Allen was the catalyst, the chief inspiration for my travel to Chengdu,I met Allen in the mid-nineties in Vancouver B.C. by answering an ad posted on a notice board at the VPL offering editorial advice and guidance to poets and aspiring writers. I instantly liked Allen, who with his wife Jong-nan was staying at the May Wah hotel in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Events in one’s life may happen by mere chance yet I suspect the May Wah was the interlude that carved his path to China...
We met after I climbed the stairs to his secont floor room past a smoke-filled first floor where a noisy group of Chinese appeared too busy playing Mahjongg to be distracted by someone who wished to be invisible anyway… I knocked and the door was opened, though I was a stranger arriving unannounced I was welcomed as an old friend and I soon perceived Allen as the word-genie who would effortlessly manipulate my fumbled writings into masterpieces.
Even after Allen left Vancouver, he stood (still stands) unique among my friends and acquaintances. Realizing how much I missed the many layers of his friendship, the bottomless well of his intellect, his wit, his understanding of emotional levels however peculiar or bizarre, his sympathetic, considerate willingness to teach, guide, share knowledge... and experiencing an undeniable need to see him again, I found myself at his doorstep him in Toronto, two years later in Guelph Ontario, and now it seemed natural to follow the trend to Chengdu…
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