by Angela Zhang
art by Geena San Diego
It was the summer before college began, that magical summer of no responsibilities and no directions, when I went hiking up a mountain with Nina. I was fond of neither hiking nor mountains, but she was fond of both, so there I was, climbing stairs amidst a stream of people, panting, sweating, complaining.
The pictures Nina sent me before the hike depicted deserted bridges, waterfalls shrouded in mist, trees and vines hanging over a girl reading against a stone wall, a perfect tranquil utopia. I had listened to her excited voice messages and knew that this mountain was too big of a tourist attraction to be anything like that. I was right. People crowded every walkway and platform. At every available corner, there were merchants selling souvenirs, food, and overpriced boat tickets. Groups of men stood at every turn, offering to carry tourists up the mountain in makeshift carriages made of bamboo sticks with cushions between them. But Nina was undeterred in her endless joy.
“I’m so happy we’re doing this,” she said, turning to look at me with sparkling eyes. “I’ve missed hanging out with you. We’ve been too busy lately with graduation exams and all that.”
The sincere radiance in her smile sent a flutter through my stomach, and I replied with a stilted expression of gratitude at her presence. I had never been good at open expressions of affection. I turned away, searching for something else to talk about, and spotted a map at the edge of the small plaza we were standing in.
“Let’s go look at the map,” I said. “I want to see how much I have to hike.”
Nina cast a sideways glance at me, grinning. “That’s so you. Looking at maps wherever we go.”
I didn’t really like looking at maps. I had a very poor sense of direction. I looked at them to be prepared for our trips, so I could adjust my expectations and reactions to the day’s events in a properly pleasing way.
The map showed a hike that was not very long or very steep, perhaps two hours to reach the top. There were small temples and sheds along the way, but the real attraction of the hike was the daoguan at the top of the mountain. It was a famous Daoist temple in the region with beautiful architecture that attracted visitors from all around the country. Behind the temple, there was also a platform to look at the view and take pictures.
Suitably prepared, we began the hike up the mountain. It was nice, I had to admit, despite all the people. It was cooler there among the trees than in the city, and that summer had been unprecedentedly swelteringly hot. I had spent all my time indoors, carrying out the same rote routine of waking up at noon, spending countless meaningless hours scrolling online, and then falling asleep again at an obscenely late hour. Nina, on the other hand, seemed to have had a wonderfully exciting summer.
She carried out an endless stream of chatter as we walked up the stairs, careful to not slip on the moist moss. She told me about her time in her home city by the coast, how she spent her time going to the beach with her family, browsing vintage markets for articles of clothing and jewelry that she found for abnormally low prices and somehow all worked together in an effortless style that I could never achieve, and talking to random people she met in bookstores, who just so happened to all have the most interesting life stories. It was always like this with her. She lived a dazzling life, and I was the spectator.
She pulled out her phone at some point to show me the niche indie band with the weird name that she was obsessed with at the moment. She told me about their interviews and sent me their songs. She had never expected me to actually listen to the songs that she sent me, but I had saved each one of them religiously to my library. I was always looking for things like that, songs and books and movies that she liked that I could like too.
When we walked a little further, Nina suggested that we should take a break and drink some water. There were no benches or sheds visible anywhere nearby, so she sat down at the edge of the path, shielding her eyes as she looked up at me through the blinding sunlight. We had stayed like that for a while, not quite looking at anything in particular, when Nina spoke.
“Have you been talking to anyone from your college?”
“I’ve been texting some other freshmen,” I said. I had been messaging some other students from my region who were also going to my school. But with none of them had I found that magical feeling of instant connection. The sort of connection I found with Nina. I hastily changed the subject of the conversation away from my pathetic inability to be socially likable.
“What about you?”
“I’ve been talking to someone online. A girl from my college. I found her on Instagram, and I’ve been talking to her a lot these past few weeks.”
I looked at her, immediately interested. “What’s she like?”
Nina glanced away, but I caught the way the edges of her lips turned up and brought a warm sparkle into her eyes.
“She’s amazing,” Nina said wistfully. “I’ve never met someone who I could just talk to like that, so easily and so soon. I feel like I can tell her anything. I’ve told her so much already, and I haven’t even met her.”
Something rose in my chest, hot and sharp and uncomfortable. What did she mean? She had never met someone else like that? I was the one who had been here, all this time. The idea of her being so close to someone else suffocated me. I should have been enough for her.
