I won’t have leisure at the coming Mid－autumn Festival for only planning to clear the ash from the flues of the
kang if the weather permits.

中秋在卽少閒暇，天朗扒炕須無他。

We’ll move to the west room and mess up the
rooms further. Nevertheless, we’re to have few visitors by then.

移居西屋更凌亂，所幸客稀不來家。

These recent three days my prurient mind has vanished to my satisfaction. I have begun concentrating my mind on calligraphy and reading.
The enclosing wall of the Central School at the northwest corner has been torn down. It seems to be rebuilt soon.
Mother couldn’t wait for brother’s help any longer. She disregarded my persuasion occupying herself with preparatory work for the reconstruction of our lavatory in the sun. I had to told brother mother’s impatience when he was busy binding sacrificial paper with sister-in-law. He reluctantly agreed to come over for the construction. He first had me carry some wooden poles back. It took us nearly three hours to finish the wood structure with asbestos tiles as roof.

When I was in primary and middle school, we criticized with
teachers the conception of” Whereas buying ship is better than building it, renting
ship is better than buying it.”

As a graduate student in university, my
tutor helped us analyze the positive and negative aspects of LDCs’development
strategy of Import Substation. What I learned from above all those years have
little effects on my life later on.

Now my daughter is settling down in
Shanghai. She knows nothing about IS and less about the choice of buying or renting
ships, but she understands that the loan shops are lion shops. A pragmatist, she,
in turn, has been renting a flat not far from her company and happily moves to it
everyday in Mobike bicycle and back home on foot.

There is an old saying in China: “A distant relative is not as good as a near neighbor”. The means that when you are in trouble, the person who is most helpful to you is your neighbor, not your family. This is true.We really cherish the memory of enjoying the time we spent in the collective apartment forty years ago. Dozens of families lived together in a collective apartment. Each floor has only a public kitchen and a public toilet. If you couldn’t occupy a spot to set your gas stove in the kitchen, you have to cook in the corridor. The whole apartment building would be full of oil smoke every time you cook, but soon you will smell food instead. Everyone knows what other families will eat. Everyone is exchanging experiences in cooking and tasting other people’s dishes as well. The adults are speaking and laughing, the children are playing and are being noisy. The news and gossiping are mixing with the noise of cooking… All of these formed an accord picture. These people are teachers in the college. They are models for others and they have elegant manners in public areas. But when they come back home, they will return back to their roles, who work hard for their livelihood soon. In the collective apartment, the people whose families has trouble such as someone getting ill, husband and wife quarrel, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law discord… All neighbors would help. At that time, although the material life is not rich enough, there is no lack of warmth and care on the spiritual level.Afterward, the people in the collective apartment become less and less. At last all of them move into some newly built apartment. Now people dwell in their own apartments. People who come back home from outside need to pass four doors. The first door is the district’s gate which divide us from the society. The second door is unit’s gate which separate us from other units. The third door is elevator door which separate us from other floors. The last door is our own apartment gate. We insulate ourselves when our gate is closed. We are alone in the apartment besides bright windows, spacious living room and bedrooms, perfect furniture and comfortable beds. We almost have no concept of neighbors. We only know someone lives next to our door either a man or a woman. We almost don’t know most of our neighbors.Someone says that this is a kind of a society’s progress. But this kind of progress turns us into seclusion or solidarity, especially when we are aware that we are getting old more and more, these feelings are getting stronger and stronger. We want to get more interests of the society’s progress, but we don’t want to be alone. We need communication and help from society and people.Corrected by Teacher Chawee

Dear Teacher Jhoan：I know you are a good handling at free talk lessons, so I made a decision to practice my oral communication with you. I will book three free talk lessons each week. Each free talk lesson follows my booked lessons. I want to ask my teacher to correct my mistakes and I will practice again and again. Please help me modify the paragraph above to make it better and more polite to my teacher. By the way, let me introduce myself. I am a boring person. In fact, I hardly have any hobbies. My favorite thing is to sit in front of the computer reading and writing some articles online. Several computers have been broken for doing this. Sometimes I also like to drive out by myself to enjoy the beautiful scenery.Thank you very much.Sincerely yoursJeffreyCorrected by Teacher Jhoan

