"Fine. Bye!” I slam my laptop closed in such a rage. I have never been so angry with Ruiyu. I sit, in my bedroom in a strange emotional state, somewhere between anger and overwhelming sadness. The emotions battle each other, and seem to cancel, leaving my mind foggy and lost. I sit on the edge of my bed, shell-shocked, not thinking at all. It becomes very quiet. After some time, I snap out of my catatonic state of mind and move through to the living room where Gavin is relaxing. “I think I’ve been dumped”, I declare, sighing heavily. He looks at me, eyebrow raised, shocked, “Really, what the fuck happened!?” 

I collect my thoughts and start telling him the key points from my Skype call. The call started with me being overly light hearted due to an earlier discovery of an excellent long and groomed black run combined with the thought of weekend drinks. Ruiyu cuts this mood short. She was quietly crying, telling me she had just had a massive argument with her mum. I tried to console her, asking her what was wrong. We had been dating a year now, but her mum had just found out about me. Essentially, I am the problem. 

I am not rich and dependable. I cannot read, write or speak Mandarin. I have no family and friends in China. My family is not well educated or close. I am not a lecturer. I do not know the Chinese culture. I will not be accepted. When she told me all of this, my heart slowed down to a crawl, big, long and heavy beats. “But what do you think?” I asked her. She took her time replying, telling me she stood up for us, but she has been having these thoughts for a while now insisting, “we have to live in reality, I’ve been caught up in a dream”. 

She started to challenge me, asking if I had even thought any of this through. “Of course I have!” I reply, defensively, “What did you think I was doing when I asked you about careers, where we would live, raised concerns about the culture or emphasised how shitty it felt leaving friends and family behind? I brought these concerns to the table months ago, but you batted them down”. There was a long pause, I continued, “At the end of the day I’ve come to the conclusion it’ll be difficult, no doubt, but I would regret not trying far more”. 

She reiterated her issues: “How can you sort stuff for me in China? What if you can’t adapt and leave in two years? Then I’d be alone forever. What if you left after we had a family?” I tried to work damage control, putting forward my motivations for learning the culture, the language and finding a suitable job. I put forward how unlikely it’d be for me to leave especially after getting settled there. “But you can’t promise me anything”, she said, sticking to her guns, fixating on me leaving when she is middle-aged. I’m confused why this is even an issue at all. She doesn’t budge. She is not willing to disappoint her family or take a gamble on me.

My brain went into a flurry as I tried to make sense of what was happening. I followed up, asking in a snarky tone, “why would you insist on me coming to China for so long just to brush me off now!?”…”Sorry”, she says timidly, “I didn’t want to hurt you, I just didn’t think these things through”. I quizzed her, asking “why, if you’ve been having these thoughts, did you not tell me sooner?” Her response, "There was no good time. I couldn't tell you at your birthday, and I didn't want to be in a bad mood on Chinese New Year”. 

It is believed in Chinese culture; that the manner with which you start the New Year will dictate how the rest of the year will go. There are many things you do or do not do. You do all the cooking, cleaning and preparation the day before, so you do not cut, chop or sweep the good luck away on New Years Day. You do not shower either, as this is a sure way to wash the good luck off, straight down the plughole. 

I laugh….birthdays and bad moods. She has known she was going to break up with me for two weeks but acted as if everything was ok. I state that most of her reasons were for self-preservation, before going on the offensive calling her selfish for leading me on for months on end. I am devastated. She tells me that I should think about what she has said and she’ll call me in a week to discuss. Until then, we shouldn’t speak; she has a business trip to attend. I have already made up my mind. She wants this to be mutual; unfortunately, it isn’t. “Fine. Bye!” I slam my laptop closed in such a rage. 

“Fuck sake man, fucking Chinese culture”, Gavin says, “How hard is it to learn? It’s nothing special”. We discuss for a while longer before I say, “We’re still going out for beers tonight, although, I can’t promise I won’t greet”, I manage to chuckle slightly; covering everything in case I get in an absolute state. We buckle on our kilts before heading to the Amsterdam bar, managing to have a decent night all things considered. We slam the cheapest of cheap vodkas (it comes on tap) alongside plenty of craft beers, which gets us laughing with the folk beside us. The night gets real messy, fast and is followed by a horrible double dare to reveal a Scottish state secret, having an awkward chat with some racist Minnesotians and being chased from a club by the Whistler Mafia.

The next day I am taken as a hostage from the hangover from hell. I wake around 4 pm, staggering to the couch where I end up for the next 6 hours, watching various programs on Netflix before staggering back to my pit in the hope to recover for the next day of boarding. 

The next week contains various highs and lows. It’s strange not talking to Ruiyu. I’ve talked to her pretty much every day for the past year; it feels as if there is something is missing from my life. I find myself struggling to sleep at night, trying to piece everything together. Why had Ruiyu changed her mind so suddenly? When did it happen? What had prompted her to tell her parents? 

