White-hot

I hate the heat. I hate the dry, hot air. I hate that smouldering sunlight that sticks the fabric of my clothes to my sweating skin. Slowly, as a long, hot summer day wears on, something about my mood will always begin to change for the worse. My nerves become frayed, patience starts to fade, and tempers become inflamed. As they did one boiling hot day in the middle of a heatwave.

My apartment was far too hot for me to stay inside much. I could open a window and hope for a breeze, which I would occasionally get. I could turn on the fan. I did both. But the air seemed so arid that it just didn't matter whether I stood in a breeze or not. A breeze in this heat was more like sitting in front of an opened oven door and hoping that setting it to fan bake would cool me down.

So I left my apartment for the university library, to study. I took my bag with some books and some paper, and left for the library, going through as much shade as I could on the way, staying on the right side of the street to keep in the shadows of buildings, which gradually grew shorter and shorter, underneath as many trees as I could, wishing that I somehow managed to live nearer the coast.

Some construction workers were sitting outside a Greek restaurant, eating lunch under an umbrella in big aggressive bites. I could see a large darkened patch on the back of the singlet one of them wore where the sweat had begun to soak through. Even wearing as little as I was, only a thin, loose top which barely came down to my hips and shorts short enough that I could only just make some pretence of modesty, I could already feel my underarms beginning to sweat, and when I wiped my fingers along my forehead I could feel little baby hairs already sticking to my skin. I hoped, vainly, that the myth that Asians were less prone to body odour really was true.

I reached the library after only fifteen minutes, but it was still too long. I went inside, and looked around for a desk, but at the time, it was a particularly busy part of the year, and that with the heatwave meant that I found none that wasn't already occupied. I sent a text to the friend I was going to meet -- Ju-Hee was her name -- to see if she was already here.

-- On my way, she replied.

She arrived about five minutes later.

'We could sit on the floor, maybe,' Ju-Hee suggested, when she saw that we wouldn't be able to find a seat.

That might sound like a sensible suggestion, since the heat was intolerable and you can hardly expect to get any study done when it's so hot you can't concentrate, but the library was so densely packed with desks that sitting on the floor meant choosing between either sitting between chairs or sitting by the shelves. We did actually try that for a while in the archival section, but it was so unbelievably uncomfortable and cramped that we came to a quick agreement that it wasn't going to work.

So that was that idea. Since it was lunchtime, and both of us were already worn down by the heat, and since stepping back out of the library put us again into the sun's direct glare, our plans took a little detour.

'Do you think we should just go to lunch first?' asked Ju-Hee. 'We can get out of this heat and then think of something else.'

I was eager to do anything that got me out of the sun and back into the shade, so I agreed wholeheartedly with that suggestion. We walked back the way I came to get here until we came to a little shop where we got some food and sat down underneath the awnings outside to eat.

'So what do you think we should do?' I asked between mouthfuls of a grilled salmon salad.

'I don't know,' said Ju-Hee. 'I don't have that much time left before my first exam. But neither of our apartments have air conditioning, and the library's full, so I'm not sure what we should do right now.'

'Actually,' I said as a simple idea came to me, 'we could just study here while we've got food in front of us. At least until they start giving us awkward looks.'

We both realised that was the best solution immediately available to us, so I pulled out the book I'd brought with me, and Ju-Hee pulled out her laptop, and as we ate we both managed to get at least a little bit done, and have quite a nice lunch while we did.

But it was lunchtime, and the restaurant started to get more and more people coming in to eat, so soon enough our time was up and we had to move on. We settled on the second-best thing to an air conditioned building, and sat under the shade of the biggest tree we could get.

Ju-Hee would tug at her top intermittently, She would fan the hem of her shirt up and down over her stomach to get some form of breeze, only to do the same again a few minutes later. I wasn't much better, and tried to ignore the heat as best I could, focusing only on the book in my lap. That was harder than it sounds.

At one point, Ju-Hee turned her head over my way round the tree trunk and said, 'Oh my God, my cleavage is so sweaty. It's like a fucking river.'

