In March 2019, I went back to China and lived with my father for a week to celebrate his 90th birthday, which was his first birthday after my mother passed away. On my way back to Boston, while waiting for the midway transfer in the quiet and empty airport lounge, I drifted off to sleep as I was very tired.

Suddenly, I heard a big noise and opened my eyes to see a group of youngsters coming to the lounge and talking loudly using a language I didn’t understand.

I woke up and looked at them, although they wore different clothes, they all had a green backpack, and I guessed they were a group of college students, as many of the boys had beards on a very young face, pretending to be mature; and all girls were tall and slender, absolutely modern western beauties.

The girl, sitting next to me, was chatting and waving her hands at the same time happily, she looked friendly and I couldn’t help asking: “Where are you from?”

I was surprised when the girls close to me started to speak English fluently and enthusiastically. They told me that they were Spanish high school students who had just finished their two-week American study trip and were now on their way back home to Spain.

I curiously asked, “Did you eat, live and have classes in American schools in the past two weeks?”

They said they had been eating and living in American families in the past two weeks. Three days a week, they attended high school classes to experience the life of American high schoolers; and the other two days they went out with their host families to experience American life.

Their experience sounded very interesting to me, I asked, “After living in the United States for two weeks, what do you like about the United States?”

The girls told me that they like the big shopping malls in the United States, they like the fast food restaurants with drive through, and they like big houses of American families. They also said that in America, high school students were very happy because they can choose easier courses unlike in Spain where high school students cannot choose courses and some courses are very difficult! I also learnt that they applied for a scholarship for this trip to the United States, so their food and accommodation in the United States were free.

In the airport lounge, these short conversations provided me a first time opportunity to be close enough to feel the vivacity spicy tempered Spanish young beauties and to hear their high-pitched voices which were full of emotion. Looking at them, I started to compare the Sichuan girls I am familiar to, as Sichuan is my home province. I felt that the Sichuan girls could easily match the Spanish girls in terms of vivacity spicy and fast high-pitched talking, while the Sichuan girls possess more subtle oriental beauties, in other words, at first glance Sichuan girls usually lack the sculptured facial and body features in comparison with the Spanish girls. It is also apparent that the visual differences from the two races cannot be ignored. I hope many of us are proud of the characteristics of our own race.

Recalling of the couplet of Jingxi Pavilion in Yong’an temple in Beihai Park: “Stillness suits contentment. No need of long journey to grasp (悦性适应静，会心何必遐).” Comprehending heartedly without going far requires a hardened mind. Grasping heartedly in a far place is a harvest.

July 27 is an important anniversary day for me. On July 27, 1984, it was the first and only time I went to Mount Emei for a five-day trip with three college girl friends. Mount Emei is one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China, and is traditionally regarded as the bodhimaṇḍa, or place of enlightenment, of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra (普賢菩薩).

Recently, all of us got together online to recall our trip to Mount Emei back 37 years ago, which awakened our sincere youthful true feelings.

To celebrate the memory of youth from 37 years ago, I visited a seaside small town for three days.

From one of the Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China to a seaside town on the East Coast of the United States, from a 19-year-old normal university student to a 56 year old silver haired retiree, I felt my staying near the sea helped me to quietly enjoy the wealth accumulated for me across the ocean and over 37 years.

On July 27, 2021, it was pouring rain in the evening of the first day in the town. The next day was sunny and cozy.

In the early morning, I walked along the paved seaside trail, and was happily aware of no steep mountains to climb. I also experienced the solo traveler’s familiar private joy. Walking along the path by the sea, looking at many benches with inscriptions on them, I felt content, because a beautiful scenery with many benches is a good place to indulge oneself.

I walked all the way and curiously read many inscriptions on the benches. I found an emotional inscription: “Remembering Wendy Breen Kline at her favorite place: ‘Love endures all things, love never ends’”.

