Regular People Never Get It

 

As I recall the days in Semporna Malaysia … In the middle of many conversations, our diving instructor always casually condescended the other non-diver folks as “regular people”, like in “those regular people never know …” “however we divers …” “forget it, they’re just regular people …” Now that I sit in front of the screen in the middle of the laborious weaving of travel segments into coherent stories, this peculiar expression, though wasn’t much paid attention to when being said, begins to ring a bell…

 

Entry One: Before I embarked on my Malaysia DIVING trip,

my best friend, cup-D diva, Abao’s favourite antie for that sake, the always caring Flora passed on the concern. “Dear Bao’s Mom” she said with a genuine delicate loving tone, “diving is dangerous, one pku guy of our year died from doing that, you really take care, promise me.” I was instantly moved. To validate her warning, Flora forwarded me the news about the pku guy via facebook, and it turned out, the poor schoolmate of ours died while SWIMMING. With all the heart-felt sorrow and respect for the unfortunately deceased peer, I was enormously insulted by Flora’s pathetic lack of knowledge on the difference between scuba diving and swimming. “Thanks Flora,” I tried desperately to keep my cool, “but you see my darling, it’s diving, not swimming.” I prayed that my gentility could open her eyes for this lethal intellectual error, however, her response was a hopeless point of departure: “It’s all the same.” More than teasing my athletic professionalism, that ignorant woman is trampling on my self-esteem. This I would not tolerate. Confrontation was the only option: “I, Mianmianwang a la Northeast, hereby warn you, Florara Zhang from Beijing, that to save your ass from unwanted repercussions, don’t you stupid pig-head ever dare call it swimming again!” Then I paused for pooling up sufficient vigor to utter the last authoritative statement which was meant to be chiseled into her fatty bones for good, —- “I AM A DIVERRRR~~!!!!!” yes I roared, with my head spinning. She instantly hopped offline.

 

Entry Two: A couple of days after we got back to Beijing, on msn,

Jason      上周的今天咱们要去沉船潜了，感觉已经过去很久了

Mian       我仍然记得当时AOW第一潜的惴惴

Jason      但你现在也已经不再是diver中的regular people了  你是一名AOW

Mian       说到这儿  我觉得regular people真的不能get it   我临走前一个好朋友颇认真地跟我讲要小心 说北大的一个男生就是在进行这项运动的时候溺死，然后我很认真地阅读了她转过来的消息，结果这个男生是在游泳的时溺死的。悲伤遗憾之外，试问让我如何不羞愤！？

Jason      我在水下拍的几段视频，里面有我的水下呼吸声，听到的时候真的还蛮感动的，我想regular people应该不能get it

Mian       嗯嗯我知道我知道！（tears/hugs/handshakes）真的是到了水下世界我更加对光 对呼吸 对触觉 对身体内的所有小气囊….等等等等 有了更不一样的体察和感情  我也很感动家森！

但毋庸置疑的是 我们也一步一步走向社会的边缘 更加出离了regular people

Jason      还好了，回到北京后就发现一切都又一样了，Semporna其实还是一个非常遥远，很不真实的小镇

 

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are the views of the characters with no obligation to realism, and therefore do not necessarily reflect the views of the author or her party.