Chapter 6: Boys to Friends to Boyfriends

Afternoons have always been pretty slow. Most patients that would come in or need care would be taken care of in the morning, and afternoons were usually reserved to filling out paperwork, and patients’ medical charts. Seeing as Lin usually took over these processes, this left Yuan relatively bored with nothing to do. She scribbles the remaining few medications onto patient records and puts the charts back at the nurses’ station. She’s never really enjoyed chit-chat with the doctors; they either never stop talking, or are too shy to say a thing, let alone flirt with her. Yuan usually goes out with some of the nurses in the ward; they giggle about various cute graduate students that just rotated in to work in the ward, or what new rising pop star is on the music scene. Yuan finds solace in these types of conversations about boys; she remembers how her mother said that marriages used to be arranged, and how she and her father didn’t really meet until a few weeks before the actual marriage. Yuan is happy that she now has the freedom to choose; not that the choice is very easy or straightforward. She knows that the social pressures of finding a husband have decreased dramatically; it’s more prevalent for women to marry later and focus on their career. What career?

As she waves goodbye to the other nurses, Yuan goes into her favorite coffee shop, Dio Coffee, and orders a mocha cappuccino. As she looks out the window, Yuan receives a text message from an old high school friend: “You’ll NEVER believe what news I have on your ex-boyfriend Guojun.” Yuan’s has had very interesting experiences in dating guys. She started dating probably right at the start of high school; the guys’ family background ranging from the son of a wealthy businessman to a boy whose parents came from the countryside as migrant workers in order to give a better education opportunity for him. Guojun, however, her latest boyfriend was different. Yuan replies, “This better be good, what is it?”