China is a big village.

How many people live in China? Nearly a billion and a half?

I do not believe!

If there were really so many Chinese, could the following stories happen?

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History the first.

I was travelling with my Chinese partner from Beijing to Nanjing by night train.
We enter the couch. There is an elderly couple – over sixty obviously. Dinner at the table. I threw my pieces on the upper shelf, sat down from the edge, my friend Albert sat in front of them, and began to grind the woods with them.

The train crashed, we touched, we went. Those bumping something there on their tongue, I bumped a little. At that point, I could already catch the essence of conversations in Chinese, I realize that comrades are asking about me: where, say, is such a Lao miracle in a Chinese train?
I hear, Albert pronounces the code word “Elosy” – Russia means.

Then the man turned: “Elois! Elosy!" Eyes opened, smiled, squeezed... Then stuck, significantly raised his index finger to the mountain, leaned, stumbled from under the table zero-five, stumbled her on the table and said in Russian, without the slightest accent: "Let's %bnem!" Because my state can only be conveyed by a much more emotional word, which my pathological intelligence here does not allow me to convey.

While I was knocking my eyes and mouth, he swiftly swinged the fungicide tooth, splashed the remains of the tea from his and his wife's cups on the floor and poured it in full. “For Elos!” we choked and drank. Gaolian is, in principle, nothing when you get used to it, but a whole glass, without preparation.

The man applauded me on the shoulder (the head didn’t fall off) and kicked quickly, explaining the situation to his wife and Albert. As it turned out, more than forty years ago he studied in Moscow, he has loved Russia and Russians since then and even remembered the words "Lenin" and "brother" ("balates" in his transcription). Not counting, of course, the phrase with which our acquaintance began.

After the second he had some blocks of synapses, and he remembered two other phrases, which he used further until the bottle exhausted, as toasts. Moreover, he also pronounced them almost without an accent and with obvious pleasure and even pride.

These were the phrases “%b your mother” and “going to %ui”.

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History is second.

With the same Albert, we were on a sitting train from Tianjin to Beijing.
Albert is at the window, I am at the passage. I’ll take some cheat from my pocket in the seat in front of me, get a Chinese-Russian dictionary – I’ll look for familiar letters. Hieroglyphs in the sense. I opened a dictionary and wrote.
By side-sight (I have it well developed) I see that a guy sitting across the passage has leaned and reads what is written on the cover of my dictionary. I have something? I’m not sorry, let him read.

I read. He stood on his seat. I thought a few minutes. Then cautiously so, politely, asks in Russian: “Sorry, do you help? Tell me what hieroglyph you don’t understand, I’ll translate!” Well, I smiled at him, thanked him, explained what I was interested in. We talked, of course.

“Where did you study?” I asked. “In St. Petersburg.” I think this is a meeting! “In which university?” – “In the university.” No figured on yourself! I really fall into a downfall. He begins to laugh. “Are you not living in the thirteenth dormitory?” now he falls into the precipice.
It rounded the eyes, swallowed the jaw. “Aga” he says. “Then probably,
You know Yulia Arkadievna?" (Julechka and I studied at the same course and lived in this shelter when "Trinaška" was not a hostel for foreign students. Yulia Arkadievna is now the commander of “Trinashka”. The boy changes in the face, tears appear in his eyes: "Julia Arkadievna! Well of course! She helped me so much, she helped me so much! She was like a mother to us all!”

Next – the show for the whole car: laughter and snoring, cuddling-embracing, exchange of phone numbers... “If you suddenly need something in Tianjin – call, don’t be embarrassed! Even if nothing is necessary, just come to us – call me anyway, I invite you to dinner!”
Yulia Arkadievna from me greeting! And thank her for everything!
“Greatly!”

Xu Chen, if you suddenly read this, know: I greeted you. Yulia
Arkadievna also remembers you, also passes a huge greeting and wishes you good luck!

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History is third.

This story did not happen to me. But it was told to me by people in whose sincerity there is no doubt.

A family from Russia rested on Hainan. Mom, Dad and two children of conscious age. My dad is a well-known musician and my mom is a well-known actress. Children, strangely enough, are not bullies, so this story will not be about them. They lived in Sheraton.

There was live music in the lobby bar at night. At 9:30 a.m. there was a very beautiful girl sitting at the piano and playing soft jazz. At half a.m., another singer joined her. She was cute and fragile, while singing a strong and profound contralto with a classic jazz chripotts.
They performed the girls professionally – this father could confirm. In the jazz standard strangely embedded pentatonic Chinese motifs. And immediately began the classical Chinese song, gracefully sinking it on the syncopic canvas of old New Orleans masters. Flying the fullest.

Somehow closer to the end of their program, when only our heroes remained in the bar, the father could not stand and asked to sit down for the keys. I gave something like that. Well, the fisherman hears the fisherman from a distance, and the language of music is international.
Chinese women immediately recognized him as a worthy protector of their own muse, admired, invited them to the table, drank, talked... They made friends, in general. Fortunately, both sides spoke very well in English.

And here the rest of our Russian comrades is coming to an end. The Last Night.
The Chinese promised them in advance that there would be a surprise. What a surprise, I didn’t want to talk for a long time. Already when the program was in full swing, they sat down in a break to drink a glass of water. And after a short but violent admonition, they still confessed that it was good right now and were gathering this goodbye gift to present. As it turned out, six months ago, the Russians stayed in this hotel, who were also very friendly with these Chinese women. Great company was! “So funny, so funny!”
They smiled and cried, Chinese. And, conspiringly looking around, they finally confessed: “They taught us to sing a song in Russian! We'll sing it for you now!" and we stood on the stage.

There was a lot of people that night. But the homon was immediately a verse, as soon as the piano player's fingers sprinkled on the keys with a slightly audible drop - the music that these girls made, everyone loved. The singer took the microphone:
“Dear friends, ladies and gentlemen! Today our Russian friends sit with us for the last time! Tomorrow they will return to their deep snow.
We wish them a gentle landing!" polite turns of heads towards the Russians, polite cotton. “And now we will sing for them and for all of you a wonderful Russian song!”

Agree – there is something unreal in this, something of a magical children’s fairy tale: sitting ten thousand kilometers from the purging purging in a cozy semi-dark bar, touching the shoulder of a loved one, looking through the glass walls at night, where the palms cheered by the night breeze, illuminated by colorful lamps, breathe the thickening smell of a noble drink born on the shores of the Loire, and listen to the native Russian song. And it doesn’t matter what this song will be about – about the dam and the frost, about the intelligent Volga ataman-outlet or about the thick ultra-marine darkness of Moscow. After all, the main thing that a mysterious Russian soul needs is that it, as they say, turns and turns back.

And in the almost impeccable Russian language, in a brilliant jazz processing, the “Vladimirsky Central” broke up.

Vladimir Marchenko © 2008