Frozen Teardrop (16 page)

That conversation kept us alive and we felt we could do this one more time. For the sake of skating we could. We would pack and up, leave and go to China. Nothing would stop us from taking us away from the skating world. We must, must continue. Even if it were to be the far end of the world or on top of the tallest mountain we would be there. Nothing else mattered because skating would cure all. We thought if I could skate we would be all right. It was “we” who decided, “we” who skated. It was us in our own world for our own sake.

For what? I didn't know then. Now I know it was for the pursuit of our happiness. I was trying to make my mother happy and she was trying to make me happy. It might sound weird that this was what it was, but it was. But happiness starts within you and usually the only bird we cage is the most beautiful one.

(HARBIN, BEIJING)

A bad word whispered will echo a thousand miles.

T
here comes a time and place in your life when you don't know anymore whether to trust the people that you are surrounded with. My mother and I were at that stage in California and it was truly time to leave. I was broken into many pieces emotionally and physically. We felt the Chinese coach would be the one who could bring me back to health and to my potential. I don't know how my father agreed to everything my mother and I decided, but he gave us all the means and everything he could. I loved and missed him so much that I wanted to show my appreciation to him through my skating. He loved us so much by giving us all his trust. He knew how much I loved skating and anything would be possible for his little girl's dream.

But China? So far away? And not Beijing or Hong Kong or Shanghai, but all the way up north near the Russian border in Harbin! I mean it isn't just every day that you get to move to China. I was thrilled to go back to Asia and I felt in my bones that the coach would be able to teach me to perform miracles. Without the high hopes that I had for this Chinese coach I would probably have stopped skating. We thought that by our just taking off into oblivion we showed how focused we were on skating and, oh boy, were we focused. We saw one goal and one goal only and put all our eggs in one basket. That was for sure to bite us in the back.

A week before leaving for China in June of 1998, I was invited to do a prestigious farewell show of a famous pair-skater team and was delighted. They requested that I do a program with only spins. Tons of spins, one after another. I was happy. I loved to do that. I could have done only that for my whole skating career. I loved spinning forever, using the force around me to create all kinds of positions. I went to faraway places in my mind and became whatever I wanted — a bird, an animal, an emotion, a rainbow, even the mountains or an ocean. I used all my imagination to transform into all things and levitate in spirit and soul. I sometimes would literally leave my body and see myself spin. It was glorious. It was my trance, my meditation. I changed my spins all the time, never doing the same move twice. While doing a program I just did what I felt with the music. I immersed myself into the character and let my spirit guide me. I never knew what I would do next. I could never have skated with a partner, as I did not like skating to the rules. I skated freely. Spinning was my haven.

China, here we come. We boarded the flight and this time with no sadness. We were so glad to leave behind the torture we endured in San Francisco. The teachers there did not feel the need to apologize and rumor has it that for years to come following my departure they said incredibly nasty things about me, my mother, my training, and my personality to many skaters who followed their teachings. I cannot change other people and I feel sorry for them that they live in so much denial. I truly hope there are no other skaters who went through what I had to go through, but we understood what we had experienced, and not wanting to be immersed in that anymore, we not only sprinted out of there but flew half way across the world.

We flew to Beijing and on to Harbin. The Chinese skater who had arranged our arrival and stay with the national team had said that my new coach would come to pick us up, but having not spoken to the coach we were still unsure if everything would pan out. One thing my mother and I always did was walk the road less traveled, or furthermore one that had never been traveled at all, and we always had the courage to leap. My parents had taken risks since they were young and they were the first and only in many scary and unfortunate situations throughout their life and travels. We were the first and only foreigners at the ice rinks in Japan and now again we would be the first and only foreigners allowed into the training center in China.