The inscription struck me, as if to introduce a resonant soul to me and also to convey the great love between heaven and earth, and my love of my late mother too.

With my late mother in my mind, I sat down to enjoy the beauty of this place and to feel the special thoughts of this bench. I told my flower-loving mother in my heart: “This is my first time here. The flowers along this beach on the East Coast are different from the flowers along the Santa Cruz Beach on the West Coast. Here has a lot of rugosa rose, and the Santa Cruze Beach has a lot of disphyma crassifolium. ”

After a while, an old man passing me smiled and waved. I smiled back and said: “Good morning.”

He pointed to the bench I was sitting and said, “You got the best seat!”

I felt a connection between us, so I said happily, “Yes, I know. I like what it says on the bench too.”

I continued sitting on the bench in Wendy’s favorite place, closing my eyes to recite the words about love on the bench: “Love endures all things, love never ends” and to smell the salty sea breeze blowing on my face and the smell of the soil emitted from the rain last night in the sun.

I thought of Ruth, Kara’s veterinary, a Jewish woman, who signed her poetry collection book for me: “to never ending end“, to convey the eternity of love.

I remembered the inscription on my favorite bench by the stream in Almaden Valley in San Jose California: “love is like a pebble dropped in the creek. It ripples, extending beyond our horizon. We know that love has graced us and we will treasure that forever”, which shows that love has magical powers.

I also remembered my toast at the farewell dinner table before graduating from college: “for love”, conveying my true feelings.

37 years have passed, I am thankful for the journey, from China to the United States, from the West Coast to the East Coast, with the variation of Eastern and Western cultures, which hardened my belief in love, a wealth worth to have.

Little Episodes

1. The flowers, near the ocean, I told my late mother about:
The rose along the beach in Maine in the East Coast of the United States (07-28-2021)

The disphyma crassifolium along the Santa Cruz Beach in the West Coast of the United States (05-02-2016)

The myoporum flowers on the coast side at Hurricane Point on California Route 1 (09-2018):

2. The Bench dedicated to Wendy in her favorite place, on the East Coast of the United States (07-28-2021)

3. In San Jose, California, the place and the chair with the inscription, my favorite spot in Almaden Valley (12-28-2014)

4. A toast from our group at the farewell dinner before graduating from college (07-03-1985)

Shen – for joy, Lu – for happiness, I – for love, Dai – for friendship, Geng – for four years together, Guo Fei – for a bright future, Ma Jianhua – drink more for a good sleep tonight, Cai Li – for the eternal career, Zhang Hong – for the future, Qin Tian – for the ups and downs of tomorrow, and Li Zhengchu – for one.

Today was the last day of my daughter’s school and also the retirement day of a respected Professor W. in her department.

In the morning, the department held an online party to celebrate Professor W’s retirement. Many colleagues and students told stories about Professor W’s rigorous scholarship and tireless teaching at the online party. The professor’s wife and children also took part in the online celebration.

Because both the professor and his wife had been vaccinated, several graduate students, including my daughter, planned a surprise gathering to celebrate Professor W’s retirement, at the beginning of the summer.

It would be a prelude with sweet memories to celebrate the retirement of someone who has devoted themselves to their career for decades, especially after more than a year of long intensive online activities without normal social life and when the vaccine has achieved initial success in 2021.

The graduate students requested an online Q&A session with Professor W in the afternoon to book his time ahead. Instead of the online Q&A, the students went to Professor W’s home, accompanied by Professor A, who was retired for more than a year now and who knew the address of Professor W’s home.

When Professor W opened the door, everyone sang together: “Happy retirement to you, Happy retirement to you, Happy retirement to you, Dear Professor W, Happy retirement to you.” Professor W was so surprised. After chatting with everyone standing at the front of his yard for a few minutes, he and his wife invited the uninvited guests to sit on the open deck of their garden.

