest, then nobody would have to wait for anybody, people could all just smoothly move to their seats and settle down. After all complaints rehearsed twice in her head, Tina still stuck in the aisle a few steps away from her seat, 19A, by the window.
　　Stuffed her chocolate and handbag in the baggage rack, she took her seat. Looked out of the window, it was still that piece of typical gloomy Dutch sky hugging the long silver metal wing right outside her window. A few minutes later, a short Chinese man with a pair of glasses settled beside Tina. Tina had to smile at her own impression of her folks, a short man with glasses, as if that was enough to describe a Chinese, with that feeling of amusement, she glanced at him again, small brown eyes on a triangle plain yellowish face, she couldn’t hold back her smile again, god, she was reading her own people’s face with a pair of Dutch eyes, she was terrible. The man obviously got a bit nervous under the Tina’s inspection, he took the clean enough glasses off for a non-necessary cleaning and put it back on again, during the process the third Chinese settled down on the seat beside him, a girl, short, thin, long blonde hair, with artificial extra long eyelashes which made the small eyes looked even smaller.

　　The stewardess started to broadcast about seat belt, the flight crew, route and alike, first in Dutch then Chinese and English, a few Dutch ladies in the front couldn’t hold their laugh every time when it was Dutch broadcasting, even as a Chinese, Tina couldn’t tell if the broadcasting had any words in Dutch. Yet the laughter from those Dutch people made her barely cooled down cheeks burning again. It was China southern airline, her own folks who were saying, “Damez and Helen…” What a bloody shame, that she wouldn’t be much better at all.

　　Tina moved her inspection eyes to the window again. Till they went high up in the sky, through two layers of clouds, she didn’t felt like a bird, but more like a fish, swimming in the sea. She couldn’t swim yet, as someone staying Amsterdam, a city covered by thousands of cannels.

　　Fishing out a copy of some traveling magazine from the bag in front, Tina tried to read something, yet she couldn’t concentrate.

　　“Are you a tourist or a student?” the glasses inquired the eyelashes friendly when she passed a cup of tea for him from the steward.
　　“I am working in Amsterdam, now going back for a few weeks vacation.” Eyelashes winked twice in one sentence just to make a motion of the lashes, “and you?”

　　Tina sipped her orange juice, tried her best not to show any piece of amusement from the corner of her eyes.
　　“I am working in Rotterdam, going back to see my parents as I won’t be able to go back during spring festival.” glasses answered.

　　Tina showed her smile to the window, god, so started the romance in the air, no one asked the other yet what kind work were they doing, how considerate.

　　“Where are you from?” glasses,
　　“Qingdao,” eyelashes,
　　“I have been there once, I am from Shenyang, not very far away, just 1.5 hours by air.” Glasses obviously quite excited at the discovery, they might both be classified as from the North.
　　“How long have you been in Holland?” Eyelashes became a bit serious too.
　　“Almost 5 years, I have already talked to a lawyer friend; I may apply for a permanent residence permit next year.”
　　“How nice, I still have to wait for another 3 years, I have been only worked for 2 years, you never know if you can hold on up to 5 years, it is all getting so tough.” Eyelashes got a bit irritated.
　　“Yeah, especially after that gay politician’s accident, what do you do?”
　　“A hairdresser, and you?”
　　“A cook,”
　　“Without special skills you’d never survive in that bloody country.”
　　“Exactly!”

　　Earphones came just in time, to save Tina out from listening to yet another time of critique from people of all trades over Dutch laws. At least these pair was allowed to work if they didn’t lie to each other, she wasn’t even allowed to do any part time jobs. Yet nobody drove these people to the tiny land with whips, why would these people keep fighting for that permanent citizenship, some even disgraced themselves as political refugees just for that piece of bloody paper, maybe plastic, what the hell.

　　She couldn’t concentrate on the movie, about some spider man and his nets, as if they knew that she was on the track of sliding back to her old net, switched to another channel, ice age, some animals fighting over killing or saving the last drop of human being, the innocent smile of the baby smelt away Tina’s irritation, she was laughing and crying all at the same time when it was lunch or maybe breakfast time, funny that you could technically traveling through not only spaces, but also time.

　　The two neighbors already started naturally sharing their meals, each picked up things they liked. Eyelashes said the butter wasn’t as good as she usually ate, as if her knowledge over butter and cheese would entitle her a citizenship, glasses nodded at whatever she said, admiring eyelashes’ naturalization, meanwhile proved himself with his skillful usage of knifes and forks.

　　Drank another glass of orange juice, ate the fruit Salad, leave the rest untouched. Tina put on her earphones again, this time concentrated on spider man.

　　After watched all the movies there were on the 4 channels, there were still a few hours to go, the screen said that they were crossing from Russia to Mongolia. Tina tried to rest for a while, closed her eyes, and suddenly remembered she hadn’t got in touch with the twin’s father yet, that was an absolute emergency. She had already let a girl live in the other room of the house, otherwise, even with Anna’s help, she wouldn’t be able to manage the rent as the tuition was due in October as well. But that was illegal sub-renting. Though Anna and Maria said everyone is doing the same, as long as the owner of the house wouldn’t know, she felt guilty and unrest.

　　She never knew the girl before, a typical young pretty Dutch blonde with some brains, if she went to the city hall for a registration, Tina’s house would be in danger. The blonde even told Tina that she had to move out from her former place because she had bad rows with her landlady. Tina hadn’t enough time to interview anyone else. Hope the house would still be there with every tile on its place in one month’s time. She would have an appointment in Shanghai. She’d be able to meet up Laura and the twins there probably. She felt strange that she wouldn’t mind to see them, wasn’t she so much ashamed of the fact that she ever worked as a babysitter? The twins must be able to read a lot of poems now, she smiled again, then gave a deep sigh, remembering the daughter of her sister, nearly the same age as the twins, she had only seen that baby once; the little girl, called Clear Moon, must be really scared to see a total stranger as her aunt.

