“I’ve wanted to be a police officer since fourth grade,” Hu Tie Han said. “I want to fight crime and uphold justice.”
I nearly spat out my tea. His words sounded like a line straight out of a police recruitment ad.
“Huan’er, what job do you want? Are you planning to be a psychologist since you studied psychology?” Yu De Ren asked.
“A psychologist? Spending every day with people who have psychological issues? No thanks. I want to work in public relations and marketing. I’ve already sent out lots of applications,” I replied.
“My mom knows someone at a PR firm—one of the biggest in Hong Kong. Want me to ask her to recommend you?” Meng Meng offered.
Three days later, I received a call from the firm inviting me for an interview.
The interviewer was a woman in her thirties who had once competed in a beauty pageant.
Her name was Mai Lu Si, and she was the PR manager. I remembered her from the fifth Hong Kong Miss Pageant as contestant number two, though she hadn’t placed in the top three.
“You’re contestant number two, Mai Lu Si?” I asked.
She was surprised that I recognized her and even remembered her number.
“You have such a good memory,” she said.
I remembered Mai Lu Si because my father was fond of her during the pageant and placed a bet on a horse with her contestant number. He won several thousand yuan, which we used to buy a new television, refrigerator, washing machine, and rice cooker. The four modern appliances in our home were thanks to Mai Lu Si—how could I forget her?
“Why didn’t you enter a beauty pageant? You have great potential!” she asked.
“Me? I don’t have what it takes, and I lack the courage.”
“Nowadays, beauty pageants aren’t worth participating in—they’re more like ‘ugly contests.’ Back in our time, every girl who competed was truly exceptional,” she said proudly.
“That’s true! I remember your cheongsam—it was emerald green with peony patterns, and it had lace detail across the chest. It was stunning.”
“Your memory is incredible; that was over ten years ago!” she laughed so hard she could hardly stand.
“When can you start working?” she asked me.
“Are you offering me the job?” I asked.
“You meet all our requirements,” Mai Lu Si said.
“Can I think about it?”
“Think about it?” She seemed surprised.
“I’d like to go home and discuss it with my father,” I said.
I went for an interview at another PR company. This one was smaller than Mai Lu Si’s, and I was greeted by a man nearing fifty. He was short, wore a friendly smile, and his office was a chaotic mix of magazines, newspapers, vinyl records, old Hong Kong photos, oil paintings, branded leather shoes, briefcases, and umbrellas. His desk was cluttered with dozens of antique fountain pens and a large jar of preserved plums.
“Want a preserved plum?” he asked me.
“No, thank you.”
“You majored in psychology?” he asked, flipping through my resume.
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“I had a dream last night. Can you interpret it for me?” he asked, biting into a plum.
To my surprise, this middle-aged man’s interview question was about dream interpretation!
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t an inappropriate dream,” he said, spitting the plum pit into an ashtray. “In the dream, I was endlessly cooking dishes—soy sauce chicken, sweet and sour pork, salt-and-pepper shrimp, or no, garlic shrimp, chili crab—dish after dish. The thing is, I don’t actually know how to cook. When I woke up, I was starving. What do you think it means?”
“This type of dream is usually experienced by women,” I replied.
He was startled. “Really? But I was a man in the dream.”
“If someone dreams of constantly cooking, it often signifies a desire to move on from a past relationship that’s hard to forget,” I explained.
He looked at me, astonished.
“Did I get it wrong?” I asked.
“No, it’s true. I just broke up with my girlfriend last week—well, actually, she broke up with me,” he said.
I hadn’t expected a nearly fifty-year-old man to still be unmarried.
“I really liked her—she’s only twenty-five. Single older men often get rejected by younger women,” he said with a bitter smile.
“You look very youthful for your age,” I complimented him.
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