Night Shanghai

5

THE MOTIVE AS as to why I worked and studied hard to improve my grades were unclear to me, nor my grandma. The rest of the remaining year, after talking to one of my teachers, I was studying for the entrance exam for next-year transfer students. It's basically a second chance for a reentry of choice for your middle school, like the ones taken when I was a fifth-grader. Any year you're in, once you retake the test of the level for your grade, you can transfer out of your current school for another school that you may or may not have been accepted into.

Though I didn't know why, it was more like I refused to acknowledge the reason behind what motivated me.

For most part of my life so far until then, I had always led a foot in front of the other without a thought. I lived without much of a purpose, and I didn't really want anything. Yet strong emotions bled through me now, and I had the strongest determination to earn for the highest possible school.

Was I proving myself to someone? I didn't know, but as I studied and read page after page of textbooks by myself, it slowly became clear that there has been a powerful feeling in me since the beginning. It felt like frustration, but also not quite. It felt like hatred, yet also not. It felt like a kind of pain and hurt, yet not quite.

Questions I never dared to ask swirled in my head. Years of peacefulness and sweetness dedicated to living a happy and dull childhood suddenly popped at the resentment that surfaced when a rejection from a dear one happened.

And there, at the end of the exam, upon finishing as one of the first ones, the realization hit me.

It was Huang Xiao Mei. It was her, as to who I wanted to prove to. But also not, it was those years of being abandoned by ones that were never really in my life. It was those times where I needed someone but couldn't cry for help because my Grandma was old and I couldn't burden her. It was the frustration and anger that slowly built up, and finally released after the painful second of my best friend's indifference to my existence and our memories shared together. The letters of the schools I got into came one by one, and the brightest one shined while the rest faded. In bolded and fancy worded writing, it read:

Hello 韩雨叶, we sincerely congratulate you with our warmest welcomes!

You have gotten into Shanghai Xu Jia Hui Middle-High with a full scholarship!

As a second year middle schooler, you will attend our campus starting the end of September 2000.

Until then, we await you!

I ate dinner with my Grandma and some of her older friends the night I got the letter, a brewing excitement in the air as we chatted. My back was patted more than I could count, and each of them had brought over some kind of dish. I had never been praised like this in my life, and though my Grandma encouraged and supported me in anything I did, I could tell she was truly proud this time.

As one of her friends had said, "A full scholarship! What has your granddaughter done? The chance of getting in Xu Jia Hui high is already so low, but a full scholarship? Your granddaughter must be one in a million!"

My smile had never been brighter.

—————

Summer passed quickly as I spent every last second preparing for the day to my new school. And when it finally came, my grandma tucked me in bed like I was six again.

Her warm hands stroked my cheek. "Your father would be so proud."

"Would he?" I asked, genuine. I never thought about what he would think. The photos I saw of my father were of a man I knew nothing of other than childhood tales as a heroic figure. I hadn't ever mind my grandma making him into the greatest person ever in her stories, because in her eyes he was. Yet, he was still a stranger to me. I wish I got to know him.

She smiled, her eyes kind and full of hope. "Yes, he would be very proud of you. Now, go to sleep. You need all the rest you can get, because tomorrow will be your big day!"

I giggled, hiding a little under my sheets. After all the studying that was done, I had grown a bit distant from her. But now, it was all over like before again as I grinned excitedly.

Slowly getting up, she got to the door. "I will make sure to buy your favorite 小笼包 (Xiao long bao) tomorrow."

"Can't wait," I said, and she closed the lights as I wished me her goodnight.

I stared at the ceiling for a long while that night, a kind of nervousness boiling under my skin, but also a screaming excitement. But as long as I tried to stay awake, thinking about anything that could happen, in the end I could not defeat the tiredness that took over my body.

Tomorrow I will attend the so-called dream school. And though I didn't know it yet, this is the true place my story begins.