Illegible letters were mingled here and there
in the first mail from Yan when we reopened our correspondence. (There
had never been such case until then.) It frankly showed that nowadays she
was corresponding almost only with the people of same language (besides
perhaps young friends of her age). I thought "She has half forgotten
me". (This is one of the reasons from which I judged that she "disappeared
without saying farewell".)
I downloaded the character set of Chinese simplified
from Sicrosoft and fully equipped an environment to read Chinese. I wrote
English mails on the environment, and while trying various methods, became
aware an interesting matter. Somehow, Japanese character set is contained
in Chinese Simplified! Moreover, inputting Japanese is likely able by using
kana-kanji conversion. When Yan received a mail enclosing Japanese for
the first time, she was deeply moved and gave shout of joy "Can! Can!".
In the morning of December 28th, as I already
was in my winter holiday, I turned back to my proper pattern of working
towards daylight and getting up at noon, so I was unwillingly waked up
by a boring chime. Standing a tall postman helmeted in the doorway, he
told me that the matter delivered had registration and required me my seal
impression. He looked down at me with a look taking on a pity and mixing
somewhat scorn.
Now that a registered matter, it must be a bad
news. I recall several pending cases in my mind and came to feel a pain
even in the chest, thinking "how annoying, why at the very time getting
near the end of the year". Adding the rapid increase of blood pressure,
my eyes' focus was not certain yet, then the sealed letter of rather large-size
was once put on the desk. A clear sheet wrapped the white square envelop
tightly. After passing some time, (when the heart throb calmed down somehow),
I picked up the envelop again. At the right-bottom corner of the envelop,
regarded as the company name and the mark, letters "Sh.... People's..."
was seen in red! (M.N. 3/1/2000)