We were never hesitant or scared of a new venture, a faraway land, or a foreign culture. We never feared anything. We just picked up and went to our new destination, trusting in the universe to give us all we needed. I think it is truly remarkable of us, if I may say so. I could also say it might sound totally crazy to others, but for us it was our life and felt completely normal. It was second nature to us and when you have such a purpose you will walk through fire to get to it. You do not see anything as an obstacle. I like to see the positive side of this personality trait and I think it makes us very strong individuals. We can adapt to any circumstance, any situation, and any surrounding quickly and we make our way in the world. It is however a very lonely road.

To our nice surprise, my new coach was there to greet us at the airport, and with our many suitcases in tow we were on our way to the winter athlete national training center in Harbin, China. My coach tried to explain to us in his very limited English that the campgrounds we were going to live and train in might not be what we were used to and it would a very simple life. As his words and teachings were as simple as the life he said we would lead, I can only describe my experiences there with simple words. It was truly barren and purely simple in the most profound ways. It was not colorful. We replied, “It doesn't matter since we were here for skating and not a party. We can live through anything.” Little did we know what was to await us. The streets departing from the airport were dirty and uneven. There were livestock along the sides of the road with their herders and open fields for miles. This was most certainly rural China. It took about one hour to get to the camp.

As we neared the camp it was getting more city-like with rugged concrete buildings. The streets were bustling with as many cars as bicycles, people, and animals, pushed by everyone and everything. It was incredibly noisy and dirty with clouds of dust every way you looked. With cars and bicycles honking, animals barking, and people yelling, it was a disorganized jumbled mess, but it all seemed to work out in its own way and we safely made it to the campgrounds. We passed by track and field training grounds, basketball courts, and huge training buildings before we came to a halt. There was a big gate that opened to let us through as if it wanted to open the gates to happiness and paradise. But the reality was that it was inviting us into a government organized facility and it felt like we had entered a military camp. These two stark contrasting images were etched in my mind and it would feel like that all through my stay here.

As we passed through the gate we drove through a huge open space that was engulfed by five buildings. The one we drove up to in the middle, was where the athletes slept, the one on the right was where the coaches lived, the one on the far right was the off-ice training facilities, and the two on the left were the ice rinks. The bigger one was just an empty hall only used during the winter months when competitions were held there for figure skating, hockey, and speed skating.

As we were helped with our luggage, feeling like we had enough clothes for all the people at camp, many of the other athletes poked their heads out of their dorm windows and peered at us with big, round innocent eyes. Some were already outside waiting to see of what all the commotion was about. Who had arrived at their camp? Who was the new face? It looked to me like their expressions on their faces were of those who had never seen such a species as us! It was kind of intimidating since I felt like I was intruding in their space, and I was all too familiar with that feeling of always being the odd one out.

It was extremely hot as well and there was a heavy feeling to the air resembling a pressure cooker. The temperatures were to reach the low 100s in the summer but Harbin is known for its excruciatingly cold winters in the single digits. There did not seem to be any sign of air conditioning in the building as we entered. Luckily our days would be spent in a cold ice rink!

My coach, his son, his other male student who I had befriended in San Francisco, and his friends, all with their shirts off and yet still drenched in sweat, carried our luggage up a few flights of stairs, down a long barren corridor until we reached the last two doors far away from anyone's reach. He summoned my mother into one and me into the last room on that floor in the far end corner. He plopped my luggage down and said this was the best he could do and he had even managed to give us two rooms instead of one. Weren't we truly lucky! My room had one window, a meek metal frame bed with a very thin sheet covering a very thin mattress, and a metal rectangle shaped desk on the other side of the room. That was it.

My mother's room was the same except that in place of the table was just another bed and nothing else. They wanted to show us around the dorm, so we followed them. The floors of the hallway were filled with dirt, cigarette butts, and watermelon peels. The room opposite to mine was a communal area with a sink the length of the room and some broken mirrors on the wall.

