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Exploring China In 1987 I befriended one Mr. Chen, a multilingual restaurateur and the unofficial mayor of Yangzhou (contrary to what local officials thought). Independent backpackers were new to recently "opened" China and Chen had a kind way with them. One afternoon, I joined Chen in an old rickety truck for a 70-mile journey to a little-known village. En route we passed an elderly man and his goat who were walking on the roadside in the nnnn'''H' direction. The man balanced two immense rice-bags on a pole across his back. It was hot and he was barefoot. looked to his left, made a strange honking call for his goat. When his ani mal returned to his side, he looked at Chen and spoke slowly. When he fin ished, Chen set his hand on my shoulder and winked, "He said that if you can't help someone, don't harm them." "Why are people mean to each other?" I asked as I stared back into the old man's eyes. He was pure human art, calmer than a sleep ing cat. Chen's voice rang into the air, "If you decline to accept someone's abuse, then it still belongs to them." I stepped from the vehicle to shake hands with the roadside sage. "Why do men and women quarrel?" The old man replied, "The rise of a man's mind from his scrotum to his-skull can be a long haul." Chen slapped me on the leg and the three of us burst into laughter. Now, when I replay those moments and think of the old man's kind and deeply wrinkled face, I recall that traffic jams and rude people are only one option. The roadside sage remains a permanent, benevolent echo. I left Yangzhou a week later. Mr. Chen walked me to the bus stop and offered me a hearty embrace. Alluding to my unrealized dream of writ ing for a living, he encouraged me to pen the old man's wisdom. "Use it to start a book," he smiled, "and live with passion ." "Come on Chen, do you know how old I'll be by the time I get published?" Chen replied, "The same age you'll be if you don't." Twelve years, twenty letters and three books later, I received e birthday card from Mr. Chen In which he confessed that he had n't faithfully translated very much of what the roadside sage hed said. Indeed, everything I'd absorbed via translation from the old man had actually been Chen's, -bast wlshes ,for ��� yO�u�, m �y�fr�le�n: dl:��-=�==::=;;���iiii