I‘m terribly embarrased about something. For you see, there is something about which I have not been very truthful. Some people might outrightly call it lying but I think lying is such an ugly word. I’ll just call it twisting the truth, though even that has a negative ring to it. How about an ‘imaginated version of the truth’? Yes, that will work. And besides, when you hear my reasoning for it you’ll totally understand anyway.

I’ve been telling some people about a Belgian girl I met named Linda who I have traveled a bit with. Now first of all I did indeed meet a Belgian girl and technically we traveled together a little bit. But her name was not Linda. And in fact, there were two Belgian girls but I cannot with full certainty now recall their names.

No, the true identity of Linda has remained hidden until now. It all started three months ago in a club near the Hong Kong border. Me and two friends went to a hotel there for a supposed party. The party was a bit of a bore as there was only a handful of people. However, among these people there was someone that caught my attention. His name? Eros. Yes, I know, a rather peculiar name but you can also applaud it for its uniqueness. Actually, his Chinese name is Zhang Jia Yi or 张佳毅.

Well, there we got to talking after a few drinks. And well, now, three months later we’re still talking. In fact, one could say we’re now a couple. I’m not sure why I’ve created the persona of Linda until now to keep it hidden and not just come clean with the truth of it right away but I suppose it’s because of the reactions. And because I’ve also been waiting to see where it was all going and if it was going to turn into something serious. Well, most of the traveling I did in the last few weeks was with ‘Linda’ so I thought it was time now to lift the veil. Sorry for the whole thing.

Anyway, now you’ll probably want to know some more. Linda (I’m sticking with the name and female gender here because of people from my work coming across this blog and I don’t want them to know) works in Guangzhou. She studied to be a director in Beijing and directs a Chinese TV show which I really don’t understand. Besides that she also teaches. However, every now and then we hit a little bit of a communication barrier because her English is actually quite poor. So it’s really speeding up my learning of Chinese. But despite she knowing that I don’t really intend to spend more than a year China she still stays with me despite my warnings.

So to just clarify again. I’m not suddenly straight. Linda is just a codename. This is the second of a series of stories about my travels in China.