A little spiral has come to my house for a
visit, I guess. Probably because I saw him last night, which he might noticed
my gaze for he shunned away, and didn’t mind, this morning I saw him again
swinging at my living room!So I have to give him a lesson now! He was detained in
a tissue! He bad bad!…

“Eat or not?” That is a normal greeting
when people meet. “Haven’t seen you for a long time” is another
greeting. The former greeting is responded with “yes” or “no”, whereas
the latter is perhaps a prelude for a longer chat. “Hi!” modern young men and women greet each other at first sight. They
then walk away quickly before you even have time to hi back! (Fr Chinese
Way of Greetings, June 15th.2005)

Over the years, my way of greetings is simplified
with a mere nod. Eating is a burden now. Behind“Long time no see”is more often
than not“Reaching in no time” with everybody kept in touch with each other online
every minuet. A loud “Hi”is heard twice in the past year, one is a student I
met for the second time on the university campus last October. Another is a
greeting on the stairs from a young colleague whom I am not familiar - in both
cases I greeted back with a nod. What’s left is a casual “Ni Hao”, a
greeting mostly to strangers or someone
not familiar with an occasional “Ni Hao” response. It seems civilized men greet
each other now without necessarily saying many words.

A motto I always keep in mind is a man’s basic need is no more
than three meals a day and a bed. Needless
to say bowls are dear to me just as dishes dear to westerners. I almost eat
everything with bowls. Even at leisure. I once wrote in a miniblog:“I watch TV
with 2 bowls on hand for melon seeds & husks, a Greek silver bowl & a
Turkish copper one. Though both country’s in feud with each other, both bowls
stay together with me like twins in front of the screen.”

Bowls dear to me, many of my posts are bowl related, for instance, “Porridge
too hot, I drank it with soy milk. I slowly picked up the bowl with two hands
when suddenly: ‘Morning, Mr. Liu!’ I had to put it down to respond,(it tumbled on the plate. Thankfully
the bowl is made of steel.) Greetings can be a disturbance.” Another time in Liu
Changxing Restaurant, a man asked for a bowl of porridge. The answered was “only
two bowls left, both or nothing.” I then came up to say I could have the other
one when the man had disappeared.

To me there is business in bowls. An example, “ Back home from lunch, wife
told me: ‘Tangbao didn’t rise, still 6 Yuan a portion, but tofu-jelly is up 1 Yuan
and so is wonton, No idea of the others from the menu.’ I commented: ‘At a
tangbao restaurant, eaters may leave with a bowl of tofu-jelly, or a bowl of
wonton, you don’t expect them to leave with just a few meat dumplings, do you?’” (Wonton is complimentary to Tangbao.) Like a barbershop, restaurant can be a source
of information, here from a bowl of noodle at a Zhenjiang Noodle shop: “While
eating, I heard a loud voice:‘Noodle！’No need to say more. ‘I’ll ask (inquire) for
you,’ she told a shop helper, ‘They do need hand, but (since) the shop’s there.
It pays more, over2000(Yuan),’she said aloud while eating.” Sometimes comparisons
are easy to make: A bowl of vegetable & egg noodle cost 8 Yuan in both
nearby noodle shops, I prefer one of them. …

A bowl itself can be food for thought. “Three empty bowls
are on the table. Daughter: ‘Mom is out to buy something for the lunch.’ ‘Do
you ever see birds back in nest with food shared with babies? That’s what human differs from animals.’”
The most recent bowl analogy is a miniblog this week: “Breakfast
at canteen. Admiring colored bowl in Z’s hand, I: ‘Nice
bowl for begging!’ Soon spinach brought out, eaters pounced on it. Z: ‘Why not
get some?’ I: ‘Begging to me is a once for all business.’” Many things are irreversible. …

Though bowls are dear to me, I always put it down and forget it after
meal, not because of a pair of slippery hands: I’m blamed for the bowls and dishes
not washed clean enough in my hands.“… wife’d say:‘You just put them in the
sink.’ I am freed from washing dishes after meal all these years. Still I’m not silly enough to be simply away after dinner. Instead I would
say: ‘Let me wash?’”

