《On The Same Days》橄榄树

28、31st December Tuesday 2002 Shenyang

　　Lang gewacht en stil gezwegen, nooit gedacht en toch gekregen
　　(If it meant to be yours, it will be yours)

　　“You can’t be serious!” Ling dropped her tea cup, staring at Lily across the table in the tea house open-mouthed. She couldn’t believe her ears; Lily was telling her that she’d hold a wedding within 2 weeks with some lay off worker, a set up by the Mrs. Match maker of the family, Ling’s ancient aunt.

　　“You are the only one who understands why. I have to. I want to keep the baby.” Lily said calmly.

　　For the first time in the whole month Ling saw the familiar calm and determined Lily back again, she was happy that Lily reached the decision to keep the baby rather than go for an abortion. It was a common thing for those married women to do if they get pregnant by accident after their first child, but for a never married Lily to do it illegally would be rather risky. But marrying so hastily with someone out of the blue…
　　“Are you going to tell him or …?”
　　“Then I wouldn’t have already registered the marriage with him at city hall so soon. Of course I am not going to tell him, how many stepfathers really love their stepsons?” Lily said with sarcasm.

　　“And the real father?”
　　“He’d never know either. I just want to tell you one more time before the marriage to forget about all what you know, let’s both forget about it. I want it to be a happy family as everybody else’s.”
　　“Is there anything to tell? As long as you are happy, you have all my promises and best wishes.” Ling lied direct into Lily’s face.

　　It was extremely hard for her not to tell Tiffany and Bamboo about the pregnancy of Lily in the past few weeks. A few times she had asked stupid questions like what would they do if they got pregnant before marriage, they both stared at her with deep shock, scared that their little sister might have really run mad, and done something really wrong. Ling had to tell that one of her female colleagues had asked her the question.
　　She became constantly suspicious of every male creature that ever appeared beside Lily, all those connections that Lily has, god, would it be the son of that somebody who just turned to be the new deputy mayor responsible for heavy industry sector? Or would it be the vice bank director of CICB, Ling saw Lily met him together with Deng’s father a few times, or… there were still many other male colleagues of Lily in the city hall Ling had never seen. But, now the father would be the lay off worker. Ling firmly told herself to remember the fact she should remember, and forget those she should forget.

　　The marriage news of Lily turned out to be the biggest piece of good news on the last day of 2002. Ling’s parents were truly happy that they both became a bit drunk after 2 bottles of wine, god, now they felt so relieved. They had always felt sorry and guilty to the long passed away grandpa and grandma of Ling, Lily’s parents. Ling’s mother was the eldest sister, she had been worrying about her little sister Lily for years, now that Lily finally decided to settle down, it seemed her prays before the Buddha did work out, she’d have to burn some more gratitude incense in the temple the next day.

　　Bamboo and Tiffany were truly happy too, those they both couldn’t understand why their proud aunt Lily would decide to marry a laid off worker out of such a sudden after years of searching and dumping, must be kind of crazy love on the first sight, Roc professionally explained.

　　Ling tried to be as happy as her family was under the pressure of the dark secret.
　　A call from the mother of the devil, daughter in law of that somebody, announced Ling’s biggest good news of the past year, she told that Ling no longer need to go there for private lectures as the little devil decided to attend lectures in □□ instead. God, Ling jumped with full joy, gave Bamboo a big hug.
　　Bamboo held her little sister tight for quite a while, she knew Ling would never bend herself before any somebody if it wasn’t for her job.

　　Ling was so glad that their Christmas party at □□ turned to be a big success. May was amazing. Ling never knew where did May get all her funny ideas from. Those parents and children laughed constantly during the whole show. Ling did sing some Christmas songs this time in a play together with Peacock. The best piece was the Cinderella performed by her Friday morning group; Jane acted as Cinderella, Ben the prince. The moment when they danced in the palace after Cinderella changed to be a princess, Ben stepped on Jane’s shoe; Jane cried in Chinese with irritation “you even destroy my Crystal shoes!”

