South of the English Channel

The first half of my undergraduate studies took place in Normandy, France. For two years, the perpetually rainy city of Le Havre hosted me, my awkward French and my growing assortment of rain gear: a giant red umbrella that held its own against howling coastal wind, boots with thick rubber soles and my secondhand yellow bike with a creaky chain that, by some miracle, never gave out, even when sudden downpours transformed streets into tributaries.

In high school, university was all anyone could talk about. After braving through exams, admissions essays and the fear that not a single one of the schools I had applied to would accept me, university (or “caw-ledge” … I did go to an American school, after all) represented everything exciting and terrifying about being close to adulthood.

Applying to university roused in me an agency that all my younger selves had always wanted. Of all the things I'd ever had, this was the most 'mine.' I decided what was important to me. I decided where to go. What a privilege to have such agency!

When the acceptance email came in my inbox, I screamed and jumped with joy, and forgot about that realization for a long time.

France! University! Every word describing my near future came with an exclamation point and a surge of anticipation. What would await me in that country? Would my field of study be as intriguing and rich as I had imagined? Would I meet the love of my life?

The first two days of sun which had greeted me upon arrival dissipated into rain and cold. Through sheets of rain, I trudged to and from my living quarters, almost always hauling a bag of groceries or laundry. My mother left, and suddenly I had to take care of everything, from meals to health insurance. On top of that, I communicated with strangers while only understanding 60 per cent of what they were saying, and experienced judgment for being a visible minority for the first time which, as a woman, also came with the quintessential uncomfortable interactions with men.

And then there was the rain. Torrential heaps of it, blown in from the English Channel. Between classes, I rushed to my bike and pedalled to the middle school where I had an internship, wishing I had windshield wipers to clear the rain off my face.

My romantic notions of university life were dashed. Forget poetry and gothic cathedrals — the first thing that made me cry in France wasn’t even anything cinematic — no, it was shitty bureaucracy and getting my 10th auto-generated email that made me burst into tears. I wondered if I had really made the right decision in pursuing my education here. Maybe my persistence was leading to something great, or maybe I was digging myself deeper into a hole with a pigheadedness that would just be exasperating in retrospect.

I drank plenty of warm teas amid the cold and wet. Kept myself warm from the inside, like my Chinese family has always advised. And with the rain keeping me indoors and my thoughts lurking close, I remembered applying to university just a handful of months ago. The decisions that were the most ‘mine’ of all my possessions — the possessions that could now fit inside a few suitcases.

But I could decide to see a different romance in life.

I began with the small things. The baguettes, no matter where I bought them, were always delicious — the crust always crackled, the inside always soft, always fragrant with the aroma of wheat. The tiny humans, to whom I taught English at the local middle school, grew to wave and smile at me once we became regular appearances in each other’s lives. Roadside berries were called mûres — the first new word I learned from a fellow student. I squatted by the pier and ate them that first September, and they were sweet.

I discovered something magical every time I sat in bed reading, holding a steaming mug of tea in my hand. It always rained in the early mornings, but by daybreak, the sky would clear into the most mesmerizing dawn.