　　The Dutch ladies laughed again at the landing broadcasting, Tina’s nerve got tense again. In a few minutes time, she’s going to set her foot on her own land again, breathing the Chinese air.

　　The sky outside was perfect blue, slowly, she flied closer to the city with the silver wing, 0 degrees outside, rather cold. The air above the city turned gray once they landed on the ground, stepped out of the plain, a bit hesitantly, took a deep breath of the chilly wind, Tina walked together with the rest of the passengers to the airport shuttle. Glancing around the building of Beijing International Airport, she felt her eyes suddenly got warm again. Coming back, was much harder then going away, to a new place you could always expect something, something new, something different, expect unexpected things to happen, nothing would be too hard to digest as long as you were entitled to get accustomed to those thing through time; coming back, was different. Do not dare to expect, afraid of things would be all just the same as before, meanwhile afraid of things would be never the same as before anymore…

　　The flight to Shenzhen would depart in four hours, she didn’t mind the long waiting time. Bought a few Chinese magazines she used to read every month when she was in college, she settled herself down in the corner of a café, ordered chrysanthemum tea after automatically said cappuccino first. The skinny girl in red cheongsam brought the tea pot and cup, poured the tea for Tina. Tina thanked her and started reading. She hadn’t read proper Chinese text for quite a long time, sometimes a piece of news from internet, sometimes a Cantonese book from the Amsterdam Central Library printed from right to left in those traditional characters with many strokes.

　　On purpose, she skipped over those articles written by the overseas, she knew she’d be too easily drown in their stories and laugh and cry with them all together, yet she’d rather not behave too crazy there, she was a local again. But when she read “I was that piece of clay from my father’s hand accidentally bumping into the gate of the university…sitting under the old willow seeing sunset, watching sons and daughters of the city in their bright colors passing by, left me far, far behind…” Tina flooded again, searched overall her handbag, she forgot paper tissues, she packed them all in her suitcase. Closed the book, held one hand in front of her eyes for a few minutes, the red cheongsam brought her some tissues.

　　She saw herself in those lines, a gray girl under a old willow in a gloomy day in a little village, in a little town, in a campus, in Amsterdam, in this particular café…the chopstick like high heel of the cheongsam’s shoes reminded Tina an old story, many years ago, when she was around 10, her mother bought 3 identical pairs of high heel shoes for Tina, Joyce (her sister) and herself, but the heels were not practical to walk on the muddy road, they sank into the soil at every footstep, her father cut them short into plain bottom despite Tina’s protest, that was the first pair of high heel shoe she ever had, something she only saw those grown up pretty girls in town wear during the open market day, something beyond her touch.

　　Was that it? The reason for her to go one step further then the others away from the village even crossed the oceans now in the other side of the world. Just to reach things beyond her reach? She kept blowing away the tissues. Cheongsam glanced at her reflection in the glass door with increasing curiosity. Luckily there were only a few person sitting in the café, thanks to the food priority of Chinese, the restaurant at the other end was crowded like hell.

　　By 9:00 pm local time Tina arrived at Shenzhen Xiao Shan airport. Held a trolley, pulling a long neck, Tina stood beside the luggage belt for nearly an hour till the last piece of luggage came out and got collected. She only got one suitcase, the other one was missing. She almost smiled, she knew it would happen, exactly the same as when she went to Amsterdam a year ago, she knew they’d find it, but, it simply could never be a smooth journey for her, whatever she does, wherever she goes.

　　She had to went to the exit first to apologize for the only two poor folks left there holding a cartoon card written “ Welcome Miss Christina Woo”,
　　“We were guessing who’d be our distinguished guest, we didn’t expect you’d be so pretty!” the girl shook Tina’s hand strongly, eager to give her client compliments.

　　Tina had to pull a smile, “Thanks,” then realized that wasn’t a proper Chinese answer to a compliment, “you flattered, look at yourself, what’s your secret of keeping so fit?”
　　The girls little pair of pea like eyes twinkled with shear pleasure. Tina excused herself again, then back to the information desk in the airport, reported the lost suitcase, filling in forms, waiting for them to make phone calls with Beijing, finally they found it in Beijing as the sticker got lost, the had no idea where should the suitcase should go, it would come with the next flight arriving after mid-night.

　　When she finally settled herself in the hotel, it was already 3 in the morning of 10th, had dinner with that Taiwanese in an Italian restaurant, She laughed at the fact that she went all the way to Amsterdam to have some Chinese takeaways, came all the way back to China for some Italian pizzas.

　　They didn’t talked much about business as they insisted the first night she had to rest and relax, due to jetlag, she couldn’t sleep although very tired, after went through files over previous orders once more and wrote some diary, she switched the TV on, some news over the up coming 16th National Congress,

　　Tina couldn’t help but laugh loudly at those truly high-toned (as they so referred their own style) phrases, “The party’s principles and new generation leaders with the center of Mr. Hu, will lead our people go forward, give us the strength, to build up a new China, an Eastern dragon!” it wasn’t only one sentence, chunks and chunks of news were in similar wording, very much high-toned that you hardly get a concrete meaning from it. Tina would insisted the phrases were recorded some 50 years ago rather then from the reality if she heard it in Amsterdam through the foreign media. Tina had told Happy Concern colleagues the 54 years old Mr. Hu will be the youngest president of China, which means the new generation leader finally comes above water. Her colleagues asked twice of Mr. Hu’s age, than burst into laughter, “the youngest? God, almost pension age.”