Poison and Wine.

I woke up today thinking about someone.  Three years later and for some reason, she was on my mind.  I must have had a dream that was immediately forgotten prior to waking up, because the image of her was still vivid.

No blog was created at the time, or I would've definitely dedicated a post to her back in the day.  So here it is, all from my recollection. Three summers ago, my mother and I went to China for two weeks.  Intended as a vacation, we were in a tight schedule following a tour group.  The only city that we were able to spend more than one night in was Beijing, the capital. The hotel was decent from what I can remember, and the lobby was especially cozy.  Up until 7pm of everyday, we were not allowed to be separated from the tour group.  You were free from "meeting points" and "setting timers" after dinner.  My mother and I had already made some travel friends among the tour group, and we were ready to explore more of the local attractions of Beijing.  So on the first night, we met up around 8pm at the lobby.  That's where I met her for the first time.

She was just standing there behind the bar, cleaning glasses with no customers to deal with.  I suppose it was a slow night, and I'm glad it was.  My mother and our new travel buddies were discussing how to approach this night out.  Things were going to be tough because out of us four, my mom was the only one that could speak Mandarin.  She then decided to ask her for some traveling advice and tips.  They talked for a good ten minutes or so while I just sat in the lobby, waiting.  My mom came back and told us that she got the girl to become our personal tour guide for the night. WHAT!?

Her shift had just ended, so she went inside the double doors and quickly changed.  She came back out with a black leather jacket with matching black jeans on heels.  Her hair was half down with a bit still tied up.  The way she presented herself made me believe that she was at least 23 or 24 (I was 20 years old at the time, mind you).  My mother then introduced her to the rest of the group and we quickly learned that she doesn't speak or understand English.  Mom would then become the translator from that point on.

She took us through subways, walking through shortcuts to get to the food and shopping district of Beijing.  The place was populated with tourists and locals alike, vendors with merchandises and rare foods filled the streets.  The whole block was lit up and the air smelled delicious.  Scorpions, cockroaches, beetles, seahorses were served on sticks, and skewers of amazing fried foods were sold at ridiculously cheap prices.

It started to rain halfway through the walk down the food marketplace, luckily for us, we had three umbrellas. There were five of us to work with, so the two travel buddies used one, my mom used another, and the last umbrella was left for me and her.  As people were starting to get sidetracked and distracted with bizarre shops, we all slowly got separated.  At that point, I couldn't believe that in a mere two hours of realizing her existence, I would be shielding her from rain, with no one but strangers all around us.  We noticed that we had lost track of the others, but we weren't in a rush to catch up. She made me try this gross looking dessert, which turned out to be delicious.  We walked slower than normal, and not a single word was being said.  We could not communicate at all through words, rather we did it in body motion and eye signals.  It could've gone horribly awkward, but it wasn't.  We later caught back up with my mom and the others, and we proceeded back to the hotel.

During the following night, we were able to see her working again.  But we were too tired to go anywhere, so we all just stayed in the lobby and talked.  We made constant eye contact but the language barrier limits our interaction.  She then took out a napkin and wrote her name in Chinese for me.  I then wrote mine in return on the same napkin and she read it out loud, making fun of how silly is sounds.  That night ended quick and we exchanged hugs and we parted ways.  The next morning, on our way out the hotel and I hoping to see her again at the bar, but she wasn't there.  It happens.  Till this day, I never knew her name because she kept that napkin.

My mother obviously loved her and she later told me that the girl was 21 years old.