Chapter 37 – Travel to Hong Kong – Something Like That… Want to Do? (One)

Every year, like now, when the holidays are long, I didn’t want to be alone at home, so I went on a trip.
After becoming a college student, I thought it would be okay to travel alone, and my feelings of not wanting to be alone at home grew bigger, and it became a natural thing for me to travel around China every long holiday or vacation.
I saw a picture of Gyerim Mountain and wondered if it was really like that, so I went there, went to Cheongdo, where Cheongdo beer is famous, and visited a beer festival, continued touring Beijing, or went on a trip to Japan…
As much as I like sports, I also went to Shaolin Temple and Hwasan.
It is a famous mountain in China because of martial arts novels, and it is very difficult to climb to the top… I was completely exhausted when I came down, but… The scenery was nice and it was fun.

While enjoying such a trip, I was well aware that I was the type of person who planned and moved very tightly, so this trip was taken very lightly.
I don’t have a big idea of ​​where to go, and I go to places that are famous in Hong Kong or eat whatever I want to try… I planned it to feel like a foodie trip, and I also researched a lot about transportation so that I could walk as little as possible.

My younger brother and I arrived at the airport around lunchtime by taking the airport bus, and luckily we were able to board the plane without difficulty, and we had a simple meal at the airport before boarding the plane.
What can I say, but… The coolest and most comfortable restaurant in Beijing’s airport is Burger King.
It’s right next to the entrance to where the plane departs, and there’s a bathroom next to it… The taste is also stable…
After a really simple meal, I set both my brother and my phone to roam and went to catch a plane with my brother, had a simple conversation on the plane, and ate the in-flight meal.

“Oh, I’d like tomato juice, please.”
“… Do you give me tomato juice on the plane?”
“It’s like a little hidden menu.”

It’s been my rule to always have tomato juice when I’m on a plane.
Unlike Korea, it was salty, and each pilot used a slightly different brand, so the taste was different… For some reason, there were times when drinking soda during flight made me feel sick, but tomato juice seemed to ease my stomach.
From Beijing to Hong Kong, I had to take a long flight that took almost 4 hours, and I left at noon, but I was planning to arrive at dinner.
I was accustomed to asking the flight attendant for a blanket, and preparing to fall asleep at any time while wearing an eyepatch, and my younger brother was curious to see me and asked.

“I think I have traveled a lot.”
“Um, I went quite a lot. Should I call it a trip? After entering college, I didn’t like being at home alone during vacation, so I wandered around.”
“I see… Who did you go with… ?”
“Huh? I was alone. I like to plan a little trip and see everything I want to see… I’ve never traveled with anyone in particular, ah, I have a close friend, but why do I travel so hard after going together… I’ve never been told that I won’t follow you again.”

After hearing my words, my brother’s face changed very strangely.
It didn’t look like anything, but it seemed like something bothered me.

“Ah, don’t worry too much. Going to Hong Kong is to have fun and come back… The hotel also changes to a different place every day, and you won’t be going to many places. Eat, drink tea, sit still and watch… I figured out how to eat again.”
“No, I’m not worried… That, a close friend maybe… Are you a woman?”
“Yes? Uh… Of course we’re friends… It’s a woman… ?”

After hearing that, her brother took a long breath, as if some great mystery had been solved, and his face changed to a comfortable look again.
Why the hell am I curious about my best friend… ? I didn’t know, but my brother also received a blanket and was ready to sleep at any time… After eating the in-flight meal, I decided to go to bed and I started explaining the places I was going to travel to.
And when the in-flight meal was served, my sister said it was surprisingly delicious, and she ate it.

“When I came from Korea, I came by low-cost airline… ? What was the in-flight meal?”
“Ask.”
“Yes?”
“There was nothing but water. I never really thought of tomato juice and stuff like that, so it’s a bit strange.”

There are also low-cost airlines like that… So, thinking that this is my brother’s first in-flight meal, I asked for a different menu from my brother’s, so I reduced my food a bit.

“Try this too!”
“Uh, ah. Then my sister also…”
“Oh, I’ll eat well…”

After sharing a little with each other, drinking tomato juice and going to the bathroom… By the time the plane was about to become uncomfortable, I reclined the seat a little and prepared to fall asleep.
I deliberately asked for a seat in the back when I was ticketing so that I could lay down comfortably, so I was able to lie down without worrying about the back seat, and my younger brother followed me and laid down the seat… I suddenly asked about my relationship as if I was curious.

“You said you’ve confessed many times before.”
“Huh… ? Yes. Hmm… Quite a lot.”
“Did you say you only dated Koreans and Japanese?”
“Romantic relationship… Should I say? Hmm… Dating is sharing love with each other… Because it says not sure… It didn’t feel like I was dating you because I liked you. I guess I was just wondering what it was like to be a boyfriend…”
“Aren’t the Chinese kids confessing more? Because I went to school.”
“Hmm… Yes. I think the Chinese kids were more interested in me because I’m Korean, and the Korean kids… When I was in high school, I spent more time at private academies with international students than at Chinese ones, but I must have looked strangely in good shape after working out all the time.”

In fact, whenever I receive a confession, I’m really curious, so when I ask why I like it… Most of them said that I had a very pretty body.
The more I think about why it leads to romantic feelings, the more I wonder if I’m only looking at it from a sexual point of view in the end… I just thought it might not be a good confession.

