Who knew a dictionary could be so steamy?
“A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers” by Xiaolu Guo is a rare and honest glimpse into the mind of a Chinese exchange student.
The book follows the journey of Zhuang, a strong 23-year-old from a traditional Chinese family, as she travels to London to learn English.
Her education doesn’t stop there, however.
She quickly falls in love with a much older man and learns a lifetime’s worth of lessons in just one year.
She learns about sex, men, art, food, literature and, most importantly herself.
Zhuang struggles throughout the entire book to understand the English language and the English man she worships.
She is constantly consulting her dictionary and asking questions.
In the beginning of the book, her English is choppy.
The reader gets hung up on sentences like, “Sometimes I not even caring what I needing.”
But if the readers are loyal through the first few chapters, they will be rewarded with a sweet, realistic look at love and culture.
Also, by the last chapter, Zhuang’s English is almost flawless and particularly insightful.
The best part of the book is the love story, which seems to be doomed from the beginning.
Zhuang meets her unnamed lover in a movie theater and moves in with him a week later.
He’s a vegetarian artist who doesn’t want to be tied down, and she’s a passionate student who needs stability.
They have too much sex and too few things in common.
After a few months, the couple starts fighting and Zhuang’s understanding of the situation becomes muddled.
She becomes dependent on his love and wants to build a life with this lover, but he wants to live for the moment and not make any plans.
One of the most interesting sections of the book is when the lover convinces Zhuang to travel Europe alone.
She reluctantly agrees and buys an unlimited rail ticket.
Zhuang has several unique exchanges with men while traveling.
In a very strange exchange, she meets a man under a wisteria plant on a stoop.
He gives her a cup of coffee and asks her to trade her ticket so they can have more time together. Zhuang starts to cry and they have a moment that could only happen on a stoop in Europe.
Then she encounters a sweet man on the train who lets her stay at his flat in Berlin.
The man becomes violently ill and she takes care of him. When he gets better, she leaves town.
She meets an Italian man who invites her to stay in his extra hotel bed. Unfortunately she wakes up to him trying to kiss her, so she flees.
She also takes a walk with a man in Faro, Portugal and says, “I think I want to have sex with you.”
When she returns to London, her lover doesn’t ask her about anything that happened while she was away.
In fact, he barely speaks to her.
Reading this book becomes an addiction because you know something crazy is bound to happen between the two lovers.
The descriptive, erotic sex scenes make the reader feel uncomfortable and special at the same time.
Zhuang lets you be a part of her learning process, even when the lessons are intimate.
“A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers” won’t help you translate much Chinese but it will help you understand the struggles of a young women searching for the meaning of home.
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