　　Ben answered “I just wanted to know if they were real crystal.” “They are and I am going to find my real prince with it one day.” Jane was serious. Lee laughed into tears.
　　After the show Jane had asked if she’d allowed keeping the crystal shoes which were rented from the Cultural Theater, Lee promised to buy a pair for her as New Year’s gifts.

　　They treated all attendance of the party in McDonalds, the second place in town next to □□ where Christmas was to be seen from those decorations and big discounts; they had to hire even more teachers for the growing enrollment list.

　　Tuition at □□ was not cheap at all, a lot higher than normal schools actually. Many workings class parents would probably have to give up their freezers and washing machines, go to work by bikes to save up the travel compensation from work to send their only child to □□. It was actually amazing that suddenly everyone just realized that one has to speak English one day to survive. Was it fair? No many people spoke Chinese at all in Holland as Tina told. Or was everyone afraid that America would really conquer the whole world one day and English become mandatory? Ling laughed at her own anti-Americanism; she thought she never had any political orientation. But it was so ridiculous to hear the comments from those Americans over the one child policy.
　　Ling once had almost a row with her American teacher back in college. He brought a piece of news from an American Newspaper that a dead baby’s body, a girl was found right beside a garbage tank somewhere in South China, many people passed by without even bother to inform the police. No one in class was able to react. Tina had bitten her lips into bleeding to prevent tears. Ling knew why Tina was that sad, it could have happened in Tina’s village too. The discrimination against girls was still there, and the hardship of life made people into pieces of stones with indifference and ignorance. It could be true. But who the hell entitled the Americans to abuse the Chinese? Yes, human rights, if all the couples in China were allowed to have as many children as they want, with all those couples who would have up to 10 girls in order to get the final son, China might already have 14 instead of 1.4 billion mouths to feed. America just wanted to turn China into another piece of Africa, with no bits of strength to compete against it; that was it all about.

　　Ling had shouted those things to her American teacher; he was so shocked, because Ling was never really a talker in class. He apologized, he said he was just sorry for the fact, not because of it was happened in China or wherever else, Ling knew he was honest, he was a pure Christian. Ling just had to defend Tina as she always did. That little countryside girl who looked as if she was strong enough to go through everything and truly believed herself in it, smiled all the time to the whole world, was actually just as weak as a peace of fragile glassware, too sensitive, too easily hurt, too proud to tell anyone and cared too much about where was she from and everybody else in that village.
　　Ling knew Tina had never been really satisfied with who she was and what had she done despite everybody else was so proud of her. At least Ling was.

　　“What do you think about Tina?” Ling had asked Lee the other day after they sent Tina away.
　　“Well, not a very practical person.” Lee had answered a bit hesitantly.
　　“What do you mean by that?” Ling was intrigued.
　　“Listen, I’d like to tell you the story about the former director of Sunshine Construction.
　　He used to work as a clerk in his twenties in Sunshine Construction, everyday he worked extra hours till rather late. His manger had asked him if there were still buses running, he said yes, he always took the second last line.
　　He never used the excuse of no buses to refuse working extra time, he never worked that late that he had to call taxi home either.
　　He just went off the office everyday at 10:30 and caught the second last line at 10:45.
　　He never pleased his managers with false compliments or gifts, but every manager trusted him. He got promoted in his late twenties, and married in his early thirties, set up his own company in his forties.
　　Before he left Sunshine Construction, he told me his second last line story.
　　He said he was nurturing a successful way of living. No one should expect to catch the last line all the time, the weather might be too bad, the last line might be broken or cancelled, you may be delayed, be whatever reasons, you fail if you are late.
　　We are all ordinary people; we should leave some space prior to the bottom line.”

　　Lee told the story, looked at Ling’s puzzled face, and explained further, “Your friend Tina is a kind of person who always goes for the last line of the bus. She is very extreme. She may become either a huge somebody one day or a completely nobody.”

