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Fai
In the book I am reading, 1Q84 by Murakami Haruki, the heroine Aomame has a childhood friend, Tengo, whom she knew at school when she was 10 years old. The two talked only once, but now, at thirty, she still thinks fondly of him, but never takes the trouble of looking him up. She finds it hard to explain why, but she confides in a friend that she believes she will run into Tengo on the street one day. Her friend points out that Aomame's notion(n.想法) is completely unrealistic (adj.不切實際的), and then adds, with a note of envy, "But how romantic(adj.浪漫的) !".
Stories are made of chance encounters, and so I am willing to bet that Aomame and Tengo will meet in due course(phr.適當時機). When that happens, I will be touched by the romance of it all. In real life, chance encounters are rare, but they happen. I can recall at least two instances in my own life where I run into people I know in unexpected places.
In the early 1980s, China had just opened its door to travelers from outside of China. In the summer months, throngs(n.一群一群) of tourists from all over the world would go there to sightsee. However, they were allowed access only to a handful of cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Luoyang, Suzhou, Hangzhou, while most of the country was close to foreign travelers. In addition, only a small number of hotels in each of these cities were considered to be good enough to host international travelers. Consequently, chances were quite high that international travelers would run into each other from city to city.
I took a trip in China in the summer of 1981. My first stop was Changsha, where I made the acquaintance(n.認識、結交)of several American tourists. In those days, tickets and hotel reservations were difficult to secure, and travelers had only a vague idea as to where their next stop would be. Yet, as I moved from place to place, I bumped into my new acquaintances repeatedly. We saw each other on the train, in the hotel, or at the tourist sites. Even if we missed each other in one city, we could count on seeing each other in the next. The joy of these unplanned rendezvous(n.會面) increased each time they occurred, and we took the opportunity to exchange notes of our travels. Even though we did not stay in touch after that summer, I still had fond memories of them.
Several years later, I was walking down the street of New York's Chinatown one day, when I saw coming towards me a fellow-student(同學) from my undergraduate days. We were not exactly friends when we were in Hong Kong. As a matter of fact, I did not even remember her name on that day, but meeting each other in a strange land somehow brought us closer together. We held tightly onto each other's hands, squealing(v.尖叫)with laughter, and began to hop up and down in place. We must have been quite a sight for people walking by us were giving us a wide berth. After a while, we settled down, a bit embarrassed by our sudden outburst of emotions. We politely exchanged contact information, and vowed, now that we were both living in the U.S, that we would stay in touch. As it turned out, however, we never heard from each other again.
Recently, I have taken to riding my bicycle for exercise. On alternate days, I would ride to Taipo and Ma On Shan. Sometimes, I wonder who among my friends in these two places would happen to be out on the bicycle trail when I ride by. There are one or two whom I would particularly like to see. I imagine jumping off my bike to exchange a few nice words with them before pedaling off again. So far, however, none of them have shown up. I am quite tempted to call them on the phone to let them know when I would come by on my bike so that we could have a chance encounter on the trail, but that would not exactly be a chance encounter, wouldn't it? ■bcmsp@yahoo.com
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