LIU FU QIANG: I’d like to have a backpack, one of those 75-litre backpacks from Mountain Smith. It’s really nice but it’s too expensive. It costs 2400 RMB, that’s more than I can afford. But once I dreamt that I had this backpack. I dreamt that I went to an outdoor shop and saw this backpack. I couldn’t resist so I bought it.
    And I don’t know how but as soon as I had the backpack I found myself walking in the mountains. Suddenly the backpack was filled with a lot of other things, like a water bottle, a tent, a flashlight, and an ice axe, all those things that one needs in the mountains. So I started climbing the mountain. It’s not very steep, so I reached the top of the mountain easily. There was a temple on the top of the mountain. The mountain top is quite small and there is another mountain next to it, which is shaped like a column and is about the same height. I wanted to jump over to the other mountain to see what it was like over there. I tried to jump over several times but I couldn’t do it. Actually I was quite frightened because there was a deep precipice between the two mountains. Then suddenly and out of nowhere a girl showed up behind me. She was very pretty and said: “I know you. You are Mailong, aren’t you?” I felt very strange. I asked her: “Who are you? I don’t know you. Have we met anywhere before?” She said: “That doesn’t matter, i know you.” The she asked me if I would like to jump over to the other mountain, so I said, “Yes”. But she said: “That’s not possible, you cannot do that.” Then I stopped talking to her.
    I walked around a bit in order to see if I could jump over to the other mountain. I lighted a cigarette and sat down to think about some way of coping with the distance and with my fear. Then I remembered an advertisement from an outdoor magazine, I forget which magazine it was, but the advertisement shows a man jumping from one rock to another, he’s in midair between the two rocks and there’s a huge abyss below him. So I thought: “OK, who cares, just jump!” So I jumped and I landed on the other mountaintop. I was wondering if I should stay there or go back. I walked to the edge of the mountaintop to shorten the distance, but suddenly I stumbled and fell off the mountain. I started to panic but then I remembered that I had the ice axe, so I took the axe and tried to drive it into the rock but it didn’t work. Then I woke up.
    I have a translation company. Last year business was quite good, we had a lot of work, mostly credit proposals from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. It was very exhausting, both physically and mentally, because you can’t make a mistake, otherwise the foreigners don’t understand you and your proposal is not accepted. And these proposals always go with a lot of documents, it’s a lot of work but it’s also good money. In my spare time I like to do outdoor sports such as hiking and mountain climbing. I also know quite a bit about outdoor equipment, about the brands and the different kinds of gear they offer.
    Last year I was very busy, right until the end of the year. I’m not from Xi’an, I came here in March 2007 and I worked non-stop until January 2008. I went back to my hometown on New Year’s Eve, during the work period, I had almost no rest. Some people can take a rest New Year’s Eve, if they have nothing to do they can just go and visit their families. But as a company boss you cannot take a rest. Sleeping and relaxing at home, that’s impossible. I want to earn money so I can buy a house and a car. A Jeep or a Cadillac or a Wrangler. I really like those American cars, and here we have an outdoor exploration club where they drive those Jeeps in the mountains. That’s amazing! But they are very expensive, around 450.000 RMB. I want to realize this goal within the next few years. Not this year, you know. Now with the Opympic Games, the earthquake and all that, business and the stock market are going down, so right now I have nothing to do.

BELOVED
ASPIRATION
TENSION
SUDDENLY
DISILLUSION
HARDSHIP
MOVEMENT
PERSISTENCE
ACHIEVEMENT
DESOLATION