Goodbye, Aili and Meidi!

#2015-0730

Dear Aili (何艾莉) and Meidi (倪美笛)! One month is surely a short period of time. As your Mandarin teacher in July, I've been so happy to be with you twice a week that I wish I didn't have to say "Goodbye" so soon at the end of our last meeting this afternoon.

But time flies! All good things must come to an end, as they say. -- In Chinese we say: 天下沒有不散的筵席。 (Read as: Tiān-xià méiyǒu bù sàn de yánxí. Literally translated: Under the sun there is no feast that never comes to an end). It's true that "there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens" (Ecclesiastes 3:1, NIV).

Looking at it from a better point of view, we'll see the bright side of life: If we have no time to part, to say zaijian ("Goodbye!"), how can we have a time to meet again, to really zai jian ("See you again!")? So we can look forward to seeing each other again. We should be excited (and smile hopefully) when we say to each other such words as Zaijian (再見), Adiós, Goodbye, Au revoir, Sayonara (さよなら) and so on.

Oh, Aili (Alexandra Hogan) and Meidi (Matisse Newton), you both are welcome to come again next summer. I do hope I'll see both of you coming here again in the future, just as Meidi has visited St. James' for the second time!