In the elevator at work last week, I ran into who I thought was another Harvard student I had met briefly a few weeks ago.
“Oh hey,” I said, “Haven’t we met before? You go to Harvard right?” I asked.
“No, actually I go to Brown,” she answered, “but great to meet you, I’m Kelly.”
A little embarrassed, I quickly recovered from my mistake and got to chatting with Kelly. It turned out she was in the investment management division at work, and a rising junior at Brown. We didn’t have very much time to chat in the elevator, and so we decided to grab coffee the week after to chat more. I couldn’t have had more than a two minute conversation with her, but I decided I already liked Kelly a lot—she was open, friendly, and assertive in an eager and ambitious way.
So on Friday afternoon, Kelly and I finally had the chance to get to know each other better and it turned out that she was originally from Hangzhou, China.
“I have a lot of family there too actually!” I said, excited to hear that she was from my favorite city in China.
“Actually, my dad’s cousin is the police chief there,” I confided. I remember having such a good time several years back when I visited Hangzhou for the first and only time, touring West Lake via police boat.
“So did you go to high school in the states?” I asked, wondering how Kelly ended up at Brown.
“I went to high school in China,” she replied, “but what happened was that I went to school for a year at a school called Tsinghua,” she explained. “Have you heard of it?”
“My dad and my grandpa went to Tsinghua!” I exclaimed, excited to find another point of commonality between the two of us. Kelly was excited as well, and we continued to chat about what she studied at Tsinghua, and how she later applied to schools in the U.S. and decided to go to Brown. After our short 15 minute coffee break, I immediately felt like I was good friends with Kelly, and we promised to stay in touch and hang out more often. As I thought about it more later, I realized that despite the fact that our conversational history was literally no more than 20 minutes total, the fact that we had so much in common was really what brought us close together. So here’s to another reason to celebrate your Chinese heritage—you can find instant friends and family anywhere you go, at school, on the subway, or in the elevator at work!
上礼拜上班搭电梯时遇到一位我以为是自己几个礼拜前所遇到的哈佛学生.
“嗨” 我说, “我们之前有见面过吗？你读哈佛对吧？” 我问道.
“不是, 我事实上读布朗.” 她回答道, “但是很高兴认识你, 我叫Kelly.”
有一点不好意思, 我很快的从我的错误中恢复然后跟Kelly聊天. 事实上她是在投资管理部工作， 明年要读大三. 我们没有很多时间可以在电梯内聊天, 所以我们决定下礼拜一起喝咖啡继续聊天. 我跟她聊天还聊不到两分钟, 但是我决定我很喜欢Kelly这个人- 她很坦诚，友善而且积极中带有一股渴望和雄心.
礼拜五下午的时候, kelly跟我终于有机会更了解对方, 而且发现她原本是从中国汉州来的,
“事实上我在那里也有很多亲戚！”我说, 很兴奋能听到她是从我中国最喜欢的城市来的. “我爸爸的堂弟是那边的警长,” 我对她倾诉.我记得好多年前我第一次也是唯一一次参观汉州的时候的快乐时光．我们用警察的船游西湖
“所以你是在美国读高中的吗？”我问道，思考着kelly怎么最后会在布朗.
“我在中国读高中的,” 她答道, “但是这样的， 我在一个叫清华的学校读了一年的书．＂她解释道．＂你有听过吗？
“我爸和我的外公也读清华！”我惊叫道, 很兴奋找到我们另一个共同点. Kelly也一样兴奋, 然后我们继续聊到他在清华所读的东西，和她来怎么申请到美国的学校并决定去布朗．大概十五分钟的休息之后我马上感觉我跟Kelly是很好的朋友, 我们保证会继续联络和相处. 后来想想, 我发现虽然我们对话不到二十分钟， 我们有那么多共同点才是真正让我们那么亲近的原因. 所以这又是另一个庆贺自己中国血统的原因- 无论你在哪一个地方: 学校, 地铁，甚至在上班的电梯里, 你都可以找到马上找到朋友和家人！