When Cliff Met Peiya

The first time I met Peiya, was actually not on the plane, but in front of Martha Cook, the all-girls dorm in University of Michigan. My friend Albert, who barely knew Peiya at that time, asked to enter the all-girls dorm to use the bathroom. Fortunately, Peiya was kind enough to let the weirdo in..that's the first time I could remember seeing her.

When I really got to know Peiya was in Jan 2000. Right after attending my cousin's wedding, I hopped onto the plane back to Ann Arbor. On the AA transfer flight from LA to Chicago, I was sitting by the window, reading my 侯文詠散文集, when destiny fell right in my lap. Well, technically, she sat beside me.

For some reason, I knew she was Taiwanese, and I had seen her somewhere (I have seen her before!), but I just couldn't remember who she was (where did I see her?), I wanted to know her name, I NEEDed to know her name! Being the shy guy... I didn't dare ask her name. Just as I was still frantically trying to squeeze every last bit of my memory out, she got up, and went to the restroom.

OK. So my memory failed me, so what, my brain was still working. The pretty girl had stuffed her plane ticket stub into the front seat pocket. Ahh yes... remember kids, never ever stuff personal info into front seat pockets. They get stolen, by people like Cliff.

Peiya Liao. Aha! Yes, the girl I've seen once in Martha Cook. She's my friends' classmates; she's Taiwanese, who lived in Singapore before, just like I did; and she's the most beautiful girl I've ever met in my life. OK, so now I'll just have to wait for her to come back from the restroom. I'll take a deep breath, introduce myself (hey didn't we meet before... blah blah blah), it'll be easy, we have common topics, it shouldn't be that difficult. Well, the thing is, she never came back to her seat. She just disappeared.

Luckily for me, I found her sitting by herself, during the transit in Chicago. So, I took a deep breath, introduced myself (oh hi! Peiya?) as if I knew her. She told me she wasn't feeling well, which explained leaving her seat for business class. We didn't talk much, we didn't have that much time, she wasn't in the mood to talk either. Later on, after we arrived in DTW, I offered to help with her luggage, which was jam packed with dumplings. Peiya the Polite told me I could get some from her afterwards (which I gleefully said SURE!).

That's how we met. And I'm sticking to it.