Out of town

- A classic poem says, when you have a bosom friend across the sea, even if you're in the far corner of the earth, you still feel like your friend is close. My grandmother changed one word of this poem from "have" to "meet/encounter" for the first two lines of this poem.
- 'song buo' (pine cypress) as discussed in an earlier post indicates old, steadfast, faithful
- Another classic saying is that when the weather is cold, then you see pine trees are the last to drop their needles. This refers to knowing someones character only after a time of testing or trial. The annual cold's heart phrase, like the yearly winter cold, means that my grandmother felt this friend could related to her trials.
- "clothing bosom" is an expression for open- or narrow-mindedness which Chinese people associate with heart rather than mind. Another expression is 'qi liang' which is literally "air volume". If it's 'da' or "big", it means someone has great capacity, e.g. 1 Corinthians 13:7 in describing love which "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
- "sun moon" means big, high, bright: all positive traits
- ya ying = rhyme

To my little hometown friend
Ocean far meet known self
Sky wide like nextdoor neighbor
Table side talk departed things
All words old hometown lore
Wishing you pine cypress proliferation
Can understand annual cold's heart
Clothing bosom like sun moon
Wisdom a golden proverb impart

- cen actually wall but is commonly known as city. boundary.

Lian City Hot Water Fish
I heard about the countryside outside Lian City there was a hot spring. The hot spring flowed into a small stream. Many people like to go see it. In the stream were fish. Very strange because the water was hot and there were fish. People would go to the stream and count fish. So I went to visit and wrote this poem.

Hot spring located at isolated deserted place
Hundred degree water shockingly has fish
Of ten-thousand things only adaptive ones survive
Don't mind hot heat still peacefully exist