We both laughed a little bit, but even our laughter sounded exhausted. I fanned myself, and, again, I really wasn't much better than she was in that regard either. If I looked directly down, I could even see a single droplet between my own breasts, temporarily stationary, soon to begin rolling down.

As we studied I started to notice, from the corner of my eye, a group of mostly boys, plus one couple under a parasol who were standing around not too far from where we sat, alternating between suspiciously quiet and obnoxiously loud Korean punctuated with laughter so loud it was closer to shouting. I turned around to look their way, with what must have been a look on my face even more hostile than I'd intended, since I saw some of the boys were looking my way and slapped each other on the shoulder as I looked, with a typical 'oooh' that I'd long since come to hate -- I realised, after I'd already done it, that since my lips were so dry that they were much more parted that normal, and I probably gave them the impression of someone looking at them with anger or disgust. They were saying something in Korean, which I couldn't understand, but I could hardly imagine it was too kind.

Ju-Hee, who, by the way, is Korean, just in case you couldn't tell from the name, turned around and was about to say something, when almost from out of nowhere a guy appeared right in front of me, as if he'd been standing behind the same tree or something. I leaned back and craned my neck with a hand over my brow to see him without getting the sun in my face.

'Yes?' I said.

He crouched down and took off his sunglasses to tuck them in the neck of his shirt, pulling the shirt down low enough to form a V-shape on his chest, before he deigned to address me.

He said something in Korean, so I just shook my head while Ju-Hee leaned across and said something in Korean to him. Kindly letting him know that I'm not Korean, I assume.

He started again. 'Hey, uh... Nadia, right? I remember seeing you in class a lot this semester, but I don't think we ever spoke.'

'No, we haven't.'

He rested one of his elbows on his bent knee, which I think was a way of making his bicep appear as large as possible. Clearly, he went to the gym, and clearly put a lot of effort into his appearance, considering the way he dressed and the way he'd carefully styled his hair. He probably even had quite a bit of social clout in his own circles, considering the way that group behind him was behaving. Good for him.

'Dong,' he said, and extended his hand for me to shake, which I did. 'I just, uh ... you know, I see you a lot in lectures, and I thought that, you know, you're one of the most beautiful girls in there, so, uh ... ' He waved his hands about a little, and that cool exterior seemed to crack, and continue cracking the longer he spoke. 'You know, I just have to ask you out. We could get to know each other. There's a really great Korean place I know where the owner's a friend of my dad's, so I can take you there sometime. It'll all be on me.' He ended with what looked like a calming exhalation, and then his face settled back into a smile.

I really didn't know what to say. I don't know whether the heat had already fried my brain so badly I was no longer capable of self-awareness, or what, but I found myself only smiling back at him while shaking my head.

'I'm sorry,' I said, while unable to stop smiling so broadly I thought he was going to think I was insincere, 'but -- no! -- I just have no idea who you are. I'm really grateful for -- '

At that point he grunted and stood up, nodding his head at me, while turning to walk away. For a moment, I felt a little twinge of sympathy for him. I really hadn't meant to hurt him or make him think I was mocking him, and if I'd been able to get to the end of my sentence, what I was going to say was that I was very grateful for his compliments, and I really admired his bravery -- clearly, it hadn't been easy for him -- but he'd already turned his back to me and was walking back to his friends, shaking his head. Now his friends were much closer to where we were, and from my left, Ju-Hee grabbed my elbow.

'Just ignore them,' she murmured in my ear. 'Don't talk to them.'

I turned back around to her to ask why, when I heard one of the other boys shouting in Korean. I turned back the other way, to look at them, only to see that whoever he was, and whatever he was shouting, it was directed at me. Ju-Hee shouted something back in Korean, with more than a little bit of anger in her voice. There was a stumpy little girl under the parasol her boyfriend held over her who was giggling at whatever was being said, while Dong remained silent and impassive, looking at me from behind his -- oh -- he'd put those sunglasses back on already.

'What are they saying?' I asked Ju-Hee.

'Can't you even speak Korean?' asked one of the boys.

'I'm Chinese, of course I can't speak Korean,' I called back to him.

