Jian couldn’t resist a good beard. A medium stubble got his attention and a full beard turned him on. A good beard though, to him, was not a goatee or mutton chops. Even Hugh Jackman couldn’t make mutton chops attractive. And he hated the Dutch beard with a passion. Luckily one rarely sees the Dutch beard anymore. He had never seen a single ugly person with a good beard. He kept telling his best friend to keep a beard.
“Grow a beard. It’s so hot.”
“Nah. I don’t like it.” Jake always shrugged it off. Jake was always clean shaven but Jian had seen photos of him with a beard from a few years ago, before they had met.
“Ugh, you actually can, and you don’t want to?”
They met on an app called Jack’d. It’s like Grindr, but less well known. In one of Jake’s photos he had a full beard. He was wearing a farmer’s hat, feeding an elephant in one of the elephant parks in Chiang Mai. It was one of the ethical elephant sanctuaries, Jake stressed that when they met for a date. Jake was conscious about a lot of things that Jian didn’t know or care about. Jian knew nothing about the indigenous peoples in Canada and their struggles. He didn’t know about the residential schools. Nor did he know about the Chinese railway workers in North America. He learned all that through Jake. There was indeed a lot to like about Jake. He was genuine, had a charming smile and a great sense of humor. As they got to know each other more, Jake became funnier and his humor also got more personal. He started to make a little fun of Jian’s accent, in an endearing way that Jian had not thought possible. Still Jian was displeased whenever it happened and always responded, “fuck you Jake”.
Yet they never fucked. Despite all the good qualities that Jake possessed, he lacked one thing very important — the beard. And bearded guys were abundant in Toronto. Jian first dated Simon, who had a nice beard but was quite arrogant. Simon had opinions. Lots of them. About anything and anyone. Jake wasn’t a fan. After Simon, Jian dated Rohan for three years. Rohan had a fantastic beard and was a great lover. Jake approved and joked, “listening to you guys speaking English to each other, it feels so wrong yet so right”. To which, both Jian and Rohan responded, “fuck you Jake.” While Jian was madly in love with Rohan, he didn’t share the same enthusiasm for having a kid together. With just over 100k USD, Rohan told him, they could have a kid through surrogacy south of the border. Having worked in the tech industry for a few years, they did save enough money. However, the idea of surrogacy irked Jian, but more importantly he was enjoying life, not at all ready to give up his freedom. He had just started checking off places from his long traveling bucket list. He hadn’t even been to Switzerland.
Rohan tried all he could. He explained how special the bond between parent and child was. How a kid could help both of them grow. How they could share the beauty and wonder of the world to their child and how amazing it would be to watch the child grow into their own person. Rohan was ready to get up at 3am to care for a new being and read bedtime stories to it. Jian wasn’t and wasn’t sure he ever would be. In the end there was nothing left to talk about, so Rohan packed all his stuff and moved out.
“You’ll meet someone more compatible!” Jake wrote to him from Vancouver. “I’m super busy at work so I can’t visit you, but you should come visit me and Kevin!”
Jake had moved to Vancouver two years before and told him about the amazing weather, great beaches and all the hot asian guys there. Kevin, a Taiwanese, was one of them. They came to visit Toronto in the summer and Rohan had asked their opinions about kids. No and no.
Jian was in no mood to see anyone, so instead, he booked a flight to Shanghai, one of the few Chinese cities he liked. Occasionally he had thought about what life would be like for him if he had stayed in China. He probably would have moved to Shanghai. He looked outside the taxi window. Skyscrapers, shops, restaurants, and other people living their lives. He wondered if they were happy here. He knew he wouldn’t be and that was why he even didn’t bother trying. Instead, he left for Canada, where he thought he would have a chance. Now he wondered if that made a difference at all. Maybe happy people can be happy anywhere while unhappy people find suffering even in paradise. There was too much to think about and he had too little energy left. When the taxi arrived at his hotel, he was almost asleep.
He collapsed into the bed as soon as he entered his hotel room, exhausted from the 14-hour flight. He could never sleep in a plane no matter how hard he tried. He rewatched Harry Potter movies on the plane for the one hundredth time. Before he closed his eyes, he connected to the hotel wifi and opened Grindr. It’s just good practice — it’s like before one takes a shower, one turns on the kettle so when one steps out of the shower, they would be ready to make a tea. Jian liked life hacks.