Everyone followed Professor W around their house to the deck of the garden. When his wife took out the folding chairs from their house, she happily said: “Our balcony has welcomed the most guests today.”

While reading the card full of handwritten messages, Professor W said: “I’ve received a lot of e-cards today. It’s nice to hold a real greeting card and read different handwritings. Thank you!”

The department gave Professor W a gift box wrapped several books in it. Professor A was curious about what books the department gave to Professor W, so after reading the greeting card, Professor W opened the gift box to satisfy Professor A’s curiosity. The exquisite books attracted everyone’s admiration and brought out many topics between the two professors.

A few days, prior, Carey used a wooden chopstick to write a letter to Professor W in Ugaritic on a piece of soft clay, and then baked the written clay into stone, Carey said: “Professor W likes to carve ancient characters on clay. On his website, he described in detail the common gestures used to carve characters on clay using wooden chopsticks.” Carey then gave the letter on the tablet to Professor W today, Professor W liked it. After reading the tablet, Professor W handed it to his wife, who was sitting next to him, because she liked pottery and clay handicrafts very much.

Grace brought a bottle of sweet wine to Professor W; Shirah made a double layer chocolate cake for Professor W, and wrote “Congratulations” in Hebrew on the cake.

My daughter made a challenging logic puzzle for Professor W., and Professor W quickly solved the puzzle. After hearing this, I said with admiration: “Professor W is so clever!

We chatted for 2.5 hours before leaving. Professor W said: “It was the most pleasant surprise!”

Little Episodes

1. The exquisite books from the department, the sweet wine brought by Grace, and the double-layered cake backed by Shirah.
W教授花园里大树上嫩绿的叶。

2. The beautiful blue sky in the afternoon

During one of our Wednesday night gatherings, Shirah brought her Japanese high school Chinese literature text book to share.

After the dinner and the dessert, Shirah took out her book from her bag and placed it on the dinner table. We all turned our heads to peek into the Chinese articles in the book with curiosity.

Majored in literature since college, Grace enjoyed reading many familiar old poems and articles. While explaining to us in details, she discussed some of the works with Shirah.

Grace said: “Some articles in this textbook have a few different characters from the same articles in our textbook.”

After hearing Grace’s comment, Shirah thought a bit and replied: “Maybe they came from different versions.”

Shirah recited a few famous Chinese pomes for us, we noticed the sounds in Japanese lacked the rhythm carried by Chinese.

Curious Lou studied the title of the Japanese textbook: a single Chinese character in Xiaozhuan style.

I took a peek and said: “It seems like the dragon character in Xiaozhuan.”

Everyone took a close look at the title on the book cover and said that character is different from dragon character. Then Lou found “capable” in Xiaozhuan, which has the same left part as the title. However, the right part is different from the title.

Someone thought out loud: “‘Capable’ or ‘able to’ is not noun.”

Someone found: “Capable is adjective. how could an adjective be title?”

Lou seems addictive to doing research now. He focused his attention on his cell phone for a while and announced : “I found the completed sentence in the same XiaoZhuan style on a Japanese museum web site: ‘to be capable one needs to learn, to be wise one needs to ask.’”

After reading the completed sentence on Lou’s phone, we all understood the meaning of “capable” as the title on the Japanese textbook of Chinese literature: “want to gain ability, one must learn.”

Six highly skilled readers, including three PhDs in science and there PhD candidates in liberal arts, worked together to learn about the character of capable in XiaoZhuan and to solve the puzzle of using a single character as the title. Learning how to do research while playing is fun.

I remembered a story of Grace’s “to be capable needs to learn”: recently she told us: “I just learnt how to hold a cat on Youtube: one hand hold the butt, another hand hold the chest.” She immediately picked up Kara for a demo. Seeing Kara quietly curved in front for Grace, we all cheered for Grace.

Little Episodes

1. Grace held Kara (by Lou)

2. Our Wednesday Dinner.

3. The cover of Japanese high school Chinese literature textbook

“to be capable one needs to learn, to be wise one needs to ask” come from Confucius’ family language: disciple’s journey.

