At the crossroads of life, every beginning inevitably paves the way to an end. The sound of a starting whistle in a football match is simultaneously a countdown to its conclusion. Setting off on a journey marks the approach of the return. From the moment we are born, we are inching towards death. As the world gathers, so it must disperse.
It was in 2010 when I first met her. Back then, the cheapest way to fly from Hong Kong to Tokyo wasn’t via HK Express, but rather through a layover with China Eastern in Shanghai. The difference between a direct flight and one with a stopover was not just double the time and an extra airline meal, but the chance to see her – the Shanghai girl working at the Panda Bar in Pudong Airport. Her colleagues were always a chattering cluster, but she remained silent, always. Hair tied in a bun, clad in a bright red cheongsam, she stood at a vantage point overseeing the entire restaurant, her eyes wide and smiling, reminiscent of the six-foot tall panda statue inside. She and the statue, like twin guardians of the place.
My job took me to Japan frequently. Each layover led me to her café. And each visit, I saw her.
Disembark, head to the Panda, gaze at her, board again, and the cycle repeated.
The third time I saw her, it was late at night. She had just finished her shift, still in her cheongsam, slumped at the corner of the bar, idly poking a cactus on the edge of the counter, watching planes take off and land through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
I called over the bartender and asked if they served cocktails. The young man boasted he could mix anything. I requested a shot of Cosmopolitan for her.
“Are you a local?” he inquired.
“No.”
“Then maybe you should just let it be.”
“Just a drink, not a lifetime commitment.”
She trembled slightly when the cocktail was placed before her. The bartender whispered something to her, and she gave me a brief glance, neither thanking nor dismissing, took three sips and returned the favour with a Shanghai.
I drank it.
“You know there is a cocktail called Nothing?” I asked the bartender.
He turned to grab some Malibu. “I’ve worked in Hong Kong before.”
“Impressive.”
She responded with a B52.
The young bartender smiled when he slid the glass towards me. “Told you so.”
I chuckled in response, asking for a full glass of Nothing for myself, then headed for my flight.
On our eighth encounter, I offered her an Around the World, and she reciprocated with a Long Island. the bartender nudged, “a Long Island. Talk to her if you’re a man.” Before boarding, I finally spoke to her, asking if I could get her phone number. She remained silent, only writing down an address.
A week before Christmas, I sent her a musical card that played Jingle Bells upon opening. By New Year’s Day, I received a reply – another musical card, this time playing They’re Taking the Hobbits to Isengard.
Such greeting cards did exist, I realised.
“Do you often come to Shanghai?” she asked.
“Only for layovers.”
“Going where?”
“To Japan.”
“Tell me next time you go.”
“Next time it will be Dubai?”
“Then it won’t be a layover in Shanghai, will it?”
“Why don’t you layover in Hong Kong then?”
“I wouldn’t do something that silly,” she replied. “Either fly direct from Shanghai or from Hong Kong.”
She moved into my place in 2014. By then, we’d known each other for four years, met eleven times, and spent nineteen days together.
＊
During the years I was with her, every time I went to Japan, I’d buy a lottery ticket. One time, when I was choosing the ticket numbers, she called from afar.
“Miss me?” she inquired.
“Every moment.”
“You shouldn’t, though. When you’re somewhere else, you should think about the local people. You can think of me when you’re back in Hong Kong.”
“You’re right, but I can’t help it. I just do.”
“Really?”
“Swear to the heavens.”
“Alright, I’ll let you off the hook.”
I hurriedly picked a ticket that caught my eye, paid, and left before the ticket seller could frown at my distraction.
After returning from Dubai, she took to wearing an abaya every day. I’m all for religious freedom and okay with her wearing anything – or nothing. Still, her fluttering black shape drifting through the house with the hem rustling on the floor, was undeniably unusual. I asked her why the abaya.
“It’s comfortable,” she replied.
“Ever consider converting to Islam?”
“You go ahead.”
“If I do,” I sipped a fourteen-year-old Glenmorangie, a bargain at 350 dollars from the duty-free, “I could have four wives.”
“But then no more whisky for you.”
On life’s balance, one side held four wives in abayas, the other, four bottles of Glenmorangie.
“Let’s pretend I never said anything.”
She hopped away, her robe trailing behind.
One cold day, she fell asleep clutching a heater while engrossed in The Little Prince. When she woke up, there was a fist-sized hole burnt through her robe. I suggested tossing it since it was ruined, but she couldn’t bear to part with it. I proposed patching it, but we had no suitable fabric. So, she continued to roam around the house in the robe, now with a hole revealing her pale tummy.
Three days later, she caught a cold and lay in bed, weakly murmuring, “Don’t blame the robe. Don’t throw it away…”
I didn’t throw the robe away, but I learned a lesson: keepsakes should never become everyday items.
By the time we noticed something was wrong with Papayana, it was already too late. He seemed perfectly fine until she pressed her fingertip against him, only to realise he was limp and mushy.
We followed a YouTube tutorial titled How to Save a Dying Cactus, replacing the soil, cutting away the mushy parts, and adding nutrient solution, but to no avail. A friend who was a farmer inspected him, touching and squeezing for eight minutes before pronouncing his demise. “It’s a case of soil incompatibility and fungal infection. Sorry, I did my best.”
She cried several times over Papayana’s death. After all, they had depended on each other for over twenty years.
Afterwards, she became increasingly silent. Sometimes she would smile, but those were forced, strained smiles. I knew the unspoken accusation was “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have come to Hong Kong”. And I also knew she understood it wasn’t fair to blame me. Yet, knowing and accepting are two different things; life’s contradictions and helplessness often stem from this.
She put the dead cactus in the potting soil and wrapped him in cling film, deciding to bury it in Shanghai.
“Do you miss me?”
