Xiaolu Guo - A Concise Chinese English Dictionary for Lovers

“What do you mean? Nothing has changed. I’m the same person as before.”

“But I feel you are cold. We haven’t made love for such a long time but you didn’t even kiss me when you walked through the door. I missed you so much, I wrote you emails everyday as possible as I can, but how many emails did you write to me in the last whole month? Only five! You knew I would be back tonight but you still brought your friends. Didn’t you want to be with your lover privately ? Are your friends more important than your lover?”

I am so angry. I can see my anger everywhere in the house.

“Of course I love you. But that doesn’t mean I have to abandon my friends. I think you are being a bit selfish,” you say.

“Thank you! Yes, I am a very selfish person. I am so selfish that I want to have a quiet night with my lover after five weeks travel!”

I try hold my anger back. I don’t know what I can say. I know you didn’t have sex with anybody when I was away, and I am the one did all these messy things. How can I blame you? But at the same time I feel so disappointed about you.

“I don’t think I am a special one to you at all,” I shout.

I walk into the bathroom. I turn on the bath. I take off my clothes. And I clean myself away from all those dusts.

The night when our bodies lie down side by side, I feel I am detached. We are not one body anymore. This is the first time I feel this. There is a big obsessed “self” separating itself from my body and looking at your body. Even when we make love, even when your body is deeply in my body…

We Chinese are not encouraged to use the word “self” so often. The old comrades in the work unit would say, how can you think of “self” most of the time but not about others and the whole society?

The “self” is against “group” and “collectivism.” The “self” is the enemy of the Communist party. In middle school we were taught “the most admirable person” should forget about himself, shouldn’t satisfy his own needs.

I remember in my middle school whole class went to the Old People’s House every Friday afternoon. It was a big place for old lonely people to stay, but also abandoned babies were being raised there. The babies were always girls, girls who had been found in the rubbish bin or in the street. I remember there were lots of tiny babies sleeping in one room. We brought our soaps and basins from home, to wash the nappies and clothes. I remember several baby girls have strange white spotted skin and white hair. We were frightened to see that. We were told these babies had a special skin disease. We were scared to touch them in case our body turned to white too. And I remember two babies with strange shapes of the body. Their fingers were bound together, one of the legs twisted like vines. I was horrified. But it taught us to understand other mankind’s miseries and sufferings; to understand how lucky we are compare with these hopeless people.

But here, in this rainy old capitalism country, “self” means everything, “self” is the original creativity for everything. Art, business, fashion, society system, all deeply depend on this “self.” The connection between the world and “self” is so strong. “Self” works incredibly well.

abortion n. 1. operation to end a pregnancy; 2. informal something grotesque.

My period still didn’t come. I wait one week. Then two. Not a single drop of blood. In a vague afternoon, I decide to go to the pharmacy buy a pregnancy test box. I come back home and you are not here. I shall find out on my own. The blue symbol shows a cross: positive.

Holding the pregnant test sample in my hand, I don’t know if this baby is from you. I really don’t know. I look at that cross again and my body feels so dirty. I want to wash myself.

I wait the whole day for you to come back home. When you come back in the evening, I tell you. I say I need to go to hospital and have an abortion. As quick as possible. Surprisingly, you don’t say anything. You don’t even ask when it happened, and you don’t even ask if it is from you. You just look at me with sad face and I start to cry. You put your arms around me and hold me tight.

Five days later you drive me to a clinic in Richmond, with your broken white van. We stop in a petrol station. Is it very far away? I ask. Not very far, you answer, we will get there soon. Your van is old but it is never really totally broken down. Highway. So many cars. So many traffic lights. I feel dizzy. Everything goes fuzzy. I don’t know what you are thinking about this baby might be yours. All I know is you hold my hand very tight, only let go change gear. I feel you are only stable thing to me. You are my life.

I wake up on a wheel bed, without feeling anything unusual. I eat the orange and biscuits the nurse gives to me. I put on my coat and find my shoes back. No more fear anymore, only the sorrow of emptiness. I walk slowly back to the resting room. I see you. You stand up from piles of newspaper, walk towards me.

nostalgia n. sentimental longing for the past.

“You need nourishment,” you say to me.

So you buy lots of food for me from Tescos. The baby is gone so I shall eat a lot to fill the emptiness. Salad, shrimp, fried chickens…Everything on the back of the package is “Produced for Tesco Stores Ltd.” In my hometown, when a woman has abortion, her mother cooks eel ginger soup, or a soup made from dates and lotus seeds. But not here. Here, Tesco packages look after you.

You are cooking some obscure pie for me. It is called q-u-i-c-h-e. I have never seen it before. On the bag it says:

Even Real Men Eat Quiche!

Quiche, q-u-i-c-h-e. I can’t believe it when I am swallowing this piece of shapeless hot stuff. Such an ambiguous piece of food. Totally formless. I wonder about what my parents would say if one day they come to this country, and they eat this. My mother probably will say: “It is like eating something from other people’s mouth.” And my father will say: “It must be left from earlier meal so they re-cook it but inside are already messed up.”

I will agree with my father: it is a piece of big mess indeed. You tell me it is actually from France. I don’t believe you. I think the English are too ashamed to acknowledge it is their food. So they say it is French to defend themself.

But, in the evening, you cook a fish for me. Not cod, not seabass, not any typical English fish. It is a silver carp. It is like my hometown’s fish. It smells of the river nearby our house. I remember I studied a word before, and I remember how to pronounce this word. No-stal-gia. Eating carp causes my nostalgia .

age n. 1. the length of time a person or thing has existed; 2. the time of life; 3. the latter part of human life; 4. a period of history; 5. a long time.

Today when you unload some box from your van, you become extremely tired. You become really old. We used to look like five years difference in other people’s eye, but now obvious twenty years gap between us. This makes me feel a little sad about you. You look at me, a small smile. There is a shadow underneath your eyes. Maybe it is me made you old. I not go out earn live. And I always demand love from you. I demand love by showing my vulnerability, again and again. I remember at the beginning of us, you have a perfect hair. But now, there is a bit grey hidden behind your ears. And your wrinkles, they are at the corner of your eyes. Sometimes I wonder if you saw these wrinkles, if you saw your grey hair hidden behind your ears.