I recently got a scholarship in China to start up my masters, adapting into a new environment was really challenging and trying to learn their language seems like a difficult task for me. Ones every week I visited the supermarket to get things that I need, one faithful evening I went out to get groceries. Each time I pass one certain building close to the super market, I always see this beautiful girl hanging around. It always looks like she was lost or waiting for someone, each time I look at her she always returned same energy, it was more like she saw me in a strange way.

One faithful day, I saw her again and summoned courage to go talk to her, even though I didn’t know how to speak Chinese. When I got closer to her I noticed how shocked she was because she never knew I would approach her, I tried using body gestures to make her know that I wasn’t there to hurt her, she felt calm a little and touched my skin with her hands pouring out an astonishing look, more like she just met a super star🤓. I had to open a translator on my phone so I could communicate to her.

Suddenly she spoke something jokingly in Chinese with a cute smile on her face, little did I know that there was a man close to us. I replied to her in English asking her what she said, so the man behind us came closer and smiled saying don’t mind the little girl. He said she asked me in Chinese “why is my skin so dark.” I looked at her and laughed I never took it personally because the Chinese people are welcoming and when they see a foreigner or black they get so excited to snap with them because they hardly see such kind of people often.

I asked the man why is she always sitting here and he said she lost her dad few weeks ago and this sit happens to be his favorite spots, that is why she loves coming there. I felt really sorry for her at the end of the day I got to know she wasn’t homeless, she lives with her aunty who has a shop few steps away from where she was sitting. But then again I felt she should be with her aunty in the shop, but who am I to judge. Everyone mourns their loved ones differently. We became friends afterwards and each time I pass by I always try to say hi buy her gifts and also got to know her aunty, She was such a beautiful soul after all.