“Every single moment.”
“…You’re lying.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Look at all the photos you’ve posted. You seem to be having a great time without me, aren’t you?”
“I’m happy, but -“
“I don’t want to hear your explanations.”
“…Hello? Hello?”
Sometimes, things just happen that way.
And sometimes, things happen like this:
“Do you miss me?”
“Yes.”
“…”
“…”
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“There’s nothing much to say.”
“Did you have fun today?”
“Just okay.”
“…”
“…”
“If you have nothing to say, why call?”
“You told me to call every day to check in.”
(Beep—Beep—Beep—Beep—)
I never check the results of the lottery tickets I buy. By not knowing the outcome, I allow myself to think, maybe this ticket is the jackpot, I just don’t know it yet.
In 2015, her one-year student visa expired, and she returned to Shanghai. She held a funeral for Papayana; whether it was a grand affair, I cannot say; she didn’t invite me. Of course, she couldn’t possibly invite me.
We lay naked in the bed of APA HOTEL in Ginza, Tokyo. Beside the bed was a copy of The Real History of Japan: A Theoretical Approach to Modern History, flipped halfway through.
She said, “I wish we could travel together forever.”
“Or maybe be in a perpetual layover.”
She laughed. “A perpetual layover… wouldn’t really be a layover! Are we what they call those who can share adversity but not prosperity?”
“The proverb is the other way around.”
“Never mind that – hey, what do you think?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“In this world, there are those who can share adversity but not prosperity, and those who can share prosperity but not adversity. To go with the flow of nature, we should find the right person for the right thing.”
She pondered for a moment. “So, the one you live with and the one you travel with can never be the same person?”
I shrugged. “If you go to KFC, you can’t expect a Big Mac.”
“Don’t you think that’s a particularly cold thing to say?”
“I just believe that things in life shouldn’t be forced.”
She kicked me off the bed. “That’s why one should never fall for a traveller. Should have never started talking to them in the first place.”
Travellers.
But historically speaking, we are all travellers. A few years ago, I met an old man who told me that when the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed in 1984, he couldn’t care less what would happen to Hong Kong after the promised fifty years of unchanged policy, because by 2047, he was certain he’d be dead, so the future of Hong Kong didn’t matter to him.
“Don’t you think that’s a particularly cold thing to say?”
“I just believe that things in life shouldn’t be forced.”
Ironically, less than half of those fifty years had passed when he was arrested for smashing the windows of the Bank of China. That was a story for another time.
I offered her a Margarita, she ordered me a Martini.
“What happened to you two?” the bartender asked. It was 2017, and he was no longer the young bartender I once knew, but now an experienced supervisor.
“A B52, please,” I .
“For her? For you?”
“For you.”
He mixed a B52 for himself and drank it, then gave me a Tequila Sunrise in return.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Hope for tomorrow,” he replied.
I never found out whether it was because HK Express became cheaper, China Eastern got pricier, or perhaps the Renminbi appreciated, but flying directly to Tokyo with UO became less expensive than transiting through Shanghai. Of course, there was a trade-off: UO flights didn’t have movies. I used to watch films on China Eastern flights. I can still remember one movie where a Westerner yelled, “Give me a break!” and a Chinese man resembling Bruce Lee immediately broke two wooden boards into four pieces with his knee.
“I give you two breaks,” he said.
Flying UO meant no more such jokes.
And also, I never saw her again.
On this trip to Tokyo, I brought all the lottery tickets I’d saved over the years and checked them against old newspapers borrowed from the library. Not a single one was a winner. Not even a consolation prize to refund the ticket cost.
On my return journey to Hong Kong, a colleague asked why I didn’t take the direct flight for 1,000 dollars, opting instead for a 2,000-dollar ticket with a layover in Shanghai. I joked, “I love China; I use Chinese products.”
After landing in Pudong, I went to the Panda Bar. Two years had passed, and she looked the same, hair in a bun, standing tall like a guardian goddess. But there were changes: she seemed to have been promoted, occasionally directing her colleagues. And she no longer wore a cheongsam, but a loose coffee-coloured shirt. After all, cheongsam wouldn’t accommodate her belly. Had I arrived two months later, she would probably have been on maternity leave.
“Hello, sir. What can I get for you?” she asked.
“A Gin Tonic and a corned beef sandwich, thank you.”
To travellers, airports symbolise the beginning of the unknown. The restricted area isn’t just customs; it’s a break from everyday life. Once you cross it, the world changes. A sandwich that should cost ten dollars is now twenty-eight. But taxed cigarettes and alcohol are suddenly tax-free. Kids who should be studying play games on their phones. That elderly couple, who would be embarrassed to hold hands on the street, now sip whiskey and exchange kisses, indifferent to the stares.
Of course, as an outsider, I don’t know if they are truly an old couple. I only see them kissing, just as I see a couple engrossed in something on their WiFi router, a woman yelling “Putain!” into her phone, a man writing intently, murmuring to himself.
They sit for fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, an hour, then leave.
Outside the window, the cloudless sky is blindingly blue, sunlight flickers on the plane’s body, and a yellow cart hauls dozens of suitcases from left to right.
The announcement calls for the third time: “Passengers for MU607 to Hong Kong -“
If only one could be in a perpetual layover…
A staff member with pigtails runs past, holding a sign and repeatedly calling my name. I’ve never heard anyone call my name with such urgency. To me, she seems to exist in a different dimension.
“Are you on flight MU607 to Hong Kong?”
“Yes.”
To her, I’m the one from another dimension. “What are you doing? You’re going to miss your flight!”
“Sorry.” I hurriedly follow her. As I leave, I glance at her. She doesn’t look back, just lowers her head, massaging her stomach.
At the spot she touches, there used to be a hole. The abaya we bought on a trip – I wonder what became of it?