The other day I had a dinner by an old neighbor, in which she invited my family to show her thanks to me to have helped her son to learn English.  Her son used to be a short round boy with a round head with soft thin brown hair, a round red face, a small round nose, and also two bright round eyes, and mostly when he appeared there would also be a round dog with thick hair following him happily, or one or two smaller round girls jumping, shouting or crying happily behind him, so all in all he was a smart lovely boy then.

The boy, of course was good at his learning at school, and easily went his way smoothly from primary to high school and often got high marks.  However once when in Senior Three, his mother found me and told me that her son dropped almost from the top to the bottom in his class, and asked me to help him to learn how to do NET English.  The boy told me that he stayed with his dogs and fishes more than his text books and test papers, and this is the reason he fell behind.  Then I made him do a set of famous paper named Approaching to the Top, which was used by most top schools and it was said that it was quite difficult for most Chinese students.  Quite unexpectedly, he did the test much better than I had expected, and so I expected his success in getting high marks in both his daily tests and even NET.  But again, unexpectedly he failed in most of the tests and his NET.  What an unlucky boy!  Having given up his dream to famous university, he staggered his way finally into a general university in Yunnan the next year to learn something about flowers. Although suffering from so much failure, he stuck to his idea and learning, especially English, and finally he caught his chance to learn in Netherland.

When I saw the boy at the table, his round face appeared the outline of time, and this time he brought his girl friend, a pretty girl from Germany, whom he knew there as a French teacher.  Again, this was quite unexpected, for I used to know westerners, especially German or the English looked down upon people other than them in race.  The girl was slim, about 1.65m high, with light brown hair, bright eyes, high, straight nose, a kind of skin like milk mixed with slight chocolate. She likes Chinese dishes, and most importantly, she likes (or loves) the boy according to his mother.  Seeing this made me think of the nice tale of Qiu Fazu, a famous doctor in China with his German wife, who followed his Chinese husband for over 50 years to the end of her life.  What a lucky boy, if the young girl is as firm as the old former lady!

The world is becoming smaller and people more understanding, and this is the toast I said to them, “May happiness, health, wealth be with you forever, and is also what I want to say to all my family and friends.