“I Felt Real Feeling”

The old van had seen better days and needed lots of tender, loving care just to keep it running.  With both hands out of sight under the dashboard trying to coax some recalcitrant wires where they didn’t want to go, my face pressed up against the horn boss of the steering wheel, I heard a disembodied oriental voice ask if I needed help.

I looked up to see Sun Jianjun smiling at me through the open window.  “Do you need help?” he repeated.  Feeling on top of the task, I politely declined assistance and watched him as he went into the house next door but one.  I had a Chinese neighbour.

Jianjun was not easily put off.  He appeared at our door a couple of days later and invited himself inside.  This eloquent young man charmed us.  He told us of his work developing speech engines for computers on behalf of the University of TV and Radio in China, that was his sponsor at the University of Huddersfield.  He was delightful, helpful, and witty.  His wife and daughter remained at home in Inner Mongolia as he studied for a year in our home town.

Before the project was completed, his year ended.  The Chinese government gave him permission to remain until completion, but warned no further funding was possible.  The University was so impressed with his talent that they granted him research facilities without cost. 

We were so impressed with his personality and character that we took him in as a non-paying guest.  While under the thrall of his amusing and informative personality, he silently but completely entered our hearts.  He had become our Chinese son, and we were his English parents.  The transformation took less than ten minutes.

When dusk fell, Jianjun rose and pulled all the curtains in the house.  If he was home before us, dinner was cooked, Chinese style.  He taught us to eat with chopsticks, and was kind enough not to laugh when we launched portions of dinner across the dining room. 

In the evenings, we talked of China - its history, its peoples, its struggles, its triumphs, and its disappointments.  We learned that Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution had come just as Jianjun was preparing to enter university.  He was drafted into the Red Guard, and by the time the revolution was over, his opportunity for a university education had passed.

Instead, he worked for the University of TV and Radio, first as a technician, then through studies to become a development engineer.  The computer development department at Huddersfield was so impressed with his work that had it been able, it would have conferred a doctorate. 

The only cultural difficulty was on the night we went to Halifax's Victoria Hall to see the BYU Dance Team.  He unpacked his best jacket from where it had lain for over a year in more mothballs than you could shake a stick at. 

Not being conversant with Chinese moth balls, having seen my last English one about forty years earlier, I was unprepared for the smell.  It was horrendous!  Not just the pungent smell of camphor, like English moth balls, but a severe acrid odour that penetrated lung tissue in biting waves, and brought tears to the eyes. 

What we learned of oriental politeness taught us not to embarrass our son.  Our only solution lay in positive action.  We drove to the show with all the car windows rolled down – the 4-50 air conditioning system!  By the time we reached Halifax, the pungency was still there but the critical mass was reduced to the point where meltdown was unlikely during the performance.

But the tears that his mothballs brought to our eyes were nothing compared to the tears that we shed on the day he had to leave for his Chinese home, and we knew that we would never see him again in mortality. 

I drove him and his luggage to the bus station in Huddersfield.  Norma, never good at goodbyes, stayed home to weep.  Outwardly, Jianjun and I were composed.  I had always teased him about how he was supposed to be inscrutable, but he was, I told him, the most scrutable man I knew.  Our composures were intact right up to the point where he was sitting on the upper deck of the London bound bus and I was standing outside on the apron of the departure bay.  The bus started to pull out and we both lost it.  We bawled like babies, waving until we could see each other no longer.  In less that ten seconds, he was gone.

I drove straight home to comfort Norma.  She was crying, clutching our guest book, open at the page on which Jianjun had recorded his final message.  It read:

This is my second home.  I spent very nice life here.  I got warm treatment and concern.  I learned the golden heart of kind people.  I felt real feeling.  I will never forget all of you.  I will never forget all of you.  I will never forget the life here.

I come from the bank of the Yellow River.  China is thousands miles far from England.  But kindness and friendship can not be limited by geographic distance.  Kind people can always understand each other.  Not only by language, but also by heart.

I wish you are always happy!

I wish the world is full of love!

God bless you!

Yours son

Sun Jianjun (13 Jan. 89)

No day has passed since his departure, but that he has been remembered in our home and mentioned in our prayers.  A smiling stranger who came to help, and stayed to become our son.  A personable young man, who had been taught from birth that there was no God, carried Christian scriptures in the Chinese language back to his ancient homeland.  Perhaps we were not the only ones who had found a son.