Part 1
My leg was broken. I had been sitting up in my room like a Temu Brandy, bored off my gourd. Streaming sites hadn’t hit their stride yet and Kazaa was no longer a thing. Besides… I didn’t have cable and my wifi was wonky at best.
A year prior, I had moved to Hong Kong, SAR. My school had a satellite campus there. What was supposed to be a semester abroad turned into something entirely different.
I’m going to spill some tea. This won’t be short, but if you like reality TV, then you can probably appreciate the messiness in this post. Just so we’re clear, I’m changing the names of all involved even though some of these people are now dead.
Well loved and well respected, Dante wanted to do his last semester at our school’s Hong Kong (HK) location. Monica decided to go with him. She had one of those crushes that clouded her judgement, and as attracted to Monica as Dante was, he couldn’t overlook the small detail of her marriage. Monica framed her crush and the trip as reparations, but it was clear that she saw it as retribution against her husband. Unable to convince Monica to change her mind, Dante invited our whole clique go to HK with him as a way to avoid the perception of a romantic getaway. One by one, people started to think it was a good idea and made plans accordingly.
I started the program with nearly NO experience. My dad was the family photographer, and I took pictures for fun on nights out, but we all did. That’s it. That’s what I had. I started shooting street portraits but I had only taken photography seriously for a few months. After I was rejected from the MA program in Advertising, the school’s advisors strongly suggested I reapply for their Photography program. So I did. I showed up to campus 3 months later, with a meager scholarship, a woeful lack of experience, and zero technique.
To paint the picture, I ran out of class crying and quit after the very first assignment. Our classes were on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we spent day one learning how to do backlighting. Day two, we were to bring in our assignments. I had spent HOURS in the studio trying to recreate the lesson. I don’t mean 2-3 hours. I mean closer to 12. It was my first time working with any kind of lighting setup and I worked really hard. I was so proud I finally got the technique. Then I walked in and saw the beautiful professional grade work of my peers. My classmates had played with vibrant colors, live fish, and varying heights and thicknesses of glass. I had taken a Sears catalog style photo of a single lantern. We were to hang our work before class so everyone could give feedback. I was mortified. I broke out in hives, then I broke into a run. I went straight to my professor’s office. He also happened to be my advisor. I told him I was leaving the program and apologized for wasting everyone’s time. He told me that he was on the committee that selected me for acceptance into the program. They knew I had some technical deficiencies, but that my portraiture, storytelling, and concepts were incredibly strong. More importantly, he told me that I deserved to be there. I stayed, but I had never felt so insecure in my life. I knew my portraits were strong but I had no base of reference. No context. My technique was lacking. And I didn’t know how to close any of those gaps. So naturally, I found the talented extrovert and asked if I could assist him. And THAT is how I met Dante.
Over the next few weeks, I would meet several others in the program, assisting whenever and whoever. I found a mentor in the form of an old surly professor who demanded I meet him in his office every Wednesday at 3PM. I never missed a day and I was always on time. I had never been so driven to improve on anything, and I had never felt so connected to anything that made me want to improve. My personality took me where my talent couldn’t and soon, I had found a comfy spot within the school community. As one friend put it, I finally found my “particular flavor of weird.”
It was during this time that I became super cool with Monica. I assisted her on sets, we edited together in the lab, occasionally went for drinks, and even had emotional shares while eating peanut butter cake from the shop up the block. We really bonded – but there were cracks in the facade. She stole one of my models one day, during my shoot. She connected me with her makeup artist and then canceled him behind my back on the day of another shoot because I told her I thought Dante’s girlfriend was actually kinda cool. She told a friend of mine that I called him a really ugly and ableist name, but she was the one that did it. The worst part about it was that I actually had been diagnosed with the same disability she was “joking” about but I hadn’t shared that with her and it completely severed my budding friendship with the guy. There were several other things that made her a not great human, but 85% of our interactions were fun, and I was able to easily remedy the photoshoots so I overlooked a lot at first.
Then came Tiffany. Tiffany had the grace of a Tasmanian devil. Talented but obnoxious, she was mean and she was a thief. But as three Black women in a PWI at the master degree level, I overlooked a lot. So much so, that when I started inviting folks to my birthday and Tiffany suddenly decided she needed to have a cookout that same weekend, we compromised by doing a joint event. My birthday became a cookout. As a summer baby, it wouldn’t be the first. What would be a first was Tiffany, the Aquarian, making a flyer for a joint birthday party. The math wasn’t mathin’. The party went great, though. Our friends combined well. The music and the drinks were flowing and there was only one major disagreement, easily dissolved by a fresh platter of wings coming off the grill.
Except, the next day, I lost one of my closest friends. Tony and I had been friends for years. I had had a crush on him for a while, but he was dating someone in our circle so I never said anything. Maintained the friendship, but kept an emotional distance. He and Tiffany hit it off immediately. The next day, she asked if we had ever dated because she could sense some vibes between us. I assured her we had not, and confided that the vibes were one-sided and that I prefer he never know as I had no intention to pursue. She told him before I even got home that night. As expected, it changed the dynamic of our friendship, and he and I were never close or even cool again once the dust settled. Of course that created tension and everyone in our small program could sense it. After all, this was the second friend I had lost due to the messiness of women in this program so the kid gloves came off.
Monica decided to play peacemaker and I told her to stay out of it. There were so many dynamics that I didn’t want to rehash or justify. It was near the end of the semester, and I just wanted to focus on my work. When things get tough in any arena of my life, I like to retrace my steps, repairing broken messages, lessons, or connections. My new friend group was a disaster, my work was improving, but not fast enough, finals submissions were due soon, and I had an international trip to plan. I retreated into what I call “my bubble” so I could focus on my recent missteps. I essentially disconnected from everyone – including myself. I stripped the part of my personality that made me bubbly and went deep into research mode to complete my coursework.
I strongly believe in the concept of Sankofa and you will see this in how I approach my art, my work, and my life. Hell, that’s why you are reading this soap opera. I promise there a lesson in all this. Hang tight.
Around this time, my things started to come up missing and people started canceling photoshoots with me at the last minute. Chaos. I knew who was causing the cancellations – after all, Monica didn’t like being told that she couldn’t control me or my decisions around friendships, but there was a thief in the department. Everyone had fallen victim and at the time, no one knew who to blame.
We all assumed it wouldn’t matter, because it was almost time for us to go to Hong Kong for our semester abroad. It had been requested that we arrive 2 weeks early to participate in an international contest with a famous family-owned Swiss watch brand. We all wanted a piece of that action. We had to get through finals and last minute details (which included shifting our travel itineraries), causing the drama to evaporate as the excitement and stress grew. We showed up to Hong Kong one by one, having booked our own travels. We had no idea what to expect because besides Dante, none of us had been to Asia before. What I do know is that there wasn’t a single thing on the planet that could have prepared me for the fact that we three “sistas” had all been assigned to room together in one apartment.
To Be Continued.
FIVEPLUG. 