Fatal Weakness—Yang Hengjun (3.3)

致命弱点 Fatal Weakness
扬恒均 Yang Hengjun

第二章 毒品惊魂 Chapter 2 Drug Scare

Part 3.3

Seeing Wang Xiaohai standing there like that makes me think. He came to America in the early nineties, then disappeared from contact with everyone he'd gone to college with. They say he only got in touch again after he'd gotten his green card. He's not that tall, he wears glasses, carries himself with a rather refined sort of elegance. At least that's how he was more than ten years ago when we were still in school. The Wang Xiaohai I see walking towards me now looks a little rough. He looks like he could be fifty already. It might just be the light here in the airport, because from where I'm standing he looks a bit hunched over. We don't hug; the two of us just shake hands and stare at each other carefully in the eyes; we each see excitement, and a tinge of regret, then we both start laughing freely.

Sitting in Wang Xiaohai's recently-purchased second-hand Honda Accord on the way to his house, he tells me what he's been doing over the past few years—more than a few mouthfuls of complaints and grievances which, being his old college friend, gets me right worked up. I've found that for the most part, friends of mine who've gone abroad, especially those who get green cards, when old school friends like me roll around, they tend to put on a happy face despite anything which might be worrying them, trying to one-up us any way they can. But not Xiaohai. He whines all the way, starting first with having left the country two years too late, missing his chance at a 'Tiananmen' green card, all the way to when he made the decision to major in politics, ending up unable to find work after graduation and how he settled for a job at a diner, or how hard it was getting a green card with forged documents, then struggling to save up even the tiniest bit of money, only to one day notice his youth having passed him by. And how, when he began to have the time and mind to be around old acquaintances out from China again, be they his former college buddies or friends, how they all looked to be getting by a whole lot more sweetly than he was, and how hard that was for him to see. So then Xiaohai solemnly asks, has China, these last few years, really been growing as fast as they say? Are there really that many people making money now? How could things be so different from what government statistics say? He says he's just bought himself a small condo, that he put up fifty thousand for the down-payment and it'll take twenty years to pay off the other two hundred and fifty thousand, that this is why he really has no desire to come back to China to see things clearly for himself, but that he hopes I might help him with this.

I don't know how I ought to answer. "You know, you already have your own car and your own place, even if you only have paid off fifty thousand so far, we wouldn't be talking pocket change here if we were back in China. Besides, the old friends you're still able to see from here aren't doing so bad either.

"Ha. I bet you're doing pretty well for yourself, eh bud?" Xiaohai chuckles. "You didn't just come to get your diploma, did you? If that were case, you could've just got the school to send it to you. What other missions are you on?

"What are you talking about. Mission? It's not like you don't know I already left the Ministry. I also came partly for old time's sake, and to see if post-911 New York looks like it used to. If I can, I also want to stop by Washington to see Liu Mingwei."

"Just seems strange. You and Guo Qingqing were on and off for so many years over in New York, and the whole time we never got together. Now the two of you have been split up for so long and you come halfway across the world just for a visit? Yeah, you must be feeling pretty nostalgic." Suddenly, Xiaohai looks a bit lonely. We drive on for a while, then he lets out a drawn-out sigh: "there's only just a few of us still here; Haipeng went back, so did you. A class of forty, there's just three of us here now, and you can see how useful I ended up. Of everyone who went into science and tech back then, at least twenty people from each year would come to the States; now whenever they have science or tech alumnus get-togethers at Peking University or Tsinghua, there's always more of them here in the States than back in China. Not us, though, the miserable few who are left. Just because we chose to major in bullshit politics and international relations, we've been useless since the day we left school."

He stops, then mumbles, "not totally useless, though, if you're willing to forget everything you learned. I hear Liu Mingwei's been doing pretty well over in Washington."

From the airport to Xiaohai's new place it's about a two-hour drive. The whole way, we laugh and we yell, going quiet from time to time; just as old friends are when they meet, we're both relaxed. I reach over and turn on the car stereo, only to find out there's no tape inside. Then I remember the tapes Xiao Hai had asked me to bring over with me. I open my bag and pull them out, sort of a gift for Xiaohai. Most of the tapes are full of clanging revolutionary songs that were popular in China back in the seventies and eighties, from 'The Red Sun' series to 'Song of the Prairies,' from 'Up on the Gold Mountain of Beijing' to 'Free Yourself, Slaves, and Sing!,' with the newest album being of songs that were popular on campus at Peking University during the early eighties. I want to put one tape on, so I flip through them.

"I guess you never really liked any of these songs, hey?" Xiaohai sees that I can't find anything that I think will sound good.

I say I don't really care, it's just that I think these songs are too old. They stopped selling most of them around the time we graduated. As I say this, I realize that I don't know the names of any songs that have come out since then.

"I don't know why, but I just can't seem to get into popular music these days," Xiaohai says, "but the songs we had when I was a kid and at school, I could listen to them a hundred times and still never get sick of them."

"Well if you put it like that, I'd have to agree. I used to think that was the reason I stopped listening to music after college, but now that I think about it, I can't name a single song that's come out in the more than ten years since we finished college."

"Go back a generation, and people just hummed the same few songs their whole lives; at least we had a few more. But now, you see new songs and singers popping up every day, and the pop charts change from week to week."

"Seems like now, there's a pop song for any mood anyone might ever be in. If you're feeling annoyed, there's 'Today I'm a bit Annoyed,' and if you've just broken up with someone, well, there's at least a hundred songs to match that, songs that almost make you feel like they were written just for you. If you're feeling elated or you've had a bit to drink, there's more songs that talk about flying high up in the sky than there are drops of rain."

"Yeah, a lot of pop songs are written to match your mood; when you're sad they make you sadder, or if you're happy, happier." I nod in agreement.

"The thing is with songs from back in our day, though there weren't so many, just hearing any of them was enough to set your heart afire, so uplifting they were," Xiaohai says with excitement.

I smile and nod, pulling a tape out and sticking in the second-hand car's stereo. I think of another advantage to meeting up with old friends: nobody feels like they're old-fashioned or obsolete.

From here on we just enjoy these songs we used to sing back in our college days, talking and laughing as the car rips down the freeway towards Xiaohai's home.