Xiaolu Guo - A Concise Chinese English Dictionary for Lovers

“Well, I worked in a welfare office.”

“And what’s that got to do with a government work unit?”

“Everybody in China has a work unit, and I don’t want to lose that if I have to go back. It is a lifelong paid job. It is safe, you know. If I lose that, I have no choice except making shoes with my parents.”

“OK, whatever. You can’t make decisions about a relationship just because you don’t want to lose a job.”

Indecision , that’s the term belongs to you. Is that why you are unhappy with your life?

“Do you want live with me for ever?” I start again. I have to. I’m too worried.

“I cannot say that. Nothing is for ever.”

“You don’t believe in that concept?”

“No. Because I don’t know the future, do I? I don’t know what the future will be like.”

“But don’t you wish you will be with me in the future?”

You are in silence for three seconds. Three seconds is very long for this question. Then you answer: “The future will decide for you, not you for the future. You’re from a Buddhist country, I would have thought you would know that.”

“OK. From now on we don’t talk about future. All I know is: our Chinese live in the expectation. Expectation , is that the word close to Future ? The farmers grow their rice in the spring, and they water it and expect it grow every day. The rice sprouts turn into green and the rice pole grow up taller. Then summer comes and the farmers look forward to grain growing bigger. Then the autumn harvest, and the grain becomes golden. Their expectation is nearly fulfilled, but not complete. After the harvest they separate the straw and millet. The straw goes to the shepherd’s pens or the pig’s yard, and the millet goes to the market for sale. All this is so that a family can have better life in the winter and in the coming Spring Festival. In the winter they burn the roots and grass on the fields to nourish the soil for next year’s re-plant. Everything is for the next step. So look this nature, life is about the expectation, but not about now, not about today, or tonight. So you can’t only live in today, that will be the doom day.”

You stop listening. You are busy pouring hot wax into a mould. There are three different moulds, one is like a brain, and another one look like an eyeball, the third one is a big nipple. After wax pouring, you are waiting for it is cooled down, so you can pull the mould away from the wax.

Your pencil drawing is on the kitchen table. A drawing, lots of human organs, lie inside of a bath. Human bone, a leg, ears, lips, eyeballs, arms, intestines…it is almost ugly. Actually, very ugly. But also very strong. Once you said to me you think youself are ugly, though I don’t feel like that. You said you are always fascinated by ugliness, ugly people, ugly buildings, ruins, rubbish.

I raise my eyes, contemplating the plastic bath you made. It sits there, silent, holding something vague, holding something heavy.

expel v. 1. to drive out with force; 2. to dismiss from a school, etc., permanently.

Today, my government work unit calls me. Suddenly, I am dragged back to that society.

The officer in the phone say seriously, in the Communist way: “You have a contract with us. We have to warn you to come back before you do wrong things there. Don’t break our rules. Return back in one month according to the rule in our work unit, otherwise you will be Kai Chu (expelled) from our organisation.”

Kai Chu!

Expelled!

I am so angry that I want to throw my phone away. A year in this country, I had almost forgotten how stupid those Chinese rules are. An individual belongs to the government, but doesn’t belongs to herself. Yes, I want to be expelled. Please expel me. Please. But I also know they just threaten me. They always threaten the little people, in the name of the whole nation. And you don’t have a chance against it. It is like Mao’s little red book, it is written in the imperative tone.

dilemma n. a situation offering a choice between two equally undesirable alternatives.

I read this word so many times on the paper and never understand it. Now, when think about whether I should stay here or go back China, I understand this word totally.

It is a difficult word just like what it means. Dilemma. Knowing this word, I also learn these words: paradox, contradictory, alternative .

“If I leave this country, or say we split up, what you will do?” I ask.

“I don’t want to be with another woman.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why you don’t want another lover?”

“I just want to be on my own.”

‘“Really? And you don’t want to be with a man lover either?”

“No. I don’t want anybody.”

“Really?” I think I don’t understand you.

“Really. Look, you need me, and your love is a need. But I don’t need anything, and I don’t need you. That’s why I can be on my own.”

You say: “I’d like to be a monk. I want to give up everything: the city, desire, sex. Then I can be free.”

“We should let each other go,” you say to me.

“But we still love each other,” I insist. How can two lovers just decide to separate while they still in love with each other?

“We should leave each other.” You look at me, as it is said by a priest, a sober priest in the church.

Suddenly I feel that you have already made up your mind. And nothing can be changed. But I still remember that love song you sang to me before, under your fig trees in the garden. The lyrics and the melody are still wandering around in my ears:

It’s the heart afraid of breaking

that never learns to dance

I think you only want the joyful part of love, and you dare not to face the difficult part of love. In China we say, “You can’t expect both ends of a sugar cane are as sweet.” Sometimes love can be ugly. But one still has to take it and swallow it.

I start to deal with my immigration papers. I have to apply for an extension of my visa. It is frustrating. I need to show my bank details to the Home Office that I have stable income to live here, but certainly I don’t have any income. Everything is family supported. How much money I left in my bank? Two hundred pounds? Or one hundred and fifty pounds by tomorrow? Most importantly, I don’t have any reason to stay here, except for you. And I feel confused. I want to stay but I don’t know if it is the right decision. My parents’ opinions now seems don’t bother me very much like before. Plus, they know nothing of my life here.

I thought that you would bring everything into my life. I thought you are my Jesus. You are my priest, my light. So I always believed you are my only home here. I feel so insecure because I am so scared of losing you. That’s why I want to control you, I want you are in my view always and I want cut off your extension to the world and your extension to the others.

I think of those days when I travelled in Europe on my own. I met many people and finally I wasn’t so afraid of being alone. Maybe I should let my life open, like a flower; maybe I should fly, like a lonely bird. I shouldn’t be blocked by a tree, and I shouldn’t be scared about losing one tree, instead of seeing a whole forest.

timing n. 1. the choice, judgement, or control of when something should be done; 2. a particular time when something happens.