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| There’s a picture of us meeting in person for the first time on the second floor of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, taken via self-timer on Snapchat. It was September 2020. You can sense the awkward nervousness we felt, with his arm carefully placed behind my lower back and me giving the camera a big thumbs up. | 在港务局客运总站二楼初次见面时，我们拍了一张合影，用的是Snapchat的定时自拍功能。那是2020年9月。他的胳膊小心翼翼地揽在我的腰上，而我对着镜头竖起大拇指，你都能感觉到我们之间那种尴尬的拘谨。 |
| We’re dressed in classic first date attire: me in a navy jumpsuit that I frantically purchased a few days before and him sporting a striped button-down shirt with chino shorts. Our masks cover half our faces, but you can imagine the wide grins underneath as we pose in quite possibly the least romantic place to meet in all of New York City. He had just returned to the city and his college dorm at Fordham; I had taken the bus in from my parents’ home in Tenafly, New Jersey. | 我们都穿着经典的初次约会的行头：我的是一件几天前失心疯买下的海军蓝连体裤，他则是条纹纽扣衬衫配奇诺短裤。口罩遮住了我们的半张脸，但你可以想像一下，当我们在整个纽约市最不浪漫的见面地点摆造型时，口罩底下露出的灿烂笑容。他刚回纽约，回到他在福坦莫大学的宿舍；我则是从父母位于新泽西特纳夫莱的家中乘公交过来的。 |
| Two months earlier, in July — six days after my 19th birthday and at the height of the pandemic — I had downloaded Hinge out of boredom and curiosity. I was always rolling my eyes at friends who downloaded dating apps “just for fun,” but adrift in the unbearable abyss of quarantine, I let myself do the same. | 在两个月之前的7月——我19岁生日的六天后，也是疫情最严重的时候——出于无聊和好奇，我下载了Hinge。以往我总对那些“只是为了好玩”就下载交友软件的朋友翻白眼，但陷入难以忍受的隔离深渊之后，我纵容自己做了同样的事。 |
| To my surprise, I immediately received a message from Bryce, whose profile picture was thankfully not a shirtless mirror selfie. He was home in West Virginia but would be moving back to his dorm near Lincoln Center, just a few subway stops from my school, N.Y.U., in the fall. From that first connection, things unfolded quickly: Hinge messages became text conversations which escalated to daily good morning/good nights and hours of laughter-filled FaceTime calls. | 让我惊讶的是，我立刻收到了布莱斯的信息，谢天谢地，他的头像不是对着镜子的裸身自拍。他家在西弗吉尼亚州，但秋天将搬回林肯中心附近的宿舍，距离我就读的纽约大学只有几站地铁。第一次联络之后，我们的关系进展迅速：Hinge消息变成了短信对话，随后升级为日常早晚安问候，以及持续几个小时充满欢声笑语的FaceTime通话。 |
| Every day, Bryce and I talked about our families (we each have a younger brother, and our fathers are both doctors), whether we wanted children in the future (yes), and our experiences growing up as Asian Americans (my family is from Korea; his is from Vietnam and the Philippines). He was the only Asian student in his Appalachian school, while I saw people who looked like me almost everywhere I went in Jersey. He also warned me that he was 5’ 5”, which I (at 5’ 4”) said didn’t matter at all. But more than anything, we would talk about what we wanted to do once we were back in the city. | 我和布莱斯每天都会聊各自的家庭（我们都有一个弟弟，我们的父亲都是医生），未来是否想要孩子（是的），还有我们作为亚裔美国人的成长经历（我家来自韩国，他家来自越南和菲律宾）。在阿巴拉契亚的学校读书时，他是那里唯一的亚裔学生，而我在新泽西所到之处几乎都是和我面孔相似的人。他还提醒我说他身高1米65，而1米64的我说身高完全不是问题。但我们聊得最多的，还是回到纽约之后想做什么。 |
| “Have you ever had dim sum?” he said. | “你吃过广式早茶吗？”他说。 |
| “Only once,” I said, embarrassed by my lack of culinary exposure. | “只吃过一次，”我说，对于自己美食体验的匮乏感到尴尬。 |
| “OK, we have to go to Jing Fong in Chinatown. Their banquet hall is huge — you have to see it.” | “好的，我们必须去尝尝唐人街的金丰大酒楼，那里的宴会厅可大了——你可得去看看。” |
| I kept a “To Do” list of our future in-person adventures: dim sum at Jing Fong, stroll through Central Park, tour N.Y.U./Washington Square Park area, cook Korean food together, first hug!!!! | 我为我们未来的见面约会定下了一份“待办”清单：去金丰大酒楼吃广式早茶，逛中央公园，游览纽约大学和华盛顿广场公园一带，一起做韩国料理，第一次拥抱！！！！ |
