Pan Meets with David, 1 What is Yuan
Pan Meets with David, 1 What is Yuan
"With Yuan, people from afar may end up meeting and befriending each other; Without Yuan, people sitting right in front of each other may remain strangers," so goes a Chinese saying. "Yuan" seems to have played an important role in defining the Chinese culture, as the word "Yuan" is so often quoted in people's daily
communications as is the word God in Western cultures. Westerners believe that
God creates and arranges everything, while Chinese believe that Yuan is what brings you friendship and courtship and after that, marriage.
Most people would claim to believe in Yuan. I always do. I had my first love
, but ended up breaking up with each other after a few years. Excuses could be
readily found, but I would put that failure down to the absence of Yuan. When we had Yuan, we grew affections for each other, and passion for overcoming all adversities. Then Yuan left us, leaving the poor two sitting there with no chemical in between whatsoever. It was amazing how Yuan landed on us, but when it
was not there, it was just not there. Man may be able to conquer nature, but can it survive the chill of the wild world without Yuan? I personally hold a skeptical attitude toward this.
My first 4-star article in this forum is titled "It's destiny, isn't it?". It
was all exciting to learn that my writing had finally reached the 4-star level,
but well, I have to admit now that "destiny" might not be the right word for what I was trying to refer to. So could it be "fate"? I really don't know. All
I realize now is that both "destiny" and "fate" are not enough to represent what
I am saying here, Yuan. It can be said that Yuan is more than destiny and fate
. Yuan is somewhere very deep in the Chinese pysche, and you never know that time may come when Yuan, the word, squeezes its way into the mainstream English vocabulary.
Were it not for my decision to pick up my English after I stopped playing classical guitar, were it not for my accidental entry into the HongEn Community, and
were it not for Linda2898 who ushered me into Canuck's Comments, I might never
have come to know this canuck David. And were it not for Canuck's Comments, I might have quitted English after the eager-beaver period of time; were it not for
David's instant help and my eagerness to surprise him, my English could have stayed where it was after all. Why so many "were it not for"? Does that not imply anything to you?
That's Yuan. That's what brings us together, and develops it into real friendship. And it's Yuan that after more than seven years pushed us to meet each other in this physical -- no longer virtual only -- world. The season I came to visit David in XinJiang was said to be the most forbidding one during the whole year, but the coldest season as it might be, I still made it and surprisingly found myself take to the western city like duck takes to water. Is it not amazing?
What else motivation could it be for the passion beyond Yuan?
So that's it, here I am, in this small but spanking-new city of Dushanzi, to meet with my friend David and his dear wife, Jane.
To be continued,
Panpanpan.
|
轻松英语