An Unsent Love Letter from Chengdu

A love letter

Dear Z—,

Just like we used to tell each other many times, I wish you were here. Now I am in Chengdu, China. I am not sure if you have ever heard of the name. It has only been a few hours since I arrived, and I will be flying again to Kathmandu soon. Only two days ago, I met

Chris Jesu Lee

and his friend in Seoul. As we were having soju and beer around midnight, one of them—I believe it was his friend—asked me: “Do you really say that?” I was explaining that somehow, it gets much easier to hit on someone when you are not talking in your own tongue.

You already heard this one from me, Z—, and I am rather sorry to let you find out that I was sticking to my script. It goes like this. I say: hey, has anyone told you today that you have gorgeous [eyes/hair/dress/smile…] yet? About nine out of ten times, you will say: no. Now it’s my turn to say: huh, I don’t remember everyone in [the country you are from/the town we are in/…] being blind. It takes less than a second for you to figure out what I am getting at, and you smile. If you laugh—even better.

Yes, I did say you have gorgeous eyes back then, and maybe, you could tell it is my usual line. It still worked, didn’t it? Nevertheless, I can’t even imagine myself hitting on you or anyone else with the same line in Korean. When I speak in English, Spanish, Russian, or Chinese, it shows that I am not talking in my first language. This lets me say whatever I want to say.

All the awkwardness, corniness, cheesiness, etc., shall be forgiven as long as I sound light-hearted and foreign. You will just accept that I am making an effort in a language that is not my own, in most cases at least, and this makes me feel at ease. I lack that confidence in Korean, and a mere “hey” will make me feel so shy, or even ashamed. You need to be aware of yourself to be ashamed, and I have too good a command of my native tongue to stay unaware of what I am doing with it. I am actually most unabashed when I speak in contemporary Chinese because I am so bad at it. All I can say in it is practically no more than ‘Nihao. Nishi piaoliang, henkeai. Ni xihuan pijiuma?’ Hi. You are pretty, very cute. Do you like beer?

Now, Z—, you might be able to see the other reason why I am writing this love letter, never to be sent, in English, besides the obvious one that you do not understand Korean. You have never had the chance to find out what person I am as a Korean speaker, and you never will. You have only known the person that English lets me become, and it is his job to write to you, not mine. Despite that he and I have known each other for a quite long time, he still feels strange or foreign to me. You know him better than I do, possibly.

We decided to become strangers, Z—. It feels befitting that I am writing this in Chengdu—a foreigner in a foreign city writing for another foreigner, in a foreign language that is also foreign for the other foreigner and the foreign city. There can hardly be a better way to end things between us from my side.

Z—, you know I translate medieval Chinese poems. Although this is my first time visiting Chengdu, the city already held a special place in my heart before. It is the city of Du Fu, arguably the greatest poet of China. Just as one thinks of Neruda in Isla Negra, Tagore in Calcutta, and Akhmatova in St. Petersburg, I cannot help thinking of Du Fu here in the capital of the Sichuan Province.

Du Fu lived more than a thousand years ago. Many of his poems are full of grief, and it is not surprising. He lived through the times of a civil war, the An Lushan Rebellion. Even without the war, medieval life could be brutal enough. The years he spent in Chengdu, however, seem to have been one of the few exceptional ones when he was genuinely happy. One of his poems reflects the sentiment from the time of his life:

The good rain, knowing the time,

Comes forth as spring arrives.

[…]

Gazing at a spot, red and wet, as the day breaks—

The Jinguan Castle, in folds and folds of flowers.

“Jinguan” is another name for Chengdu. I did not get to see the flowers surrounding the city when I arrived here, but mellow rain was gently dampening the streets, its drops so small and light that they seemed to be freely fluttering in the air. It was good rain, indeed, and it would be proper to write that it just came forth like Du Fu did, instead of saying that it fell or poured.

It is still dark now, and I wish I could show you the dark streets here. The orange glow of the streetlight makes everything somewhat reddish. Looking around, you will understand that Chengdu is full of such spots, red and wet. The next moment, you will also understand that Chengdu is a city for lovers.

Well until 4 AM, I was having beer at a table out on the street, together with a guy, who happened to be sitting next to me, his girlfriend, who happened to be the bar’s owner, and the waitress, who happened to be practically running the place while the owner was just getting herself more and more drunk. (My terrible Chinese helped them open up to me and vice versa. I got to call the guy ge and he called me xiao Xian, found out the bar owner’s hometown is near where my grandfather was born, and got the waitress’ contacts.) I was also strolling around in the rain before taking a seat at the bar. Either strolling or seated, I could witness that Chengdu has so many lovers taking a walk together in the red wet streets, even hours after midnight. Chengdu’s night, seemingly, will never let the lovers grow apart, as long as darkness and dampness are there.

Z—, we used to discuss religions on top of literature. The first person to translate books by St. Teresa of Jesus into Korean, Fr. John Minsun Choi, wrote in the preface to the Korean edition of her work, The Way of Perfection, thus: observing young lovers in the streets, he concludes that lovers are fond of dimly lit spots. To whisper in love, lovers enter unfrequented alleys at dusk, not popular boulevards in broad daylight. I believe one does not need to be a believer of an organized religion so as to confirm his observation or comprehend its implications.

We had an explicit reason for our breakup, but being explicit does not equate to being substantial. In fact, what is decisive is usually implicit. Here in Chengdu, I was pondering what had truly led me to say goodbye to you. Then I realized: although we talked about many places we would visit in the future together, Chengdu was never on our list. To be fair, I found out I would be doing a layover in Chengdu only a week ago, but again, the visible city itself cannot the substantial reason. It just stands for what there truly was, though invisible.

Maybe, the problem was not our difference, and we did not even have to eliminate it or find a way around it. Maybe, just maybe, we broke up because we were not looking for an unfrequented alley, red and wet.

The rhetoric of the modern world seems to imply that being clear and honest about our thoughts and feelings is necessary for a so-called healthy relationship. (We may as well substitute the word “modern” here with “Western”. Z—, how ironic it is for us, no? We are both from a somewhat westernized society, and both of us have been more westernized—whatever that means—than an average person from our societies, but I am afraid we will never fully be part of the West as individuals.) It is not necessarily wrong to say so, but people who constantly stress it often neglect that a relationship does not equate to love.

Love happens in dim, damp alleys, but we wanted everything to be too clear for us. It is understandable why we were so. I speculate that it could have been because both of us had to communicate in our second language. It might have been different if one of us spoke the other’s native tongue fluently, but whatever we told each other had to go through double translations, English being its medium. We, accordingly, could not risk our expressions to be oblique or implicative, lest they turn into something we never intended, which killed their capacity to become suggestive. Directness may save a relationship but kills love.

I am seeing the daybreak in a bus to the airport at this point. The city is again wet and red, though in different shades from half an hour ago. Chengdu will no longer look like what Du Fu described in his poem soon, which forces me to conclude that it is time I end this letter. So, here are my last words for you: find a lover who will take you to Chengdu, preferably someone who speaks your language, or more preferably, someone with whom you do not have to speak a proper, concise language. Walk with him through the damp alleys of Du Fu’s city all night till the day breaks without much talk, and let your short whispers or gazes do the job.

Z—, we were not meant to be together in Chengdu, but I hope you will come to this city someday. Farewell.

Hyun Woo

If you enjoyed my work, you can buy me a cup of tea. I am not a coffee person, by the way.