The Art of Correspondence

Do a Google search for elusive designer, Martin Margiela, and you'll come up with next to nothing --- and there's nothing more intriguing than trying to hunt for information about someone who's piqued your interest.

In an article in today's New York Times' Style Magazine, it says, "Since the Belgian wunderkind set up shop in Paris in 1988, no one has seen a picture of him, and no face-to-face interviews have been granted."

Interestingly enough, the Times thought it'd be cool to have former Sex Pistols manager, Malcolm McLaren, write to Margiela in an attempt to find out more about the former head designer for womenswear at Hermes.

What followed were a series of four exchanges between the musician and the fashion designer --- going back old school to the world of letter writing and pen pals.

Ah, pen pals!

As a child, was there anything more exciting than receiving a letter in the mail? Rushing out to meet the postman at the mailbox and sticking a chubby little hand inside the letterbox to fish out a bunch of envelopes and to find one --- just one --- with your name written on it by another childish hand?

With the advent of e-mail, I think that, by and large, people don't really write to each other anymore --- no longer filling sheets of paper by hand in illegible scrawl and then tucking it into an envelope, applying several stamps and then waiting, waiting, waiting for weeks on end for something to come back.

Why bother? You can send several short e-mails off throughout the day for free.

But what was interesting --- and exciting, really --- about the Margiela and McLaren correspondence was the writing...The open, breezy way of communication that often crops up when you're not immediately faced with the other person.

What is it about writing a letter? It's like a confessional of sorts. Secrets are easily purged and things that are hard to say out loud are deftly written (or typed) out for a person far, far away.

Finding someone who can write, however, is a different matter.

While it's cool to have a pen pal, finding a pen pal who can actually write is another story --- after all, not all of us are born writers. Not all of us have the knack to paint vivid portraits of our mundane, everyday lives in such a way that it comes to life and seems interesting to the recipient.

Over the years, I've had several people e-mail me and try to begin a pen pal exchange. Most of them petered off after awhile. Most contacted me after reading one of my online journals.

So far, there's only been one person that I still keep in frequent contact with --- a nurse from California who seems to lead a freakishly similar life.

I once joked, "Do you think we're the same person, living out the same life, except on opposite ends of the continent and with you in the States and me in Canada?"

"Oh my God, yes!!!" she wrote back. "Except I'm Korean and you're Chinese."

At times, I've had people write to me, surprised that I'm Chinese.

I remember once, while I was doing an internship at the local newspaper, I hitched a ride with the photographer, who commented that if he hadn't met me and had only talked to me on the phone and read my stories, he would have never guessed I was Chinese.

I couldn't help but wonder if people, in general, think that Chinese people can't write --- that, stereotypically, they're only good at math and scientist and destined for occupations like engineering, computer programming and accounting?

I like to write --- and people have often told me that they enjoy the way I write --- but I know that I'm not all that great.

If I was, wouldn't I have been snapped up by a newspaper or a magazine already?