WHAT IS A FRIEND ? IT’S ONE CORNER OF MY LIFE TRIANGLE

MYSELF ———————- MY FAMILY ——————– MY FRIENDS

Life is not complete without any one corner. With no family, life becomes “MEANINGLESS”. With no friends, life becomes “ FUNLESS “.

I have four good friends since I was 13 (from year 1944) . They (let me call them Z, Y, J and S) were all my classmates at the lower middle school we attended . Z was our leader. He was an ardent reader of novels and some “serious “ reading (on philosophy and economics) , He recommended those “out-of-school” books to us , and we met once every week at his home (he had a small living room for himself) to discuss what we read. Those books were mostly on “revolution”, and we all became “revolutionists” – but with no action except talks. 

We came from different social classes. I from a prosperous family (My Grandfather was a retired high government official and later the President of a University), Z and Y from medium middle-class, while J and S from lower status. We were cordial with each other – no “class-struggle” among us.

In 1947, my family sent me to America for higher education; we kept writing letters to each other. I was deeply moved by their letters. I still remember one letter from S, in which he wrote about working as an apprentice in a bookstore, one of his jobs was to deliver newspaper to subscribers. He described how he used to ride the bicycle under heavy rain and strong wind and felt proud and happy.

I returned to China in 1951, but we were still separated – S and I in Beijing, Z, Y and J in Shanghai, but we kept close contact. There were a few incidents I remember well :

When computers came, it was a luxury to own one at home. S (then the Editor-in-Chief of the China Youngsters Daily) bought one and asked me to help him on how to operate it. I happily agreed but then there was a period with no news. I was surprised and soon learned that his grandson (the only son of his only son) wanted to play games with it, and did not want to share it with his Grandfather. So till S’s death he couldn’t master a computer of his own.    

J’s father owned a small workshop with 4 weaving machines which he passed over to J. Under the new regime, the workshop produced cloth for public use with cotton supplied by the government. During the anti-corruption movement in 1952, one of his cousins falsely accused him of stealing government’s cotton so he was jailed and the cousin took over the shop. Though the court later found that he was wrongly accused, he still lost the shop and was out of job. He soon applied for a teaching job at a far-away western city in China. He was there for more than 20 years till he decided to return to Shanghai. Before he left, the whole school (teachers and students) came to the terminal to bid him good-bye. He was jobless when he returned (the anticipated workshop was already absorbed by some state enterprise). It was Y who introduced him to the Municipal Tourism School, where he served as a gatekeeper. The trainees (mostly local tourism officials) liked him very much and many invited him to tour in their cities. After he retired , he was taken care of by his two daughters. They provided him a living room with toilet and kitchen where he could have a peaceful life by himself. He passed away merrily at old age.

Y returned to his home city (in northern Jiangshu) after finishing lower middle-school. There he used his knowledge of the local conditions to serve as a guide for Communist cadres from Shanghai in danger of arrest after escape secretly into the “red” district. His guidance was so successful that it became the safest route available. After the new regime was set up , he returned to Shanghai and was later appointed the Director of the Municipal Tourism Bureau  He enjoyed reading my Memoirs and when he was hospitalised he asked me to translate the poem Remember (by Christina Georgina Rosetti) into Chinese which he recited wholly and carried it to his death.

Now only Z and I are left out of the Five – he in Shanghai and I in Beijing. He was appointed leader of the journalist team to Shanghai for the Peoples’s Daily and was quite popular with the articles he wrote on economic affairs. We have corresponded by letters, and each year we have met once or twice either in Shanghai or Beijing. Now he sends me his writings and some other articles he considers worth reading. We sometimes talk on the phone but my bad hearing limits its use.

I deeply enjoyed our friendship, because it made me feel life more meaningful. It opened to me the door to the outside world. The pleasure and regrets it offers make me feel life more colorful and worth living, more valuable and enjoyable – MORE FUN – than routine reading and traveling.