'Chinese,' he repeated, and laughed as if something about that was funny, and said something in Korean to the others. I noticed he was chewing gum while he spoke. 'So, Nadia? You just don't go out with him because he's not white, huh? You one of those girls?' and then he said more in Korean.

I knew I shouldn't have reacted to such a wild and petty accusation, especially from someone who didn't even know me, and I knew I shouldn't respond to that in any way, not even with a facial expression, but I couldn't contain myself and they did make that ridiculous 'Oooh' again as my face twisted into open anger, since my reaction obviously satisfied them very much. I looked over to Dong. He wasn't joining in, but he was hardly making a move to stop them either. I regretted feeling any sympathy for him.

I wished that I could do something, that I could think of something to say, but I knew there was nothing I could say that would spoil their fun. I refrained even from pointing out how ridiculous Dong's name sounded in English to avoid any chance of offending Ju-Hee as well. And that was a real sacrifice.

'Slut,' one of them said as I stood up and stuffed my things back into my bag. 'Fucking bitch.'

The two of us left. We walked away quickly at first, then much more slowly. But if that gave Ju-Hee, or you, the impression that I had calmed down after that, make no mistake: I was livid. The entire encounter circled around and around in my head. I'm Chinese, not even Korean. How dare they imply they somehow have more of a right to me just because I happen to be Asian? They don't even know me. I don't even know how they found out my name. God, I was furious.

'What were they saying?' I asked Ju-Hee.

'It doesn't matter,' she said.

'I want to know what they were saying,' I said.

'You already heard most of it in English,' she said. 'Just more of that in different ways. Stupid comments about a Korean girl using a white girl's name since they were too dumb to even know you weren't Korean. Other stuff like -- look, I just don't want to repeat it to you. Sorry.'

'Fine.'

'Just ignore them. They're the typical kind of guy I hate. They're the kind of guy that constantly talks shit about the tiniest little details of a girl's appearance, tells them to lose weight and get plastic surgery, and still expects a woman to come along to be a maid for them and do whatever they say whenever they flaunt their cash like you're their own personal prostitute. Just forget about those guys. They're not worth your time.'

At that moment, I felt so grateful for having Ju-Hee as a friend that I really couldn't express it in any other way than a modest smile and a quick hug while I rested my head on her shoulder. 'You're so good to me,' I told her.

'I know,' she said, and patted my head.

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Soon it was late in the afternoon, and then evening, and I was back at my apartment where the heat was still burning strong. I wanted to go social dancing later that night, which meant I only had a very brief window of opportunity to get to the gym before I had to leave. I quickly got changed into the loosest top I could find and some yoga pants, before setting out on a jog back to the campus gym with a bottle in one hand and a towel over my shoulder.

When I arrived at the gym, fans were set up all around the place.

What? Fans? What happened to the air conditioning?

There was a piece of paper stuck to the wall next to the entrance to the lockers. A note of apology. Due to unforeseen electrical problems, blah, blah, blah... I almost swore. I wanted to shout. But I remained silent. I wiped myself down from my run, took a long drink from my bottle, and swiped myself in.

All the windows they could open were open, and all the fans they had were running, but they might as well have just told people to deal with it if they didn't like it. All the staff's efforts to cool people down did nothing. This was peak time for the gym, and there were enough people who were determined to work out despite the heat that the gym was packed with men grunting as their muscles strained against the machines, and people panting as they kept their legs moving on the treadmills and bikes, and some of the mirrors even had condensation forming on them.

I wasn't going to give up either, so I got myself onto a treadmill, set the inclination, and started running. Before long, I could feel beads of sweat forming on my skin. All over my arms, my chest, my legs. But I kept myself going, as if in a trance.

I ran for forty-five minutes before I finally had to stop. I got off the treadmill and wandered -- more like staggered, considering my exertion -- back towards the lockers, through the weights section, until I felt my shoulder collide with something very hard. I yelped, and someone swore, in a very deep voice.

