My First Typewriter

A sunny, breezy weekend in Silicon Valley. Out for a walk, I found an old English typewriter on the curb with a “Free” sign taped beside it. A typewriter so familiar — and at once my memory was back in Guangzhou, in that sweltering summer of 1992.

In those days the way out was to go abroad, even penniless. As luck would have it, I had won a full scholarship (a research assistantship plus tuition waiver) for a PhD at Clarkson University in the US. My joy was matched by panic, because I couldn’t speak English at all and had never typed a single word. If I really flew to America, wouldn’t I be a complete idiot?

In Guangzhou back then, though I lived on the South China University of Technology campus, there was neither a computer nor a typewriter. How was I to learn to type? In desperation I hit on an idea: I drew an English computer keyboard on a sheet of white paper and pretended to type on it, drilling the relative positions of the 26 English letters into memory.

After much trouble, I finally borrowed a typewriter, and I was beside myself — like seeing red-braised pork before New Year when I was little. I quickly set the machine straight, fed in a sheet of white paper, closed my eyes, and slowly touch-typed the 26 English letters from memory. I knew speed didn’t matter; what mattered was using every finger, so that over time it would come naturally, and I would not end up looking like an idiot.

I opened my eyes. The white paper was densely covered in English letters — but looking closely, every letter was in the wrong place. I broke out in a cold sweat. It’s over, it’s over: the next life is uncertain, and this one is already done.

Then I looked closely at the keyboard. It was a French typewriter.