I have this quality, or this malfunction in self preservation… When I read a book, I live in it. Same as when I listen to the lyrics of a song… I am one of the characters, I feel their pain, I feel their love. One of the books that made me reflect my own weakness in my perception of love, The concise Chinese-English dictionary for lovers, is one with so many notes and flipped pages. I fell in love, as this girl came to London and fell in love with him, I travelled with her in self recognition through dependence, through insecurities dressed in the name of love, I felt her pain as she got on the plane to go back home… home…she never felt like home anymore… This book starts with the most intimate statement “Nothing in this book is true, except for the love between him and her”. How I miss being in love…
“Love”, this English word: like any other English words it has tense. ‘Loved’ or ‘will love’ or ‘have loved’. All these specific tenses mean Love is time-limited thing. Not infinite. It only exist in particular time. In Chinese, Love (ai) has not tense. No past, no future. Love in Chinese means a being, a situation, a circumstance. Love is existence, holding past and future. If our love existed in Chinese tense, then it will last for ever. It will be infinite.
A concise Chinese – English Dictionary for lovers, by Xiaolu Guo.
nassia kapa 