Chinese Version
03-2019
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.
