The People’s Republic of Desire

101 In Search of My Own Story

As I walk down the street, I think of Mimi. I like her so much. Why is it she? Why is she the one true love of Len's life? Everyone has secrets, sweet secrets and deadly secrets. There are reasons why some of them cannot be told. And this secret about Len, it seems, I should never have heard.

What makes me feel saddest is that, with this love and that love swirling around him, what did I mean to Len?

His world is so complicated. Is there a corner in it for me? Len, a man with such soul-stirring love. In his life, I was insignificant. But I have rewritten my life for him.

I remember the first time I went to Len's office to have my eyes tested. He was so gentle and delicate, a doctor who really cared for his patients. I remember his wild look as we made love. I remember him holding my hand as we strolled along the Seine. How could this not be real love?

From Mimi's office at the World Trade Center, I walk west along the Avenue of Heavenly Peace, past the Nikko Hotel, the Jianguo Hotel, and the Silk Market. When I reach the Diplomatic Apartments, I stop a middle-aged man getting off the number 9 bus and ask him for a cigarette.

I don't smoke and didn't feel like it when Len left me, telling me that he didn't need love. But now, I suddenly, desperately, need something bitter in my mouth. At least the bitter flavor of tobacco could give me a kind of comfort. The cheap cigarette makes me start coughing violently. In the midst of a violent cough, I take a kind of delight in my self-abuse.

Jianguomen Wai. Such a familiar place. My office is right ahead, that yellow-brick building, a symbol of China 's 1970s modernization. There are so many new glassy buildings towering over it. I awkwardly puff on the cheap cigarette and walk through the crowds waiting for buses, selling newspapers, and begging.

I am a girl who collects stories.

A girl who lives on reminiscences.

The wind begins to blow.

It begins to rain.

One of Beijing 's unforgiving thunderstorms.

I stand in the rain thinking about my past in the States, and all of the experiences of love, lust, and hatred that I have seen in this world. After such a long period of mourning for what I lost by loving Len, can I put an end to this? I decide to resign from my job. I don't want to run away from where I failed. I should go back to the United States and face my fears. Some things cannot be avoided, and only through confrontation can they be resolved.

It is time for me to learn to love again, to be intimate again. When I first came back to China I used to think that real love was hopeless and I would be alone forever. But looking at my life in America through my new Chinese lenses has shown me otherwise. It is time for me to take a chance with my life again. Going back for a visit to the States was one of the best things I could have done for myself. The answers to the rest of my life lie somewhere in America. I still have unfinished business there. Even if I face defeat, I still have to go. Even if I have to search to the ends of the earth, I will never give up.

Every great story should have its share of risk. It is time to find my own story.