My Valentine's' Day Story

 My wife and I met in Shanghai China in 1984. She likes to say that we met at the airport in Vancouver and we did have a short conversation on the flight from Tokyo and she told me that she was from Sexsmith and I asked why and she said, it’s not so bad. I’ve got a boyfriend. I figured enough said. Fortunately, for me and maybe Nicola and certainly our kids, I hadn’t realized the full gravity of my charm. After all, she became my wife, an honour she treasures to this day.

You wonder how I did it. Well, first of all, I had a ride, and if you want to get a lady you gotta
have a ride. Mine was a dark green glider bike with a book rack on the back, perfect for a young lady to side-saddle. And my ride attracted a lot of attention. First of all, no one except communist officials and taxi drivers owned a car so there were only bikes and mine was brand spanking new. And the brand? Phoenix, only the best.  

We attracted a lot of attention being a couple of the few white people in the entire city of 11 million. Young folks would ride up beside us and ask if they could have a conversation. Nicola would say yes and they’d ask where we were from and we’d say Canada and they’d say, “Oh yes, snow.” Then they’d ask our name and they’d tell us theirs and then they’d say thank you very much and off they went.

 

Our favourite drinking establishment was the “Seaman’s Club” where we’d get hammered on Chivas Regal 12-year-old Scotch for about a dollar a glass. Occasionally, our friend, Aaron, would accompany us on our forays and we’d take the bus for about two cents apiece. One evening we left the club after the buses had stopped running and had to walk back to the student dorms where we were staying. Nicola and I walked arm in arm with Aaron tagging along commenting once how nice it was to be in love. Until then, I hadn’t considered the possibility.

 

When the six-week Education in China course ended, Nicola and I decided on a romantic voyage from Shanghai north to the city of Tianjin. What we thought would be a romantic voyage turned out to be a barebones trip on a freighter. Much to our dismay, we found ourselves in bunk beds sharing a room with dudes who got their jollies mocking us.  That said, nights spent lying on the deck sailing the warm South China Sea staring up at the most amazing display of stars was decidedly romantic. 

Nicola posing on the Great Wall 

In Tianjin, we stayed at a business hotel where we watched American businessmen making deals with their Chinese counterparts and wondering as to the wisdom of establishing a relationship with the Chinese whom we’d learned could be totally untrustworthy. In point of fact, we knew they could lie to our faces without a lick of remorse. Of course, they all weren’t like that. Mr. Ye, the Chinese liaison with our group was a guy in other circumstances could have become a life-long friend.

 

After a couple of days in Beijing, Nicola got on a plane back to Sexsmith and I took a train with a bunch of black hairs for Mongolia. I say black hairs because I was the only white person on the entire train. I kid you not. Once we arrived in Ulaanbaatar, I did meet a New Zealander of Chinese descent who made it abundantly clear that he was not from Australia. It was like somebody from New Zealand thinking I was an American.

Me, Nicola and Mr. Ye. 

 The very day I arrived back home in Edmonton, I got a call from this girl I’d met in China. To be honest, I never thought I’d see her again but, there she was, with her parents in Edmonton visiting her brother who was living there at the time. I was able to impress her with my other ride, my 1984, Nissan 300ZX.

Mine didn't have the t-roof. 

And the rest is history. Two years later, we’d take a taxi from Nairobi in Kenya to Tanzania. After avoiding cattle on the road, it would roll several times on the road and Nicola, lying on the savannah looking up the sky decided that it was time to have children.

 

And there you have it, my Valentine’s Day story.