My daughter received a grant to research aboard in Germany, where she studied for her master degree.
While in California, I asked her:”do you want to bring any gifts to the people in German department?”
My daughter replied: “The skirts you made for me are very unique, could you please make one for Greta?”
And so we went shopping and found a fabric which we hoped Greta would like. It was a dark rich corduroy.
The skirt was then made according to my daughter’s favorite style: a wide flare, knee-length, double-layered, and an elastic waistband that can be adjusted via ribbon. I made this sort of skirt for Greta. And so my daughter carried from California to Massachusetts, then from Massachusetts to Germany to give to Greta. It was just like carrying a feather across a thousand mile as a gift, physically light but figuratively full of friendship and affection.
Greta liked the skirt. You can see her wearing the skirt while standing in the front of Wuerzburg Residenz, in Germany.
When I look at the picture, it is as if Greta is walking out to me from yesteryear.
Greta is my daughter’s teacher and friend, a real Belgium beauty. She is a vegetarian, enjoys biking and walking, and has participated in many international walking activities across the continents. After earning a computer science major bachelor degree in 90′s, Greta switched fields to archeology, focused on ancient language studies and earned her Ph.D in the field. Now she is an accomplished scholar.
Greta and her husband interviewed my daughter in London, before she came to Germany for her master study. After my daughter arrived in Germany, they helped my daughter settle in her new environment.
When I visited my daughter in 2016, I invited them for dinner as thanks for their kindness and cooked many Zigong style vegetarian dishes.
They enjoyed the family style dishes, because the dishes are rarely found in restaurants and carried little stories about my hometown Zigong. For that dinner, we ate Zigong family style vegetable dishes, drank Wuerzburg’s famous white wine, and chatted about food across cultures. After dinner, we tasted Belgian chocolate and drank Chinese jasmine tea. Even now, when I think of that evening, I feel warm and fuzzy inside.
I also posted this moment to my friends on September 27, 2016. Here is the translation of the moment: 【VegeFamilyDinner】Today, I invited my daughter’s vegetarian teachers for dinner. I racked my brain to cook all the vegetable dishes I could think of. The dinner for five was very joyful. Asparagus lettuce, hand-chopped white daikon noodle, tomato salad; fried potato noodle, fried rice with corn and red pepper, fried pakchoi, taro stewed in Chinese sauce, quick fried cabbage, cooked napa cabbage with vinegar, plain stewed bamboo shoot, steam cooked eggplant, and peanut tangyuan for dessert.)
After the vegeFamilyDinner, I realized that looking happy and healthy is also a method to promote Chinese food. Happy cooks create a special temptation for foreigners, who hope to share similar health by eating such a meal.
As a passionate long-distance walker, Greta knows the nearby sceneries around Wuerzburg like the back of her hand. In 2018 she designed a day trip for us. Using Greta’s benefits as a university faculty member, I got a free train ride to the start of our 10 kilometer walk. While walking ten kilometers we visited two Roman era castles and got to taste the local cuisine.
Greta is also knowledgeable about many plants and flowers. Along the walk, the two of us were able to point out and name the flowers and plants we passed by, such as yellow flower winter jasmine, the big-budded magnolia tree, etc. We enjoyed our common interest in nature. Greta also likes to knit and bake.
My moment about the tenKiloMeter posted on January 27, 2018:
【TenKiloMeters】Three beauties, accompanied by the foggy sky and muddy road, walked ten kilometers to visit two ancient castles that have wall around them. At noon, I had stewed deer as lunch at Mainbernheim, afternoon, we tasted Sachertorte at Iphofen. What a joyful day!)
Looking at Greta’s picture again, I felt that the two dimensional beauty made from sewing is capable of enhancing our three dimensional world. I hope my friendship with her was conveyed in every stitch and thread and that she enjoys her custom-made skirt for many years to come
Footnotes:
I wrote “Sewing Another Paradise” in Chinese originally. Because Greta could not read Chinese, I rewrote a version in English now.
“Puddle of Gold “, my blog name, is the name of my first elementary school that no longer exists.