Correspondence
letters by you, the reader
Dear Solomon
I am just writing to let you know how much you mean to me. My favourite time of month is when the new gou-rou issue comes out. When I have finished reading it, a sickening feeling grows in my heart and my stomach. The air becomes heavy and thick, breathing it is like trying to breathe through a fine mesh screen. Apart from the time I am reading gou-rou, I feel pretty useless, I find myself daydreaming for hours at a time, often whilst staring at one of the blank walls in my flat, waiting, waiting for the next issue.
Yours,
Lion Edwards, Guangzhou city.
Dear gou-rou.com,
Since your magazine is popular with the teens and the young adults, I wanted to alert you to a disturbing trend I have noticed - namely, the proliferation of walkmans (or 'epods' or whatever they're called these days). Wherever I go, I see young foreigners walking around wearing earphones with no idea what is happening around them, as it is obviously impossible to listen to music and do anything else. That's why jazz bars provide their patrons with earplugs so they can stop listening to music while they drink their drinks, otherwise they would spill their "cool" Tequila Sunrises everywhere.
Why not unplug yourself and soak in Beijing's vibrant culture? I confronted a young man about this only the other day. He took those ear-held madmachines out of his soundholes and then had the effrontery to try and lie to me! He claimed he was listening to an audiobook by someone called "Philip Roth". Oh, please. I'm not going to fall for that. It really is a shame these young foreign people can't engage with Chinese culture, as I remarked to my driver Russell on our way back home to the Dynasty Garden apartments (that's not his real name, of course, but I can never pronounce his Chinese one).
Yours,
A Concerned Shunyi Mom
The editor replies:
Maybe the reason we young adults are blocking out the city is because we have already soaked in Beijing's lovely culture and don't feel the need to absorb very much more in the process of our daily lives. You demented old bat.
- Arabella.