Sha Yan's English collection, Yuan's Place, published by Authorhouse Publishing in 2006.
Title: Yuan's Place
Author: Sha Yan
ISBN:1425925170
Publisher: AuthorHouse
part of the manuscript,
Secret Confess
---Sir Gawin and Green Knight
It happened on Sunday morning. When the bell in the local church rang, I was still in bed, did not want to get up. It was 9am. Last night I watched the show, Space Odyssey, it was wonderful. The whole Saturday night, I was in dream. The warriors in the show always came into my dream. I was brave there.
Twenty years ago, I was baptized in a local church. Before that, I was in a college. I had some good time. Time passed by fast and it did not allow me to think a lot about these kind of things, things like growing up. Too many years living in the west, I always felt the wonder. It seemed to me that western people are so different from easterners.
I came many years ago from east. It was also wonderful there without me to realize very much. People from east are quite different here than people residing there. It is hard to tell but it still looked obvious. Anyway, stories are always long.
Living in Canada, I was influenced a lot by American movies. Canada, it was rather not that fascinating. There are more other interesting things here. It is also fun. Movies like "What dreams may come." always impact me. They are also many movies that I can remember. I like American movies.
I didn't have a very bad time in the college. I was always fine with my classes, and it was so good and wonderful to get good grades. I especially liked English classes, and my English skills improved fast. I became good in my classes, among the toppest. In the senior year, class contents became harder and harder, and sometimes I had some difficulties. Literature classes impressed me. Hawthorne's stories like Young Good Man Brown and Scarlet Letter, as well as English poems like Sir Gawin and Green Knight were just that impressive. They made me understand more about eternal life. Shakespeare's play such as Tempest made me think more about symbol of God in western point of view, the Prospero in the drama. Later on after I believed in God, I still remembered them. Well, they are stuff that is good to read.
My life went on. I went on for studying Science and Engineering in university. I wanted to become an engineer, even though I did not know what engineering is all about by that time. It is a top profession in my time, and I am very good at those, like math and physics. Well, in old times, bridges cannot be built from nothing. Story is long. Time goes by, I grew up.
Sometimes unrecognisable and unwanted darkness took control over me. There everything can happen. It was helpless. I am not the only one. And, sometimes I can feel the holiness is with me, the peace after the storm. It went fine. I still remembered that movie, "What dreams may come." Life after death, and eternity, I think. It seemed to me that they like to portray that, Americans. Some other movies I can't name also have these contents in them. I am not lying.
Graduation did not come easy, in turn, some working experience accompanied with a degree and high expectation in career did succeed me. I turned out to work in US. Well, life became easier. I got the Jack Pot after all.
It was unrecognisable, unwontedly true. When the "light" in the darkness accompanies with the Bloomfield spring fall. I took trips all the time to visit the nature. When the summer comes, warm sunlight scattering from higher atmosphere in Bloomfield still wonderfully amazes me, azalea, still. After the blooming flowering season, red maples filled with this town in Northern California and being seen eagles and "Brown" tomb did stress the true dream, stressful equally at the same time, birds on the tree found scorpions underneath the earth came out under the sun. What the earth? I found. When the movies and TVs and dancing clubs and ceased peace and, whatever cosmos and earth and earthly astrological beliefs filled with men and women's brain, and plum's and peach's naturalness and spring falls in Bloomfield made bloom easy. What a heaven? God believed me.
In turn, Christmas came in the winter. Another year turned over the solar calendar. Quick clock ticked the slower one will damage the slower clock, who is going to believe it? After all, they are clocks. Life is not a race, some people say. I am not one of them. Well, calendars were made for people, not for clocks. I went all the way too fast. Maybe... Bridges, I went back to Canada. Do I believe calendar or the clock? Damn, it is like mouse catching cat, the cat fights back and wants to catch the mouse, at least I felt that way. When Adam Smith invented his famous economic theory, he never wants the society to go backward. The theory can't be wrong, that many years. I wouldn't think people in society want the backward. These kinds of things, forever like puzzles to be solved, engineers and scientists and economists and others are always solving them. I went back to the calendar and the clock. People invented calendar, and people invented clocks. Here the question comes, who invents faster since our society progresses too fast? Fast people or slower people, anyway, who can invent faster than computers invent? Invention. Invent gene, people say. What a mass? Who is going to be better than whom? Will we manifest all these or simply live better?
Who can answer these kinds of questions? God believed me, but he never promised me he would answer all my questions. Waterfalls from the mountains did not make me bloom after I came back. I pretty much missed the time I had in Bloomfield. Azalea, I always can make the comparison. What is the problem with rhododendrons?
When the choir sang in the local church in Bloomfield, I joined them. Too much missing the flowering season, building bridges would take too much money, manpower, time, also energy after the ceased peace from reach of heaven to every edge of the earth. Bridges, I went back here, I remembered. Will I still wanted to build it here? I had other choices too.
When I was young, I liked to solve problems. Problems in math were easy to me. Later on physics, chemistry, biology and others came, other problems came as well. When I grew up, I came to Canada. Here, trees are green, flower blooms in its natural way. Rather, I found it here a better place. Math, physics and chemistry became so easy. Things are getting easier and easier here. Not bad. Growing ups and trees and flowers and people mixed places here is definitely too different from the orient, I found. When the music and dance ceased, and at the same time, I couldn't keep my grades up and stress stresses me. And when animals are all playing in the field, I wondered the wonder would be still wonderful? Plums got to bloom some time too. They found, maybe, I think. Plums bloom in a natural way will be plums' naturalness that is really what I think. Plums, let's eat them, they say, rather in a strange manner. Definitely not plums' plum.
Spring came in its way after the Christmas again and again. Two years walking in the maple valley already. What would be the spring falls like in Bloomfield now? I missed it there. Bridges built in such an easy way is still a miracle, and as a very experienced engineer, I was thinking about manifestations to build the bridge. Again, money, manpower, and other possible fibrous crossed my mind. Would it be still possibly possible to bloom the maple valley? I wondered. What about the natural greens? One thing was always clear to me; bridges were not built from nothing. Water falls from the Bloomfield breed maple valley at no much cost, what an idea? I am rather a good man, I think. What will natural greens think, though? Plums bloom in plums' naturalness and greens bloom in their naturalness, which is going to win? What an earth? When the movies and TVs and newsprints and press hold come and go, what a man I am and what I will become and, most importantly, what I will do. For Heaven's sake. Mountains cannot fall apart, and trees won't fall too. People can. Water flow, I think. At least, mountains and trees and flowers and grass and bushes and wild bushes and, land and people and jungles all need water. Water flow!!! I made my choice.
Hopefully rhododendrons will not always on my way towards my way. God believed me, many thanks to Him. Thank you, Lord.
