QQ number

I have been asked for my QQ number often enough, but I normally hesitate to provide a satisfactory reply. Actually I have used QQ for a very long period, that was when I were still in Hong Kong while Kai was in Germany. I kept nearly all the conversation record between us from very early days of our relationship. Together with the yahoo messenger record and emails, I guess a series of book might be edited without difficulty. The content could be quite exciting.

The thing now is that why do I still need a QQ when Kai is sitting in front of me every night?

To those meaningless talks, I am just too mean, I know that. Shame on me.

the first good news from the new year

I said "first", only because this one is the most noteworthy one. If there are something most noteworthy, certainly there must be some other things which are noteworthy as well, but not necessarily noteworthy that much. For example, I have picked one cent from the pavement on the way of my very first daily shopping tour right after stepped into the new year. To me, that was already noteworthy enough, because I am always the superstitious Chinese who believes in omen very much.

But the good news, which I want to mention now, is that my husband will get 1 week more holidays this year. It was announced by the boss in a 'by the way' fashion, in one of their in-house phone conversation. A very interesting woman, I think, although she is not really lovely appeared to the eyes of the others. It makes me imagining how big a deal it would be, if this thing would ever have happened in the working place of my last job. I know that I should not generalize things based to isolated phenomena, nevertheless, I just cannot help to think that in case I would have asked to make a favorable choice among Germans and Australians, I would rather prefer the former.

Thinking about

going to toilet in Germany.

Homesickness

Gao Xingjian said that he has put his homesick to an end with the finishing of his Soul Mountain and Biography of Shanhaijing, the two works which took him a lot of years to write after he stepped out the boarder of China.

I would say, I have never had feeling such as homesick, while people normally assume that I am a rather sentimental person. I feel that it is difficult for me to be touched by the far-fetched things, which I hardly benefited from. Nevertheless, I only discovered this side of me nowadays. I was not like that when I was little. I can be sure. By then, I even loved Tian'anmen, the place where chairman Mao was associated, for many years before I actually visited it. After that, although chairman Mao has died for a long time already, I still kept this love for a long time, until the myth of chairman Mao had been disillusioned by the historical books and documentary DVDs which are written and produced by foreigners. After all, Beijing is not my hometown, and my memory about my hometown is always linked with food rather than places. The sentimental link to specific person might cause homesick, but that is not my case as well. People who loved me dearly are all gone to another world. Whenever I recall the time of my childhood, I would sense some melancholic sense in me and feel sort of weak. Yet this feeling has got nowhere to lean on in the hometown and hence it is forced floating and wandering. So, I am carrying a bitter smile on my face while carrying a confused heart without homesick. Quite complicated. Difficult to explain. Once there was even a funny thing happened to me which made me quite embarrassed. That was in the German integration course and the class was discussing the term 'Homesickness'. I started to cry when it was my turn to speak. My tears were running nonstop following the food that I was listing and made all the classmates felt pity for me and rushing to pour their sympathy over me. Strange.

Somehow, it is good to know that I am not the only one who doesn't have homesickness. Rosa Luxemburg said, 'Ich fuehle mich ueberall zu Hause, wo es Wolken, Voegel und Menschentraenen gibt.'

Two SMS received from my father

Last time, when I visited China together with my husband, my father sent me a sms before our departure. It says:

煌：信息收到。在你上机前赶着再给你发几句：
(Huang, message received. Before your departure, I rush some more lines to you:)

(Residing in other people's homeland but treat it as your own,

flying care-freely in the wide sky and carrying the cloud along.

self-strengthen is the life-long task, yet please be cautious,

the morning sunshine could turn into sunset blink-like soon.)

22:28 9/5/09

This time, before I left, I sent a sms to my father saying:

爸爸：感谢您这些日子对我的特殊膳食照顾。虽倍感温暖，也十分愧疚。望您多多保重，保持快乐心情！
(Baba, thanks for the daily menu specially designed for me all these days. It makes me feel guilty, although the warmth which transmitted to my heart with it is overwhelming. I hope you could take good care of yourself, and always keep the delightful spirit! )

My father replied:

建煌：发来短信收到。感到愧疚的应该是我。你不远万里赶回日夜劳累而我却没什么能对你补偿，好在你能理解，谢谢！临行前本想写两首诗送给你，因心绪不宁，只写了一首，先发给你：
(Jianhuang, received the sms which you sent to me. The one who should feel 'guilty' is me. You rushed all the way back and doing your dutiful labour day and night, but I couldn't give you any compensation. Lucky that you can understand. Thanks! Originally I planned to give you two poems before you leave, yet due to the restless status, I composed only one, and I send it to you for now:)

(Reporting the brightness of the Spring, though exile in a foreign nation,

Returning from thousands miles far with boundless love in homely definition.