　　Ling stared at Lee open mouthed, “Just how could you be so judgmental? For god’s sake you just meet her twice.”
　　“Don’t forget I am managing thousands of people. It was you who told me she went with no penny, it seemed she came back with no penny either.” Lee laughed.
　　“Ok then, go ahead, what do you think about me?” Ling asked, then added, “from you manager point of view, honestly.”

　　Lee stopped laughing, quizzically looked at Ling for a while and smiled,
　　“You were the second men in that first spaceship which traveled to the moon, the first man’s saying ‘a small step of mine is a huge step of all human beings’ became a legend. No one noticed the second person landed on the moon, but he told the press later ‘Don’t forget I am the first man who came back to earth from another planet, I did stepped out spaceship first when we were back on earth’” Lee paused for a second, then held Ling’s hand, watched into her eyes and added, “to me, the second deserves even more respect. You know who you are despite everything else, I admire you for that.”

　　Ling suddenly got warm eyes too. She wanted to say that sometimes she didn’t know who she was, sometimes she wasn’t happy to be the second man, sometimes she was jealous of her sisters, and sometimes she was afraid that she would never be good enough for Lee, but she couldn’t manage to say anything. She just clenched onto one of Lee’s arms for a very long while and made his sleeve all wet. She knew it might take ages to get a word even close to love from this man. He wasn’t someone who showed his affections. Yet she was so content at his recognition.

　　“Are you all right?” Bamboo suspiciously inspected her little sister who smiles like an idiot.
　　“If you may lend me that green feather coat, yes.” Ling smiled even sweeter.
　　“3rd time in one month, I should charge you some rental fee.” Bamboo took her green coat and threw to Ling.
　　“You didn’t pay for it anyway. By the way, are you seeing Deng later on?” Ling haven’t seen them together for quite some days.
　　“No, I have to meet up some colleagues for Mahjong, joining us?” Bamboo asked enthusiastically, after her job was secured, she had a lot less worries.
　　“Mahjong? Shouldn’t you spend some more time with Deng instead of…”
　　“Please, no one is dying. Haven’t I stayed months long in those hospitals? Shouldn’t I deserve some break when everyone else is happily celebrating the New Year?” Bamboo cut Ling short and clouded her face. It really wasn’t her fault that Deng was ill, or was it? Why there wasn’t anyone ever complimented at whatever she had done and went through for the past months? But criticism came right away if she wanted to do something of her own. Off she went. Left Ling with the green coat and her apologies.

　　* * *
　　“Are you always so confident that I’d be here waiting forever?” Ling shoot at Lee who was again almost half an hour too late for their date that night near People Square.
　　“Sorry, Ling, I had to talk with some lay off workers who came to my house with loads gifts even crystal shoes for Jane, the traffic was terrible, everybody was on street…”
　　“Anyway there’d always be something happen to make me wait, is that it?” Ling broke Lee’s explanations.
　　“Ling, please don’t fight, I am exhausted in talking sense to those layoff workers, there weren’t actually anything sensible to talk at all, but I couldn’t just shut my door to them. Those were real sad people who lost their job, their income maybe even their house going into this New Year.” Lee did look very weary.

　　“Which means I should also be laid off, just in order to become your priority?” Ling suddenly felt her tears running down, she didn’t meant to behave like a farmers wife, but was he implying her ignorance of about how hard laid off workers’ lives would be? Would it be even worse than Tina’s village?

　　“Ling,” Lee sighed, put an arm around Ling’s shoulder, “You maybe right that I didn’t put you as my priority; that I just believed that you’d be here waiting for me even if I will be late. I never dare to be late for any business appointments, I had to rush, had to worry the consequences, had to figure out what to say and what to expect. It is always so exhausting. You are the only person in this world now that I dare to come late to, my parents passed away years ago; I had no brothers or sisters. Whenever I come to see you, I felt peaceful and relaxed, it is such a sweet feeling that I know you’d be here waiting for me; I don’t have any worries and troubles in my mind. Ling, you never know how much does that mean for me, how glad I got to know you.” On those words, he bent and kissed Ling.

