One of those trips to school happened in an extremely windy day as one of the year in the Vancouver area. Almost every year, there is a day or two when strong wind gusts in the region would blowout wires in the power grid and cause black out in certain suburbs. Instead of suffering from the power outage and going back to the pre-electricity ages, with candles flickering and fireplaces burning in their house, David and Jade decided to cast away all those troubles and drove to the beach to take a look at the bigger than usual waves. After all, they had not been with each other for a while and it was good to go to the beach together, even in a winter. Vancouver winters were rainy but mild in temperature. The electricity usually would just come back after a few hours or a day at most, in the worse case scenario. It was probably more interesting to look at the wave in the ocean when winds are strong.

They drove to the beach parking lots along the coast of White Rock, BC where many cars usually filled those parking spots with many more roaming around waiting to take spaces that were just vacated by departing vehicles. During the sunny days in summer, it was quite a chore to find parking, but in that windy day, lots and lots of parking spaces were available. Mr. and Mrs. Chen easily found a spot that gave them the best view of the ocean with the winds blowing by them like whistling trains and the sea roaring in front of them like a gigantic pot of boiling water. They were a little disappointed that the waves didn't look as impressive as those ones shot in the Hollywood films. On the other hand, they were parking quite far from the beach. They figure the waves were probably not too small either. After all, there were no boats visible on the ocean and Vancouver area was a strange place where boats could capsize even on a calm day. How strange those unfortunate passengers could have their lives suddenly snatched away?

Even in areas like Vancouver, where people from other places would marvel as highly "multicultural", the school yards were still visibly divided by racial and ethnic lines. Neither David nor Jade could explain the existence of such fine lines, but it was quite clear that kids starting from a very young age tend to play with other kids of the same ethnic groups even though nobody taught them. Maybe it was because due to the laws of natures that "similar attracts and dissolves the similar", human being like to find other beings that look similar to themselves on appearances. But on the other hand, it could be that kids were just imitating their parents. Getting out of habits usually took education, experiences, seasoning and training.

The culture influence coming upon the next generation was certainly different from what their generation had to go through. Looking at the big waves in the ocean, David told Jade: "do you remember one phrase from the Soviet era writer Maxim Gorky in the article titled 'The Seagulls'? He said: 'Let the storms just come and give their best shots'. How fitting is the scene we are looking at for that description? It looks like our next generation is not likely ever going to have the opportunity to learn Russian literature let alone Russian literatures translated into Chinese. It will be really hard to tell whether Crystal would receive better or worse education by growing up here. She would probably get opportunities to make more money by receiving educations here. But will she be more knowledgeable and more reasonable than otherwise growing up anywhere else in the world?

I once read a novel written by an American Born Chinese (ABC). It was a story about how he got through West Point Military Academy. He described how proud he felt the day that he entered the Academy as 'envisioning himself to be on a way to become the famous Chinese general Kuang You over looking the Great Wall of China 2000 years ago'. First, a general overlooking the Great Wall made me thought he was talking about 蒙括 with the way English speaking people pronounce the word 括. But that was ruled out because 括 lived more than 200 years before 2000 years ago and the pronunciation of his name did not resemble 'Kuang You'. Then I scanned through famous Chinese military historical figures who lived about 2000 years ago, that was the time when Han (汉) Dynasty experienced the major jolt of 王莽篡汉. The newly crowned emperor afterward was 光武 which might have sounded more closely to the name 'Kuang You', but I was not sure whether this emperor ever led his army reached the areas where the Great Wall was. Of course, more likely, the author was referring to 'Guan Yu 关羽' who was much more popular in pop culture as one of the strong, brave, talented and noble general among all Chinese historical figures. But the problem was that 关羽 lived about 200 years less than 2000 years ago and he had never been described as been anywhere near the Great Wall either. In his time, the force occupying areas close to the Great Wall was that of Yuang Shao's 袁绍 than Cao Cao's 曹操. It was not likely that Cao Cao would let Guan Yu rode to the Great Wall and had a good look of the Great Wall. In fact, since Great Wall never really had great overall military defensive values in Chinese history back then, the Great Wall could have been left in shambles around 200 A.D. or never got extended to the area of 山海关 at that time.

The Wall was not even mentioned in Cao Cao's famous poem 观沧海, or in related chapters describing how his army chased sons of 袁绍 into the border areas of 辽东公孙康, when he stood in 北戴河 just several miles from the famous eastern end of Great Wall".

The poetic irony was, Cao Cao was facing Japan and North America when he wrote his famous poem had he know the earth was round:

东临碣石
以观沧海
山岛耸歭
水何澹澹

树木丛生
百草丰茂
秋风萧瑟