I remember asking her a while back why she hadn’t told her parents about me. She said it was due to the pressure they’d put on her for marriage, etc. “It wasn’t worth the hassle” was how she termed it. It dawns on me now; it was more likely the fear of an adverse response. So why tell them now? I just can’t figure it out.

When she was living in Shanghai, she seemed very positive about the future. I start thinking this might be because there was more distance between her and her family, leading to less pressure. However, I start recalling one trip she went on with her cousin to a Buddhist temple. She was bouncing during the Skype call that night. She was so eager to talk to me and so optimistic about the future. She told me about the fortune telling and advice that she and her cousin received from a Monk at the temple. He knew a lot of personal things about them and gave them deep and personal advice. She would not tell me what the Monk had said, but I had an idea it involved the future and us. 

Being a Buddhist, Ruiyu takes advice from holy people and psychics very seriously. She joked a while back that, her mum’s friend, a psychic, had asked her if there was "a new, and ugly man in her life" (me). She nodded! She was advised that she'll regret being with me as I would cause her great pain when she turns thirty-five. At the time, Ruiyu laughed about this, telling me she was accurate in some things, but not relationships. I start to think that due to Ruiyus move, back to her hometown, and the sudden jump in the Psychics presence, this may be the cause of her suddenly having doubts about me. I’ve had an anxious feeling about the Psychic for a while now, even joking with Gavin that I’ll need to get pally with her to influence her predictions of the future (I’m sure there is a Curb your Enthusiasm episode in there somewhere).

The phone call comes on Friday, as scheduled. I have had a week to simmer down, and I feel a lot calmer now almost coming to terms with the inevitable. She answers the call; she is on her phone, hiding in a garage at her Aunties house. The signal is spotty, fading in and out. Once the call had stabilised, I tell her how lovely she is looking. She blushes and giggles. It’s nice to have this effect on her still. We start off with some friendly chit-chat, catching up with how each other’s week had been before starting “the talk”.

The same points from the previous call come up again and again. This time, the emphasis isn’t on whether Ruiyu would risk it or not, as she put it: “If I were in China just now, she would want to give it a shot, we could both sit down with her parents and discuss it”. It was more on her parent’s disapproval. She had talked it over further with them, and they shot her down instantly. They cannot have a foreign son-in-law, if she goes out with me, the family will disown her. 

I feel for her, the pressure she must be under is insurmountable. She tells me, “I’m just as heartbroken as you, if not more”. She dries her eyes with her sleeves. “At least you can meet someone else and fall in love. My parents will have a huge influence on who I marry. The best I can hope for is someone who I don’t mind spending time with”. It seems too harsh to be true. Her parents obviously think they have Ruiyu's best interest at heart; a massive cultural difference that I didn’t realise existed. I find out her parents have arranged for her to meet a “Good Chinese Man” the following week. It knocks the wind out of me; this seems to be happening so fast. She could be married to someone else in the next month. I think we both feel the harsh reality of the situation and there is a long and silent pause.

I try to make the best of the rest of the phone call, I don’t want the last call to be an argument or overly sad, so I try to lighten the mood. I joke about my favourite jumper. I gave it to Ruiyu as a going away present to remind her of me while we were apart. “Ach, my jumper! I only gave that to you because I’d eventually get it back!” she laughs, “Still got time to make jokes, ay?” We reminisce about the good times, what we would miss the most and finally end it on good terms agreeing to keep in touch with each other.

I wipe a tear from my eye before heading to the living room to speak to Gav. “So that’s it man”, I walk over to the fridge and pull out two cans of beer. We chat about it over a few beers, and I let him know that some of my inclinations were correct. I had asked Ruiyu the questions that were haunting my mind about the advice she had been receiving from various Monks and Psychics. 

I found out that the Psychic had reinforced the idea of me leaving her after we had kids; this is why she was so fixated on this point during the first phone call. However, that wasn't the trigger for her telling her parents. Ruiyu didn't plan to tell her parents, her mum grew suspicious and confronted her causing a massive argument to ensue. I suspect her mum's suspicions arose because the Psychic was feeding her information, but I'll never have any closure on that. Either that or the eleven roses I sent her for Valentine's Day gave the game away. Following her argument with her mum, Ruiyu and the Psychic went to visit another Monk (the business trip). The Monk informed her that she should only accept me if her parents do, and they most certainly do not. I head to bed late, tipsy and pass out.

As time goes on, we start speaking less and less. Occasionally I get ignored for a week at a time. It’s rough. Gav and I have a conversation about it walking to the slopes. “It’s weird to be blocked out of someone’s life so suddenly. I feel as if all my plans have gone to shit” I grumble, “Have they gone to shit or have your plans just freed up?” Gavin retorts... I look at him and nod, he is right! This battered and ugly boat may have smacked a rock in the mist, but it still floats. I just need to plot a new course.