My Friend Milena

My Friend Milena

I had a number of foreign friends from different countries, of different colors

as well, and most of them are still frequently appeared into my mind so vividly

though many years have slipped by. I cannot forget those eastern European friends in particular who had encountered a violent political and social upheaval in their countries during the late 80s and early 90s. I fully understood their worries and sorrows since I myself had experienced the turmoil in my country a number

of years ago. Milena was one of them.

Although in her late fifties, Milena still appeared elegant and pretty when I met her the first time. She was working in a small Yugoslavian trading company as

a representative in Beijing Office after her embassy term had expired. Since the

company was very small she did not hire a Chinese secretary, so she felt the need of learning a little daily use Chinese in her spare time. I was introduced as

her home tutor under the circumstance. We met twice a week and one hour a time.

The language learning went on quite well at the first three months period but soon after it became a heavy going because both of us were enjoying much more of free conversations in a mixture language of English and Chinese that she just learned than delving into the vapid text book. “Whoops! We have to go back to the

grind again”, sometimes she would say after a merry free talk. The most headache for her was the four tones of Chinese pronunciation and she always pronounced

in a strong Eastern European accent. Finally she lost her heart and gave it up five months later. Maybe it was because of my incompetent as a tutor or she was absent-minded when Kosovo crisis was worsening in the winter of 1998; anyhow our

friendship was still growing with the time.

As we getting closer to each other she sometimes let me do a little work for her

own. One of them was to tick off her private long-distance phone calls from the

detailed telephone list every month. Usually it was only two or three private calls value around two hundred RMB. It was not a big figure comparing with the large sum of official calls. Once I asked why she bothered herself about those private phone calls since it didn’t cost much and since nobody would notice which

one was private and which one was official. She answered calmly “but I know”.

She had a very nice feeling towards China and Chinese people and would try her best to help those in need. We together made several donations to the Hope Project to help two kids in Yunnan province and five girls in Ningxia Hui Minority Autonomy Region. She said probably girls were more difficult to get education opportunities in the northwest part of China.

Time passed quickly. The winter of 1998 was cold and severe, situations in Belgrade were getting critical because the US had threatened many times to bomb Yugoslavia. Milena’s anxious was growing with each passing day either. One day in February 1999, she made a surprising decision that she could no longer be an uninvolved bystander while her country and her fellow citizens were suffering so much

. All her friends, including Chinese friends, tried hard to convince her to stay

in Beijing but nobody had the ability to drag her back once she decided to do something. She left for Belgrade soon. Shortly after she was back, Belgrade and other cities were started being heavily bombed in March and on the following 70 restless days. I was also tingling with anxiety about her safety because I could

hear nothing from her for weeks due to the post blockage. However, when I watched TV news that thousand of Belgrade citizens were gathering singing to safeguard

their city I guessed that Milena might be among the crowd.