中文收听|Listen English

  
"Congratulations Wise Guy.  Are mom and baby both doing alright?"  David asked as they met in a Starbucks close to the area of the public market in downtown Seattle.  Although they have many mutual friends residing in Seattle, but since university memories had been thing of the past more than a decade and a half ago, neither of them wanted to visit other old college friends. 
  
"Yeah, they are both doing terrific, thank you.  They will stay in US for another while, but I have to be back to attend official and unofficial businesses of mine". 
  
David murmured half to himself and half to his friend: "Do you really think it worth having your son born as a non-Chinese citizen?  You know all I hear about China these days are GDP growth rates.  Since I have been an immigrant for such a long time, and felt like getting door slammed everywhere I go, I am almost feeling like I will get door-slammed on my face again, when I apply for the Chinese green card two decades later.  Yet here you are, trying to arrange an extra citizenship for your little one.  It's all a matter of perception, you know, like that famous Chinese novel about sieges: people inside of the wall were dying to get out, while people outside of the wall were dying to get in.  So are many things in life".   
  
"Yes, who knows how China would change in 20 years?  As you know I always worry about instability in China along with many other fellow Chinese", Wise Guy tried to agree with his friend's comments about "perceptions", but didn't exactly understand where his friend was going with the conversation.  Wise Guy was thinking he might need a ticket to migrate to US if China become not so suitable for living in 20 years, while David was talking about he might need a ticket to migrate back to China in 20 years, if nowhere else is more suitable for him to live. 
  
David continued: "it's all a matter of perception, and the perceptions are very different even among close friends". Then they recollected a series of events that they have experienced together but came up with quite different accounts of those incidents.  "Remember you once uttered a sigh and told me, while we were in our college dorm that: even your closest friends as close as brothers will one day drift apart like never-met strangers?" "Yes, I remember that and you chimed in and said the friendship between us will not survive any longer than ordinary friendships among other classmates".  "That's right. I said that when you tried to calm me down after I broke up with my girl friend".  "No, you said that when you saw me sending my best male friend in high school to the bus station.  He came to visit me in college and we found that we no longer had much to talk about, any more". 
  
"No, I remember it firmly. It was a night with full moon.  I can remember it because full moon is considered lucky and symbolizing perfection in the Eastern culture while considered ominous and bad omen in the Western.  Every time I see a full moon after leaving China, I recall many things related to full moon and the time we were best friends but both vowed to become total strangers, was one of the things I recall when seeing many full moons since the beginning of the 1990's."   
  
Wise Guy compromised and said: "OK, whatever you remember is fine.  Actually there is no point to argue.  We simply remember that we said that friends will come and go.  That is the natural state of things.  Perception is what matters." 
  


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