Xiaolu Guo - A Concise Chinese English Dictionary for Lovers

I feel out of place in China. Wherever I go, in tea houses, in hotpot restaurants, in People’s parks, in Dunkin Donuts, or even on top of the Great Wall, everybody talks about buying cars and houses, investing in new products, grabbing the opportunity of the 2008 Olympics to make money, or to steal money from the foreigner’s pockets. I can’t join in their conversations. My world seems too unpractical and nonproductive.

“But you can speak English, that alone should earn you lots of money! Nowadays, anything to do with the West can make money.” My friends and my relatives keep telling me this.

Day 500

I think I have received your last letter. The last. It arrived a month and a half ago and there has been nothing since then. I don’t know why.

I think maybe I will never go back to England, the country where I became an adult, where I grew into a woman, the country where I also got injured, the country where I had my most confused days and my greatest passion and my brief happiness and my quiet sadness. Perhaps I am scared to think that I am still in love with you.

But all these thoughts don’t matter too much anymore. Only sometimes, when I am alone in Beijing in my flat, an obscure night, noisy construction sites outside my window, I still can feel that pain. Yes, the geography helps a lot. I know the best thing to do is to let each other go, to let us each live on a different planet, parallel lives, no more crossing over.

Dear Z,

I am writing to you from Wales. I’ve finally moved out of London. The mountain behind my stone cottage is called Carningli. It is Welsh, it means Mountain of the Angel…

I brought some of our plants and the old kitchen table here. I think the sunflowers are missing you. Their heads have bowed down in shame-as if they have been punished by their school teacher-and their bright yellow petals have turned deep brown. But I think your little bamboo tree is very happy because we have had Chinese weather for the last month. Last week I planted some climbing roses outside my cottage because I thought it would be good to have more colours around.

Every day I walk through the valley to the sea. It is a long walk. When I look at the sea, I wonder if you have learned to swim…

Your words are soaked in your great peace and happiness, and these words are being stored in my memory. I kiss this letter. I bury my face in the paper, a sheet torn from some exercise book. I try to smell that faraway valley. I picture you standing on your fields, the mountain behind you, and the sound of the sea coming and going. It is such a great picture you describe. It is the best gift you ever gave me.

The address on the envelope is familiar. It must be in west Wales. Yes, we went there together. I remember how it rained. The rain was ceaseless, covering the whole forest, the whole mountain, and the whole land.

The author wishes to thank Rebecca Carter, Claire Paterson, Beth Coates, Alison Samuel, Rachel Cugnoni, Suzanne Dean, Toby Eady, Clara Farmer, Juliet Brooke, Audrey Brooks, Nan Talese, Lorna Owen, and all the others who have followed this book on its journey.

Xiaolu Guo was born in the Zhe Jiang province of southern China. After graduating from the Beijing Film Academy, she wrote several books published in China. She has written and directed award-winning documentaries, including The Concrete Revolution ; her first feature film, How Is Your Fish Today? , was an Official Selection at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 International Women’s Film Festival. Since 2002 she has been dividing her time between London and Beijing.