| Memoirs of China: Love and Marriage |
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[JOURNAL ENTRY, DECEMBER 2004:] Our Chinese friend, William Shen, who helped us negotiate our apartment, had dinner with us last night. Our ayi served traditional Shanghainese dishes, and William marveled that he was eating the all meals he’d grown up with… with a knife and fork! We hastened to bring out the chopsticks, but he waved them away: This was an adventure for him…. William is contemplating marriage with his girlfriend, Claire. William loves Claire, but is unsure that marriage now is the right step, given the fact that he is just starting out to make money and cannot really afford a wife. William discussed these issues at some length with my wife and me in the cab back from Fudan University last night. He told us that Claire has very much moved him as no other girl has. I told him that if he was worried about money, perhaps a year of saving before marriage wasn’t so unreasonable. I didn’t feel that I was very helpful, but I was enormously touched that he had confided something so important about his life to us. My wife says that this is why China feels so strangely comfortable to us: Friendships develop quite simply and naturally—and feel very true. Donald Gallinger is author of the novel The Master Planets Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites               
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