Farrah Lin slid a twenty yuan note across the counter toward the cashier, who smiled in recognition. Four days in Shanghai and Farrah was already a regular at the bubble tea joint by campus. She chose not to dwell on what that meant for her wallet and her waistline.
While the staff prepared her order, Farrah examined the menu. She knew nai cha (milk tea) and xi gua (watermelon). She recognized a few other Chinese characters, but not enough to form a coherent phrase.
“Here you go.” The cashier handed Farrah her drinks. “See you tomorrow!”
Farrah blushed. “Thanks.”
Note to self: ask Olivia to make tomorrow’s run.
Farrah stepped out of the tiny shop and walked back to campus. The sun began its descent and bathed the city in a warm golden glow. Bicyclists and motorcyclists zipped by, battling with cars for space on the narrow side street. The delicious smells wafting from the restaurants Farrah passed mixed with the far-less-pleasant scents of garbage and construction dust. Street vendors called out to passersby, hawking everything from hats and scarves to books and DVDs.
Farrah made the mistake of making eye contact with one such vendor.
“Mei nu!” Beautiful girl. It’d be flattering if Farrah didn’t know the hard sell that accompanied such a greeting. “Come, come.” The elderly vendor beckoned her over. “Where are you from?” she asked in Mandarin.
Farrah hesitated before answering. “America.” Mei guo. She dragged out the last syllable, unsure whether the admission would hurt or help.
“Ah, America. ABC,” the vendor said knowingly. ABC: American-Born Chinese. Farrah had heard that a lot lately. “I have some great books in English.” The vendor brandished a copy of Eat, Pray, Love. “Only twenty kuai!”
“Thanks, but I’m not interested.”
“How about this one?” The woman picked out a Dan Brown novel. “I’ll give you a deal. Three books for fifty kuai!”
Farrah didn’t need new books, and fifty kuai (around $7 USD) seemed pricey for cheap reprints of old novels. But the vendor seemed like a nice old lady, and Farrah didn’t have the energy to bargain with her.
She skimmed the English options and went straight for the romance: Jane Austen, Nicholas Sparks, JoJo Moyes.
Ok, Sparks and Moyes write love stories, not romance, but still.
Given the drought in Farrah’s dating life, she’d settle for any kind of romantic relationship, even one that ended tragically. Well, maybe not with death, but with a breakup or something. Anything that proved the crazy head-over-heels love you found in books and movies existed in real life.
After a disappointing freshman year filled with mediocre dates and fumbling stops at third base, Farrah was ready to give up on reality and live in fantasyland full time.
“I’ll take these.” She set her drinks on the ground so she could pick up Pride & Prejudice (her personal favorite), The Notebook, and Me Before You. She’d read all of them already, but what the heck, a reread never hurt anybody.
Farrah paid the vendor, who beamed and gushed her thanks before turning her attention to the next passerby.
“Mei nu!” The vendor flagged down a young woman in a cobalt dress. “Come, come.”
Farrah looped her shopping bag around her wrist and picked up her drinks while the young woman fended off the vendor’s aggressive sales pitch. She speed-walked back to campus, taking care not to make eye contact with any more vendors lest she got suckered into buying something else she didn’t need.
Farrah stopped at the crosswalk. Instead of crossing when the pedestrian light flashed green, she waited until a group of teenagers stepped off the curb before following them into the jungle that was Shanghai traffic.
Rule #1 of surviving in China: cross when locals cross. There’s safety in numbers.
By the time Farrah arrived at Shanghai Foreign Studies University, her study abroad program’s host campus, she’d already finished her drink. She tossed the empty container into a nearby trash can and pushed open the door to FEA’s lobby.
FEA, aka Foreign Education Academy, occupied one of the oldest buildings at SFSU. Not only did the four-story building lack an elevator, but the interior design left much to be desired. The lobby had potential—marble floors, tons of natural light streaming in through large windows facing the courtyard—but the furniture was straight out of the 80s (and not in the cool retro kind of way).
A cracked brown leather couch lined the wall beneath the windows alongside mismatched chairs and tables. A spindly magazine stand sagged beneath the weight of dozens of back issues of Time Out Shanghai. Faded Chinese landscape paintings hung on the wall, adding to the musty feel.
As usual, Farrah couldn’t help mentally redecorating the space. As she took the stairs to the third floor, she swapped out the current furniture for a cushioned wicker set with glass-topped tables, which would visually expand the lobby. Out went the old watercolors and in came the panels of Asian-inspired art—perhaps some up-close representations of the lotus flower or plum blossoms with modern Chinese calligraphy. There could be a wall of bookshelv
es for—
“Ow!” Farrah had been so absorbed in her design daydream she slammed into the wall. Her hand shot to her forehead as pain ricocheted through her brain. Fortunately, she couldn’t feel a bump.
Olivia’s bubble tea also remained intact, thank god. She was scary when she didn’t get her sugar fix.