The Beautiful Country

by Katrina Hamlin

My name is Xiao Yu. I am nineteen.

I have eaten KFC fried chicken and onion rings, washed down with milk tea. Then I ate a doughnut, which is an incomplete cake with a hole in the middle.

I have heard rap, which is when you have a song but you don’t sing. I can do that at the KTV.

I have seen their TV show series, which are about real life, but with shiny teeth and hair and perfect love.

So I already knew quite a lot about the Beautiful Country when I met my first Beautiful Person.

The Beautiful Person, whose name was Sam, was still in some way not what I expected.

He was quite shiny in his teeth and hair, and his clothes were Famous Brand clothes. He said he sometimes liked a doughnut, and no, he was not upset that there is a hole in the middle. But he did not eat chicken burger because meat, because he felt sad for the chicken birds, and he said milk tea was maybe more English like British English.

He could rap or sing, and he did not speak like Wu Tang Klan, which was a pity, and many of my friends felt he was boring at KTV. He also said whisky and green tea made him sick. Then it did make him sick.

It was after the sick night, when we found he could drink beer ok, that I really came to know the Beautiful Country better than any of my friends because the Tsingdao helps him to speak more true.

Because we were talking about why he must leave the Beautiful Country and come to the Middle Kingdom, why the Middle Kingdom is ok. I said I thought he must like the bright lights, tall buildings, very modern technology places like Pudong.

He said he was a little sorry, but no, it was not for the development of our country that he came. It was more negative choice, because there was nothing for him in the Beautiful Country.

I asked him more about this, and told him to remember the famous brands and the television series. He said this is not really the Beautiful Country. But anyway, he said he meant more no girl friend, no job, no money. He was looking sad.

I told him clearly he can find these things in Shanghai, I could help him. So this is no problem, and he should not worry.

I said this because I wanted him to shut up about these easy to fix things, which made me boring to listen, to ask him about these not-Beautiful Beautiful things, the Famous Brands and KFC and etc.

So he explained that actually really life in the Beautiful Country is not always perfect and rich although people have very white teeth. He also explained that the KFC in the Beautiful Country does not sell the fried pumpkin cakes like they have here, which I think are much better than doughnuts since they have no hole in the middle when you buy them.

This and the Tsingdao, which actually I have not drunk so much of before, all this allowed me to see things much more clear. I told him he could live forever much more happy in Pudong, where I will help him to find a girlfriend and a job and a money, and also live in a very modern tall buildling with flashing lights.

He said thank you.

I said no need to thank me.

I said good night.

I will meet him again tomorrow.

The End.