dear frida (coming september 1st)

written in indigo ink

paper crumpled and uncrumpled three times

dear frida,

i swear i love laolao. i really do. but a minute ago, and i feel so bad writing that down, heck, even thinking it - frick, why am i tearing up - i was so embarrased of her.

she doesn't speak english that well, you know. she speaks chinese with my mum and basically the entire family, except for me, 'cause i don't speak chinese. yet. i mean, i really want to learn as soon as possible.

but to this day, we speak english. well, i speak english and she speaks laolao, which is not the same at all, but i understand her, because i'm used to it. heck, i'd forgotten she was not exactly shakespeare.

but then leander came in and she asked me to introduce him, because "the boy, she didn't met already."

the boy, she didn't met already.

i mean, that's weak, even for laolao. on the other hand, the only english she ever hears comes out of my mouth or out of the tv - oh, and in stores - so i know i can't blame her, but i still kind of wished mum would bust in with her impeccable english between her front teeth. i swear, hers is better than mine, and english is all i've ever known.

"that's leander," i blushed. "we're going to work on something." that wasn't exactly true, but it wasn't exactly false either.

"it's a photography thing," he explained, toying with the knitting pens laying around in the couch, and i swear i almost stuffed a ball of yarn in his mouth.

when laolao's english didn't make my eyes tingle, her words did. "oh, you are a friend of lei?"

i'd made a strange noise before leander could reply. "laolao..."

"what? i am just surprised. you don't bring lots of friend here."

"lots of friends," i swallowed, beet red by now, "you need to pluralize..."

"give me the brown colour wool, lei?" she talked over me, shaking her head, and i feel terrible about it, but i kind of caught myself wishing i had a granny instead of a laolao.

which is awful. i bet you were proud of your abuelita.

(i feel so bad, frida. so, so bad.)

i got up. "we've got to get to work," i said, throwing her the so-called brown colour wool. "laolao's english," i apologised as soon we'd walked around the corner.

(her hearing is better than her english.) "i'm old already," she shouted from behind the monstrosity dangling from her knitting pens, "it's not easy for me."

"the fuck do you mean?" leander frowned, getting out his camera and some strange sketches. "her english is a hundred times better than my chinese."

"oh." a hundred times better than mine too. that had me feeling a little dizzy and a little like an awful person, so i told him i had to go to the bathroom. i sat on the toilet seat for a while and cried a bit. when i got out, i told laolao duìbùqǐ - sorry. her mouth smiled, but her eyes didn't. probably because she knew i'd had to google how to say sorry in chinese. because i couldn't read those effing pretty little drawing thingys and had to read the phonetics.

i think maybe she'd have replied something if she'd been able to do so in her mother tongue. i'd love to hear what she has to say one day. i really want to learn. maybe i would understand mum and laolao better that way. maybe i would understand myself better that way.

you know, i sometimes feel like a jigsaw puzzle, and being chinese is that one piece that doesn't fit anywhere. to be honest, i feel more british than anything. (is that bad? you managed to feel mexican all around the world.)

but i don't look more british than anything.

at least once a month someone on the bus calls me a chink, or jackie chan - what the frick's that supposed to mean? i drink tea and i love fish 'n chips and i've got the exact same accent as the queen so stop asking me where i'm from, like, originally? tell me, how should i know the words to gangnam style when i'm not even korean?

being different is hard.

and i don't even have a dick granddaughter shunning the way i speak.

am i a bad person, frida?

leander probably hates me too by now. he's been sitting on a chair for at least twenty minutes, waiting for a girl who's hiding in a notebook.

everything is confusing.

yours truly,

lei