Xu Yang died, on his 49th birthday. Xu Yang and I weren't the best of friends growing up. We went to the same school for three years. He was a class clown, in American terms; 吊儿郎当的 — in Chinese terms. He appeared careless about many things. He smoked and drank beer, which many of us did in middle school. He was not a good student by grades nor by behavior, per school standards. He was one of those students that our homeroom teacher despised, maybe this is too strong of a word here, but you got the jest...
Xu Yang sat behind me for three years. During the first month, he would kick my chair repeatedly. I quickly learned that asking him to stop only made it worse, and he would turn it into something "funny" that I would find embarrassing. So one day, during our homeroom teacher's class, I caught his foot when he was kicking me, and tied his shoelaces onto my chair. I ignored his urgent request to untie it for the rest of the class. Then the bell rang and everyone had to stand up to show gratitude to our teacher. I could almost see him, hunched over his desk, struggling to stand up as straight as he could, with one foot attached to my chair... As soon as the teacher left the room, I walked away also...
Xu Yang's parents have more money than most of our families. He always had things that we did not, which, for me, is not a big deal. We all come to school in uniforms anyway. One day he walked in with a brand-new pair of "Nike" shoes. At the time, these shoes are not affordable for most people in China, nor accessible. And he became our teacher's target. She ordered us to write letters denouncing him and his lifestyle because of his shoes. I wrote a very short one, basically saying, this is none of her business. His shoes did not hurt anyone, why couldn't he wear them? His parents did not rob anyone to obtain the money, why couldn't they use it? ... I got in trouble, and so did my mom... I was too liberal, and apparently, so was my mom. "Those artists!" My teacher commented...
Xu Yang was a pianist, but he did not like to play in front of people. He had to listen to my practice a couple of times and always struggled to say anything because my playing was so bad. He always giggled with awkwardness, and said, in an almost apologetic tone, "well, this, this..." And all of these were unsolicited... Yes, he really wanted to say something but did not know what to say that would not make me feel bad ... I still remember that smile, that spark in his eyes, and the 无奈.
Xu Yang and I lost touch after high-school entrance exams, until 30 years later. A few years ago when I went home during the summer, both Mum and Dad, independently, told me that Xu Yang was looking for me. The first image that came into my head was the one of him hunched over his desk behind me... "Why?" I asked. "He said you were the only one who stood up for him in school", mum told me. So we re-connected. He is still that layback, he has two sons who are adorable. He still has that smile that he always had on his face at 12 years old. We talked about middle school years, about his time in France and my time in the US, about China, about faith, about our parents, about our children...
Our middle school friendship graduated into an adult friendship. We'd catch up once in a while, sharing pictures of our kids. Then one day, he texted me an old picture that he found his father's things, a picture we exchanged on the last day of school before we went our separate ways. We both commented on how young we looked, and idealistic. That was our last exchange.
Then yesterday he died, on his birthday, after 6 months of fighting cancer, on the same day of my organ teacher's passing, on the same day of my son turning 20... I don't know what to say, only... there is a little hole in the fabric woven by different people I knew, hopefully, time will allow memories to mend it, though not going to be as before, but will be, and one of many more to come...
Goodbye, my friend. Goodbye my childhood.
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