　　Ling got red cheeks and pushed Lee away after she realized they were in public, with loads people stroking around the square waiting for the fireworks. People Square was the only square this year where fireworks wasn’t prohibited by the government. The first fire flower flashed open in the air with a cracking sound, white streets covered by snow were shinning, contently huddled into Lee’s arms, Ling totally forgot what the row was all about, just smiled to the fire flowers as people shouting “Prosperous new year!”

　　Second episode

　　8. January 2003

　　3rd January Friday 2003 Amsterdam

　　Heb je geld, dan heb ik liefde
　　(If you have money, I have love)

　　Woke up around 12 am, Tina had a sour throat and headaches. It was so painful to swallow. God, she wasn’t ill, was she? She couldn’t allow herself to be ill. Her health insurance was just expired, not that she ever used it; she never even registered with any general practitioners here. She simply never had the time to even think about that. Tina sighed at the wasted contribution; felt her throat hurt even with a heavy breath.

　　It seemed the Christmas and New Year holidays were far too long; those parties were far too much, Tina felt like dying from dizziness.

　　She had slept the whole day through on the first day of 2003, not a very bad start at all. Till she woke up by the persistent doorbell by her buurvrouw (lady neighbor) downstairs, though irritated she was glad to realize that if she ever encounter a heart attack and die in her room she’d not left to get rotten since her buurvrouw come over to socialize with her on the New Year’s Day.
　　5 minutes later she realized she might very well lose the possibility to die home as she might be kicked out much earlier by her neighbors.
　　The Buurvrouw had asked what had Tina had been doing the past few days, especially nights, she was very much annoyed by a kind of motor like noise. Buurvrouw marched into the room searching, eyes rested on the shabby computer with some kind of disgust, before she came to her realization, Tina had shouted “I know, it must be my hair dryer, I knew it worked too strong, I got to change it, just look at my forehead.” Tina half dragged the Buurvrouw out of her door showing her reddish forehead out of fright and shut the door. God, Tina wouldn’t allow that woman to destroy her computer. She managed the computer up on the kitchen table way above the floor immediately; still noisy as ever, she wondered if the Buurvrouw from the upstairs may come to socialize with her some other day.

　　Then the night came as sleepless. She had read through her placement report 3 times and gave herself a 9 on it. She had even listened to the Sintklas CD no less than 10 times. God, it was terrible to even have one day of nothing to do, even more terrible that she couldn’t stop thinking what if she’d have nothing to do later, which was what she always hated and afraid of the most, to think. Her problem was that she always thought too much; which wasn’t a smart thing to do at all.

　　Her mother told her that her brother, Tina’s uncle, ran mad when he was 25 because he thought too much. He saw himself killing tigers for their fur, digging out ginsengs en glossy ganodermas in his mind, buying Ling’s grandma tons of rice, cutting all the Japanese into pieces. His wife walked away from him tired of his thoughts and he really decided to look for the tiger in the forest that day while eaten by wolves.
　　Tina shook her head, went for a shower, almost fainted under the heat. She told herself to stop thinking, not about the terrible working permit thing, not about the master program, not about the empty bank account, not about no one to share the rent, nothing about any futures, who knows what future had in store? Everyday was a new start, was it? She never wanted to kill any tigers, she’d rather ride them, she never wanted to kill anything; she loved every piece of grass out there, every falling leave from the tree out her window. (As long as not into her room)

　　Of course she knew what her mother meant, just the same as Anna, wondering over their crazy daughter’s nerves, afraid Tina would already long falling apart before reaching the point where she wanted to be, as if they all knew she had set a far too high a level on the □□ for herself to climb to. Had she then? Ever set a certain point to climb to? If only they knew why she went all the way away from that village, the further, the better, it was just escaping…stop! Tina told herself out loud, don’t think too much, otherwise she might really also ran mad, just as her uncle, there were no forests here to look for a tiger, she could jump in the sea to look for a whale, nice to have the inherited disease as an excuse if she’d be found in a demented house one day.

