the April Fool's Day, no Fooling Around

36 hours ago. After a good-bye hug with Icecube, I went to the departure gate and waited for check-in. I saw an Asian monk sitting a few seat away. In such a small city like HunCity, you won’t have much chance to see a man in the hood. He looked like an interesting person. I thought if I could sit near him, we might be able to do some interesting talking during the trip.

After I got on the plance, I surprisingly found that the monk sat right beside me. I said hello to him. Soon after I sat down, he struck up the conversation.

He turned out to be a very outgoing person. He spoke far more than I did throughout the two-hour trip. He told me that he came from Vietnam and he once stayed in Taiwan for two years. Then he said, “My Chinese is actually better than my English”. Then we switched to Chinese. And he surprised me again since he spoke quite good Chinese. I noticed earlier that he brought with him a book with some kind of alphabetic language in its cover. He told me that it was Indian and he learned it while he was traveling around in India. He had been in the States for one year, and did volunteer work for some monasteries in Connecticut and the south. He was applying for the green card, “The U.S. is a country that opens people’s mind.”

We also talked about each other’s country. He said it was sad that his country followed after China in everything. “When Chinese army changed their attire, the Vietnam followed suit.” He said. We laughed off the fact that China’s best products came to the U.S., the worse remained in China and the worst went to Vietnam and some other Asian countries. Then we agreed that everything was changing for better.

Then he said I should go to visit him when I come back to HunCity. He wrote down his name and address in my phonebook. He wrote his name in Chinese characters, which surprised me again. It was more than beautiful. He said he started reading Chinese since he went to monastery as a small child. He liked calligraphy as well. I thought only people with peaceful mind could keep interest in practicing calligraphy. I once had practiced for 3 or 4 years in elementary school and then gave up once and for all. I asked him if he had an e-mail. Then he immediately wrote it down for me. I felt that I insulted him by asking if he used e-mail.

I got a little bit sick as the flight was landing, while the monk still kept talking to me.

After we got off the airplane, we went together to transit. I noticed that people passing by staring at him. Or us?

***
24 hours ago, JJ picked me up from the airport. I haven’t seen her for almost 8 months. She underwent a lot recently, but still looked as great as she was. She was the happy-go-lucky type of person.

Uncle and auntie were cooking a big dinner as we got to their house. They seemed to be happy, probably because they hadn’t have dinner with other people for a while. Later I found out that auntie was in particularly high spirited because this day last year, their son got a call from Yale that he was accepted.

Uncle started to give me lectures soon after I sat down. “You and wbb both should make some money. I never see any Chinese students who don’t work at their free time. Go fishing every Saturday? Who do you think you are? You should be washing plates in a restaurant…” As usual, I listened to him with smile, holding myself from expressing any disagreement.

Cynical auntie was cynical as always. “Could you just stop lecturing? She just came”. She raised her voice to uncle across the kitchen.

But once we started eating, her turn came. “Want to go to law school? Do you know how Yale students study? My son works until 1 or 2 in the morning almost every night…Yale students do the LSAT like eating a piece of cake. Where can you get?...”

They are both nice people who are eager to sell the lessons they learned in the past 30 years.
**