June. 09
I thought it’s always us, the plural, not just me. It’s said, things can only exist in one place at any particular point of time. Trees, buildings, objects, dollars, collection of Gods, particles, and animals cannot disobey the law of nature. It’s a contract you’ve signed up once you were created, no matter whether you like it or not, or understand it at all.
But here I am, drowned, puzzled, disoriented, while my body asleep. Us together, yet apart.
Where I am does not define me. A better question is where am I going?
A woman stands in front of me, waiting to be called. She is a blonde, with fair skin, in a black fleece jacket and her UGGs. Her right hand on the cart handle, while she glances around the Chinese supermarket. She is quiet. She buys hand sanitizers and facial masks from the Chinese supermarket. She’s used to a price higher than this one, also a bigger elbow space in other supermarkets. She carries a smile on her face just like the one on the Chinese cashier lady. They greet, and then without more exchange of words, the cashier reaches for the items one by one, checking out the prices. The line moves forward now. I see dozens of people behind me casually checking out items on the aisles and putting them back to the shelves. Everyone carries a shopping cart, filled with meat, vegetables, milk, eggs, and seasonal fruits. They talk casually in Cantonese because it’s their mother tongue. The blonde woman finishes paying for her cart of hand sanitizers and masks, nods toward the cashier lady and politely says “thank you” in English. The cashier doesn’t seem to hear, and turns toward me and calls, “next”. My turn.
The long line just makes me want to grab something extra when it’s finally my turn. I usually get a small carton of chocolate milk in the end, no matter if I am lactose intolerant or not. Besides, no one gets a customized lunch menu at a public high school in New York. That last station with nicely packed blue cartons of skim milk, and brown cartons of chocolate milk, is the only part of the lunch where I get to exercise my decision making skill. Today my lunch is a slice of pizza, as thick as a flattened delivery box, with nothing more than some watery and thin tomato sauce on the top, and a chocolate milk. The pizza tastes quite like cardboard, or maybe a pizza takeout box. I almost forgot about the nutrition pyramid, the one with a generous proportion of fiber rich food in the middle, and a thick proportion of carbohydrates in the bottom. That pyramid is posted on the cafeteria wall next to the entrance. Thanks to this pyramid, I am given eight boiled beans to meet my daily nutrition needs. I like to sit next to the window to have a quiet lunch, unfortunately that is a popular spot for many American students. They talk in English, laugh, and gesture. My secondary choice is next to the fat Chinese girl who usually sits alone. She reads Chinese books during our ESL class under her desk. She always welcomes me during lunch, and she’d talk about Chinese TV dramas with me, her face would glow.
//My own comments below
This is the first article of the diary series. I want to use stream of consciousness in order to tightly connect two separate experiences, one that is being in a Chinese supermarket during Covid-19, and the other in a NYC public high school during lunch hour. “Two worlds” presents two very short scenes from the perspective of “I”, who is a Chinese immigrant, and gives a glimpse into the two different worlds “I” am in.
