The ring of phone call, surprisingly, awoke me from nap. It was my former colleague.
“Hey, bro, long time no see, would you do me a favor?”
“Yes?”
“I am going to propose my girlfriend this weekend. Now, I need to collect fifty recommendations which I will use for proposing her that time.”
“So?”
“It is not that hard. What you have to do is to write something and ask my girlfriend to accept my proposal.”
“Is there any request?”
“Well, I will send you a sample for your reference. It is written from another friend.”
“OK. Then send it to me.”
Having the phone hung off, there was a message.
A paragraph of brief Chinese words written in a note trimmed from an A4 size paper. The gist is that the girl should accept my colleague’s warm and romantic proposal. No specific signature, but a saying in the end: A blessing from Shanghai.
It was a picture. Taken by his friend and held in left hand pointing the back of note to a far distance from a high up balcony.
Given the information, I wrote on the screen in red italic bold font as follows:
Hello Miss Xue,
Please say Yes from the most romantic and sincere proposal of your Mr. Right Wang.
Wish you two a future of happiness.
Hangzhou
Jan 11, 2016
Then I had it printed and trimmed. After zooming the focus of the phone, it was photographed and delivered.
Two seconds later, another message came: “Thank you, this could be interesting with such an English version. Um, the red color adds a festival wish”
I replied:” I rarely write on a paper, so the handwriting now degrades poorly. That is all I can do for you. Good luck.”