“That’s really nice,” I told her, grappling for something that would be supportive. With a sort of masochistic desperation, I probed a little further. “I’m glad you’ve already found a friend like that at college.”
“I’m hoping she won’t just be a friend,” Nina responded after a moment of hesitation, smiling shyly.
“How could you even know? You haven’t met her,” I flinched internally at the spite that I accidentally exposed. I hastily added, “It’s just that, it’s so hard to tell sometimes, what that liminal space between female friendship and romantic attraction is.”
Nina tilted her head, contemplative. She always liked theoretical questions dissecting some aspect of human connection.
“I suppose you’re right. It’s hard to tell. There’s some sort of special feeling, although I can’t describe it,” she said. “I like to use the hand-holding rule. I think about whether I would like to hold their hand, and if I do, I consider it to be more romantic.”
I looked down at Nina and thought about whether I would like to hold her hand. She was leaning back and resting on her hands, one leg stretched out in front of her. With her body slightly curled up like that, I felt an impulsive need to bend down, cover her body with mine, and kiss her.
I didn’t do any of that. Instead, I looked away and told her that we should be on our way.
After mounting one final steep and long flight of stairs, we finally arrived at the daoguan that marked the top of the mountain. We passed through a looming archway carved into a gold-painted wall lined with mahogany beams, the temple’s name written on a wooden plaque hanging over the doorway.
We were standing in a clearing with the viewing deck to one side and another short flight of stairs leading up to the temple to the other. We went to the viewing deck first so we could save the temple for the last stop on this trip. She had been looking forward to this all day, ready to be dazzled. The view was impressive, to be sure. Miles of trees stretched in front of us, a dark green carpet lining the rise and fall of the mountain range.
Nina and I sat there for a while on one of the long benches reserved for tourists admiring the view.
“A view like this makes me understand why so many Chinese poems and paintings depict mountains,” she said. “There’s a kind of serenity here that you can’t access anywhere else.”
“Do you feel inspired?” I asked with a sardonic half-smile.
“Oh yes. I have an idea for my next poem already.”
I looked at the trees and tried to feel some semblance of Nina’s inspiration. God knows I needed to start doing some creative writing again. The futility of a life with no original creation was beginning to frighten me.
But I already knew that this would be useless. I was not a person who had ever been impressed by natural scenery. I would see pictures of places like this online and think, “Surely, if I see this place in person, I would feel a greater sense of awe at the physical grandeur.” But when I got to the place, the scenery was just an image. I saw it, my brain documented it, and then I was ready to move on, no strong emotion stirred.
It gave me a sense of nihilism, my inability to channel intense reactions to nature that might result in some sort of creative awakening. It was one more thing that made me less grounded and connected to the world around me, less real than her.
“Do you ever think about how we won’t be able to say something like this anymore when we go to college in the U.S.?” Nina asked, interrupting my thoughts. “We won’t be able to casually make references to Chinese culture and art and assume everyone listening would already know what we’re talking about.”
“Adjusting to cultural differences would certainly be a struggle,” I acknowledged. “But I think there’s something to be said about the value of diversity of mind. And who knows, maybe I’ll appreciate Chinese culture more when it becomes my unique, special possession.”
“But that’s just it, what I’m worried about. Our high school is so un-diverse. Everyone shares such a unique cultural experience and the mindset that comes with it.” She stared off into the distance, seeking an answer between the valley and the peak.
“That’s true, I suppose,” I echoed. I was aware that I was just repeating what she said, but that was the easiest way to contribute something appropriately relevant and intelligent to the conversation. “We don’t fit into either side, Chinese or American.”
“It’s not even just that. Our high school is such a unique mix of Chinese and American, public and private, that I also don’t fully relate to other international students. I don’t fully know how to describe it.”
But I knew exactly what she meant. “They’re either too American, with all their energy and overbearing wholesomeness, or they’re too Chinese in the way they think about the world. There’s an apathy to matters that don’t concern themselves, a lack of radicalism in politics that we assume as the basis of every interaction in our high school.”
Nina beamed and told me that was exactly what she meant, that she was so glad I understood. Moments like this made me wonder whether Nina might just be a friend to me after all. We understood each other in a way no one else could, understood the feelings and impressions that weren’t always able to be clearly articulated. When I was in a conversation like this with her, wrapped up in the intimacy of it all, I wondered what the difference would even be between romance and what we already had.