　　Switched the noisy computer on, she had tried to write something last night, just a record of parts of her thoughts last night, if only there’d ever be a machine that able to read and translate a person’s thought fully into words, all writers would turn unemployed then, no crimes would ever get a chance to be conducted either.

　　Went through her own words, Tina couldn’t stop shaking her head and smile,
　　“Don’t be proud just because of you crossed the river with bare foot while others by a boat; don’t be proud just because of you climbed the Everest with bare hands while others by a helicopter. If you had a boat or a helicopter you’d do just the same. What difference do different starting points make? Be a killer or a police, the only point is if you can still go on with the fight, who would count how many fights you have gone through or how many scars you have achieved?
　　If I don’t have as many things as other people do only proves that I am not as good as other people, never blame life for it. There were people born with golden shoes, there people born with no foot, one has to make her own crystal shoes.”

　　God, she’d never be able write a book, she’d easily lost her common sense if she ever had any and go on describe herself into a kind of MuLan- like hero (An ancient cartoon girl who served army on behalf of her father), accuse the whole world ill treated her. She simply wouldn’t allow herself to create another cliché, about some poor farmers girl fought all the way through a hell lot of hardships to be where she was today, blablabla, leave the hardships alone, where was she today then? Nowhere, although more than half of the world had nicely treated her with their great love and support such as Anna, Doctor family and Ling.

　　Shut the computer off, Tina decided to go to school, there she could check e-mails and read some magazines, just to save her from thinking too much.

　　* * *

　　“Tina? There you are!” Lisa shouted to Ling from the corner of the computer room in the HAS.
　　“Still all in one piece,” Tina went over and settled herself behind the computer next to Lisa’s.
　　“I was just going to call you, help me to fill out this form, I should have learned Dutch.” Lisa complained the millionth time since she got to know Tina, before Tina’s time she had never felt she was lacking in something, none of those Chinese students in the HAS really learned Dutch anyway, no comparison; no disadvantage. Now she was addicted to Tina’s translation.

　　“Ok, Voornaam is your name in the front which is your first name, Achternaam is you name at back which is your family name, opposite to the Chinese order as always.”

　　Tina filled in Lisa’s names while trying to give some Dutch lesson, whenever she got the chance to help Lisa in Dutch, she was always over enthusiastic. A few sentence of broken Dutch was all what she knew that Lisa didn’t, while she knew nothing about those IT and financial things that Lisa was expert in. “ok, your address, age, gender, height, weight, sexual orientation, personalities…wait, what are you applying for? A new e-mail box doesn’t require this much information?” Tina was puzzled, the form was quite long.

　　“Just keep filling in, I will explain you later. Personalities, what do you think my personalities are?” Lisa frowned at Tina.
　　“Sharp more than knives, proud more than peacocks. Anything else?” Tina wasn’t really joking.
　　“Don’t you dare to put those words down, ok, who had cooked so many times of delicious meals? I should have feed dogs instead of you.”
　　“Ok, Ok, how about great cook in kitchen, even greater cook in life, has the magic to turn every mess into delicious Flied Lice.” Tina was really joking this time, but Lisa said that would defiantly do.

　　“Here it asks if you want to attach a picture. Just what is it all about? Not a beauty contest or something?” Tina got more and more curious.
　　“Much more important than that, but a picture…No…Yes…No, do you think it is a shame if you run into my picture on a dating website?” Lisa was serious.
　　“That’s what it all about! Of course I won’t, everybody might make such a joke?” Though Tina didn’t expect Lisa would make that kind of jokes too.