4. I was surprised to see BaiJuYi’s famous poem of “Man Sells Charcoal” in the textbook.

When I was in middle school we were all required to recite “Man Sells Charcoal”. Rereading this poem again, I remember my literal teacher’s comment of this pome deeply exposed the ruler’s cruelty to ordinary people. In addition, I was also touched by “Even with a thin layer of clothes, the man still wished for an even colder weather”, because he wanted a good price for his coal，which expressed his strong desire for survival.

Rereading the poem of “Man Sells Charcoal”, I had a chance to recall more than 40 years’ memory and see the change in my perspective now: I understand more about the desire to survive, as a primeval force in a ordinary life which could bring great fulfillment and satisfaction. I was happy for this understanding.

BaiJuYi’s “Man Sells Charcoal”
（摘自：廊桥梦者）
卖炭翁，mài tàn wēng
伐薪烧炭南山中。fá xīn shāo tàn nán shān zhōng
满面尘灰烟火色，mǎn miàn chén huī yān huǒ sè ，
两鬓苍苍十指黑。liǎng bìn cāng cāng shí zhǐ hēi 。
卖炭得钱何所营？mài tàn dé qián hé suǒ yíng ？
身上衣裳口中食。shēn shàng yī shang kǒu zhōng shí
可怜身上衣正单，kě lián shēn shàng yī zhèng dān ，
心忧炭贱愿天寒。xīn yōu tàn jiàn yuàn tiān hán 。
夜来城外一尺雪，yè lái chéng wài yī chǐ xuě ，
晓驾炭车辗冰辙。xiǎo jià tàn chē niǎn bīng zhé 。
牛困人饥日已高，niú kùn rén jī rì yǐ gāo ，
市南门外泥中歇。shì nán mén wài ní zhōng xiē 。
翩翩两骑来是谁？piān piān liǎng qí lái shì shuí ？
黄衣使者白衫儿。huáng yī shǐ zhě bái shān ér 。
手把文书口称敕，shǒu bǎ wén shū kǒu chēng chì ，
回车叱牛牵向北。huí chē chì niú qiān xiàng běi 。
一车炭，千余斤，yī chē tàn ，qiān yú jīn ，
宫使驱将惜不得。gōng shǐ qū jiāng xī bú dé 。
半匹红绡一丈绫，bàn pǐ hóng xiāo yī zhàng líng ，
系向牛头充炭直。xì xiàng niú tóu chōng tàn zhí 。

Grace and Lou were middle school sweethearts when they were in Shandong province. They were both born in the 1990′s.

The 2020 quarantine created opportunities for me to know they more and to have joyful conversations with them.

The difference between my Sichuan accents and dialects and their Shandong accents and dialects often bring laughter into our conversations. Like when we say “corn”, which has a very different name between Sichuan (BaoGu) and Shandong (YuMi, Bangzi, BangZhuiZi). Lou, who majored in STEM (abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics as subjects of study), possesses broad knowledge and a good sense of humor. His jokes about accents and dialects often make us laugh. The differences between accents and dialects are accepted and acknowledged by our laughters.

From our casual conversation, I learnt the name Lou originates from his last name (吕, lǚ) and is made to be easy to pronounce by English speakers. Lou told us about the troubles around his last name in Chinese PinYin. There are three possible ways to write 吕 in PinYin: LU, LYU, or LV, those three possibilities had bothered Chinese for a few years. Teachers would teach student lǚ in the class, but electronic users will type lv on keyboard to get 吕. Lou’s story about his last name helped me see the important relationship between Chinese characters and PinYin and the tangled complexities between them. For instance, in 2005, a student who with the same last name of Lou was very depressed by how to present his last name in PinYin…

“On the passport, 吕is represented as LV or LU? Now my last name on grade report, TOFEL, and GRE are LV. This morning, my boss signed his recommendation letter using LV too. However, one teacher said on passport LU is usually used for 吕. I am very depressed now…”

In 2021, we went to Grace and Lou’s place for Chinese New Year celebration. We made dumpling, ate a big dinner, and chatted. While chatting about the heavy difficulties Grace encountered in her studies as a first semester PhD student. I encouraged Grace: “Pursuing PhD is a challenging journey. You watched Lou studying and receiving his PhD, he probably worked harder than you.”

