NANJING, June 17, 2002 — There are no bicycles at Don't Worry Lake, so I offered five yuan (60 cents) to one of the many people selling cold drinks, noodles, and other comestibles in exchange for a brief ride on his bicycle. He cheerfully obliged and off I went.

I am now, at 76 years, unsteady on a bicycle, but the jaunt went well. When I reached a slight incline in the tiled path, I had to walk a few meters to the crest. Smooth riding thereafter. When I returned I enjoyed a cold drink and watched the man whistle and chirp at the five pretty birds whose little wooden cages hung from a shade tree close by.

At four in the afternoon, with my interpreter, Li Mang, I boarded a large, old rusty ferry that runs each hour from Nanjing to the opposite shore of the Yangtze River, a common 15-minute commute for many workers and students. Sitting in the hot sun I overheard a young girl speaking English. Although at age 20 she had only studied English for a year (she told me), she was quite fluent. I asked her name—Robin Fang—and learned she was a freshman at a religious-sponsored teachers' college in Nanjing and was preparing to become an English teacher. When I asked with what accent she spoke, she was bewildered. So I told her that her accent was the same as mine, that is, American. I said she must be learning the language from an American and she confirmed my guess. His name is John Strong and from the worksheets she showed me as well as from her own fluency, I knew he was a fine teacher.

I then had a strikingly good idea and said, "We'd like to visit your home and have dinner with you!" She smiled sweetly and agreed that this was a good idea and, in response to my inquiry, she said her parents would be delighted. This would be the first time a foreigner had visited her home.

At the far side of the Yangtze we disembarked and, contrary to her proposal to walk the mile to her home, we took a taxi. The Fang family of three lives in a pleasant, two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of their building. Robin quickly ran to her bedroom where the air conditioning is located, turned it on, and returned to the living room where we sat under a large ceiling fan. She closed off all other rooms to concentrate the cooling effect for our benefit. I later thought she should have included the kitchen where her father would later sweat out the preparation of dinner.

Her father was still at work as was her mother who teaches kindergarten. The three of us sat on a hard wooden bench—I soon requisitioned a cushion—and looked at some dozens of photographs of Robin, her parents, and relatives. The album was arranged chronologically from her birth to the present. Uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents abound. Robin took great pride in her extended family and the many pictures of herself, some of them alluring, even in slightly provocative postures at the beach and elsewhere. Her enthusiasm was contagious.

Her parents arrived in succession and, after warm, Chinese greetings, the father, kind and jovial, set to work in the hot little kitchen while the mother went shopping. I made it clear that today was one of my 'vegetable' days—I am on a special diet—and that I had a small appetite, but these remarks went unheeded. My only contribution to the preparation of dinner was a bottle of dry, red Chinese wine which the hosts disdained in favor of Qingdao beer. The dinner was excellent: rice, green vegetables, mushrooms, soup, tofu, fresh tomatoes, tea and watermelon.

When one of the Fangs mentioned the well-known gleeful reaction of some Chinese to the 9-11 disaster at the World Trade Center, my interpreter assured the family that I took no offense; that I was in Nanjing at the time and knew that, while many offered sincere condolences, others, here and in Europe, thought America's domination of the world required some kind of rebuke, if not so bloody and horrible a blow.

I am always surprised at how much fun it is to have a free flow of ideas among such a mixed group: the parents speaking only Chinese, I speaking only English, and my interpreter and Robin mediating expertly.

After dinner, the family walked us to the taxi they had summoned and already paid for, and sent us on our way to the ferry. I left with a commitment for dinner with Robin at my hotel in two days.

Li Mang, commenting on my asking a stranger for an invitation to dinner, asked if I would do the same thing in America. I said, no, but I wish I could have said yes. In a foreign country, one often feels free of the customary restraints of home.

The second crossing of the Yangtze proved eventful, as a demented young man of powerful build insisted on haranguing me with statements of his mission in life: to protect American visitors from harm even if Americans were guilty of bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade! For twenty minutes he lectured me in Chinese which, of course, I did not understand. However, having earlier been advised, after each pause in his polemic I would utter an "ah" as the Chinese do to indicate continued understanding. He kept up a rapid, staccato delivery between my "ah's" and, as I saw he meant no harm, I relaxed through the bombardment. Many of my fellow voyagers smirked at the performance, some believing that my "ah's" demonstrated that I understood the monologue. At last he turned to others, that they might become enlightened.

Altogether, this day was just as wonderful as many of the others since my arrival May 15. My brash behavior in eliciting a dinner invitation from Robin illustrates an attitude I have developed these last many years. I think that each encounter with others should be memorable. The clerk at the check-out counter of the supermarket, the cop on his beat, the travelers along the way— each has a life worth learning about, each has stories to tell, gifts to offer and to receive. There are too many humdrum meetings of our fellow creatures. Can we make something precious of these meetings even though they last for but a few minutes? I think so. And everyone is the richer for it.