It was one of the first weeks of school, which could have been as mundanely usual as a timetable: class, lunch, class, dinner, homework. But during this particular week, I was turbulently re-welcomed to California.
      My first encounter with earthquake was last year when, one early morning in autumn, the tectonic plates decided to give us in the East Bay a little friendly jolt. It stopped after a minute and most people went back to bed unconcerned.
      But this year, the puff of wind had transformed into something stronger. It arrived in the middle of my evening lecture with about twenty intellectually baffled graduate students sitting around the table. It took a few breaths for us to realize; our mind could have been thinking: “What’s this? Oh wait, it’s an earthquake!”
      We all rose up from the chair, wanting to leave our narrowed classroom. But before we could find some space to walk, the earthquake stopped, leaving our pens and papers up side down on the floor. (Well, we knocked them over, for the most part.)

      That same week, I had been looking forward to meet up with Thai students from the nearby UC Berkeley, who were organizing a welcome party up in the Berkeley hill. For six years I have been in the States, this was the first time to join such a "local" activity.

      Caught up in my campus work, I was late and missed the group on the way to the site. But it was such a rarity for me that I decided the show must go on. Besides, taking a routed bus to a park didn’t sound too ghastly.
      But Tilden Park of Berkeley was, to say the least, huge. The ride came to an end with me still sitting there, hesitant where to get off, alone.
      I got off, looked around, and started praising fate for a payphone. My multiple calls ended up not reaching my friend due to lack of signal in the mountain. But, thank goodness, some calls got through.
      "Where are you? Can you please come get me? Please come get me."

      After a few tryouts and some aloof time, we came to a better solution that I should go to her instead. At least, she knew where she was; I didn’t, really.
      "Could you give me a ride?" I politely asked a man who appeared to be at work in the park.
      "I speak little English," he replied in Spanish accent.
      Mystified, I tried to speak the simplest English known on earth, although he might have also figured it out from my expression. He gave me a friendly ride to the group with much sympathy and humor.

      After identifying myself, I finally met my friend with whom I had been on the phone and many others. We ate. We talked. We played games. All were as stylishly Thai as we are ourselves.
      Once the party was over, it was time to put ourselves back into the dorm to read and speak the language that is not our own, to live in this shaky land that is not our home. But that day I was confirmed, friendship is rejuvenating in whatever language it comes, in whatever land it takes place. Mucho Gracias!

(Acknowledgement: this article was edited and published in the Nation newspaper, Bangkok, on September 26, 2003. The author wishes to contribute this article to this website.)