I was surprised to hear from Lou: “Studying ancient languages sometimes is more challenging than studying STEM.”

Alex curiously asked: “How difficult was it?”

Lou paused a moment and said: “Like we go through another GaoKao in China.”

Grace said: “The grammar of ancient language, without being practiced daily, is very hard to use correctly during classroom discussions. I had to learn three ancient languages, one foreign language, and my subject in my first semester. I really feel like the time is not enough for me.”

I seemed to understand the challenge and said using computer terminology: “Studying multiple languages at the same time without a computer compiler to help, I can imagine the difficulties.”

Lou said: “My father used to think that studying ancient languages is very easy.”

I laughed: “I always thought the same as your father. Thank you! I started to admire Grace and Eileen’s courage and ability in pursuing their degree on ancient languages”.

Little Episodes

1. The depressed 吕student’s post:

2. 2021, Chinese New Year celebration dinner table filled with delicious food.

Chinese Version

Today is Tuesday. My daughter invited me to join a casual gathering of Israeli visiting scholars and students on campus in the evening. She said: “So you can experience college life again.”

During the gathering, the visiting scholars and the students sang a lots of popular Hebrew songs. Though I could not understand the meaning of the lyrics, I enjoyed the beautiful voices and the bright smiles from the singers.

The gathering was held in a modern meeting place that has room for about 20 people. The meeting place was filled with electronic equipment, including sound system, light system, big screens and a projector, an electronic piano, a few electronic guitars, and many wired and wireless microphones…

My memory flashed back to my own college life (1981-1985), more than thirty years ago. We only gathered on holidays, never on regular school days. Our holiday gatherings always took place in the class room where the only electronic device was the light bulb. During our gatherings, we drum-passed a flower, sang songs, cracked jokes, recited poems, and asked each other riddles. In my college life, very few of my classmates knew how to play music instruments. In today’s college society, it seems every student is capable of playing music instruments, singing, and dancing.

These things will touch me more deeply if I see the big differences between now and then. Tonight’s gathering touched me deeply.

More than thirty years’ of technology and culture advance created these opportunities for students to show off their talents on well quipped stages during school day casual gathering, this is wonderful!

Siting among joyful college students, I experienced the youthful college life for a second time. I was quietly delighted, a good feeling that came from age and life-experience.

I hope all the kids in college will have a wonderful college life.

Side Note: The style of college students

I used to hear lots of joke about a software developers’ favorite style is jeans with checkered shirt. Tonight, I noticed that college students wear jeans and sneakers too, but none of them wear checkered shirts. One of the very active student, a senior who majored in economics, was dressed from head to toe in various blue things: blue shoes, blue jeans, and blue sweater. It was very handsome.

Chines Version

Recently, my daughter and I watched a movie called “The Death of Stalin”. She was surprised that I knew the main characters in the movie.

I told her: “In China, we were taught in school to follow Stalin’s Soviet Union and to criticize Nikita Khrushchev’s Soviet revisionism. ”

I asked my daughter: “Why did you want to watch this movie?”

My daughter said: “Friends recommended it.”

“History major friends?”

“No, club friends.”

“Recommended to watch for what?”

“Watching nonsensical behavior of high ranking officers in a brain-washed society.”

I thought about the movie we just watched and replied: “A brain-washed society is very scary.”

