Photo Friday

Yesterday marked the 26th anniversary of Tiananmen, so that got me thinking about other June anniversaries. I’ve been married twice, although neither time has been in June. But I did move to Hong Kong one June 21 years ago!

That’s as good an anniversary as any, right?

In this photo I’m bidding my parents goodbye at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Back then I couldn’t fly non-stop to Hong Kong.

So on this trip, I flew Korean Air non-stop to Seoul and connected to another KAL flight to Hong Kong. It was late at night, I was excited to fly into Kai Tak after a three-year absence, but the American guy in the seat next to mine put me in a sobering mood soon after we started talking.

“Are you going beyond Hong Kong?” he asked.

“Nope! I’m moving there!” I was confident and felt very sophisticated for announcing this big news to a stranger. For all I knew, it was his first time in Asia and I was the Old China Hand.

Only it wasn’t. And I wasn’t.

“Cool,” he replied. “What will you be doing there?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, carefree. “I applied to grad school. But if I don’t get in, I’ll just look for a job.”

The corners of his mouth turned down. “It’s hard for expats to get jobs in Hong Kong now,” he said. “I lived there for a few years and my friends say that all the jobs are going to locals with the handover coming up and all.”

Surely there had to be some job I could do, I thought. But instead of replying, I looked at the seat pocket in front of me, as if that would suddenly produce a coveted job.

We didn’t speak much for the rest of the flight. When the plane was making its descent at Kai Tak, I looked over his shoulder to see the spectacular landing. The plane flew so low in a crowded residential area, it looked like were were about to hit rows of apartment buildings in one swoop.

But still my seat mate didn’t talk. He stood up when the seatbelt sign was turned off and said a quick “good luck.”

So I walked into the airport wondering if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life in quitting my job back in Washington, DC, moving my things to my parents’ new house in Chicago, and trying my luck at grad school or finding a job in Hong Kong.

As it turned out, it was probably one of the best decisions I ever made.