Meet Stella: A sassy Asian-American who is slowly learning about the Beijing dating scene Meet Scarlett: An American 20-something who finds the Beijing dating scene to be fun and carefree Live their lives for a change …
Over the May holiday, I escaped the crowds of China in favor of the temptations Southeast Asia offers. As I had not seen my family in over a year and couldn’t resist a free vacation, a potentially carefree, sex-up vacation became a free chaperoned affair. Despite my initial skepticism about traveling on a guided tour with my parents, it ended up being a surprisingly exciting trip—not least because of a whirlwind romance with (gasp!) the tour leader.
As the group was composed almost entirely of geriatric couples, I was delighted on the first evening when a tall blond (who looked like he had just spent the afternoon surfing) introduced himself as the tour leader. Hallelujah—some eye candy. Yummy. Our personalities immediately clicked, and the daytime chatting and tuk-tuk sharing eventually morphed into post-dinner drinks in the various towns and cities we passed through.
After the third giddily intoxicated evening together, I decided to throw caution to the wind and be bold with my flirtations. The risk assessment registered as minimal—I had that “I’m on vacation” breeziness and, if he rejected me, it wasn’t as if I would have to bump into him at parties around Beijing every weekend and feel foolish. As we approached his hotel walking back from the bar, I made my move. “So … I have an idea,” I said coyly, glancing up at him with a raised eyebrow and a sly half-smile. Trying my utmost to mask my nervousness while sounding at least mildly seductive, I continued: “What are my chances of convincing you to partake in some late-night swimming?” Evidently my chances were good; we were soon half-naked and engaged in a sexy and somewhat illicit 2 a.m. make-out session in the hotel pool. Scandalous, I know.
The next morning, as he slipped out of my hotel room, heeding my playful warning to “be careful not to bump into any ‘neighbors,’” I rolled over in bed and wondered if this affair could ever be anything beyond a fleeting vacation romance. Work and my real life awaited in Beijing and, as my luck and poor timing would have it, he was leaving Asia to return to his home county and go back to school. “But he’s the perfect counterpart to Vanilla!” I agonized to myself, contemplating why I hadn’t yet met the Beijing equivalent of this tour leader lover.
I suppose one of the most exciting aspects of finding a lover on the road is the romanticism of it—falling head over heels for someone in a foreign country only to be torn apart shortly thereafter is like the script for an unrealistic, yet undeniably appealing Hollywood film. My tour leader was intelligent and worldly, kind, passionate about the countries in which he worked, shared my constant appetite for adventure and, best of all, is decidedly un-vanilla.
Eventually, though, the holiday had to end, and we finally parted ways in the quiet streets of Hanoi at 3 a.m. after our two-week, starry-eyed fling. I reluctantly let go of his embrace, hopped on the back of a passing motorbike, bid him farewell and whizzed back to my hotel to squeeze in a couple hours of sleep before an early morning flight home. Sigh.