dear lohengrin, (i call the american weblover as lohengrin here.)

      hi, i envy you. you've unexpectedly eaten "truffle"! i've never heard of "truffle" before. so i especially check the information about "truffle" online. now i just get to know that it's rather a delicious and precious food, as one of the 3 first-class ingredients in the famous french cuisine (the 2 other ingredients are goose liver and caviar) whose price is equal to the gold, even the diamond. oh, my god, so interesting. in our world, there's unexpectedly the existence of such an expensive food! i have asked several webfriends about "truffle", they all didn't hear of what "truffle" was just as me! one webfriend said that maybe truffle was a sort of chocolate.
    and it's said that my so-called truffle chocolate i‘m buying  online is only in the same shape as the real "truffle", without an iota of the real "truffle". and i try to search the "truffle" on the ebay.com, only finding some truffle powder or truffle oil. i envy you so much. you must eat them when you were wealthy before,ok? i guess the common people have no money and chance to eat or taste the real "truffle".
    no need to bring the "truffle" when you go to china. just to bring yourself is the best present for me!
    now do you know what i am thinking? i just think what a comfortable life you have experienced before.
     yeah, of course, there're the chinese women in usa, just as there're a lot of   chinese women in malaysia. but they're not the real "chinese" women. they don't live under the modern chinese society policy although they can also speak the same chinese, and have the same black eyes, and yellow skins, etc. they're absolutely not the real "chinese" women. i dare say that most of them are very ignorant about the real china as much as you--american. most of them just followed their elder generations to leave china many years ago or were born in other countries directly. just as you, your father is from scotland, but you are not familiar to scotland, so you're absolutely not a scotch.
but it seems that the western foreigners always call those ethnic chinese(i.e. the foreign citizens of chinese origin) as "chinese". no, it's a big mistake. if i didn't go to malaysia last year, maybe i can also agree with this "title". but when i was in malaysia, i could find a lot of chinese faces speaking the same chinese here and there. but they're just the malaysian chinese born in malaysia, instead of us---the pure chinese. and those local malaysians also asked us if we just came from 'china". in their mind, we are only the pure chinese. i also feel so curious about those malaysia chinese. since their older, older generations had left china so many many years before , why their later generations still hold the chinese language in malaysia now?
      and i remember you told me that your mother's parents were just from italy, and your mother can speak italian, but you only speak english. so strange, those malaysian chinese still keep the chinese as their mother language till now. oh, i really envy those ethnic chinese very very much. for example, in malaysia, those common malaysian chinese can unexpectedly 3 languages at same time: chinese, malaysian, english. oh, my god, they're all the excellent translators! but in china, people can speak english are very very few, so i always repeatedly highlight that having a good command of english is just a symbol of good education, a passport leading to the outside world, meaning a lot of chances and wealth.(of course, the foreigners speaking english can be very popular, getting the job in china easily by teaching english as long as you have the enough courage to come to china.)
     however, those western foreigners always call us and malaysian chinese or HK chinese or american chinese as the common "chinese". you can't distinguish us! you only feel there're a lot of chinese speaking english well in the world. but you never notice if they're the mainland chinese as me or other chinese. you just notice if they have the same chinese face.
     by the way, the present american embassador in china also has a chinese face, named luo jia hui. sorry, i don't know what his english name is. he is just an american chinese. but he can't speak any mandanrin, of course, he still remembers some chinese dialects of his grandfather's hometown. however, there're a lot of different dialects in china. his grandfather's dialect is very very different from our mandarin--the official chinese. so even he has a chinese face, in china, he must communicate with chinese people in english. oh, it's so funny, ok? you must have heard of the so-called "mandarin" and "cantonese", although they both belong to chinese. but they're very different. even if i'm a "pure" chinese, i can't follow any "cantonese",too. on the contrary, some overseas chinese can speak "cantonese" very well. the pure chinese just speak "mandarin"!
      oh, i guess my clumsy explanation must make you feel more puzzled about chinese.
      all in all, don't mingle me with other overseas chinese. we're completely different people.

love,
gina

dear gina,
     oh, please don't envy me because of truffles. honestly, they are not so wonderful. also, they are not so expensive here. even making the little money i make now, i could still buy them, but i don't. maybe i just haven't had a real truffle. when i was making very good money, i still didn't care for them. there are so many different kinds of chocolate and candy here that are very good.
     also, i am aware of the true chinese. i think it is because my father is from scotland and my mothers' family from italy that i learned a long time ago that only the people who grew up in a country and its culture can truly appreciate their country. that is part of the reason why i was so glad to meet you. i could read articles all the time about china, and i could visit all the wonderful tourist places in china, but i know that they are not the real china. i wanted to learn about what china is really like by talking with a real chinese person. you must also remember that it is the same with america. you see and hear about the wonderful america, but stories are exaggerated to make it sound so much more grand than it really is. i don't know if you are aware of the countries of iceland and greenland. the vikings, who roamed the northern atlantic had found the two countries. they loved iceland because of it's beauty, but were afraid that people would rush to it, so they named it iceland, trying to make it sound awful. they decided to name another country which was frozen and hostile greenland, for the reason that they hoped people would go there instead.
   see, by us becoming friends, we are able to learn the truth of the countries of our dreams. don't get me wrong, i love my country, and can't wait for you to come and see it and experience it for yourself. i also can't wait to come to china and get to experience it for myself. i don't want to take a guided tour with a travel agency, but walk hand in hand with you as you show me your beautiful land. this is why we must become rich, so we can have the time and money necessary to fully experience our dream together. we would travel around both countries and learn about them together.
     i also know about mandarin and cantonese. do you remember i had asked you which type of chinese i should try to teach myself? you told me i need to learn mandarin. you also told me that i should not try to teach myself because of the tones used in the language. i have listened to you. that is why i will wait for you to teach me the correct way to speak mandarin. i do not want to say something, only to find i pronounced it wrong and insulted a person.
      you say that you envy me, but you must realize that i envy you, too. but i know that we will be together and be able to learn from each other, and then neither of us will envy the other. we will become one, sharing in all things, growing closer as each each day passes. it will happen. i know it will, and i am working each day towards that goal, to the day when i can look into your beautiful eyes and see your lovely smile...