| After so much anticipation and waiting, here we finally were, in person, checking “first hug!!!!” off the list. Despite my never having been in his presence, his embrace felt comforting and familiar, and I thanked God that he smelled like some sort of fancy cologne and not Axe body spray. Along with the start of a new semester, September 2020 marked the official beginning of our relationship. | 在那么多的期待和等待之后，我们终于可以面对面完成清单上“第一次拥抱！！！！”这个任务了。尽管是第一次见面，但他的拥抱让我感到舒适和亲切，他身上大概是用了什么高级古龙水，不是Axe香体喷雾，不错不错。随着新学期的到来，2020年9月也标志着我们正式开始交往。 |
| The euphoria of our first meeting, however, was short lived. The city was not quite how we remembered it. There were some minor differences that were immediately noticeable, like how the downtown A train was much less crowded. Or how the dim sum at Jing Fong came in plastic takeout containers instead of bamboo steamer baskets. And how you no longer had to squeeze through a sea of people on the narrow sidewalks of Chinatown. | 然而，初次见面的兴奋并没能持续多久。这座城市和我们记忆中的不太一样了。有些细微差别显而易见，比如市中心的地铁A线少了很多乘客。又或者是金丰大酒楼的早茶装在了塑料外卖盒而不是竹蒸笼里。还有，唐人街狭窄的人行窄道上不再是摩肩接踵。 |
| But other changes were more unsettling and indicated a dangerous shift in attitudes over the months we were gone. | 但还有一些变化更为令人不安，表明在我们离开的几个月里，人们的态度发生了危险的转变。 |
| On my way to meet Bryce for our third date, a stranger on the sidewalk muttered to me, “Chink, I swear, you’ll all be going back to China soon.” | 在与布莱斯第三次约会的路上，人行道上一个陌生人低声对我说，“中国佬，我发誓，你们很快就要回中国了。” |
| I was too stunned to turn back and get a look of his face, but I still remember the harsh rasp of his voice. It bothered me even more that he didn’t shout at me but rather spoke at a volume only I could hear — it felt personal, targeted. | 我过于震惊，甚至没有转脸看他长什么样，但我仍记得他那刺耳的声音。更让我不安的是，他没有对我大喊大叫，而是用只有我能听到的声音对我说话——感觉就是在针对我的。 |
| I couldn’t help but mention the incident to Bryce when I saw him. Not wanting to worry him too much, I casually slipped it into our conversation while we stuffed our faces with sushi: “I forgot how crazy things happen here so often” and told him about the slur I was called on the way there. | 见到布莱斯后，我忍不住提起了这件事。因为不想让他太担心，我在两人埋头大吃寿司的时候，在谈话间随口说起“我都忘了这里经常发生疯狂的事情”，然后把我在路上被骂的事告诉了他。 |
| I forced a chuckle and picked up a piece of salmon nigiri. | 我勉强笑了一声，拿起了一块三文鱼手握寿司。 |
| Bryce seemed more surprised than concerned and reciprocated my nonchalant tone: “What? Well, that’s not good.” | 与其说担心，布莱斯似乎惊讶更多些，他学着我满不在乎的语气说：“什么？哎呀，这可不太好。” |
| I pushed the stranger’s racist remark to the back of my mind, and we continued our date as usual, heading to Central Park for an outdoor comedy show. | 我将那个陌生人的种族主义言论抛诸脑后，我们像往常一样继续约会，前往中央公园观看户外喜剧表演。 |
| But the Covid-scapegoating and racist name-calling didn’t stop. A short while after our date, it happened again, at the deli next to my dorm, where an elderly man started yelling at me to get out, using the same piercing slur that the stranger had. | 但以新冠为借口的种族主义谩骂并没有停止。在我们约会后不久，同样的事再次上演，这次是在我宿舍旁边的熟食店，一个上了年纪的男人开始吼我，让我出去，用的是和那个陌生人一样刺耳的侮辱性词汇。 |
| Flustered, I ran out without my groceries, fighting back tears. Whether it was a blatantly xenophobic comment directed toward me in public or an ill-informed joke from a co-worker at my internship, I couldn’t seem to escape the impression that I wasn’t welcome in this city. | 慌乱之中，我强忍眼泪，没拿东西就跑了出去。无论是在公开场合针对我的排外言论，还是实习时同事说的浅薄玩笑，我似乎都无法摆脱一种印象，即我在这座城市并不受欢迎。 |
| The first person I immediately thought of and wanted to talk to after these incidents was Bryce, but this was supposed to be our honeymoon phase, free of negativity and real-world complications. Wouldn’t telling him every time something happened just cause unnecessary concern? | 遇上这些事，我第一个想到并希望倾诉的对象就是布莱斯，但这应该是我们的甜蜜期，不应该有负能量和现实世界的复杂。每次遇到糟心事都告诉他，不是只会引起他不必要的担心吗？ |
| I decided to take a leap of faith and tell him anyway. Earbuds in, I went into my closet to avoid disturbing my roommate and started a FaceTime call that would last over an hour. | 不管怎样，我还是鼓起勇气告诉了他。为了不打扰室友，我戴着耳机钻进衣柜，开始了长达一个多小时的FaceTime通话。 |