In a brain-washed society, during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) in China, it was not only high ranking officers were acted nonsensically, but also many average people, such as students against teachers, children against parents, people against people, etc.

This thought brought back memories of my mother reminding me to be careful about what I said in college (1981 – 1985).

In the 80’s, in last century’s China, one of the favorite activities for college students who just came back to school from winter or summer breaks was tasting different homemade foods brought back by roommates from different places.

In my college dorm room 501, in Sichuan Normal University female student building there lived eight classmates who came from Zigong, Mianyang, Ziyang, Chengdu, and Chongqin. We always tasted different homemade foods in our dorm room at the end of each break, foods like pork sausages, salted peanut, sweets, preserved meat, salted eggs etc. I still remember a glass jar of fried small fish, brought by Shan. Shan told us: “The fish was caught by my neighbor. The river in my hometown has lots of small fish, anyone can go to the river and catch small fish easily. ”

When I heard Shan’s story about “Anyone can go to the river to catch small fish easily”, I said to Shan: “your hometown practices real communism!”

Shan’s story touched my heart, when I came home during break, I told my parents: “ I tasted the fried small fish brought from Mianyang by my roommate Shan. There are lots of small fish at Mianyang’s river, anyone can catch them. Mianyang really likes communism.”

Before I went back to school after the break, my mother seriously talked with me: “You should not say ‘Mianyang really likes communism’ any more when you are back to school.”

I was irritated and asked her: “What is wrong with that?”

My mother saw my irritation, she thought a bit and said carefully: “You say ‘Mianyang really likes communism’ implies Zigong doesn’t, this could be interpret as slander against Zigong.”

I would never want to slander against my hometown. So I kept my mother’s reminder in my mind.

My mother experienced “people who bide their time to take revenge” during the Cultural Revolution. She was afraid that my innocent words may trouble me in the future. A mother’s love expressed under a special sensible time. Now, I still felt the deep love from my mother.

The flavor of Shan’s fried fish faded out, The Fort Mountain where the home for my entire schooldays was gone. However, the memory of my mother reminding me to watch my words, in our home on Fort Mountain, is still vivid.

The past few days, I was reading a book about the German invasion of France in World War II by Danielle Steel, from the book I learnt the sad story about French Jewish. When the race, not the words, threatens life, Jewish mothers in France gave up their own children to strangers and hoped their children would be smuggled to safe lands to survive, because those mothers believed there exists a love that is more powerful than a mother’s love.

Today is Thanksgiving, I have lots to be thankful for. The most thankful feeling goes to my mother for her unconditional love to me and to all the mothers who believed there exists a love more powerful than a mother’s love.

Dear Mother（10/25/1928－05/02/2018），I miss you.

(05/06/2017, Mother at ChangPin)

Chinese Version

A birthday is a very important day for most people. People born in 90’s or 00’s probably have many happy memories about birthday parties as they were growing up, those people make up the majority of current college students.

In 2020, libraries, gyms, movie theaters, concerts, and restaurants were closed for most of the time because of the COVID-19. This year, students who could not go back home and used to have birthday parties maybe longing a birthday party with friends even more than before.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, unlike locals who could enjoy the new way of birthday celebration given by relatives and old friends via driving past the birthday girl’s home, honking their cars, and shouting “happy birthday.” Away from home students likely experienced a quieter birthday this year.

Recently, I chatted with a student who just celebrated her birthday. She said to me: “This is my first birthday away from home. My parents tried very hard to send me the birthday gifts I want. They also asked me: ‘What else do you want?’ Inside my heart I wanted their hugs on my birthday, but I said to them: ‘I am good, thanks.’”

I praised her for being a sweet and caring daughter.

It is sad when loved ones are separated during the quarantine, but love and care can still be delivered and enjoyed remotely.

In 2020, various quarantines across the globe created more opportunities for us to practice our ability to deliver and enjoy love and care remotely, it is a rare opportunity too. How many times have you practiced this ability so far?