　　“It might not always be a joke. You know what? I have just attended a wedding of one of my colleagues, Accounts Payable manager, a very nice gentleman aged over 30. The wife was a polish girl, wasn’t even beautiful, they met through a dating website, here in these countries internet does really work as match-making agencies in China.” Lisa explained to the open-mouthed Tina,

　　“But, but you don’t really believe in it, do you?” Tina gave Lisa a serious frown; she knew Lisa’s pressure from her father, but a dating website, god.
　　“No, I am just kidding.” Lisa became irritated, she could never talk sense into Tina’s granite head on the topic of settle down, was 3 years age different so big or was it just Tina?
　　“But, seriously, why don’t your log on some Australian websites since you are going there in a few months, it would be nice if there are some kind of acquaintances out there waiting for you.” Noticed Lisa’s irritation, Tina tried to make it up.
　　“Aha, maybe I really should,” Lisa thought for a while, “then you have to change this profile into yours, otherwise you’d hold me as a laugh stick, be my real friend, then go ahead, right now.”
　　Under Lisa’s inspection, Tina changed the profile into hers, in the blank space of description for an ideal partner, Tina just typed
　　“???????????????????..........................................................???????????????????????”
　　Which was actually the only serious signal of the whole profile, just how could you give a description to define a person you were looking for? If it could all fixed up from color to height, from hair to toe, then what’s still left there to expect? If she had a ready mode in mind, she’d just go to Anna and curve it concrete instead of …instead of what? She wasn’t really looking for anything anyway; it was after all just a joke.

　　When it came to picture, Tina became hesitated. What if Anna or Maria bump into the website accidentally and saw her picture? They might not consider this as a joke, they might suspect that she’s just run mad and want to sell herself through internet for an identity or a working permit. She’d kill herself if they look her that way. But she couldn’t get away from Lisa. Ok, suddenly she remembered the picture took a few years ago, her back facing the camera, her face facing the sea. That would be perfect; it could be anybody with dark clothes and dark hair, at least, any Chinese. No one would recognize her from it. Besides, no one would react as they’d think that she must have got a huge scar on her face to hide, which was exactly what she wanted.

　　Clicked on confirm, they started to search over Lisa’s Australian date sites. There weren’t many listed in Yahoo, “Lisa, why can’t you just check out those classy Asian’s profiles and mail to them, why do you have to put your own file somewhere?” Tina lost her interest, it was so boring and meaningless to glance through all those stupid pages full of witness stories of you’ve got mail kind of love. Lisa had always accused Tina to be impractical, yet Tina never expected those movie stories could ever really happen in real life.
　　“You really need to develop much more brains you know, as a classy girl, you should never proactively contact those men; you have to be not too available; you have to wait for them to approach you…” Lisa stopped at the sight of Tina’s puzzled face, god, just how much could girls from North China differ from those from the South? Lisa had been worked in Shanghai for some years, she knew how girls there fishing their golden husbands. There were definitely tactics and strategies, it seemed Tina hadn’t got any tactful cell, every nerve of this north China girl was as straight forward as her hair.

　　“Maybe you should write a book about Golden Husband Fishing Tactics Encyclopedia or something.” Tina had to laugh whenever Lisa told her about those Shanghai girls, how did they all learn very good English just to be able to talk with foreigners in the bars, how did they behave tender and docile just to trick a rich fellow buying them loads cosmetics, even cars and house, even mothers of those girls would hospitably chat with those potential candidates on the phone until their daughters pick the phone up. God, what a world, she remembered in Shanghai a male trade agent had complained,

　　Shanghai girls have English names;
　　Only dating Kui Lao’s running around in Bens,
　　If he is a millionaire,
　　Age creates no gap,
　　Height represents no distance,
　　If it is a billionaire,
　　Weight brings no pressure,
　　Gender makes no difference.

　　Tina had laughed into tears when she heard it, despite the man’s sad face. He said non-local girls in Shanghai took the second choice, marry the local Shanghai man, while he came from west China, not a native Shanghai-nese, he had completely no hope, he had to went back west to marry someone. Tina took it all as a big entertaining joke, but from Lisa, she realized the man could well be just seriously telling her the truth.

　　Left Lisa alone with her soul mate searching, Tina opened her mail box. Read through Lings’ mail full of big news, May would get married next month, Lily next week. What happened on earth in one months time that driven them all so soon to the tomb? Hadn’t they say marriage was the tomb of love? She was sure that something was wrong between Tiffany and Roc when she was back in Shenyang.