Forgetting day and night, serving in front of the sickbed,

the heart as flourishing grass, is spreading flavor with sophistication.)

爸爸于侨城

14:04 10/12/09

Family tension

As usual, the morning is the most sleepy time to me. Not sure if it is caused by something in my blood or just this place. It is sunny today. Bright with faint brownish rays reflected from the slate tiles on the roofs. I remembered that I should give my father a phone-call, to check that if he has prepared himself for using computer officially or not. So I called him, and caught him right in the tension of quarreling with my sister. Oh my god! That voice transferred into my earpiece was soooooooo unbearably sharp, hysterical, although it was obviously came from distance to my father's phone. Sure I understand that all conflicts could not be caused by one-side mistakes. Nevertheless, still, I feel pity for my father. My poor father. This incident reminds me of what Chuan told me yesterday, when he mentioned his quarreling with his wife. He even made the wife attempted to call the police. Oh human...... How could one allows oneself to produce so much tension in the family???Can not help, I am in a kind of unhappy woody mood. I heard that my mother was asking my father to stop talking with me, therefore I had to finish the phone conversation which didn't really have any communication yet in a rush. I remember that Chuan told me on the phone that the fire was normally lighted up so abruptly, when I asked him to control his temper.

The new mouse

The day before yesterday, my husband brought me a surprise when he came back from work. 'I have got a gift for you,' he said. That was really something which could make me feel funny enough already without know anything in details. So I smiled widely. My smile can always cause him smile too. So he asked, 'do you feel a little bit curious?' 'Sure.' As I replied, he showed me a blue mouse which contains a swimming yellow duck in the pool.

My old mouse has been bothersome for long enough.

Das Fruehlingsfest ist endlich vorbei

Kai hat mich gefragt, ob das Fruehlingsfest dir so nervig ist?
Ich bin nicht so sicher.
Eigentlich waren alles nur wie immer. Aber ich weiss nicht, wieso ist mir nicht wie Alltag vorkommt.
Kais Vater liegt jetzt im Krankenhaus und hat sein erstes Wort mit den Anderen gespochen nach der Operation. Die Mutter bleibt jetzt im Gasthaus an dem Krankenhaus. Sie hat Kai angerufen und ,alles in ordenung' gesagt.
Na ja. Ich wuensche, dass es wirklich alles in ordenung ist.

The Uigurian

I have met a charming Uigurian young lady from Xinjiang China recently. She interested me immediately when she introduced herself. 'I came from Turkestan', she said, instead of 'I came from China'. One can sense from this subtle statement without doubt, if one is not too dumb, that she owns the separatist stance. But why?
Last time when I went to Xinjiang together with Kai, we didn't have much chance to chat with the local people there, while our trip was too condensed and always in a rush.
She said that the opportunity for Uigurian in Xinjiang to develop their carrier is not optimistic, while there are too much suppression delivered by the central government. She said that she was one of only 3 Uigurian in a working unit which provided about 90 working positions, while in Xinjiang, Uigurian is the biggest ethnic group, which occupies 46% of the population of the whole province. She must be really brilliant and broke the outstanding line in university where she studied, I guess. Otherwise, she might be jobless as well, just like the other jobless Uigurian university graduates. Her Chinese is really good, although she excused herself for several times for that she had not spoken Chinese for too long. When mentioning the Han people who have been sent to Xinjiang, she sounded not so convinced, while the educational qualifications those people hold are mainly undergraduate diploma instead of higher levels. 'The natural situation is too harsh for Han people in Xinjiang,' she said, 'therefore, they do not want to go there if they are good enough.' From her facial expression, I thought that she is concerned about the development of Xinjiang, and the living condition of her people there. She said that it was really difficult for people to get a passport, especially people from places other than Urumqi. She stayed in Turkey for some 4 years before came to Germany. She is pregnant for 4 months now. I guess she is not going to go back to Urumqi.