Jian woke up at 6pm, two hours later. He took a look at Grindr. 35 new messages. Not bad. There were some nice bodies and great smiles but one really attracted his attention — a Chinese guy with a full beard.
Once he made a concrete plan with David, the bearded Chinese, he sent a message to the ginger he was also chatting to. “Sorry, I’m feeling exhausted after a long flight, maybe we can meet up tomorrow?” It was a lie with some truth in it. Jian was sure there were enough Chinese In Shanghai for a ginger to choose from. Everyone is obsessed with gingers but a Chinese with that kind of beard David has is equally rare, if not more so. Jian had looked through David’s instagram and that beard looked great in each and every selfie. No, no, no, Jian shaked his head while scrolling through David’s Instagram feed, as good as your bearded selfies look, David, you gotta diversify your feed. Some nature doesn’t hurt. Put a mountain or two there.
David lived in an apartment building in Jing’an district and owned a British Shorthair called Mia. While petting Mia, Jian couldn’t help but ask, “where is your hometown? It’s really uncommon to have a beard like yours.” Jian felt guilty asking the question because he always felt weird when people asked whether he was really from China because of his height. “You’re tall for a Chinese.” “Are you sure you’re 100% Chinese?”
“Ah, no, I used to have little facial hair. Then I started using Minoxidil. It took more than two years.” David smiled. “It’s all worth it.”
I bet it’s worth it, Jian thought to himself while looking at David intensely.
“Holy shit.” Jake exclaimed when he saw Jian coming to their table, “is that… real?”
“Oh yeah. It’s 100% real.” Jian sat down.
He moved his hand over the beard on his cheek. “Want to feel it?”
Jake touched the beard on Jian’s left cheek. “Wow, you have really done the impossible.”
They were meeting for lunch for the first time since Jake moved back to Toronto from Taiwan. He had moved to Taiwan with Kevin. After a year, he realized it wasn’t working.
“We met for the first time in this restaurant. Right?” Jake said. “Nine years ago.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. It was not a dim sum place at the time.”
“It was sushi.”
“Yeah, sushi.”
“And you had never had sushi before.” Jake laughed. “I couldn’t believe it.”
“I never had dim sum before that either. Or ramen. Or pho. Or kebab.” Now that Jian thought about it, Canada had every kind of cuisine. “Or the disgusting poutine.”
“You’re going to offend the Francophone.”
Jian shrugged. They decided what to order and handed over the sheet to the waitress.
Jian poured them jasmine tea and took a sip. He looked at Jake and saw the traces time had left on his face. For one reason or another, they hadn’t seen each other for three years. Jian wondered whether the wrinkles around the corners of Jake’s eyes were already there when they last saw each other. Where was that? Phnom Penh restaurant in Vancouver’s Chinatown?
And for the first time Jian realized how handsome Jake was, even though he was still clean shaven. Perhaps Jian was finally able to see Jake in a different light now that he was no longer a beard fanatic. He felt an urge to ask Jake something. He would’ve suppressed that urge in the past, when he was less direct and had the tendency to keep things to himself. Maybe it was more life experiences, or the therapy sessions he had over the years, he finally learned to express what’s on his mind, in his heart, plainly and fearlessly.
“So why didn’t you try to date me?” Jian asked, “I know why I didn’t try to date you. You didn’t have a beard.”
“You didn’t try to date me because I didn’t have a beard?”
“Yeah. I was at a period of my life where beards are very important to me.”
“But not anymore?”
“No. Not anymore. Things have changed since I grew a beard myself.”
Jake laughed.
“So why?” Jian asked again.
“It’s because I couldn’t.”
“You couldn’t?”
“You were… you were immature.” Jake paused to see Jian’s reaction, then continued, “you didn’t know who you were. You still had so much to figure out.”
“And you had everything figured out at 24?” Jian wasn’t offended. He knew Jake was right about him.
“No, not everything, but most things. Some people need less time and some people need more. You needed more time. You just came to a different country and it takes time to find your place. It’s not easy. I think you underestimated the challenges.”
Indeed Jian had. Toronto had just started to feel like home to him after so many years. He had been lost between places and identities for so long and he finally found peace and ease. As cliché as it may sound, he had found himself.
“Dating you would’ve meant losing you. So I chose to be a friend. And I was right, we are still friends after so many years. When’s the last time you talked to Simon or Rohan?”
“Fuck you.” Jian was tearing up. His beard wouldn’t mind some extra moisturizing.