Xiaolu Guo - A Concise Chinese English Dictionary for Lovers

So noisy. It makes me headache immediately. The woover must be invented by mans. I sit on chair not let the big dragon swallow me and take out the Little Red Book from my drawer. There are some pages about womans and equal in Mao’s speech:

In order to build a great socialist society it is of the utmost importance to arouse the broad masses of women to join in productive activity. Men and women must receive equal pay for equal work in production.

This must be the original thoughts which became legend “womans hold up half of the sky” in China.

While I am in deep thought about China, you switch off the dragon. You stare at me, and say:

“I wish I’d never given you books. Now all you do is sit there reading and writing. You’ve become so bourgeois .”

frustrate v. 1. to upset or anger; 2. hinder or prevent.

frustration n. the feeling of being frustrated.

You lie in bath. The water comes to top, and the bubble covers your body. We both always take bath when we feel depressed. Do most English people do that, especially in the long dark winter? I wonder. How many baths we have been taken since we being together? In last six months the bath I had must be more than I did in the last twenty-four years.

Now, you even didn’t switch on the radio. You lie there like a nude statue in the water.

“Why you are silent?”

You shrug your shoulders. Have no comments.

You don’t want talk. Not at all. Not even one word.

“Have you got headache?”

You shake your head.

“So you don’t want talk to me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I just want to be on my own to think. You know people sometimes just want to have their own space.”

Only your face is on the surface of water. Impression of your face is like the sky being covered by a big piece of dark cloud. You not happy.

“Why you not happy? What have I done wrong to you?”

“I just feel tired of you,” you say. “Always asking me words, how to spell them, what they mean. I am fed up.”

I listen.

“It is too tiring to live like this. I cannot spend my whole time explaining the meaning of words to you, and I can’t be questioned by you all day long.”

You come out from bath, covering your body with that blue towel. You are so cold to me. You leave me there alone.

I feel like being abandoned . The word I learned the first day I arrived London in the bloody red Nuttington House. It is the second word in my Concise Dictionary , coming after Abacus .

You carry on:

“It is so hard for me. I don’t have my own space to think about my sculptures, my things, and my own words. I don’t have time to be on my own. Now when I talk to other people, I become slower and slower. I am losing my words.”

I listen. I am upset to hear this. I have to say something to defend myself.

“If so, that is not my fault. It is just because we live in such different cultures. It is very difficult for both you and I to find the right way to communicate.”

You listen, then you say: “You really are starting to speak English properly .”

After this, the evening we are in the world of silence. I don’t want ask you any words anymore, at least not in several hours, and I tell myself I shouldn’t talk to you either, at least tonight. You not want talk to me. The air in the house becomes heavy. Finally you say to me: “Come with me to see a film.” I take my jacket and I follow you. We are driving the white van to the cinema. Oh, cinema saves our life.

Yes, maybe you are right. Words maybe not really the first thing in life. Words are void. Words are dry and distant towards the emotional world.

Maybe I should give up learning words.

Maybe I should give up writing down words every day.

nonsense n. 1. something that has or makes no sense; 2. absurd language; 3. foolish behaviour.

I am sick of speaking English like this. I am sick of writing English like this. I feel as if I am being tied up, as if I am living in a prison. I am scared that I have become a person who is always very aware of talking, speaking, and I have become a person without confidence, because I can’t be me. I have become so small, so tiny, while the English culture surrounding me becomes enormous. It swallows me, and it rapes me. I wish I could just go back to my own language now. But is my own native language simple enough? I still remember the pain of studying Chinese characters when I was a child at school.

Why do we have to study languages? Why do we have to force ourselves to communicate with people? Why is the process of communication so troubled and so painful?

discord n. 1. a lack of agreement or harmony between people; 2. harsh confused sounds.

Forgot since when, we started to fight.

We fight everyday. We argue everyday. The sound in this house is discord . Fighting for a cup of tea. Fighting for the misunderstanding of a word. Fighting for the ways I like to add the vinegar in the foods but you hate it. Fighting for the freedom as you think it is important more than anything else.

Argument expands onto every possible direction:

Typical argument 1: (On Tibet)

“I remember you saying that Tibet belongs to China. I can’t believe you can think that.”

“Well…You see things from a white English’s point of view. Shame that your English failed to colonise Tibet and China,” I throw back.

“But now Tibet is colonised by the Chinese!” You raise your volume.

“If Tibetan is not with Chinese, then it ruled by British Empire, or American anyway. Because Tibet never really been economically independent! They always need rely on others, rely on powerful government. Since China and Tibet are in the same piece of land, why we two can’t be together?”

“It depends what you mean by ‘together’! It can’t be at the cost of Tibetan culture. And look how many Tibetans you’ve killed…”

“I didn’t kill any Tibetans! No any other Chinese I know in my life killed any Tibetans! In fact, nobody in China wants go to that desert!”

“But the Chinese government killed Tibetans.”

“Yes, of course BBC news only report bad side of China.”

Typical argument 2: (On food)

“It is boring eat with you everyday. You only eat vegetable, no wheat, no pasta, no white rice, no bread, only goat cheese, let alone any fish. Hardly any restaurant suits you. And not very much fun for my cooking either. My parents will say you lose the most joyful thing in your life.”

“Well, you are the enemy of animals. How many animals do you think you have killed in your life?” You fight poison with poison.

“Eating animals is the human nature. In the forest, tiger eats rabbit. Lion eats deer. That’s how the nature works.” That’s how my teacher said in my middle school.

“But you Chinese eat anything, even endangered species. I bet if dinosaurs roamed the forests of China, someone would want to see what dinosaur meat tasted like. How come you people have no sense of protecting nature?”