People Who Meet Will Meet Again

On my last night in Wenzhou, I had dinner with someone. On the table was a small card with a Chinese phrase — 世间所有的相遇都是久别重逢 — a line that carries many translations, but the one she offered was the simplest: people who meet will meet again. I was leaving Wenzhou the next morning, and it would be the last time I'd see her for a while, so the words landed differently than they might have otherwise. A few days later in Beijing, on my last day in China, I told her I was sad about going home. She repeated the phrase. That reading never left me. I opened the film with a Wong Kar-wai–style monologue — there is a Chinese phrase that translates to people who meet will meet once again. It could be a blessing or a curse, depending on who. In my experience, it was nothing but the former.