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Billy’s Comment: ” Indeed, True Friendship Can Not Exist Or Last Without Love. Though Love Sometimes Lingers When Friendship Stops

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Thanks to Catherine Zhao for the translation

朋友，像天上的日月星辰，

风行万里，光耀乾坤；

朋友，如身边的衣食住行，

须臾难舍，伴随人生。

Friends are like the sun, moon and stars in the sky,

Popular in thousands of miles, glorious world;

Friends are like food, clothing and transportation

It’s hard to let go, always in your life.

有人抱怨，朋友是天上流云变幻无常；

有人慨叹，朋友是雨水入地难觅难寻。

也许，问题不在朋友，

而在怎样理解朋友，理解友情。

Some people complain that friends are changing all the time without prediction;

Some people lamented that friends are difficult to find like rain reaches the ground.

Maybe the problem is not with friends,

But in understanding friends, we will understand friendship.

朋友情，应该是雪中送炭，

关心对方冷暖，哪怕雨雪纷纷；

朋友意，一定是不离不弃，

珍惜昔日旧情，桃花潭水深深。

Friendship should be a gift from the snow,

Concerned about the other party’s cold and warm, even if rain and snow are one after another;

Friendship, you must be inseparable,

Cherish the old feelings of the past, the water of Taohua Lake is deep

没有情意的互助，

那是商场交易，也就热乎一阵。

缺乏信任的热络，

如同官场游戏，关系随权力浮沉。

Mutual aid without affection,

that was like a trade and will only be warm for a while.

Lack of trust,

Like political games, relationships rise and fall with power.

这是一个互惠互利的世界，

不必责怪人们难脱凡尘。

这是一个看重人心的社会，

谁会对酒肉朋友真的当真？

交换归交换，人心是人心，

重情情天长远，多义义海水深……

This is a world of mutual benefit,

Don’t blame people for being indifferent.

This is a society that values ​​people’s hearts,

Who really takes fair-weather friends seriously?

Exchange is exchange, the heart is the heart,

Long-term love, long-term love, deep water…

朋友没法单向去找，

做强自己，才有魅力吸引他人；

朋友不是为了有用，

自己发光，光耀周围温暖他人。

朋友是一壶老酒，

发小情感久远，浓烈而深醇；

朋友是天上祥云，

平时各就各位，逢旱播撒甘霖。

Friends cannot be found by one-way,

Strengthen yourself to attract others

Friends are not for usefulness,

Glowing by yourself, shining around to warm others.

The friend is a pot of old wine,

Long-term emotions, strong and deep;

Friends are auspicious clouds,

Everyone usually attends, and sows in the drought.

朋友无须用美言修饰，

几件小事就能知人知心。

朋友单纯能化敌为友，

让精明的人变得诚恳。

Friends don’t need to be decorated with good words,

A few small things can be understood.

Friends can simply turn enemies into friends,

Let smart people become sincere.

朋友在哪里？

泥沙俱下的是利益，

浪淘沙后的是真诚。

平湖秋月愿君好，

高山流水有知音。

Where are your friends?

Sediment is the benefit,

After filtering the left is sincere.

Hope you are doing well,

and find your soulmate friend.

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So far, I have collected many BEAUTIFUL STORIES about FRIENDSHIP AND FRIENDSHIPOLOGY for my websites, but very few SAD or VERY UNFORTUNATE ones. I decided today to write about a true story belonging to the latter category.

This story is about two old friends ( both deceased now ) who came to America from Shanghai, China, to pursue their Western Education. They were about the same age, rich, handsome, and suave. They joined an elitist Chinese Fraternity and were very popular with their women friends. So many wonderful times they had together, double-dating as well as leading various faternity’s social and philantropical activities together. They considered each other Best Friends.

