Had to read 'Paris Friend' by Shuang Xuetao (双雪涛), published in The New Yorker on November 24, 2024, and translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang. The story is sooo contemporary that it almost felt like a moralistic tale, a warning perhaps. I giggled. Clearly, Paris isn't the author's favorite city. Neither is it mine.
It's set in an era where we don't have WhatsApp or FaceTime. It was just pretty much Friendster, MSN Messenger, and various channels of internet messaging without photos, video or anything. It's harder to verify information provided by scammers or weird humans. In this case, MSN was the chosen platform used to connect with people across the world.
Protagonist Li Mo, a reporter who lives in Beijing, somehow got to know Li Lu, a girl who lives in France, and is studying comparative literature. That's her story. Apparently Li Mo and Li Lu seemed to have known each other as kids, because their parents worked in the same factories, but in different work rooms. Li Mo was fascinated by her, her online persona. But Li Lu didn't want to swap photos over the MSN chat. He decided to call someone named Xiaoguo out of the blue. Xiaoguo as the son of a retired opera singer Han Fengzi he had interviewed, and kept in contact with. made a request for Xiaoguo to help him find out more about Li Lu, and if such a person indeed existed, he would get a visa and fly to France.
Xiaoguo is a Beijinger who studied Peking Opera, then went to Versailles, France to study film. Xiaoguo said he couldn't find out anything about Li Lu and asked Li Mo if she had asked him for any money or if he had bragged to her about him having money. Nope. Li Mo got his visa, got his leave approved for a week, and flew to Paris anyway.
Once Li Mo was in Paris, off he went on a search for Li Lu. He had some clues from their MSN conversations. Li Mo had loads of help from Xiaoguo and even people on the streets. Finally at the Chinese restaurant that Li Lu frequented, the older Asian lady boss gave him a well-known literature magazine; it held an article that he had written in Chinese, translated into French by presumably 'Li Lu'. All she could tell Li Mo was, this 'Li Lu' told her last week that she and her husband were leaving France. HUSBAND. Hehhh.
That wasn't the kicker. The point is, this 'Li Lu' was closer to sixty years old rather than being one year younger than Li Mo's late twenties. The ending was stunning. The revelation of who 'Li Lu' is left me gobsmacked. I wasn't expecting this to end this way. I was expecting a story about being ghosted. Sure, there're other underlying issues, and mother-son relationships discussed in this story. However, at the end of the story, all I could think of is, WOW.
The noodles were made in the northeastern way: cook them in boiling water with a little chicken broth, and when they’re almost done add tomatoes, greens, salt, chopped scallion, and cilantro. I had a bowlful and asked for a little more. I was drenched in sweat, completely recovered from my jet lag, light and at ease, as if someone had given me a shot in the arm. I could have run five kilometres right then. The owner cleared my plate, and I went over to the counter to pay my bill. She taught me how to make noodles like that, the owner said. Who did? I said. The person you’re looking for, she said. She was about my age, fifty-six or seven. I hadn’t expected that, I said. She’s suffered quite a lot, she said. She’s only been able to enjoy life these last couple of years. What does she look like? I said. I can’t describe her, she said. And there wouldn’t be any point if I did. She just sat there writing. I often saw her weeping.
My tears were also flowing, and no wonder: I’d had these noodles as a kid, and I knew only one person on earth who made noodles that tasted like this. A group of Chinese tourists with several noisy infants entered, and the owner went to seat them. I walked out with the magazine and squatted by the side of the road until I’d calmed down. There was a supermarket across the street. In a moment, I would go in and buy a packet of tissues, a bottle of water, and a set of playing cards for Xiaoguo. Maybe he’d let me interview him for the newspaper. Maybe he’d teach me how to play his game.
It's a good story. I scanned through author's thoughts on why he wrote this story. In an interview with the magazine, the author was asked why he would write this story. The author had an unoptimistic and realistic reply,
In your story for this week’s issue, “Paris Friend,” an aspiring writer living in Beijing, Li Mo, makes a friend on the Internet named Li Lu, who claims to be studying literature in Paris. When Li Mo enlists an acquaintance to track her down and eventually travels there to meet her, he encounters a world in which gangsters and gamblers brush up against doctoral students. What inspired you to explore this milieu of Chinese migrants in Paris?
Over the past ten years, I’ve been meeting more and more people who studied abroad—perhaps because of having moved from my home town, Shenyang, to Beijing. Back in Shenyang, many of my friends still live close to my old home. Recently, I went back to Shenyang to see my mother. While I was there, I met up with a middle-school classmate for a game of soccer. He still kicks the ball exactly the way he did twenty-eight years ago.
Many people in Beijing aren’t Beijingers, and even when they are they may not have always lived there. One of my Beijing friends was in Paris for eight years but claims that he’s never had a Beijing accent, not even before he left—he hates the way Beijingers talk. I decided to write a story about his time in Paris and had a number of conversations with him. He makes Paris sound quite close to Beijing, as if you could drive there over a weekend. I should make it clear that my friend isn’t a gambler. It’s just that I’ve been wanting to write about gambling for a while. I have the feeling that, in an era when all meaning is being swallowed up, gambling might someday become humankind’s favorite activity.
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