Night Shanghai

2

SHANGHAI GOT EXTREMELY hot in the summers, and especially cold in the winters. One year I remember, it even snowed. As cold as it was, Shanghai was not a city that had snowflakes falling down and snowmen being built.

I was around six that year when it snowed, it was Lunar New Years and so we had a break for about nine days. The morning I woke up, I yelled: "Snow! Snow! Snow!" Until my grandma took me out to see it. The other neighborhood kids that were in our district (not the richer area) were already playing with the snow, and I pointed eagerly at them, asking for permission to join.

"Okay, but be careful!"

Running eagerly toward them, those that went to the same school as me took one glance, and yelled: "Quick, guys! Han YuYe is coming! Run!"

As excited as I was to see the snow, something in my chest dropped as one by one they disappeared out of sight. I couldn't describe the feeling of what happened and how I felt. I was confused.

Running to my Grandma, I quickly hugged her tightly, my arms only reaching her thighs. Her touch made me instantly feel safer as I buried my face in her puffer that reached all the way down to her knees.

I heard her sigh, and her mouth mumbled something I couldn't understand. I tilted my head a little and spotted the kids that had run away from me. They were staring in my direction, but I didn't get why. It was like this in school too, except the teachers stopped it.

Out of the corner of my eyes, standing close by the kids, I see their moms', eyes glaring at me like hawks. Smirks along their faces and hands covering the mouth as they whispered in secrecy sent chills up my back.

"奶奶 (Grandma)? Why are they all looking at us?"

Without giving me an answer, she turned my little body around, away from the view I had not yet to understand.

"Let's go, it's too cold to be playing with snow anyways."

But before leaving, I couldn't help but catch the phrase that came out of their mouths. And it haunted me and confused me for days and months to come. Until I finally understood.

She has no parents.

—————

I made my first friend a few years later. It was in fourth grade, when a group of boys were calling me names. I had grown used to the things I was called and what I was, so I let them. I learned quickly since the beginning that it was over faster if you just let it happen.

No one had ever cared enough to say something or help. In preschool the teachers did prevent some of it, but once it got to elementary everyone overlooked it. It was just another sob story of another girl being bullied.

But 黄晓美 (Huang Xiao Mei) was different.

"HEY! You boys over there!"

She had two pigtails dangling from her head, black and slightly banged up hair. Her eyes were slim, and it got slimmer as she glared at the boys that were spitting on me and saying things.

Before they could say anything, she had already picked up rocks from the floor. Then, without hesitation, she yanked them one by one toward them.

The boys screeched and cried, running off and crying for their mommies.

A satisfied grin appeared on her face as she watched them go. Once she was done, she turned her attention toward me. When she walked up to me, I thought she would start saying things to me herself, or throw rocks at me. But that didn't happen. I was instead surprised with a leant down hand. The amazement in my eyes kept me from sitting on the floor.

"My names' Huang Xiao Mei."

No one other than my grandma and teachers (sometimes teachers don't even) had ever tried talking to me. No one introduced themselves to me, and no one had ever dared to touch me. But her, this girl, standing in front of me, built skinny yet filled with a kind of strength I admired. She had done what no one has.

Confusing feelings flowed through me as I grabbed her offered hand to help myself up. I didn't even say my name. What I said exactly, I remember, was this:

"Do you want to eat my grandma's wontons?"

Her expression contorted to confusion, and then a burst of laughter exploded out of her.

I looked at her puzzled until she stopped laughing and patted my shoulder with one hand. "You're a weird one, you know that?"

Lots of people have called me weird before, but the way she said it wasn't intended in the way others had. I was confused about this new way of talking, confused about what was happening.

"Anyways, what's your name?"

"Um, Han YuYe."

She slung an arm around me and though she wasn't much taller than me, she acted as though she was.

"Okay, Han YuYe, let's go eat your grandma's wontons. I'm starving!"