After graduate schools, the one from Wharton, stayed on in New York City and did well in Finance. The other became an eminent professor in the Mid West. Both got married and had happy families and professional careers. They kept in touch and met fairly regularly at their fraternity reunions etc..

Much later, both in their late seventies, they migrated to the S.F. South Bay. Single now, the finance fellow had an apartment near San Jose. The professor and his wife had a nice house near Stanford University. They were delighted to live not huge distance from each other any more, but the half hour drive between them still made it difficult for them to see each other often – especially since the finance fellow no longer drived.

So here is the story. The Finance Fellow was flying back from a long trip from Hong Kong. The professor went to pick up his friend from S.F. Airport then delivered him back to the San Jose apartment . After entering the apartment, the Finance fellow immediately went up to his second floor bedroom. He said he was exhausted. The professor was also exhausted from driving, so he plopped down in the living room sofa and turned on the TV to relax a bit. His hearing was not good so he turned the volume on really high.

The old friend from the second floor was furious because the loud TV was disturbing. He bluntly reprimanded the professor, ” How can you be so inconsiderate ? “. The professor was not at all happy about that. He instantly got up to leave, complaining “How can you be so ungrateful for all I have just done for you ? They parted angry at each other. Due to various reasons they never apologized to each other. That was the end of their Old Friendship. It’s so sad and truly unfortunate.

The lesson I learned is that when people are tired they are often not at their best. We need to be more forgiving. Also, I really feel guilty myself for not having tried harder to help them regain their good feelings for one another. In such cases the third mutual friend should really do more to help out.

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Thank you for inviting me to say something about FRIENDSHIP. I shall say what I feel most acutely in meeting people cross-cultural, and making friends, especially around Stanford Campus in recent years. 

There is a paranoia about Chinese women, as though we were thieves, whores, and hookers, that would steal men away.  I was personally insulted a couple of times. 

Once at an academic seminar on Chinese American immigrant history, I was properly introduced to a faculty working on the Railroad Project. When I informed him that the Northern California  Chinese Community Railroad Project would host a gala in SF in a couple of weeks, celebrating Chinese contribution to the construction of railroad, this white male immediately turned his back, and said to me, “Oh, my wife has a surgery. ” Then he immediately walked away. 

Does he think of me inviting him to dance, or for a date?  Stupid swine! 

When I confided to a white woman friend, she explained to me why people have such paranoias. Her high school lover and husband over twenty years went to work in Hong Kong, fell in love with a Chinese woman. Only a few months later, he came back asking the wife for a divorce. Now she was left alone. “Chinese women are real horrors.”  I was sympathetic. After all, she was a Stanford woman, able to tell the difference to trust me with her story.

In American society male and female relationships are often sexually interpreted. It’s not the same in China. Sexual harassment is not a widespread social problem there.I taught in China in recent decades. In Chinese society, I could invite a male colleague or graduate student out to dinner without his wife. It is perfectly normal. There is no sexual expectation. 

Students are very close to their professors, like their children, friends and families. Men and women could be close friends for years without sexual involvement. 

The wives wouldn’t feel insecure unless the husband did not come home after ten or eleven o’clock. Women were expected to manage their own men, and respect other women. Fighting with another woman out of jealousy is considered bad manner, disgrace, lost of control, failure of her management.  That is why many Chinese women disrespect Hilary Clinton, who failed to manage her own man. How could she manage a country? 

I was raised in China after Women’s Liberation. In my time, mostly men went after women, not vice versa. To suggest for a woman to approach, flirt, or seduce a man truly makes her “cheap”, losing respect in public eye. Therefore, it is degrading, humiliating, and insulting even to suggest the woman is plotting after a man. Indeed, when the Concerned Asian Scholars Delegates came to visit China in 1970s, they reported in a book, “Inside China”, that women’s status in my hometown was first rate in the world.