“Why didn’t you go out with Chinese kids?”

I pondered a little about my sister’s question, and honestly… I answered carefully so as not to sound too strange.

“… I don’t even think about dating…”
“Uh? Why?”
“That is… Can’t you hear it strangely? Hmm… Chinese kids, probably more than Koreans… Little interest in hygiene. Maybe it’s because of the gap between the rich and the poor, but the rich don’t, but China is very… It’s a country with a lot of low-income people. Oh, so… It’s going to be a long story, but to put it simply… Ugh, I didn’t even think about getting close to a kid who always had the Milky Way spread out in his head.”
“… Yes?”
“The universe… Eh, if it’s black. White… The stars are just…”
“Poop! Ah, ah, ah~ the Milky Way. That’s what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, no… Seriously, ah… It’s not racism or anything like that. After coming to college, that kind of kid… It’s really, really rare, but all the Chinese kids I saw when I was young were like that, and even if I confess that I like them, honestly… To my young mind, I felt bad rather than grateful, amazed, or curious…”
“Aha! Ahaha, ha, no… No, I won’t laugh Whoops…”
“Ooh, don’t laugh! It was a very serious problem for me.”

It was a really serious story when I think of the fact that I carried wet wipes to school every day in middle school.
The kids who were interested in Korean dramas and idols were also interested in my Korean bag, Korean notebook, and Korean pen… Even when I wasn’t in my seat, I sat down or lay down on my stomach, so I always carried a wet tissue and wiped clean before sitting down.

Seeing that, Korean kids were even more frightened when they saw kids who said they were clean, and I didn’t go to the bathroom at school, only at home, and even with that, there were boys who said strange things like Korean girls don’t even go to the bathroom. .
Thinking about it gave me goosebumps, and I shuddered.

Of course, not all Chinese were like that, and now China has grown and changed a lot, so there are many different sides… However, there were a lot of shortcomings in hygiene.
In fact, trying to cook for my younger sister every day… It was also because I was worried that I would eat unhygienic food outside.

“Ah, then… What about going to college? I heard you were clean in college.”
“… I can’t feel that I like you at all.”
“… Yes?”
“That, um… I am, anyway… In all the cases where he accepted a confession, even for a moment, he confessed very carefully… I’ve confessed several times, so I don’t know my feelings, but I think he really likes me… I thought about it and accepted it only when I wanted to.”
“… Yes. Then… Did the Chinese girl confess only once?”

It wasn’t… I was thinking about how to explain this… It’s a bit off topic, but I decided to explain the more specific cause.

“No… That’s not… Umm… It’s like a Chinese romance drama… Have you seen it?”
“… No.”
“I-I don’t see… Ever since I was little, Korean dramas… Korean movie… I’ve seen American and Japanese ones. Chinese ones… No matter how good and interesting the story is, I couldn’t see it.”
“Why?”
“Well, I watched it because I didn’t feel that way when I couldn’t speak Chinese at all… Speaking many languages, it was very… Chinese has a strong pronunciation, right? Some people take it with a slightly angry feeling.”

It was a very important issue for me.
It was also the reason why the more I got better at Chinese, the less I could focus on Chinese dramas and movies… In most other languages, pronunciation can change smoothly depending on emotions, but Chinese is difficult because of its peculiar vocalization called tonal tone.

“Well, it’s because of the tone… Do I have to say that I don’t understand the pronunciation or letters well… I’m not saying that Chinese people are bad or that they don’t have any charm at all, but I… I think it will be difficult. I must say that it is difficult to read such emotions in his voice… The conversation itself feels like there are so many errors in each other…”

I was wondering what kind of example I had to use to understand, and I came up with something that could be conveyed even a little bit, so I told my younger brother.

“Oh, for example, something like this. If you say tsu su tsu, tsu tsu, tsu su tsu in Chinese… What do you think he said?”
“… Yes?”
“This, this feeling… Are you. What I just said… ‘Fourteen lions ate forty-four’, he said. He didn’t say what he ate, and it’s a bit strange as a sentence…”
“… Yes?”

Really… Just like what I said to my younger brother, the words I just said were the same pronunciation, but the meaning changed as the pronunciation was different.
There are a lot of conversations like this in Chinese, so it was difficult to grasp all the meaning of the conversation unless you really learned it clearly… Even in college, when the professor writes on the blackboard, how do you write it? And there were times when I asked students.

I’ve lived that long, but as a foreigner, I still can’t understand the meaning of the language 100%, and it’s especially difficult to read emotions. It was hard too.

“Eh, this is bad or bad… It’s not that Chinese people are strange, it’s just a language difference. Should I say that because I speak a different language, I am not able to properly communicate in Chinese, which has a more unique structure…”
“Ah… I see what you’re talking about. Tsutsutsu… Tsu…”
“Oh, no no. Tsusutsu means fourteen lions, so it’s not tsutsutsu, it’s tsusu… Oh no… I did it like when I was tutoring without realizing it… Oh, are you going to take a pronunciation test after the trip?”

I unknowingly corrected my pronunciation, but I apologized thinking that I would get tired of doing this while traveling.
But this pronunciation… I really hate to speak Chinese, but it was also important, so after the trip, I thought I should teach it.

After a little conversation like that… My brother and I fell asleep.
And the plane rattled! I opened my eyes just as I was about to shake… When I woke up, I had already arrived in Hong Kong, and the in-flight broadcast was playing.