A Chance Encounter

By Zhao Yanan

When I was studying in Sydney, I often walked home together with a Shanghai girl I met in my journalism class. Once she told me that she was in love with a guy from Hong Kong. They met in a Hong Kong-style restaurant at Sydney CBD. She was a waitress at that restaurant, and the guy was an assistant in the kitchen, and his daily job was handling buckets of frozen seafood—clipping crab legs, or peeling shrimps. The work left him full of cuts and scrapes on his hands in spite of the gloves he wore.

He taught her to speak Cantonese and make seafood congee. He always escorted her back home after getting off work at midnight for her safety.

I heard her pronouncing tā (he/him) as “koi” for a full semester. She always addressed the guy as “koi” to tease him, as “koi” shares the same sound as “he/him” in Cantonese, and, somehow, she couldn’t help but laughing whenever she heard the word. On Christmas Eve of 2010, we had a party, and I finally met “koi” in person. He had a plain look and was of medium build. There was nothing special about him. Later that night, we played a game—everyone was blindfolded to pick a gift. When “koi” blindfolded her with a strip of cloth, he was very careful and gentle so as not to hurt her.

After graduation, we bade farewell to each other. I went to Beijing, and she went to Shanghai, but he stayed in Sydney. Two years later, I received her call one day and learned that she was getting married to “koi.”

缘 分

文/赵雅楠

在悉尼上学的时候，经常和一个在新闻写作课上认识的上海女生一起回家。她告诉我，她喜欢上了一个香港男人。他们在悉尼市中心一家港式酒楼认识，她是服务生，他负责在后厨打杂，每天做的事无非是侍弄大桶大桶冰冻的海鲜，剪蟹脚，剥虾壳，即使戴上手套，皮肤上也满是划痕。

他教她粤语，教她做海鲜粥，凌晨下班怕她一个女生危险，把她送到家门口。

我听她说了整整一个学期的“佢”。她经常打趣用“佢”称呼他，因为粤语里“他”写成“佢”，她看到这个词就会莫名发笑。2010年圣诞节前夜，大家一起聚会，我终于见到了这个“佢”，面目模糊，个子中等，没什么特别之处。后来玩游戏，每个人被蒙住眼睛挑礼物，“佢”给她蒙布条时轻手轻脚，小心翼翼把布蒙上，怕勒痛了。

毕了业，大家星流云散，我到北京，她回上海，他仍然留在悉尼。过了差不多快两年，有一天，她打电话给我，说是快要结婚了，对方是那个“佢”。

原来，她回上海之后，考了股票分析师执照，被公司派到港交所实习，临时在附近的太古广场租了一间房。一天下班，她去楼下餐厅吃饭，点了一碗海鲜粥，喝下去第一口，分明是熟悉的味道，跑到后厨去，看到了他。

如果不是自己身边真实发生的故事，简直不敢相信人与人之间的缘分有这么奇妙。她后来有一次聊天跟我说，其实一切也可以不发生，她当时满可以不去香港实习，不住在他告诉过的他家附近，不点那碗他曾经教她怎么做的海鲜粥。

说是缘分，却不仅仅是缘分，还靠着一点点主动，一点点希望。

缘分到底是不是一种迷信？刘慈欣在《三体》里说，一切的一切都导向这样一个结果：物理学从来也没有存在过，人的生活完全是一种偶然。世界有这么多变幻莫测的因素，人生有这么多变幻莫测的因素，总结起来，整个人类历史也是一场偶然。如果几亿年前有一颗小行星撞上地球，就不会有现在人类的一切。

It turned out that after returning to Shanghai, she became a qualified stock analyst, and was sent to the Hong Kong Exchange by her company for an apprenticeship, so she rented a room at the nearby Pacific Place. One day after work, she ordered a bowl of seafood congee at a restaurant downstairs. After taking a sip, she suddenly realized how familiar the taste was, so she went to the kitchen—it was “koi” that she saw.

This was a true story that happened to someone I knew. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have believed that such a fate between two people could be so miraculous. Later during one chat, she told me that everything could have been different—she could have rejected the company’s offer to Hong Kong, or rented a room further from his home, or ordered anything but the seafood congee that he once taught her to cook.

It was fate that brought them together, but not quite—there were also some proactive moves that lit up the sparks of hope.

Is believing in fate superstitious? In The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin wrote, “Everything leads to the same conclusion: Physics never really exists. The existence of human beings is entirely an accident. There are so many unpredictable factors in the world, just like in people’s lives. All in all, human history is an accident. If the earth had been hit by an asteroid hundreds of millions of years ago, everything we have today wouldn’t have existed.”

However, it is the one-ina-million accident that makes us believe even more in fate. How come you met this person today, and not that one? How come you’re working with these people, not some others? It’s all because of fate. No matter what impressions you have left for each other, you ought to cherish all that comes to you, as you have but one life to live, and not everyone in this world has the fate to be a part of it.

(From The Strings of My Skin, The Oriental Press. Translation: Zhu Yaguang)

可这种偶然中的偶然，只会让我们更相信缘分。为什么今天你遇见这个人，而不是那个人，为什么今天你是和这些人一起工作生活，而不是另一些人，皆是因为你们之间有缘分，不管彼此之间印象好坏，都要珍惜。因为一世也就这么一回，认识的人也就这么多而已。

（摘自《切肤之琴》东方出版社）