The Republic of Wine

I have finished the reading of Mo Yan's The Republic of Wine for several days already, and I always felt like to say something on it.
But what can I say?
I really don't want to say something offensive about Mo Yan, while he is one of not so many Chinese contemporary writers whom I like and respect.
Nevertheless, to be honest, with The Republic of Wine, I was about to drop it right in the very beginning.
It was not because of its style.
Mo Yan is never easy to read. That's true, and that is not the point. With the profound thought flowing in and underneath his works, one would require some courage and patience to bare the rather unpleasant scenarios or sayings, but that is not a problem to me too. Although the style of The Republic of Wine is quite different from his other works, and I do not really appreciate his attempt, however, I can even force myself to accept that. The problem is that the depiction of his character, the main protagonist, is not coherent in this work. How could a PhD candidate in the university speak in the fashion as if he is an uneducated person? Even if it is only a sarcastic hunch pinpointing to the lousy quality of the tertiary education, then the writer should have at least carried on the same design throughout the entire book. Unfortunately, Mo Yan sometimes made the writing ability of this same doctor too maturely good.
This is kind of flaw which should not be happened to an experienced writer. It made me couldn't help to assume that he probably didn't have enough time for checking his old work, which he wrote when he was not famous enough yet, before the publishers grabbed it away for the commercial profitability that his fame nowadays could bring.
That disgusts me.

the encouragement

several days ago, the Deutsch teacher came to me in a quite formal way and said to me in a quite serious tone:"Grace, I just want to encourage you for your writing..."
she mentioned several writers who came from other countries but got their fame with their writing in Deutsch. she also stated that people who studies humanities is hardly after the material flourishing. Certainly, it was really nice of her, and worth a sincere thank as what I did.
Nevertheless, something happened today made me feel ironic about all those encouragement. it was the occasion when the group was talking about the important moments in ones own life, and I named the time when my first story got published.
Now, here came the question which surprised me. she asked, how much? At the first, I thought that she was asking about how many of the stories I have got published. But no, I was wrong. She didn't mean that. What she meant was that HOW MUCH MONEY THAT I GOT PAID BY THE PUBLISHER! I told her, about 9 Euro.
I feel so sorry for disappointed her. I should have earned more to worth her encouragement.

The tears of the classmate who came from Philippines

That was not the first time when the eyes of my Filipino classmate Vanessa turned red.
The first time was when the other Chinese classmate Yufen left for going back to China. Well, on the surface, it seemed that she just wanted to go back to China for a while, but the actual reason for her departure was that she could not catch up the progress of the class. Anyway, honestly speaking, I never recognized how close was the relationship between Yufen and Vanessa, while Vanessa never hided her laughter whenever somebody made obvious mistakes while doing oral exercise in the class.
The second time when I saw the tears of Vanessa was when the Polish boy left for whatever reason which I don't know, probably for some special study in his home country or so. The tears turned out in such a sudden and flourishing way, which really surprised me, because I never believe that people could build up close relationship in a short time. Impossible. With the fact I saw from Vanessa, I would have to reexamine my realization.
I was astonished by her tears again last Thursday, while she was saying Goodbye to everyone. While receiving the present from her, I thought that it was for the Christmas. Oh my! I had no clue that she was leaving. So embarrassing.

The encouragement

the other day, my Deutsch teacher came to me and said, Grace, I just want to encourage you, while it is really possible for you to write in German.
Honestly speaking, I was a little bit astonished by then, although my astonishment was not supposed to be shown on my face, because I always feel that she is a kind of pretender. She then told me that she would like to write too, if she is not divorced. Now, the story seems clear enough. face to face, I can see the wrinkles on her face, and the pail color underneath the make up. oh my God! I really wish life would be easier for her.

The white sun

Today's weather should be counted as very good for outing, although the morning was very moggy. Around 10am, when we passed worlzburg with the train, we saw a white sun. 'Is that the sun or the moon?' I asked Kai. I had to make sure, because that was the very first time for me to see a sun which is not orange, not big, not splendid, and not sparkling.
Kai planned the trip back to his parents on this weekend in a kind of impulsive way, because he doesn't have enough books in our little place in Munich. So with this abruptness, he leart a new Chinese expression--bu couqiao (unfortunate coincidence), because one of my old friend is going to pass by Munich today and I will miss the chance to meet him due to this trip. Certainly, as usual, he made a funny variation out of bu couqiao. bu choujiao (prevent to get stinky feet), he said. Certainly, they sound similar enough to him. ：-）
I only hope that Chuan will know how sorry I feel, for that we cannot meet today in Munich.

