it's a challenge for me to copy Barry Allen's writing. i gave up peep his journal even he display it somewhere for me.

only ask after he finished: did you mention me today?

we planed we'll write a book together during our travel. Barry really did it. though only six pages. i did it too. they are all staying in my mind!!

Here is  two of Barry's six pages story. i hope (not swear) i'll  copy all these six pages.

and we have whole lifetime finish these story. so i won't hurry!!!

this story's name is Pink Pea and Hairy Turtle. they are me and Barry of course.

i would tell you why Pink Pea and Hairy Turtle later.

Part one: Hairy Turtle

Zhuangzi says that the best traveler has no idea where he is going. That thought was very much in my mind when I lfeft my home in Canada for China in the last days of August, 2006. I suppose I was romanticizing my journey to China. I suppose all of us Westerners who are fortunate enough to travel in China have the right to romanticize about it.  It remains the most exotic destination, the other end of the world. Romanticizing merely means investing our travel with imagination. The benefit is that it keeps us open to perception, keeps our eyes longing, straining to see what is different, to correated danger is that we only see what we imagine, and not what’s really there, that despite the distance and difference. we will only see what our imagination prepares to see. Well! What advantaged doesn’t have disadvantages associated? It’s a question of perception, and not dominate it. I think both my are imagination and perception are pretty acute, so I didn’t worry over knowingly investing my () with a lot of imagination inteereat.

My first destination was Shanghai, where I would spend five months. I was on research leave from my Canadian university, where I teach philosophy and had arranged to teach for a semester at one lf Shanghai’s many universities. My plan was to stay five months in Shanghai, then spend three months traveling around the country. Solo travel was going to be a challenge. So I hoped I could learn as much as possible about how things worked from students and colleagues in Shanghai before departing on my own. Consequently, when some of the students in my seminar volunteered to help me learn some Chinese, I eagerly accepted. (my version is not like this (^_^) )

That’s how I met Jane. Jane is her English name, chosen by herself for its similar sound to her Chinese name Haizhen. Jane was a master student in philosophy, who decided to participate in my seminar, and help me with Chinese each Wednesday for an hour. From the beginning, I thought she was a beauty, very charming and interesting, with very good English. But she seemed so small! Lithe, delicate, small-boned. And how old could she be? When I met her, I was 49. I tried to guess her age, but was defeated by lack of experience with Chinese people. Late, when she told me that she had taught school in her village for six years between university and graduate school, I calculated that she might be just over thirty. It was only later that I learned that taught school while she was completing her first university degree by self-study. As it turned out, when I met her, she was 26.(you should ask me directly. We Chinese would tell you without any disfavor. For Chinese, ‘how old are you’ is the first question who would ask when meet some stranger ) More than twenty years difference between us. For many people, I suppose, that would be that. But I have spent my entire life, personal life and professional life, baffling expectations, indifferent to the inevitable opposition such behavior incurred. why should romance, why should marriage, be an exception.