Of course things changed in recent decades, but this was only because contemporary women in China blindly imitated Hollywood culture. In the meanwhile, isn’t  the “success” of American feminist agenda to “Engender China by sexual revolution in Western style” that have brought such changes—creating alienation between men and women at the same time ? That has liberated “ Chinese female sexuality ” in Hollywood style?  And that has reduced our status to the stereotypes of thieves, whores and hookers? 

In this Age of Corruption, academic whores are everywhere, I have seen, on and off campus, inside and outside of office. Some were Asian, some black, white, hispanic. . .not all Chinese, please. Not me, at least. True Friendship is possible only when men are liberated from Orientalist fantasy,  and women are cured of “penis envy.” 

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JENNIE WANG PH.D. Professor of English, Independent Thinker, Scholar, and Critic; Author of Novelistic Love in the Platonic Tradition, The Iron Curtain of Language; Editor of Querying the Genealogy, China Men’s American Dreams; and numerous academic articles on Postmodern Fiction, Transnational Studies in Chinese American Literature.  After her retirement, she continued to write, and published two memoirs–The Education of Jennie Wang (2015) and License Plate Number One (2018).  She received an Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award for “career longevity and demonstrated unwavering excellence in her chosen field”  in 2018. Her books are available at amazon.com

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A Collection of  hard hitting, humorous comments… 

*”In my many years I have come to a conclusion, … that one useless man is
a shame,  two [useless men] is a law firm and three or more [useless men] is
a government.”*

~John Adams 

            ********
*”If you don’t read the newspaper you are  uninformed, if you do read the
newspaper, you are  misinformed.”*

~George Bernard Shaw  

                ********
*”Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in
rich countries to rich people in poor countries.”*

~ Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University 

                 ********
*”Giving  money and  power to  government is like giving whiskey and car
keys to teenage boys.”*

~P.J. O’Rourke,  Civil Libertarian 

               ******
*”Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics
won’t take an interest in you!”

~ Ronald  Reagan  

               *******
*”The  only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the
taxidermist leaves the skin.”*

~Mark Twain 

                   *******
*”What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.”*

~Edward Langley,  Artist (1928-1995)  

                 *******
*”A  government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough
to take everything you have.”*

~Thomas Jefferson  

              *******
*”We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”*

– Aesop

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IN ANTICIPATION – ( another article for your friendship website )

As the days and weeks lie ahead, we are anticipating that the lifting of the lockdown can’t come soon enough. I’m a bit tired of the confinement plus, I need a hair-cut badly. Our venturing out would be dramatically different than what we could ever have imagined just 3 months earlier. 

The New Normal 

After 3+ months within the confines of our homes, we will shortly venture out of our protected cocoons. Will we all function as before? I have always been quick to greet and extend shakes with others, particularly with my students. Each of us will be behind virus protected N95 masks, where smiles will partly shield our enthusiasm with each encounter. Do we greet each other with elbow bumps now that the proverbial handshakes are taboo? How about the enduring embrace? 

Let’s step back and examine the pre-Covid 19 days. The word, social distancing, didn’t exist at least not in the context of today. Perhaps it did for others previously too, who didn’t want to share their world’s with ours. The ease of befriending someone certainly was easier back then. How about coffee or lunch sometime? Our smile and handshake reaffirms our sincerity. Facial expressions now hidden behind our masks, could connections still be made? Post Covid 19, are we to be leery of others particularly in making new friends? Can we trust others even if both parties have been tested negative? Has our society erected a shield that makes it impenetrable to meet others and making new friendships? It will certainly be a challenge and we must extend ourselves even more than before. 

A Brave New World

My Conversational English classes previously have been populated with students from all corners of this planet. The union and blending of each rich culture meshed nicely with our American ideologies, makes for a bright future. I’ve always consider my classes as the sharing of ideas and the love for one another. These thoughts are paramount for me. My legacy is to leave my class and this world happier, always with a sense of hope. Whenever the school year resumes again, I will as always explain the virtues of love and the caring for all.

