A one-bedroom apartment in 1990–92 Leshan, China.
A one-bedroom monastery cell in 2021–22 west Jerusalem.
Both contained minimal furnishings.
Both contained a critical paragraph of my life.
No longer my dwellings, they speak to each other across time and space I'm dwelling now.
*
Building No. 18—this was what my parents' bridal chamber was called.
Like all other buildings in the neighborhood: no names, only numbers.
Numbers weren't arranged by proximity though. A few years later, the one my dad got 300 meters away from No. 18 was called Building No. 7, where he would sleep with many women as a divorced man; my grandparents' was numbered 22 but was more than half again as far from No. 18 than No. 7.
Although at 11 I moved to Beijing to live with my mom and stepfather, Building No. 7 and No. 22 stuck in my memory.
No. 18, however, was nearly nowhere to find.
I tried—the back of my mind, the front, two sides... I'm still trying.
*
Neurologists hold that the unconscious wiring of the brain around people and space happens between ages 0–3. Consciousness comes only after this wiring is done—through sound, smell, vision, taste, and touch.
What we become aware of is shaped by what we can't remember becoming. We don't remember ages 0–3. They remember us.
So Building No. 18 as I heard and revisited many times as a teenager and an adult is not the same one I lived as a newborn, infant, and toddler.
It is unreachable by my memories.
But I won't let it go.
I'm desperate to get as close to my 0–3-year-old chamber as possible.
Where should I get started?
I have two stitched wounds on my body. One of them is from Building No. 18—a perfect starting point!
*
It is on the corner of my left eye, a tiny yet permanent scar left by hitting a sharp corner of a hi-fi speaker beside the bed.
My dad told me I bumped onto it when terrified by a nightmare.
He also told me both my face and neck were covered in blood.
"We were terrified, your mom and I."
"No, you weren't. Mom, I don't know—perhaps."
"You silly bastard. I immediately carried you to the clinic, running. You don't remember anything?"
"Nothing. Not even how I attacked the speaker with my eye corner. Not my blood."
"You dumbhead, truly."
Of course I believe my dad was terrified, but he was recalling it with a certain amount of amusement.
And I enjoyed it when he made awkward and horrible things that happened to me his teases.
And I enjoyed more when I teased him back.
*
This nightmare accident happened when I was one.
Yet there were two facts easily neglected from this accident:
First, my parents must have loved music. They probably even sang or danced together in their tiny chamber. Because they paid for a hi-fi speaker, which must have been a luxury for a couple in their mid-twenties just starting to work in 1990 southwest China.
And they paid for it among many other things they could have spent money on.
They were well educated compared to most people of their generation. They got good jobs—as an engineer (my dad) and a quality inspector (my mom)—in a giant state-owned pharmaceutical enterprise.
Decent jobs, not-so-decent salaries though.
That was their situation back then.
Also a situation in most of China in the early 1990s, except for a few cities in the east and southeast, where my mom would go and make decent money from 1992 onwards.
Second, their apartment in Building No. 18 must have been very small: one bed for three of us, a hi-fi speaker squeezed into the space between the bed and the wall, right beside the head of their toddler.
So the one-year-old me, I guess, indeed smelled the blood but also smelled her mom and dad who were sleeping beside; indeed was pained by the sharp corner of the speaker but was also caressed by the hands of her parents; indeed heard herself crying but also heard her parents' high-pitched yet self-controlled voices intended to console; and indeed saw the room becoming blurry but also saw the faces of her mom and dad clear enough to be them.
This scar thus brought to the one-year-old me everything needed to survive. More crucially, as I started to form sense-based consciousness, I somehow always believed I would survive any accidents or dangers. A recurring wired dream that I had since I could remember—approximately between 5 and 10—was that when chased by some bad guys, I would jump from a high building (at least the fifth floor) without hesitation and even with some excitement, landing safely.
The jumping felt almost like a show, a performance of my secret power, instead of an escape from—or the last resort to—the danger.
This scar is endearing to me as the only thing that existed till today as it was when I was one year old. Without it, my toddler years and the chamber in Building No. 18 would be completely untouchable.
*
My mom left Building No. 18 when I was 4.
She found out my dad's affair with a woman whose building number I can't remember.
My dad left Building No. 18 almost the same time as my mom—perhaps because he could not bear to take care of me all by himself.
So I stopped living in Building No. 18 at 3.
Unlike my parents though, I didn't leave No. 18—I didn't get to choose. I wish I could have lived there longer, at least into the age when I could remember it.
My dad moved to Building No. 7, sending me to No. 22 to live with my grandparents.
These three buildings were just a few hundred meters away from each other.
But when asked where I lived in my childhood, I'd immediately say Building No. 22, Leshan Changzheng Zhiyaochang (Leshan Long March Pharmaceutical Factory).
No. 7 was like a not-supposed-to-visit place for kids, where I'd occasionally go for a few hours and end up finding out my dad's secrets. New secrets each time.
No. 18, though, wouldn't get to reunite with me. Not even once. It became a place for the stories told many times by my dad, of a newly married couple fighting nonstop and their toddler either victimized by their fighting or hurting herself from a nightmare or playing by herself.
"Once we fought and I almost broke your mom's arm."
"Another time we fought again. You were sitting on a chamber pot, pooing. I kicked the pot and you literally sat in your own shit."
"One night your mom tore up the money I earned from mahjong; she said it was dirty. Crazy woman!"
"You were panicked waking up from a nightmare and hit the corner of our hi-fi speaker. You dumbhead."
"You enjoyed biting your toenails; I caught you doing that on the bed very often."
If these were all about my time in Building No. 18, it almost seemed a blessing that I was unable to commit any part of it to my memory.
