绝美之地《“绝美之地”精彩片段英文版》

If there is heaven on earth it must be Santorini. If there is a blessed place on earth it must be Santorini. Santorini is where the deepest sorrows are buried. Santorini is where you can never miss in your lifetime.

We are destined to spend many unforgettable moments as well as many careless days in our life time. Only a few are kept in the inner corner of our memory. We were once happy. We were once sad. And we were once bored. When all this faded into the dust of the past impressions deep or shallow passionate emotions or chilled heart become the only traces of our past.

It has to be an encounter of destiny if you ever experience this: you were struggling over love and pain life and death when all of a sudden you found yourself in a heavenly yet once brutally devastated place.

Santorini is such a place where dreams are interwoven with sorrows. It is where you can be totally lost while sitting surrounded by the stunning beauty. It is like the terrace of heaven and it is like the window of hell. At least that was my unspeakable feelings towards my emotional life at that time.

It was on Sep. 13th last year when I first had a chance to visit Santorini. I was a member of the local media group for Greece to track the very origin of the Olympic fire. Just on the day before departure I learnt that Yuhong my girlfriend had been diagnosed breast-cancer.

At that gloomy noon the news struck me like a bolt from the blue. I called the tour guide immediately telling him I decided to cancel the much anticipated journey so that I could accompany Yuhong to Beijing for her treatment. He was sympathetic. But he gently reminded me that it would affect the whole journey if I didn’t go.

The night when we parted Yuhong and I sat in a restaurant on the Shazui St. Her beautiful face looked haggard. Her radiance dimmed. There sad and depressed she sat. I knew she couldn’t have eaten anything for the whole day. I ordered a bowl of porridge and fried fish hoping she could take some. She ate nothing. We sat there speechless. I knew what was going on in her mind how she was feeling. After quite a while she seemed to talk to herself: “I am still so young!”--- These words echo in my ears even now.

She went home alone that day. I wonder if she ever went absentminded when driving home all by herself. My heart aches every time when I think of it. How I wish I could be by her side at that moment. However she made it clear that she wanted some time to herself and that she wanted to go home to pack her stuff on her own. I knew her so that I did not insist. The next day Yuhong and I got on board almost the same time but at different airports. She was heading for Beijing all alone from Shenzhen. I was on a German airliner heading for Europe from Hongkong.

During the flight to southern Europe I felt extremely terrible. I couldn’t get Yuhong out of my mind. Her eyes red with tears haunted me. Our love marathon had lasted ten years. … It started from a tiny seed the seed vehemently broke out and flourished. But it never came into full blossom. Nor did it bear any fruit. In fact this once beautiful flower of love had come to wither. If I must give so honest an explanation I must say I was to blame because I let her down.

I arrived at Athens in such a depressed mood. I sent her a text message the moment I got off the plane when we transferred via Frankfur. I was eager to know about her checkup. Has the biopsy been done? Has it verified the cancer cells? She had shut off her phone probably because of the time difference. No words came from her for the next several hours.

The first morning I woke up in Athens I got Yuhong’s text message telling me it was terminal. I dialed her number right away. I heard her voice so remote a bit husky and a bit helpless. I felt a bit assured by her stable mood. I kept saying that it might be a misdiagnosis. I couldn’t believe it. “Don’t be silly. It is true. It’s been diagnosed.” She said.

The following days I called or texted her frequently to encourage her. To my surprise the once weak and sentimental Yuhong now was surprisingly strong and optimistic. Her text messages more often than not read: “Encourage me! I need your support.” Tears ran down my cheeks whenever I read this. She told me to enjoy my stay in Greece. She said it’s a good opportunity. She was soothing me through all those exchange of text messages and phone calls.

In the past every time I went abroad I would bring her presents. When asked what she wanted she would tell me to bring her some local souvenirs---this is her hobby all along. Our old home was filled with souvenirs from all over the world. I got them for her on my international trips. Gondola from Venice windmill and the clogs from the Netherlands Eifel Tower from Paris……In Athens I went in particular to the handcrafts shop picking and choosing eventually bought two tiny porcelain churches inside which candles can be lit. She likes all kinds of candlesticks. Among the souvenirs I liked the hanging statuette of an ancient Greek doctor Hippcrates most. At that moment I piously prayed to Hippcrates for her life.

I stayed in Athens for two days. Then I went to Santorini.

Santorini belongs to the sweet lovers. It witnesses lovers’ vows. However as the intense light makes sharp contrast to the shadow it casts so the blue water of the Aegean Sea and the picturesque scenery of the island made a sharp contrast to my mood.

Santorini is the most beautiful place on earth yet its beauty is tinted with sadness. Stunning beauty was bestowed upon Santorini because it had been hit by the most agonizing and devastating natural disaster. Santorini was once the cradle of ancient civilizations. It was also a heaven turned into hell impasse on earth. It is viewed as sunset the most beautiful sunset on earth. And it has become the very symbol for Santorini--- an alternate show of beauty and its foundering.

This is Santorini--- a land of superb yet tragic beauty. It matched my mood so perfectly that this journey to Greece turned out to be the amazing journey of destiny.

After the horrible catastrophe about 3000 years ago Santorini has been repeatedly hit by earthquakes. The latest one happened about half a century ago. However Santorinians are still optimistic and content. They happily lead their life and guard their home on Santorini. It is like dancing at the knife edge.

I was hoping to tell Yuhong the tragic story of beautiful Santorini. I took thousands of pictures in hope that some day I could return to Santorini with Yuhong after she fully recovers. I am eagerly looking forward to this day. For this I want to write something and have it published together with my not-so-professional pictures. This is my only reason to write Heavenly Land. For her.

I recall on the morning when we were leaving Santorini it rained. It was a gentle drizzle. Shortly a rainbow appeared. I was amazed for quite a while. My mind suddenly slipped back to two years ago when I sang Yuhong a song at her birthday. At that moment the melody of that song resounded in my ears once more:

Lean to close to you in the drizzle

Waiting for the clear sky in silence

Waiting for the rainbow to come

and thread our hearts together

Rainbows in the sky though

fast they disappear and are gone

there will come a second rainbow

that’ll stay in our hearts forever

Now it’s coming again in the sky

Do you still remember the old-day drizzle

rainbow now parts you and me

one at an end of the rainbow

I stroll in the drizzle all alone

hoping for the rainbow to

come again to the blue horizon

With whom shall I share the rainbow

Imagine the distant rainbow

to be Cupid’s love bow

Take my second rainbow

right to your heart in the middle

At the eve of Mid-Autumn Festival waves of excitement drove me to write down the preface for this book. I could hardly hold back the blurring tears while I was writing. I called Yuhong and sent her my festival greetings. She was far away in Beijing. She sounded so cheerful that I could almost feel her happiness at the other end of the line. I finished the preface when I realized it was 13th September---the exact date when we sadly parted in Shenzhen a year ago. What a coincidence!