| Bryce’s empathetic response made me wish I had told him about my experiences sooner. The seriousness in his voice was a stark contrast from his usual goofy, easygoing self, and he affirmed that he cared deeply about all things that happen in my life, good or bad. While he hadn’t encountered the same harassment, he began to express concern for my safety. | 布莱斯充满同理心的回应让我后悔没把这些遭遇早点告诉他。他的严肃语气与平时那种乐天随和的样子全然不同，他坚定地告诉我，他非常关心我在生活中遇到的任何事，不论是好是坏。虽然他没有遇到过这样的骚扰，但他开始担心我的人身安全。 |
| The next time we saw each other, Bryce gave me his pepper spray and, knowing that I had never owned any, taught me how to use it. Then, we enabled location sharing on my phone in case anything happened where he needed to know where I was. And while I thought this was enough, he insisted on putting his credit card on my Lyft app so that I didn’t have to worry about the cost of late-night rides back to my dorm. | 等我们再见面，布莱斯把他的防狼喷雾给了我，因为知道我从来没用过，他还教我怎么用。之后，我们给我的手机启用了位置共享功能，以防万一出事他好知道我在哪里。我觉得这些就够了，但他还坚持将自己的信用卡添加到我的Lyft上，这样我就不必担心深夜打车回宿舍的费用。 |
| “I’m here for you, OK?” he said. “I love you.” | “我会保护你，好吗？”他说。“我爱你。” |
| His words felt like cool aloe vera on a fresh sunburn. I appreciated the pepper spray and safety tips, but it was his warm reassurance that I needed most. Knowing that I wasn’t alone and that we could navigate this changed city together brought me so much comfort. | 他的话就像给刚晒伤的皮肤涂上凉爽的芦荟胶。我感谢他给的防狼喷雾和安全提示，但他暖心的安抚才是我最需要的东西。知道我不是孤身一人，我们可以携手在这个已经变样的城市里前行，这给了我极大的安慰。 |
| Months later, some aspects of the city returned to prepandemic normalcy; at least, the bamboo steamer baskets were back. | 几个月后，纽约的某些部分已经恢复了疫情前的常态；至少，竹蒸笼又回来了。 |
| “Has it really only been a year and a half together?” I said to Bryce, as a dim sum server offered us more Har Gow from her cart. | “我们真的才在一起一年半吗？”在早茶餐厅的服务员从推车上端来更多虾饺的时候，我对布莱斯说。 |
| He smiled and planted a kiss on my cheek. | 他微笑着在我脸颊上留下一吻。 |
| But while more people started riding the subway and going to restaurants in Chinatown, the Asian hate only worsened. Michelle Alyssa Go was pushed in front of a train in Times Square. Christina Yuna Lee was murdered in her apartment on Chrystie Street, only a 10-minute walk from where I live. | 但就在越来越多的人开始乘坐地铁、光顾华埠的餐厅之际，对亚裔的仇恨却有增无减。高慧民在时报广场被推下地铁站台。李尤娜（音）在她位于克里士提街的公寓内被杀，那里离我的住处只有10分钟的步行路程。 |
| The thought that I might be attacked next can creep into my mind at any time, during a lecture on Zoom or when I’m doing my laundry. But I try to remember the feeling of that first embrace I shared with Bryce more than 18 months ago; this city is the place where our love became real. | 在Zoom上的讲座中，在洗衣服的时候，我脑海里随时都会浮起自己可能就是下一个受害者的念头。但我仍会努力回忆18个月以前我和布莱斯第一次拥抱时的感觉；这座城市是我们的爱变得真实的地方。 |
| And we are here to stay, enjoying the best wonton soup at Noodle Village, strolling through Washington Square Park, and going grocery shopping at Deluxe Food Market on Sunday afternoons. After all, this is our city too. | 而且，我们会留在这里，在粥面轩享用最美味的云吞，在华盛顿广场公园漫步，到周日下午就去德昌食品市场买菜。毕竟，这也是我们的城市。 |
| When I think about Bryce and me, the typical depictions of young, careless love don’t seem to apply. We are more cautious, purposeful, and real than ever. | 当我思考自己与布莱斯的爱情时，年轻、没心没肺这样的典型特征似乎并不适用。我们心态更谨慎、目标更明确，也更真实。 |
| Recently, many local campaigns have launched to try to combat Asian hate. I am most drawn to the message of the “I Still Believe in Our City” campaign, which highlights the beauty and strength of local Asian and Pacific Islander communities. Weirdly enough, through all this madness, never once have Bryce and I wished to leave. There’s something undeniably magical about being in love in New York City. And we’re not going to let any racism or hate take that away from us. | 最近，许多地方都行动起来，试图对抗针对亚裔的仇恨。我最喜欢“我依然相信我们的城市”这一项目所传递的信息，它凸显了当地亚裔与太平洋岛民群体的力与美。奇怪的是，在这所有的疯狂之中，我和布莱斯从未想过离开这里。在纽约坠入爱河的魔力是无可否认的。任何种族主义或仇恨都休想夺走我们之间的这种感觉。 |
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