During the last several months, we found how fractured we are as a society and the depth of the financial divide amongst us. Even more so now is the need for unity. To coexist in this world, we depend on one another. After each of my sessions, I will continue to say, “be good to someone new and love those who are close to you”. Then off to lunch at a nearby restaurant for eats, treats and more stories. Creating the environment of caring and love must be nourished by all of us. The enrichment by all is what makes our world a better place. This can be achieved mainly by making friends. 

Will my students return and will new ones attend? I’m looking forward to the Brave New World and what it brings. 

Phil

‘Every day is unique and special’

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Koo helped found Self-Help for the Elderly’s San Mateo senior center. During our present Coronavirus Epidemic, Self-Help has closed their physical spaces, but they still deliver food to those who need it. And they offer Connection From a Distance. Koo and eight (or so) others have split the duty of calling 1,000 of the center’s users. They have another 100 to go. They speak to them in Mandarin or Cantonese or English. “Mostly they appreciate someone calling them. I tell them this all will pass, and we can come back to the senior center again. Something to look forward to.”

Roz is also Co-Founder of the The 1990 Institute <www.1990Institute.org>

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January 13, 2019:     We found a delightful breakfast place in downtown Leesville, always an encouraging way to start the day. The people were friendly, the food was good, and we were given helpful directions for finding accessible sections of the national forest. Of course, we had checked e-bird for locations where Red-cockaded Woodpeckers had recently been seen, but we knew we were in for a long search. The forest roads led in all directions and appropriate habitat seemed to be everywhere. We explored for most of the morning without any success. Eventually, we decided to try a change of scenery and headed off to the Dove Field Recreation Area, a large wildlife management area of open fields, known to be especially good for raptors and sparrows. We got there around 1:00 in the afternoon and in a little over an hour mustered up 14 species. Among them, were an immature Northern Harrier, 2 American Kestrels, 2 Savannah Sparrows and at least 15 Chipping Sparrows. The habitat was so enticing, however, that we resolved to come back the next morning if we had time.

We started back to the piney woods to try again for the Red-cockaded Woodpecker. On the way, in the small town of Fullerton, we chanced upon a flurry of bird activity. There was a field separated from the road by a wall or some kind of fence. There were two or three small trees in the field close to the fence. Some woods ran along one side of the field. We pulled over to the side of the road and parked. In the space of ten minutes, we found 3 Turkey Vultures, one Red-shouldered Hawk, an American Kestrel, a Pileated Woodpecker, 2 Eastern Phoebes, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, 2 Eastern Bluebirds and an estimated 20 American Robins. It was one of those unanticipated moments of excitement that birdwatchers love.

We proceeded on to the national forest to renew our search for the elusive Red-cockaded Woodpecker. This time we were successful. My checklist gives the time as 3:55 PM and the location as the Calcasieu Ranger District (Vernon Unit) of the Kisatchie National Forest. I doubt I could find the exact location again, even with the help of a map and a compass. The forest in this area is carefully managed to preserve the Longleaf Pines so favored by our target bird. The woods stretch on for many miles. Clumps of marked nest trees beckon in all directions. It was just a matter of time before we would encounter foraging birds. I think it might have been the robins and bluebirds that first caught our attention. These species are often found in open pine woods with grassy undergrowth. Perhaps it was the Pine Warblers and the more numerous Yellow-rumped Warblers. In any case, presently Pat spotted (or heard) woodpeckers. Adrenalin started flowing, my aging legs started creaking. Pat was shouting, I was stumbling. Eventually, I got two birds in my binoculars. I could see the broad white cheek patch and the barred black and white back. Years ago, when I first found these birds in Florida, I did so with coolness and confidence. Today, it was a desperate struggle with age. Our checklist totals tell the full story: 15 American Robins, 4 Eastern Bluebirds, 12 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 2 Pine Warblers, and 2 Red-cockaded Woodpeckers.

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