Tiffany Huang at Electric Lit:
In Shanghai, I told myself I found my future husband while wandering past the mottled bark of plane trees under spring canopies in the French Concession. He was a Chinese American on vacation from San Diego; I was on a business trip while living in Hong Kong. We had attended the same university in the midwest a decade prior. I was starved for love after five years of failed attempts, so every coincidence felt like fate. He emerged from the shadows of a dimly lit hotel lobby in a collared shirt and slicked back hair. He was gregarious and made for easy company. On our second date, I felt an urge to flee at dinner, overwhelmed by his overeagerness and interruptions, but stayed. Was it so bad that someone was excited to date me? I let him drunkenly plant his lips on mine in a bar called The Odd Couple.
A few months into our relationship, it seemed the best way to close the long distance was for me to move back to America. It was 2019, and Hong Kong’s pro-independence protests had been intensifying for months.
More here.
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