Unrecognized Language
by Gang Huang
I was a very eccentric boy in Ms. Soyasak’s Reading Class 6th grade. I sat in the same brown chair next to Ms. Souryasack’s overhead every single day. When there was a Silent Sustained Reading time, I would go to the shelf and grab a comic for the period while the others would read some complicated book. I remember that I actually opened the book and imagined a boat floating inside the page. Either way, I did not do what everybody else did. Well, most of the time. I did finish my mummy poster for the History project on Egypt and I did learn some of the Egyptian religion and history. But I spent most of my days in class doing nothing. I was a very special kid. When we were correcting grammar errors in class, all I said was that we needed to add a period to the sentence; I was way too lazy to say anything more complicated.
One Monday, during a nice cloudy day with some drizzle, we had a circle time. Circle time is an activity we did during Mondays where we tell each other what we did over the weekend. Everybody took their turn to talk about their boring weekend; one of them went to their uncle’s house in LA while another just came back from a camping trip to the Sierras. Of course, I didn’t hear these because I wasn’t paying attention to what people were saying; I was merely staring at the motion of their lips and tongues. We passed around a timer to whoever was speaking. When the timer was placed in my lap, I didn't exactly want to say anything.
“Hi people,” I said in a soft voice.
They were all surprised. I was so important that I usually didn’t say anything and didn’t attend in this pointless discussion. It was possibly the first thing I’d ever said in the circle.
“He said ‘hi people’”, one of them said; I believe her name started with an A.
I didn’t care what they said. I merely passed the timer to the next person. The weight of the stainless steel lifted from my hands just as my mind drove off to another dimension.
One day, Ms. Souryasack gave out a yellow, stapled booklet that had a picture of a sailboat on the cover. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was supposed to be and didn’t open it until I got home, where I found out that we were having a field trip to the Berkeley Marina and we were going to board a sailboat. I looked at every single sheet of paper in the booklet and examined every picture in there. More than once had I reviewed the name of different parts of the boat but failed to recall them. It occurred to me that my teacher and even the people in the marina must have loved me since they invited me to go sailing with them. It was an incredible sensation that I still cannot forget. The joy and dignity rushed through my veins, my blood stream, and into every single blood cell within.
On day of the trip, I brought money for bus along with a field trip release form that I was supposed to turn in a week ago, and came to school. Frankly, the money wasn’t for the bus; I didn’t expect to leave on that day but I happened to bring extra money for snacks. I left school with everybody else and their backpacks of different colors – I, on the other hand, had my backpack filled with binders and papers.
As we approached the Berkeley Marina on bus 51, I realized that I didn't have food for lunch. I searched through my wallet and found a pink school lunch ticket. This is useless here. We got off the bus when it was around 11am. We went to a model boat and reviewed the basic parts. It was almost as boring as watching the cow mooing. Then, I saw her.
* * * * *
I never asked her name. She was three years older than me. She had long, black hair that waved as the wind struck her forehead. She had pair of the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, eyes of the blue pearl, if such thing ever existed. On her body, she wore a blue sweatshirt and blue jeans. I didn’t talk to her at first but after Ms. Souryasack had a little chat with her, she turned around, toward me.
“Hi,” she said it in a language familiar to me.
“Hey,” I responded.
In this world of darkness intertwined with evil and greed, we were the only pure creatures alive - naturally, we became friends. We just talked. We talked and talked as if that if one of us stopped, the evil would consume and shatter us both. We talked about the ocean, the boats, the squirrels, the waves, the wind, Berkeley; we talked about everything.
“Have you ever wondered why the universe is black? I mean, if the nothingness is clear and does not have any color, then why is it black? Wouldn’t it just be clear all the way through? Unless there is an end to the universe and that is black,” I said.
“I don’t know. That’s an interesting question. I’ve never wondered why that is.”
“You know, you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen,” I said in a low voice that could only be heard by the seagulls.
We boarded the boat and the captain raised the sail. The boat slowly moved away from the harbor and into the Bay. The water was significantly cleaner than I remembered it had been. Every wave, every movement shook the boat. We decided to sit down next to edge of the boat.
“There is the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s so beautiful,” she said.
We toured around the bay in a counter clockwise direction. I could see the pointy top of the Angel Island approaching us to the right. I said to her, “That is where all the immigrants to San Francisco stayed. I can almost see the sadness coming from the direction. All the nostalgia, the pity, the determination, all of them were floating toward me.” Suddenly, a gust of wind blew on the sail and the boat tilted. The seawater poured onto the deck and all over the two of us.
“Oh no, are you guys ok? We need to get you guys dried right away. I don’t want you guys to catch cold or anything,” exclaimed Ms. Souryasack.
“Don’t worry about us Ms. Souryasack, we’ll be fine. The sun and the wind will dry us,” I said.
“Yah, Ms. Souryasack. Don’t worry about us. We will be just fine.”
As the boat turned around toward the Marina, I became more and more happy. The life is good, I thought. I wished the time will halt and nobody else existed. Then we landed.
* * * * *
As we reached the shore, I saw Dean Yamamoto standing there. He was a student at Cal and was my only friend. He sometimes came to our class to help out students.
“Hey, Dean! How’s it going?”
“Hey Gang, how was your boat trip?”
“It was great! I’ve had the most exciting trip of my life.”
Then, she came toward us and asked, “Who is your friend?”
“Oh hey this is Dean he’s my friend. He’s a student at Cal.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said politely.
“Pleasure is mine.”
It was break time so we walked around the shore. She asked him a great many questions. “How are your classes at Cal?” “Why did you decide to help out at Willard?” Questions and questions trespassed from her mouth to him. Every single word countered with another, from him to her and from her to him, the words floated around as if the spirits themselves were moving.
“So do you take foreign language in here? I mean, you already take English, so you definitely don't have to take that,” she asked.
“Well we do take foreign language. I took Spanish as my second language. Some people take French.”
“Oh French. How lovely. Such a beautiful language. I wish I could speak it.”
I followed them, mouth closed. I didn’t know what to say; I couldn’t jump in. I just observed. But every step I took was another step away from their conversation. Every second was another time away from their attention. I was only a foot behind them but I felt like I was lagging a mile behind.
After a minute, I opened my mouth, “Isn’t today a nice day?”
“Yah, it sure is,” she said with her soft smile.
That is when I realized. I recognized her smile, a friendly smile that she gave me all day, a smile that was given from a sister to her little brother. I finally understood, and walked away. I left them in the spot, and went into my world, a world with language that I did not understand. I went to a world of English.