Ning, in my eyes, is always a very competitive girl, full of ideas and energy. Her long hair up to the waist is as charming as her sunny smile, all showing her great confidence and independence. She also seems to be the only Chinese who are able to make friends with a group of foreigners, talking with them as freely as if she is exactly part of their group.
I met Ning on the first day for the enrollment in the International Student center. We therefore are very familiar and constantly talk to each other. Different from what I usually do, she makes few complains, but often listen to me carefully, and then says I really push myself too much,and all that I need is to be relaxed.
“I don’t think you can fully understand what I’m talking about, since you don’t have such kind of pressure at all, your life is so admiring!” every time, I didn’t go on, but responded her like this. She just smiled, and said nothing else as well.
I actually find she often takes with her a soft-plastic ball. Once I asked her whether it’s her mascot, she just said it’s a gift from one of her best friends in China, but didn’t tell me what it was exactly for.
It’s not until the week before the final exam that I saw her in the Hall of Fisher library. She sat there alone without any sign of smile on her face as I used to see very often. What had happened to her? She was the last person in the world to look so gloomy. I came to her and found she was kneading that ball with all her strength. What she was doing? I was very puzzled, and she was also so surprised to see me.
“What are you doing? Are you all right?” I asked her.
She gave me a weak smile, and then shrugged her shoulder: “Look, Joan, as you’ve seen, it’s by no means a mascot, but the tool for me to let out all the pressure.”
“Are you also under pressure? But I thought you have put everything under control, you could even make friends with those native speakers!”
“That’s exactly where comes the problem. You know, English is their mother tongue, just a piece of cake for them. They got extinguishing marks in all their assignments, but look at mine, no matter how hard I tried, I was still left far behind.” She sighed.
“I’ve never heard of it before, you didn’t tell me about your marks, I thought it must be much better than mine.”
“Much better than yours?” She raised her tone, “Jesus knows!”
“You are so marvelous in your listening and speaking, you know, every time, I even dare not to strike conversation with these local students for fear I wouldn't be able to understand them or made myself understood.” I added.
“But the fact is I got similar marks as yours, what’s even worse, these guys always talked about it, like, ‘Hey Ning, you need to work harder next time, we didn’t wish to see you fail’.”
“Oh, really? Maybe they said this with good will.”
“Yes, I know it, but don’t you think it put me into greater pressure?”
“You should have told me a bit earlier. Once you pour out everything, you will feel much better, like what I’m doing all the time.”
“But in this way, you also get another problem, say you are actually risking your self-esteem. To be frank, I don’t think you are as incapable as you often claim, but the fact is these native speakers are far more competitive. You thought you couldn’t do anything good, the more you think about it, the more your confidence slip away.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, my limited confidence has been flittering away, but you are different, you are always that confident.” Once again, I couldn’t help expressing my admiration for her.
“Am I confident?”
“Yes, of course, don’t you know your oral presentation last time even took these native speakers by storm?”
“But how many of you know I was almost killed by tension? When I went back to the seat, I even found my hands and feet were totally frozen! ”
“How could that be? You are the NO.1 among all the Chinese students, you looked so natural, confident, even the Professor said good when you finished it.”
“That’s because I am one of the best actresses in this world.”
“What did you mean by this?”
“Listen, Joan, there’s one thing I always want to tell you. How people view you is to a large extent depends on how you want them to look at you, and what you actually do to achieve this. Suppose you are even diffident in yourself, you kept saying 'oh,I couldn’t do this well, and that well.' Then what others would think of you? They are probably to take every word you said as true. This is also the reason why I have to force myself to look confident all the time.”
“I’m that kind of person who put everything truly on my face, such as happiness, anger, gloom, scared.” I explained.
“That’s not very good, let me show you another thing, do you know each time when I bid farewell to these foreign friends, I smiled at them broadly at first, but the next moment when I turned around, tears almost drop down.”
I was shocked, and could not say anything for a couple of minutes. I thought I could fully understand her, because I was always under great pressure, but maybe I couldn’t understand her either, because the truth was so shocking.
“There’ll still be a meeting today in the library. Come with me, and discuss with them about the damned assignment, ok? ” Ning suddenly invited me to join her in the discussion with these English-speaking classmates.
This time, I didn’t refuse her as I used to, though I was still filled with timidity. I was aware that in certain point, you have no other choice, but do whatever good you should do, even with disguise, say fearlessness, confidence, etc.
2004-06-18