Down the hall was a men's toilet, a ladies' toilet, and many consecutive other dorm rooms. We were on the second floor and the floors above us and beneath us had the same layout. The ground floor had communal shower rooms, one for the men and one for the ladies. We learned that there was only cold water throughout the building except for a specific time during the day that lasted for twenty minutes in order to shower with hot water for the athletes, delegates, and coaches. We would be naked with all ranks of the Chinese ladies affiliated with the teams. I was not so thrilled about this even though I had showered at Japanese training camps before. However, there at least different ranks and ages were not be mixed with nakedness. Here in China, the young, old, athletes, coaches, judges, cooks, all had to shower together, as one. It would take some time to adjust to since I was shy, but it also gave a feeling of unity.

Also on the first floor was a little room where a tiny old Chinese woman sat like she had been there all her life. Wrinkled with wisdom she, not delicately at all, filled hot water kettles with boiling water that each athlete got once a day. No refills here! We could use this at our leisure for tea or whatever else we wanted it for. It would be placed in front of every dorm room door around 6:00 p.m. only once a day and only one kettle full.

Attached to the main dorm building was another little building and that was the cafeteria. The first floor was the kitchen and the second was where all the athletes received their food. I was however told that I would not be able to eat with the other athletes. I was to be an outcast, for whatever reason, if only because they were embarrassed that I plainly was not one of them. I was to eat on the kitchen level. It was a little and bare room with some rickety tables and chairs and that's where my mother and I would have to eat alone. It hurt very much since I had hoped to be part of them, but again I had to realize I never would be part of any nation. I had learned my poker face in Japan and was a master at it by now.

Everything worked very much like the training facility I had visited in 1988 in Moscow. It was government organized and regulated and all was free for the athletes. They did not have to worry about money at all. Athletes had lessons, received food and clothes, and great perks if they had international success. They were chosen from school when very young and put into the system. Most of the athletes, about two hundred of them that included all ice athletes, speed skaters, hockey players and figure skaters, were from Harbin, so their parents lived close by. Every so often since we lived near the Russian border some Russian hockey players would stay at the facility for a few days. But they looked more Chinese than Russian, leaving me again to being one of a kind.

If the Chinese athletes succeeded in their sport they would have to move to Beijing to the national training center that had better conditions. But the federation didn't move them there until an Olympic year because Harbin was the second biggest training Center in China and all the top athletes and coaches were there together already. Looking from the outside world many people might feel sorry for these athletes living in such conditions but being there myself I do not. In spite of living, training, and enduring the conditions there, I would have liked to have had that support, a system that provided everything for me and where money was never an issue. In one way it is a very easy life. They don't have to worry about anything other than training hard and following a teacher's orders. It was a much better life than all the others living outside the gates of this compound. It felt like all the people who were not allowed within our gates longed to be one of us as they looked upon us with great awe and admiration. For the athletes in China no money was exchanged, but it had been arranged through my coach's prior famous skater that we would have to pay. And a hefty sum it was, considering the conditions. The sum had a reason behind it that we would not know until much later.

After the tour of the grounds my coach mentioned that for another two weeks there would be no ice. We would start with off-ice training slowly and I needed to recuperate from all my injuries first before I could train properly again. A secretary from Beijing from my father's company was to meet us that evening up at the camp, and stay for a few days to translate for us and get us acquainted with everyone and the customs and rules we would have to abide by.

She arrived shortly thereafter. She was to sleep in my mother's room with the two beds. My coach, his wife, his son, and some other coaches from the team invited us to a welcome dinner at a Chinese restaurant nearby. The courses came as they flowed out from the kitchen like there was no end and no tomorrow. The dinner was delicious even though we didn't know most of what we ate. We had been warned about the water there so I was a little hesitant since I did not want to get a stomach illness. The atmosphere was jolly and celebratory and drinks were on the house, bringing great humor from the coaches. Their cheeks turned red and all their troubles were drowned, making them look like little Buddhas wanting their tummies to be rubbed for good luck! Laughter passed around the table and it felt like good things were to come.