Sarah's Corner

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A Love Story

If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say this poet lies,
Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.
So should my papers (yellowed with their age)
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue.

~Shakespeare (Sonnet 17)

This is a simple love story.

Most evenings, when there was wind hitting the trembling cracks on the broken windows, Tong dreamed about her father. 

As the wind chilled the windows with the wings of the night, Tong was brought back to the days when hope was lost and love was too much to afford.  

It was the early 50s in China, during the time the country was paying her debt to Russia. Internally, Chinese were killing each other. It was a very confusing time. The last dynasty had not been overthrown for very long. Before the general public had time to adapt to the new political concept of Communism, China was heavily in debt and seriously crushed by the endless civil wars.

Tong was nine then. The whole town was out of food. It was a huge, devastating famine. Tong's father was one of those people taken to the hospital as he was about to die.

The hospital gave Tong's father a little bit of rice every day. He was supposed to consume it as soon as possible. Instead he saved the rice in his pocket. He thought he could feed Tong with the rice after he get back home. Later someone carried him home; he died on the way. The rice dripped out from his pocket, which was torn in the corner. It formed a sad white thin line on the road.

So Tong had lost both her parents to famine.

Now, Tong was seventeen. She saved up all her money and bought a one-way train ticket to where everything was promised, Guangzhou.

The city was crowded, colorful and loud, yet also undeniably cold and ruthless. Tong was running out of money. No one would offer her a job.

Sadly she bought a train ticket for home.

It was a warm sunny day. The sunshine was generous and gentle. Tong was waiting for her train.

On the other side of the train station, there was an athletic young man about nineteen years old visiting his friend who lived in that neighborhood. His name was Sing.

All of a sudden, among the shades of sunlight, he saw the profile of Tong, who had the longest hair he had even seen. Something magical happened. He couldn't get over that moment.

Two years later, Sing visited his friend living around the train station again. Surprised and shocked, he found in his friend's house a picture of the girl he had seen two years earlier. His friend thought he was imagining things. There was no way someone could remember a person like that, with only one glance at her face two years before. But Sing was so sure that he was about to cry.

So his friend's father introduced Tong to Sing. He wanted to help Tong find a husband in the city anyway. Sing seemed to come from a promising family.

The first time Tong met Sing, she just wanted to run away. She thought Sing's lips were gigantically big. They were scary. Chinese lips seldom looked this big.

Later, Tong said she wanted to go home. Sing said he wanted to come along to see her family and friends. Actually Tong just wanted to run away and never have to see Sing again.

Since Sing insisted, Tong took him to the train station with her. Then she said she wanted to buy some candies and asked Sing to wait for her.

Sneakily Tong went to another line at the station and took a train all by herself.

After two hours of sitting sternly on the train, with the background whistling passing her at heart-breaking speed, Tong started to feel nervous.

She took another train and went back to where Sing was waiting. When she arrived, she found the train station was empty, no more line-ups of passengers. The sun was gone. There was a hint of chilliness in the air.

However, at length she found a grey body lying on a bench covered with dust, shivering.

And that was Sing waiting for his beloved lady for almost six hours, so willingly, so faithfully.