Journey Home 1

Something is remembered because it is constantly recalled and relived in the mind. That the recent trip back home should still come alive to an agitating heart in the depths of night suggests its recordable quality. So here are attempts to take down what still lives of the journey back to Ch from July 11th till August 10th, 2012. July 12th, Thursday. The plane from Seattle to Beijing was half an hour behind the schedule, and so when we presented ourselves at the International Arrivals, we did not see Q's nephew or college classmate who was supposed to meet us there. I surveyed each expectant face leaning over the steel frame that zigzagged around the exit. Q did the same but with more anxiety voiced by repeating: "Traffic jam maybe, traffic jam." I went to a counter where two girls seemed to be selling phone cards. The cards they sold could only be used on public telephones like those ancient black ears hanging on the wall behind them, and the least payment for a card was 50 yuan. I was to buy one when Q closed up and said "no need". The girls immediately erased whatever had remaimed of a rigid smile on their beige faces and did numerous invisible frowns at us perhaps, judging from their obviousy managed air of all-rightness. I walked towards the crowd to the right of the International Arrivals and found it to be people waiting for domestic arrivals. As I returned with determination to buy an IC card anyway, I heard Q cry out, "Here they are." Walking towards us was Q's nephew, a junior in an engineering institute in Beijing, and right behind him was a tall man in his prime. Q ran to hug his newphew briefly before he took up the hands of the man,saying, "you have not changed much, LW."