Was it so?
But what about its impact on my nervous system?
Would I have automatically connected my needs or existence to my parents' fighting?
People look, sound, smell differently when they are okay and when they are not okay—be it upset, angry, or alerted.
Which, neurologically or subconsciously, means my existence is not okay, linking with the looks, smells, and sounds of my fighting parents. Or: whenever I need something, there will be trouble.
A 1–3-year-old toddler was forever in need of something, without realizing it.
*
But the amazing thing about the human brain in its subconscious mode is that it always responds to threats or uneasiness in a way to ensure our survival.
So I guess another thing in addition to my scar that I got from Building No. 18 was a dumbhead which desensitizes me to survival threats.
Ever since I could remember things, I have till now believed and told others that my parents' divorce was a wise choice, good for both of them and for me. No complaints, no self-pity.
Some would nod their heads, some felt sorry about it, yet others gave no feedback.
At first this happy-divorce narrative should have been automatically made by my unconscious "emotional brain" (thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus).
Over time, the narrative was reinforced by my conscious "wise brain" (prefrontal cortex, frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe).
So it has been THE ONLY NARRATIVE I told myself and others about my parents' divorce.
Closeness as threat. Separation as relief. I didn't know this then. I know it now because I can feel it: chest tight when someone gets too close, shoulders drop when they leave.
So the third thing I got from Building No. 18 was a split between my subconsciousness and consciousness regarding intimate relationships.
This split was soon deepened by the leaving of my mom when I was 4 and the random availability of my dad between ages 4 and 10, which my subconsciousness would read as: the base of my security is at distance, and seeking connection with distant people relieves tension in my nervous system.
This split would show up in every guy before KeKe. Different men—different countries, ages, faces. Same pattern: they get close, I leave.
I give the pushing away different reasons. Reasons that make no sense to them. Reasons that don't make perfect sense to myself either. But I give the reasons anyway.
The rationalization allows me to avoid staying with the uncomfortable sensations.
When they rise, they rise randomly. Unapproachable by hows and whys, these sensations nevertheless feed my sickness, if not fear, of intimate relationships.
And the fact that I wasn't aware of it or didn't think so made the split unbridgeable.
*
A scar at the left eye corner, a dumbhead to threats, and a split between consciousness and subconsciousness—Building No. 18 still dwells with me, doesn't it?
*
The monastery cell I lived in for seven months was like a bridal chamber for KeKe and me.
We moved into it on October 29, 2021, 20 days after we got married in Beijing, and four days after we relocated to Jerusalem.
Located below the Israel Museum and the Knesset in a valley of the monastery's namesake—the Valley of the Cross—the Monastery of the Cross has been by far the most unusual dwelling for me.
Unusual neighbors also: a Greek Orthodox archbishop, several Russian-speaking nuns, two Greek security guys working for the Greek consulate in Jerusalem, and a German postdoc fellow at Hebrew University who introduced me to the monastery and the archbishop.
The most unusual thing, among others perhaps, was that I lived in that cell for seven months without separating from KeKe even for one day.
"How did you survive that?"
A close friend once asked.
"I didn't."
I didn't survive it, because survival would have taken effort.
*
I remember we'd bend down to enter the monastery's 1-meter-high, 3-meter-thick arched gate to meet its cats, lemon trees, high fortification walls, and higher bell tower. But no effort for that as far as I can recall.
I remember KeKe learned to make hummus the first week we moved in while I was struggling to wrap up my PhD proposal—or him waking up at 4 a.m. (9 a.m. China time) to buy and sell stocks while I was still sleeping. Different things took over our attention in the same space. But no effort for that as far as I can recall.
I remember we had our Greek and German neighbors, our Israeli, American, and Chinese friends coming over for hot pot. KeKe would prepare everything except for the talks over the meals. Talks were all left to me due to his limited English skill. But no effort for that as far as I can recall.
I remember we danced tango a lot on a grey carpet we bought from Jaffa Street. Lots of teaching of dos and don'ts from KeKe to me. I did not agree with all of them. But no effort for that as far as I can recall.
I remember we sat on a rusted iron hanging chair on the roof of the monastery, overlooking the same view of the neighborhood over and again, while worrying about being caught by the nuns and the archbishop, as certain areas of the monastery forbade visits. We knew the rule; we didn't go by it though. We'd always greet the nuns and the archbishop warmly regardless of how distant or indifferent they appeared to feel about us. But no effort for that as far as I can recall.
So I didn't survive our monastic bridal cell—I lived it.
*
I'd never be able to know how I lived my parents' bridal chamber in Building No. 18.
I must have lived it very differently.
I must have lived it with lots of unmemorable effort.
I must have lived it to feel any effortless things so memorable.
I will not go back to either of them.
*
Now, the end of 2025, the apartment I have lived in with my mom and stepfather in west Beijing since age 11 is as dry and warm as before during the winter.
The heating system has been working well for 25 years.
How amazing it is! It suddenly dawned on me as I go barefoot on the wooden floor, whose tender warmth is the most pleasant and negligible.
I think I know what my mom and stepfather are doing and how they move around in the apartment, and vice versa.
I also think our lives are like three parallels.
Yet this apartment proves me wrong, doesn't it?
When something proves us wrong about something we're so convinced of, that thing must be a gem.
KeKe joined us in this apartment four years ago.
His presence didn't change the trace of the three parallels; didn't change the apartment either.
What else to expect?
His presence nevertheless makes me wonder about this question.
Wander about it with all my senses.
I go barefoot on the wooden floor. The warmth is pleasant and negligible. KeKe is somewhere in the apartment. I don't need to know where.