Page 45 of From Beijing, With Love

“I did. I mean, I do, but we’re not in touch,” Daniel said with a laugh—the obligatory one that he seemed to insert into most conversations. “My dad was an international student in Canada when he met my mother. My paternal grandma came to visit once from China, but it didn’t turn out so well. And after my dad passed away … I never heard from them again.”

“I’m sorr—”

“Stop, it’s fine,” Daniel said. “You are starting to sound Canadian with all those apologies.” Then Daniel smiled at him and Yang forgot his thoughts. Daniel tilted his chin toward the space around them. “Thanks for bringing me here.”

“Weren’t you the one complaining about us breaking in?” Yang joked.

“So we were breaking in. I knew it!” Daniel said with a laugh and a side of faux drama. He leaned back, stretching his arm out along the top of the wooden bench. His fingers nearly touching Yang’s shoulder. His tone softened. “Seriously, without you, I wouldn’t have been able to see the city this way. See his city this way. Thank you.”

The last two words vibrated in the air between them as Daniel held Yang’s gaze and Yang found himself leaning closer.

Stop, he admonished himself, and he pulled back before he did something monumentally stupid in public.

“Uh, you must be looking forward to seeing your friend soon,” he said, taking a hammer to the charged silence. “Poppy, right?”

“That’s the one,” Daniel said, his whole face becoming more animated. “You two should hang out. She’s kicking ass in Shanghai doing what she does best: selling promises she doesn’t have to keep.”

“That … doesn’t sound great. What exactly does she do?”

“Software sales. We both did comp sci, but I got into the doing side of tech, whereas she got into the selling side. Guess who makes more money?” Daniel let out a bright laugh. “I was kidding when I said that she sells promises that she doesn’t have to keep. She’s too good at her job for that. You’ll love her.”

“Careful. You are starting to sound just like one of my matchmaking aunties.” Yang chuckled, nudging Daniel’s foot with his own.

“Oh, I’m not trying to—I wouldn’t. Not when we …” Daniel’s big eyes blinked once, twice, before looking away. “Is matchmaking a real thing here?”

“Not just a real thing. It’s an industry,” Yang said, rolling his eyes. “The matches flooded in from the aunties the moment I finished undergrad. My dad has four sisters, so that’s a lot of aunties. Not to mention the ones who aren’t even related to me. Every single one of them has a girl I must meet—pretty, gentle, from a good family, educated but not too ambitious. Their words, not mine.”

“Do you like any of them?”

“Not even a little bit,” Yang answered wryly. Each time he refused to meet one of these women, the aunties would warn him about becoming a shengnan—leftover man. It was the same fear-mongering garbage that Chinese women had been getting for decades. Yang would happily sign up to be a leftover man if it meant being left alone.

“With my PhD, I’m too busy to date.” His standard response slipped out. Not the full truth but not a lie.

“And what will you tell them after you finish your PhD?” Daniel asked, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

Daniel seemed to be in a constant battle between a need to placate and a need for radical honesty. The latter had apparently just won, its blunt edges jabbing into Yang. Turning to face Daniel, Yang saw no malice on his face. He was simply speaking the truth as he saw it, and that somehow made it worse.

“Maybe by then, things will change.” Yang looked away from Daniel and toward the music. The saxophonist was doing his solo. From time to time, he thought about how much easier life would be if he just married one of those women. But he’d never be able to go through with it. A loveless future wasn’t something he could choose for someone else.

Daniel gave a sad chuckle and shook his head. “A lot of queer people have told themselves that.”

“Ku’er,” Yang said. He was met with a blank stare. “That’s queer in Mandarin. There isn’t a real translation for the word, so it’s been adapted phonetically, like a lot of other things imported from the West.”

“What’s it like for queer people in China?”

“It’s not illegal, if that’s what you are asking,” Yang said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. He didn’t know how to speak about the experience of a whole group of people in a country as diverse and expansive as China, so he stuck to the facts. “Same-sex marriage isn’t legal, but same-sex partners could pretty much get all the same benefits through other arrangements like wills and medical power of attorney. That sort of thing.”

“That’s not the same, is it,” Daniel said, his hazel eyes challenging. “And that’s not what I’m asking.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. That one in two people you meet on the street might say they don’t care if someone is gay—only in the big cities, by the way—but their tones change when it’s their own children? That queer content is routinely banned in mainstream media? That the only LGBTQ center in Beijing was shut down last year?” Yang said, surprised by the venom in his own voice.

“Are there any spaces where people can just be themselves? What about bars and clubs?” Daniel asked.

“There are,” Yang answered, and left it at that. He knew little about these places beyond their names and reputation, as he had never stepped foot in one, nor had he ever downloaded any of the apps. He sighed, looking away. “Maybe this is a better question for someone who’s more … open with this kind of thing?”

“How someone chooses to express their sexuality on the outside doesn’t change who they are on the inside,” Daniel said without missing a beat, with a certainty that made Yang envious.

“But how you express yourself on the outside is how you are perceived. We don’t live in isolation, do we? Just because we won’t be thrown in jail for it doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences.” Yang’s thoughts drifted to stolen kisses in a dim staircase and the boy with the chapped lips. For a brief moment, he wondered how Shanqi’s life had turned out. Ten years was a long time.