Diary of a Taiwanese in Beijing (note 2)

This is the second installment of translations from the facebook notes of a Taiwanese exchange student in Beijing. Read my preface of sorts to these translations, here.

In this note, Yi-jung bumps into friends from Taiwan who are now living in Beijing.

•

Meeting old friends again (6.3.2010)

Today and yesterday, I met some friends from my university. I was really happy to see them, but I thought that a half year having gone by, ordinarily speaking, our lives should have gone different ways. Besides the physical seperation of the Taiwan Strait, there was also the invisible wall seperating us online. They couldn’t use facebook, so we could only use MSN to keep in touch.* So [seeing them like this], I felt it couldn’t be true.

We strolled together around clothing stores, trying on clothes as we pleased. Talking and shopping like this was just like it used to happen in Taipei, but now it happened again in Beijing. This confused me as to when and where I was. The roles had switched from half a year ago in Tainan.** I had a very special feeling: aren’t we really just molded by our circumstances?

My friend told me: ‘’I think it’s fate, I thought we would never meet again.” I replied: “I think it’s fate, although I will leave [Beijing] in July, we will surely meet again in the future.”

•

再見面 2010-03-06

昨天和今天各和以前在成大認識的朋友見面，見面的時候真的很開心，不過覺得半年就這樣過去了，照理來說，應該就是從此人生分道揚鑣了，何況實體空間中隔著這麼一條海峽，而網路空間中隔著一道無形的牆，這種感覺，好不真實。

和著朋友一起逛著服飾店，隨意拿起來比比，這種情境和對話，好像在台北也曾經出現過，如今卻是出現在北京，讓我有一種時空錯亂的感覺。半年前的情境在台南，如今卻是角色互換，有一種很特別的感覺，我們真的是被情境所塑造的吧?

朋友說著：「我覺得我們真有緣，我原以為我們不會再見到了。」我道：「我覺得我們很有緣，就算七月到了，終將一別，將來一定會有機會再遇到的。」

___

* this sentence isn’t in the Chinese above, but was in an another draft of Yi-jung’s.
** when Yi-jung was a student volunteer at Tainan, helping exchange students settle down; now her friends are showing her around.