I peeped at the darkness outside, and noticed it was only 19:00. Most of my colleagues were concentrating on work, and none of them showed any sign to leave.  Somehow, an inexpressible restlessness instantly seized me and drove off my enthusiasm to finish the last touch on a revised essay. Out of a long sigh, I turned off computer, wore the coat, took my bag and left the office like a whirl wind.      I didn't choose to get to the metro station from the passage underground although it was a warm and shortcut way.  I threw myself into the cold wind with the only thought to refresh myself before I ended another monotonous day. However, I didn't expect a slight difference would happen to me.      As I approached the desired platform in the congested crowd, I heard that a woman was shouting: " Put the duck meat into your bag and then eat it”. I didn't care because I guessed it must be a conversation between two friends. Again, it echoed in the crowd. Maybe the great noise engulfed her voice, nobody responded to her. To my surprise, the question suddenly crept upon me. I turned and found that a woman in white stood in presence of me with two bags in her left hand.          " Put the duck meat into your bag and then eat it” she asked me again         "Are you sure I know you?" I puzzled and spoke haltingly.          A slight embarrassment rippled off on her face,  but she still repeated her question.          I had to say sorry.          Maybe my rejection disappointed her, and she turned away and left me in confusion, and shouted at other commuters.       " Put the duck meat into your bag and then eat it !” 

Tell you the truth, a trip without plan is the name of
our friends group in wechat, we had many kinds of the tours without plan, easy
come easy go. We only took one or two days leaves at last few years. This year
we discussed long time in the group since two month ago, finally we were going
to Mi Yun district at the suburbs in Beijing. We have learned the buildings of
village is totally copied from Wu Zhen where is very popular in China, Beijing
Wtown (古北水镇).

Two days tour as our plan, to avoid rush hour traffic,
six of us left home after 9am at Tuesday morning, for sure I am one of the
driver, in fact I don’t like driving too long time on the way, because of my
waist is hardly in one pose at the limitation space for such long time, but I
had to show my loves in front of them, no complain, hehe. We drove about 120
kilo meters away in high way, unfortunately the traffic was very smoothly, it
took about two hours to be there. We quickly checked in the farm house near the
village, the room was clean with free Wife, but the meal was not including the
room charge, the mean we had to pay the three meals additional upon your
expenses, anyway, take the thing easy.

As we were told Beijing Wtown is good at the evening time
with many different lightings of building, and this is very famous night scene
in Beijing right now. that’s why we entered the scene around 4pm, you knew the
ticket is 150 yuan per each. The women as our ages likes to show our self in
the public, frankly speaking I dislike, but in among of them I just was following
some actions for the group pictures, they like wearing the colourful long scarf
for the picture at the sea or the top of mountain. As I know many young people
are laughing at them deeply. I never thought I am the one get laughed at. Maybe
I was thinking too much, just enjoy yourself, don’t care others feeling.

We never were missing any corners of building to take
the photo shooting for the group picture, Mrs Jing Li is our leader of the
group, she always called us please forward to other places quickly, don’t stay
here too long, otherwise, we will be missing the music fortune for the first
show at 6.30pm. it was great that the picture and carton video showing on the
top of temple building by high technique with the matching music, I remembered I
had seen the similar music show in Singapore in many years ago, right now it is
all coming with Chinese components and cultures. Other show so attractive so
much There were almost a hundred UAV（Unmanned Aerial
Vehicle）to
be Kong Ming lanterns flying to the night sky together in different shapes, it
was amazing to see the show at Mid autumn festival, the moon was super star,
everyone would like to have the great luck under the light moon.

What a wonderful night we had, we forgot the things
which we unexpected, just totally in happiness. Please see our pictures here to
share with you all.