Sleepiness

Kai sent me a short message from work which told me that he was sleepy therefore missing me, and asked me if he was only infected by me. I was sort of amused, because normally my reply would be 'yes' but not for today. And, it sounds like if I am an expert for being sleepy.
How lucky that I do not feel sleepy today, although the coffee machine is still working in a funny way, which means, I would have to wait for a whole hour before it could provide me a cup of coffee. Coffee is normally my medicine for expelling my headache during the day. Big quantity, dark and strong. Holding a huge mug used to be my character when I was still working. My old colleagues used to call my coffee mug 'bucket' or 'swimming pool'. Whatever.
The day before yesterday, I told my Bosnian classmate that 'meine Kaffeemachine ist kaput', and then, she taught me how to say it in Bosnian. 'Moja machine ja crkla', she said.

Appropriate

Yesterday in the German language class, one of the topics was how to pay compliment to others. What could be my feeling for that? To a person who hates daily-drama extremely like me, one can certainly imaging how horrible it was.
"Oh my God!" that was exactly what I thought and felt by then.
I cannot help to say that westerners are really stupid enough. How could they treat such superficial staff as part of their communication training seriously? No wonder such society need elite, deadly, while the populace are too mideocre.
When it was my turn, I exclamated to the classmate sat next to me, 'oh, is your hair-color natural? it's sooooooo beautiful!'
Certainly, the teacher told me that it was not appropriate.

Everything has its reason

Kai asked me today in the gap of his busy working hour, that why is that one can never count on others? If everything has its reason, what is the reason for that?
I replied, the reason for that one can never count on others is that one should never count on others.
Sure, it might feel bitter. Nevertheless, by realizing this, one might feel easier when one has to fight against the reality all alone.

sesame cake

Kai is going to the book fair in Frankfurt this Friday, so he baked a cake for me, because I would have to spend the whole weekend alone at home.
Certainly, a self-made cake is absolutely not necessary to me. I have got enough delicious storage at the moment, and the supermarket is so convenient if anything I would typically desire. Nevertheless, it seems really important to him for having my daily need arranged by him.
Sure, it is not difficult for me to satisfy his will.

Nobel prize

Nobel prize is a kind of focus of discussions these days. Some informed about the Nobel prize winning plan of the Japanese government, and pointed out that we cannot be unconvinced by their performance. Somebody talked about his/her experience when watching the Argonaut live-recording from the space, and said that while the Chinese, numbered around 300 in the self-study hall, were so excited, one Japanese, who was in the same hall and watching the TV programme together with Chinese, felt quite proud of Japanese too, because all the recording equipments are made in Japan. I was kind of amused. This Japanese said, that it is not that the Japanese are lacking of scientific ability to develop the space defence technology, the thing is that they rather like to put more emphasis on practical life.

Concerning the ABC chemical Nobel prize winner, it seems that there are quite a lot noise criticising his way of denouncing his Chinese identity. To me, that is totally out of focus. No matter who he/she is, one has the free right to choose his/her own identity. This is the way to express his/her social inclination. And one is allowed to express ones own feeling upon ones own experience. If this is a sin, why don't you Chinese government equip a convenient enough environment for the scientists to win a Nobel prize with their intelligence? Certainly, politically and economically.

Regarding the literature prize winner, I am quite astonished by the fact that there are 6 books from this Le Clezio existing in the book market of China. Again, the phenomena in China make me speechless. I simply feel that there are too many things hard to give a convincing enough explanation.

No idea

I feel tensed, for whatever reason.
Kai feels pity for me. I can sense it from the reflections in his eyes and the helpless shivering of the muscles on his face, when I was groaning.
I didn't write anything today. Neither reading, nor thinking.
The heartbeats in these days are making funny jumps from time to time. It made me feeling ill.
Kai asked me if I am ill. But I denied.
I don't know why did I deny.
Around the noon time, there were two little girls dragged their school trolleys behind their tiny figures, walked on the pavement outside the window. The street was so silent. The day feels so silent, so the dripping in the toilet tap sounded so noisy.
It seems that wherever I live, there is always a dripping tap.