A Token
Dear Eugene,
Last night as I was sitting on a bench in my church basement waiting for my daughter and her friends, I stared down a corridor probably for the one hundredth time in my life and suddenly recalled one of the most iconic cinematic images about loneliness, the hallway shot in Scorsese's "Taxi Driver."
My youth wasn't that happy, I talked under my breath and myself, as the sound of merrymaking however muted trickled through from the end of the long corridor, where another alley t-bones it and delves deep into the right, from where cheery talk of cleaning up after potluck, eager and earnest hope about the future can be made out in the airy draft of jingly laughter.
My youth wasn't happy at all.
Token. All of a sudden this word emerged from nowhere. But of course I knew right away where it came from.
When I was a visa student in Toronto, first time leaving family, knowing no more than a few dozen English words and certainly not how to arrange them to stay human, one time when waiting for the bus I saw another student a few years older holding between his fingers a thin round disc, like a charm pendant, a sheenless dime, and I asked him what it is.
Never seen one before? he said in Cantonese (we didn't/wouldn't speak English in our ghetto visa student "institution.") It is called a "token." You buy it beforehand and pay for your bus fare with it. No need to carry cash all the time--what trouble! The word "token" was accented in Cantonese, one Chinese character for each syllable.
It looked like a Monopoly coin, kinda plasticky but I am sure it was not. It had lost its luster in constant wandering, that's all. Disenfranchised.
There you go, kiddo, take this. He gave it to me. The name "kiddo" sounds even more condescending in Cantonese.
And there, I saw for a split second in his eyes, he handed me a token of his sympathy. How are you gonna survive, my little friend? as if he asked. I should have kept that token and pass it down as a heirloom. I don't know why I want to hold on to my shame but I do.
Alright, almost time. One youth emerged from the jolly lane hidden from my view and ran down the lonely corridor towards me. And then another, who waved at me. Life is simple, friendship pure. Eat. Pray. Love. I wish I had had the same luxury of simplicity when I was young.
Here comes my daughter and her friends. And there started my late evening milk-run to drop them off at their cosy home.
I have no right to reduce them to the kind of obviousness that I think they are.
Yours, Alex
Last night as I was sitting on a bench in my church basement waiting for my daughter and her friends, I stared down a corridor probably for the one hundredth time in my life and suddenly recalled one of the most iconic cinematic images about loneliness, the hallway shot in Scorsese's "Taxi Driver."
My youth wasn't that happy, I talked under my breath and myself, as the sound of merrymaking however muted trickled through from the end of the long corridor, where another alley t-bones it and delves deep into the right, from where cheery talk of cleaning up after potluck, eager and earnest hope about the future can be made out in the airy draft of jingly laughter.
My youth wasn't happy at all.
Token. All of a sudden this word emerged from nowhere. But of course I knew right away where it came from.
When I was a visa student in Toronto, first time leaving family, knowing no more than a few dozen English words and certainly not how to arrange them to stay human, one time when waiting for the bus I saw another student a few years older holding between his fingers a thin round disc, like a charm pendant, a sheenless dime, and I asked him what it is.
Never seen one before? he said in Cantonese (we didn't/wouldn't speak English in our ghetto visa student "institution.") It is called a "token." You buy it beforehand and pay for your bus fare with it. No need to carry cash all the time--what trouble! The word "token" was accented in Cantonese, one Chinese character for each syllable.
It looked like a Monopoly coin, kinda plasticky but I am sure it was not. It had lost its luster in constant wandering, that's all. Disenfranchised.
There you go, kiddo, take this. He gave it to me. The name "kiddo" sounds even more condescending in Cantonese.
And there, I saw for a split second in his eyes, he handed me a token of his sympathy. How are you gonna survive, my little friend? as if he asked. I should have kept that token and pass it down as a heirloom. I don't know why I want to hold on to my shame but I do.
Alright, almost time. One youth emerged from the jolly lane hidden from my view and ran down the lonely corridor towards me. And then another, who waved at me. Life is simple, friendship pure. Eat. Pray. Love. I wish I had had the same luxury of simplicity when I was young.
Here comes my daughter and her friends. And there started my late evening milk-run to drop them off at their cosy home.
I have no right to reduce them to the kind of obviousness that I think they are.
Yours, Alex
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