Concise English-Chinese Dictionary

This book was another surprise of the year. I never really like reading novels in English because I read much faster in Chinese. I guess the other reason is that I don't quite buy into the western way of thinking. Western fiction is more fictional if reading the translated version, further away from my real world. My English reading is mostly non-fiction or work-related. I think I am still in the exploring phase of English literature. The message expressed in English is only informative rather than entertainment.

However, this book quickly drawed me into this tiny Chinese girl's world in London. This 24-year-old, broken-English woman came to UK for 1 year English study. She is like most stereotype young generation in China, blunt, rude and not refined. She fell in love with a British guy. The whole book was her own monologue. There are questions everywhere at the first half of the book. Seeing the English world via a pair of Chinese girl's eyes, what privacy is? Why everything is old? Why women with kids living without a man? Her curiosity drown her into this 20 year older English artist's life. Her love to him was suffocating, she is constantly demanding attention and security. When he cannot provide enough, fighting started yet there is nothing they can change because they are still hooked into each other. The relationship was like storm, like fire, it came with all the destructive power.

All these are too familiar, that was me when I was in my twenties. It is too hard to imagine myself being in this type of madness again, too cynical and rational to avoid the embarrassment.