　　Anna was asking Tina’s opinions on her brother -Jack’s family, that Jack had just published another detective book; she had already bought one for Tina.
　　Her former landlady Wilma has passed away right after Christmas, after bravely insisted keeping the cancer with her up to almost half a year and costed 10 times the insurance she ever paid in her entire life, said her daughter proudly, a Dutch born Israeli girl who was sorting things out and going back to Israel soon.

　　A few hours later they went to the Canteen, never before had the Canteen been so quiet. Leo joined them for some coffee.
　　“Why Australia?” he looked at Lisa, really wanted to know.
　　“Because,” Lisa swallowed her classy Asian theory in time in order not to make the complete Chinese-Tina and the ¼ Chinese-Leo not feeling like garbage, “Sydney University has a good fame, the CPA is a good program.”
　　“CPA?” Tina knew it meant some sort of accountant diploma, but wasn’t sure.
　　“Oh, Tina, don’t you follow accounting courses? It means Chartered Public Accountant.” Lisa sometimes felt tired of Tina’s ignorance.
　　“Why not in England then? You should know where lies the first class Business schools. Besides an Australian CPA would only work in Australia, all the local rules you won’t be able to use elsewhere.” Leo tried to convince Lisa, he was looking for master programs too, he badly wished he would be able to study in another same school again with Lisa; she had helped him a lot through the years.

　　“Yeah, England, America, where do you think I can get money from? There weren’t rich parents out there opening blank checks for me.” Lisa hated every time when her decision being questioned, god, she had went through all those websites of every single business school in England, way too expensive, she might be able to afford it, but not with the money she saved by all the years of hardworking. Sydney University was the best combination of fame and price.

　　“I am not taking money from my parents either,” Leo eagerly explained, afraid of Lisa consider him still as the little boy 3 years ago when they first met, for god’s sake he told his jeans were bought by her mother, but he was just 18 back then. “I will follow the master program with my own savings too.”

　　“If I am a Dutch as you are, if I have a working permit…” Lisa didn’t finish, she drank her coffee cup empty in one mouthful instead and started coughing.

　　Absentmindedly listening to their fights as always, over the age gap, the identity and the future plans, Tina felt tired and sleepy again. Who said coffee keep people awake? It never really worked out with her. She somewhat loved Wilma’s daughter’s madness of going back to that mad place full blood and bombs everyday against all her family’s objections. At least you’d feel that you are living in now, you’d realize what every particular moment or even second means, just how’d you know that you still have a tomorrow?

　　Therefore that night Tina ate 3 huge bowls (No, please don’t ask about the size) of Flied lice Lisa made for them. Not because how delicious it was, it tasted actually a bit like fried flies from the second bowl on. Leo had waved and laughed, “You will get sick of it for sure. There were two hungry lunatics on street, they saw some thrown up things from a drunken guy, one asked the other to eat it, the other did then threw up a while later; the first one said he preferred to eat it warm.”

　　Never heard of Leo joking, never knew that nice little girlish boy could make such a dirty joke, looked at the left over in her bowl, Tina ran to the toilet, half way threw up in the hall, knew Lisa was a clean freak, Tina said “Please don’t clean it, I will go and find some lunatics around.”

　　To the very contrary of that knife-sharp Lisa, she didn’t show her paw this time, but helped Tina with water instead and looked at Tina with deep sorrow in her eyes, “Don’t worry, dear, you have always been having good lucks, why don’t you just go and talk with your apish ape manager? He might offer a working permit; you have done so many things…”
　　“Ha, I am not going to get stuck with that little firm for whatever even if he begs me too, why would I ask him to offer me anything?” Tina declared boldly as if she had 3 bottles of vodka instead of rice.

　　“It is actually fair for people here…” Leo tried some justice.

　　“Shut up! You are the Dutch with your working permit living under your parent’s roof getting studie-financiering from the government while we are the insecure discriminated displaced Chinese with no roofs and no rights to work even if we can do much better in everything, where is the fairness for us?” Lisa had run mad too.

　　Tina felt nauseas again at the thought that she mightn’t be any better in anything even given the chance. What the hell.