College friend Ying came to visit, from Chicago, with her boyfriend. Met them in Mountain View caltrain station. Both of us have lost some weight. We were relatively plump ten years ago. With the dropped weight, we can be regarded as comparatively skinny, in the country full of over-nurtured and over-weighted people.

 

They will go back to Shenyang, and resume their normal life, after one-year program at UIC, after traveling and experiencing, immersing themselves in a different country and distinct culture. They will be promising government officials, I guess. They are still honest and warm-hearted persons, fortunately.

 

They visited Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street, Chinatown and Union Square; they took a nap on a bench on Stanford Campus; they are on their way to Carmel and 17 miles beach.

 

We enjoyed authentic Chinese food in a restaurant specializing Northeastern dishes; we tasted fresh salmon and boiled mussels at home; we recollected bitter-sweet stories which gnawed our youth.

 

My roommates used to jokingly call me “holy corpse”, when I slept lying on back, on the white bed sheet, covered by the white quilt, crossing my hands over the chest, with peaceful pale face...I jokingly bought it.

 

All sound like a distant dream.  

 

 Valentina says: "When I try to communicate, love disappears." 

 

 Lidia says: "I feel the weight of years, in vain.'

 

 From Michelangelo Antonioni's "La Notte".

 

 When I try to explain an Antonionian film, the words disappear ...