Fully rested and ready to keep exploring, we left the platform and entered the gates of the daoguan. We were standing in a small paved clearing in the center of the temple. Open corridors ran along the sides of the clearing, lined with black wooden benches and maroon columns. On the side of the corridors, I could see more passageways leading off into buildings where the monks studied, lived, and prayed. Two stone wishing pools and potted plants stood in the corners, the sunlight sparking off the coins covering the bottom of the tubs. There were a few vendors too, selling refreshments and souvenirs from their carts.
In front of us was the central temple, where visitors went to pay their respects to a slew of Daoist deities. Another flight of stairs led to the imposing gate flanked by a pair of stone lions. The structure had several layers, each with slanted black clay tile roofs that formed a tower.
Nina and I climbed up the stone steps and arrived at the temple’s gates; a wooden step was laid across the threshold. I stepped in, right leg first on the right side of the gate, while Nina did the opposite on the left side. It was thought to be disrespectful to the gods to go in through the center.
The chamber we entered into was suitably grand for a temple so famous. The high, vaulted ceilings were painted in all sorts of colors and decorated with drawings of dragons. Two stone carts stood on either side of the chamber, filled with ashes and burnt-out incense sticks. In the middle of the temple, a row of Daoist deity statues filled a glass case that lined the back wall of the room. They were decked in gold, glaring imposingly down at us.
Nina and I went to a small table in the corner to take two incense sticks and light them in the lanterns beside the tables. We then joined the lines of people waiting to pray.
It took us a while to get to the front of the line, and my incense stick was half burnt already. Kneeling on the cushion in front of one of the statues, I began the customary motion of clasping the stick between my palms and bending forward so my forehead touched the cushion.
It suddenly occurred to me that I was wearing a hat. Was I allowed to wear a hat while praying? I vaguely remembered an adult telling me that was impolite. And the incense was almost entirely burnt. What if the flame reached my fingers before I finished praying? Was I even praying in the right way?
From the corner of my eyes, I saw the person who had stepped up to pray at the same time I did stand up to leave. I hadn’t begun making wishes, but I didn’t want to take up this slot any longer and embarrass myself in front of everyone in line behind me. It probably didn’t matter. I wasn’t a Daoist. I doubted most people in the temple were Daoist. Nothing I was doing or thinking mattered that much.
I stepped back from the altar and joined Nina in the center of the chamber. We stood there for a moment, taking it all in. Everywhere around us were hushed whispers and bent forms; some monks hurried in a procession through the temple, holding books and heading to their duties. Two fake gold trees stood, with small, wooden, heart-shaped plaques hanging from the branches on which people write down their hopes and ambitions. The eyes of the saints watched us from every angle, embedded in statues that were put on stands all around the room.
Nina reached out suddenly and grabbed my hand, saying something about a spiritual experience. I didn’t hear what she was saying; every inch of skin in contact with her burned, and the flames traveled through my whole body. The feelings her hand ignited in me felt improper under the inquisitive stare of the saints. They felt wrong in this space, too raw and exposed. But of course, it couldn’t truly be that inappropriate because Nina felt none of these things as she threaded her fingers through mine.
To distract myself, I stared at the red prayer cards hanging from the trees, the concreteness of the desires written on them a direct contrast to my jumbled yearning. It was a special kind of cognitive dissonance, feeling so much about the same interactions that the other felt nothing about. Our connection was real; all the deities were there to witness it. So why was it that I was being burnt alive while she just stood there, cool and oblivious? Perhaps she was just better than me. Perhaps there was nothing there at all.
On the way down the mountain, I decided to move on from Nina. This was the last time I would see her before college started; I would have plenty of distance from her. Besides, all the melodrama in my head was probably just delusions. Nina was just an extremely close friend at a time when I was wading through the mire of my sexuality. I was ready for new, firmer things.
By the time we reached the hotel, I had solidly made up my mind. Later that night, we laid next to each other, bodies pressed together, watching a movie on my laptop. When she clutched my arm at the climax, I felt no stirring in my chest. I was so happy about this that when the movie ended, I turned to Nina and gave her a list of things I appreciated about our friendship, all the ways I grew and all the things I only managed to endure because she was there. Her eyes were sparkly by the end, and she hugged me and told me that she would miss me enormously in college.
I went to sleep that night serene, thinking of my upcoming college life instead of her. But she came to me anyway in my dream. She stood a little distance away, with her back facing me. Phantom winds lifted her hair and whipped it around, and her shoulders shook with laughter. I tried to move forward, reach her, and still those shoulders, but I was stuck in place. Then she was gone. I was left standing in the middle of a circle of idol statues, spinning, laughing, swallowing me whole.
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