Aaaand... It's good again

Jinlin and chocolate

Time together with Jinlin yesterday was truly good. We ate in a nice restaurant, we did sightseeing in the Huilongtan park and Confucian temple of Jiading (photos here). We listened to music and browsed together pictures in the Finnish interior design magazines I brought her. We planned together activities for our remaining days together in Shanghai (at leas visiting the "Bund" and singing karaoke). But most of all, it was surprisingly easy in the end to be happy and optimistic with her, to smile with her and live in the present moment without worrying about the great challenges in our relationship. Recognizable smiles and manners, small inside humor that developed during the our summer trip to compensate for the lack of words, speaking clumsy Chinese and English with lots of funny misunderstandings... all of it felt surprisingly familiar, natural and good.

In the Confucius temple

I have Jinlin as present two varieties of Finnish chocolate. Other one we opened and ate together, other box she decided to keep as a Christmas present from me and open at christmas (Chinese 圣诞节, Shèng dàn jié, literally "Holy Birth Festival"). I gave her six issues of different Finnish home design magazines such as "Kaunis Koti" and "Glorian Kodit" as she had been expressing interest in those for her interior design studies. She was very happy about them and we were looking at the pictures together. And I gave her money which she would not like to take but needs to survive until the end of term in end of January. She told she is hand-knitting me a scarf for Christmas present but it's not quite ready yet so she will send it to me in post when I am back in Finland. How nice!

I felt that much of the pain and confusion from long silent days in separation was lifted.

And there has been definite improvement from the summer on how we can discuss things. No need to use mobile phone translation software any more. When I get a thought to my head I am in 90% of cases able to speak Chinese words that get the though across to Jinlin. I speak to her Chinese most of the time, resorting to some English words occasionally. She speaks bit more Chinese than English to me. I don't think her English ability is worse than my Chinese but she is perhaps bit more shy than me speaking clumsily. I suggested that tomorrow we might speak more English together so she gets more training as well. But I understand quite well her Chinese, so I understood nice things she said like "When you are in Finland, I miss you very much, you are inside my heart."