Xiaolu Guo - A Concise Chinese English Dictionary for Lovers

I immediately image picture of tradition Chinese garden.

“No, honey, it’s too small for so many Chinese plants.”

Then, Sunday, we went to Columbia Road Flower Market. It my favourite market. We brought the small little sprouts of Chinese cabbage at home. Eight little sprouts all together.

We plant all these little things. Digging the soil, and putting every single sprout into the hole. You are fast than me. So you finished planting five, and I only putting third one in the little hole.

We watering Chinese cabbage sprouts every morning, loyal and faithful, like every morning we never forgetting brushing our teeth. Seeing tiny sprouts come out, my heart feel happy. Is our love. We plant it.

You say:

“Growing a vegetable and seeing it grow is more interesting than anything else. It’s magic. Don’t you agree?”

Yes. Is interesting. But in China, is just for peasant. Every person can do this, nothing special for growing food. Why so different here?

Then we see some little leafs come out but are bitten by the slug.

“It’s dangerous that the slugs keep eating the small sprouts. They can die really easily,” you tell me.

Carrying with flashlight, every night, around 11 o’clock, you sneek into garden and check the slug. They are always several slug hidden behind the young leafs. Enjoying the delicious meal under the moonlight. You taking them out from the leafs, one by one. You putting these slug together in one glass bottle. Soon glass bottle becomes a slug-zoo.

“What your favourite words? Give me ten,” I say when we are sitting in garden. I want learn most beautiful English words because you are beautiful. I even not care whether if useful.

A piece of blank paper, a pen.

You writing it down, one by one.

“ Sea, breath, sun, body, seeds, bumble bee, insects. ” You stop: “How many are there now?”

“Seven,” I say.

“Hm… blood …” you continue.

“Why you like blood?”

“I don’t know. I feel blood is beautiful.”

“Really? But blood violence, and pain.”

“No. Not always. Blood gives you life. It makes you strong.” You speaking with surely voice.

You see things from such different perspective from me. I wonder if we change perspective one day.

“And why breath , then?”

“Because that’s where everything is from and how everything starts.”

You are right.

“So, what else? Last favourite word?” I say.

“Suddenly.”

“ Suddenly ! Why you like suddenly ? Suddenly not even noun.” You a strange brain, I think.

“Well, I just like it,” you say. “So what are your favorite ten words?”

I write down one by one:

“Fear, belief, heart, root, challenge, fight, peace, misery, future, solitude…”

“Why solitude ?”

“Because a song from Louis Armstrong calling ‘Solitude.’ It is so beautiful.” I hear song in my ear now.

“Where did you hear that song?” you ask.

“On your shelfs. A CD, from Louis Armstrong.”

“Really? I didn’t even know I had that CD.” You frown.

“Yes, is covering the dust, and look very old.”

“So, you’ve been through all my CDs?”

“Of course,” I say. “I read your letters and diaries as well.”

“What?”

“And looked your photo.”

“What? You’ve looked through all my stuff?” You seeming like suddenly hear the alien from Mars attack the Earth.

“Not all. Parts that diary are make me sad. I can’t sleep at night,” I say.

privacy n. 1. the state of being alone or undisturbed; 2. freedom from interference or public attention.

“You’ve invaded my privacy! You can’t do that!” First time, you shout to me, like a lion.

“What privacy? But we living together! No privacy if we are lovers!”

“Of course there is! Everybody has privacy!”

But why people need privacy? Why privacy is important? In China, every family live together, grandparents, parents, daughter, son, and their relatives too. Eat together and share everything, talk about everything. Privacy make people lonely. Privacy make family fallen apart.

When I arguing about privacy, you just listen and not say anything. I know you disagree me, and you not want live inside of my life, because you a “private” person. A private person doesn’t share life.

“When I read your past, when I read those letters you wrote, I think you are drifter .”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You know what is drifter, do you? You come and leave, you not care about future.”

“To me, to live life is to live in the present.”

“OK, live in present, and which direction you leading then?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, you don’t have plan for tomorrow, for next year?”

“Well, we are talking about different things. I don’t think you understand what I am saying. To me the future is about moving on, to some new place. I don’t know where I am going. It’s like I am riding a horse through the desert, and the horse just carries me somewhere, maybe with an oasis, but I don’t know.”

Suddenly the air being frozen. Feeling cold. I not know what to say anymore. You older than me twenty years. You must understand life better than me?

You look at me and you say: “It’s like the way you came into my life. I feel as if I am not naked anymore.”

I feel as if I am not naked anymore. That a beautiful sentence.

I listen, I wait. I feel it something you not finish in your sentence, but you not want say it.

So I help you: “OK, I come into your life, but you not know if you wanting carry on this with me all the times. You will want to break it and see what can make you move on…”

“We will see.” You stop me, and take me into your arms.

“It’s important to be able to live with uncertainty.”

intimate adj. 1. having a close personal relationship; 2. personal or private; 3. (of knowledge) extensive and detailed; 4. (foll. by with ) euphemistic having a sexual relationship (with); 5. having a friendly quiet atmosphere- n. close friend.

How can intimate live with privacy ?

We have lived together after first week we met. You said you never lived so closely with another person before. You always avoided intimate with the other person. You said to have your friends more important than your lovers. That’s so different with my Chinese love-family means everything.

Maybe people here have problems being intimate with each other. People keep distance because they want independence, so lovers don’t live with together, instead they only see each other at weekend or sleep together twice a week. A family doesn’t live with together therefore the intimate inside of a family disappeared. Maybe that why Westerners much more separated, lonely, and have more Old People’s House. Maybe also why newspapers always report cases of peterfiles and perverts.

We are in your old white van. You want to show me somewhere special called the Burnham Beach.

“Is it the British ocean?” I ask, excited to visit sea for first time. You are laughing.

“B-e-e-c-h, not b-e-a-c-h. In English, a beech is a type of tree, not an ocean. I’ll take you to the sea another time.”

How I ever understand your complicated language-not even any change in accent like we have in Chinese. We have four intonations, so every tone means different word. Like: