Those Who Brew, Sing, Draw and Silent

Toronto is cold and near the north shore, lake Ontario is starkly beautiful and wavy, its banks covered with ice and snow.

Finally saw Bing and Xianming's "babies" in Toronto, and there are lots and lots of them.

They taste professional, and professionally Pale Ale, and smooth, depite being homely brewed.

And xianming's credential as once a vocal of a rock band, initially made me suspect of his cooking skills, and he blew us off, me and Jerry couple and their so cute baby, Kyle. (Kyle got no boiling fish).

The best boiling fish we have ever had in our lives, and we have had many in Sichuan Restaurants here and in China.

So that says a lot about his boiling fish.

And then we were blessed with his CD, which he eagerly shared with us as gifts, and I love his voice too.

We talked till late into the night while drinking lot of the still aging thus live beer. Bing told me about those silent days that she lived through at that island on the east, and the days of September when she walked out of the airport to know that she would be a little lonely and quiet again and what those later September days' smell always reminded her of, in a sweet and bitter way.

I said I have been silent and quiet in that big island down south as well these days. But there is no smell, this city's smell is so varied and constantly changing depending on where you are that you don't really remember things that way there, at least, not me.

I brought her a work by Jason as a gift.

Under my not very subtle hint, Bing lately suggested that she would illustrate my story, at some days. I had to say, that I never have wanted to be a better story teller more.

But how do you illustrate a day of silence, someone asked, yet with a heart full of longings, if I may add? How do you illustrate the difference between shyness and arrogance? How do you illustrate difference between opacity and fear of being hurt?

Good illustration to me is the art of short story at its highest level, you need to make sure logic is understood but not said and impact being made but not forced, in a short and limited space and time span. I know Bing will try to answer that as she illustrates. And she will be so good.

I know because she has already creatd my most favorite and dearing creature with so much wit and so little lines, an ambitious and motivating dog , and that beloved little doggie series.

Beers, boiling fish, fun times, stories shared, heart-touching illustrations, these little things that enable us to fill the time of silence and the void in our lifes, and forget tentatively other realities of life and heartache, as water draining out of rocks fills the pond silently and without you knowing it.