'Fuck!' said a man right in front of me, looking at me as if I were completely stupid. And, honestly, I felt pretty stupid. His dumbbells had dropped to the floor and he was shaking his arm out, as well as shaking his head. I noticed a few other people had turned to look at the commotion. He pushed back his dirty-blond hair, which he kept long enough to make him look almost like what I imagined a Viking might look like -- and then I realised, as you probably have too, that this wasn't the right time to be looking him over, whether I thought he was handsome or not.

'Sorry!' I said, holding up my palms.

'It's fine, just watch where you're going, would you?' he said, before bending down to pick up the dumbbells.

'Sorry,' I repeated, and continued on.

I went to refill my bottle, and then found a space to do some floor stretches. It was so relaxing after a long run that at times I would just lie there on my back or on my side for a minute or so between stretches and wait until the fan turned to blow over me again. After I'd stretched myself out, I went back to the lockers and grabbed my things.

And as I checked my phone as I walked out of the gym, in the middle of responding to a message from Ju-Hee, I again came to a thudding halt in my stride and my phone clattered to the ground, and I nearly did the same.

'Are you fucking kidding me?' came that same voice.

I looked up to see the face of this very same man with whom I'd collided not even twenty minutes ago looking down at me -- and I mean really looking down, because I was barely at his shoulder -- with his hair hanging wildly around his head. I scrambled to pick up my phone and looked up at him, mouth agape, wanting to say something so he didn't think me a complete idiot, but all that came out was a stammered attempt at a second apology.

'Fucking ridiculous,' he said.

I don't know what I would have done on any other day, but on that day, by that time, it was about six in the evening, and it was still hot, and my patience had vanished while my temper had only grown throughout the day, and even though I knew full well that it was my fault, and I was wrong, and he was right, I'd had it.

'Fuck you!' I said, almost shouted, back, and I felt my teeth really sink into the F. 'It was a fucking accident, you prick!'

His eyebrows raised in what appeared to be a combination of shock and amusement. 'Oh, I'm the prick? You dumb bitch, you can't even fucking see straight, either can't see or can't be bothered to look where you're going, and I'm the prick?'

I waved my hands in the air. I wanted to cry, or shout, or somehow hurt this bonehead of a man in front of me. I walked around him, but he seemed to step to the side, the same side, as I did, and my shoulder bumped into his biceps as I walked past him.

'Asshole,' I said.

'Try learning English, lady,' he said. 'You might be able to learn something besides your swears.'

I wheeled around and walked right back to him, and pressed a livid finger right into his chest, which I soon felt was still sweaty. 'Listen,' I snarled, 'you racist ... ' and then I found myself almost completely unable to think of anything else to say to him. I couldn't think of anything, anything at all, besides how angry I was and how much I wanted to show him, and it had struck me dumb.

He reached to my shoulder, and grabbed me even as I swatted at his hand, but he'd already closed on my other shoulder with his other hand too. His grip felt as though the muscles in his hands were made of iron, and for a second I felt as weak and as light as a feather, as he pushed me unceremoniously aside, and went on his way. I stared hatefully at his back as he left.

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When I got back to my apartment, I threw my shoes off my feet and tossed my clothes onto the floor. I got in a cold shower. Finally. Finally, a break from the heat.

I stood in the shower, letting the water wash over me and soothe my overheated skin. I almost moaned. I never wanted to leave. I put my hands on the wall and stretched myself out, letting the water get all over me. The thought of lying on the ground and sleeping in the cold water crossed my mind, and for a stupid moment it almost seemed worth the risk of drowning.

I washed my hair and shaved before I turned the showerhead off and got out. I had less than half an hour before I wanted to arrive for social dancing. So I dried myself off, and found the right shoes from my wardrobe. A longer red skirt to go with it: long enough to swish about, and long enough that it wouldn't come up too high and show much more than I wanted it to, and a very light sleeveless top.

This was held at a local bar, not too far from where I lived. Within walking distance, actually. Although by the time I left it was night, it still had not quite cooled down outside. I've compared the day to an oven before, so I may as well compare walking down the street at night to only a stove not quite turned up to full heat. Milder, for which I was grateful, but still not exactly pleasant.