“To Know You Very Happy”
Friendship in translation 🍵
Hello! And welcome to Dandelion Seeds, an illustrated newsletter that is hand-painted and hand-lettered, from my desk to yours.
Over the past week, I’ve loved reading your responses for our newest community edition of Dandelion Seeds: “The Words that Remain,” which I hope will honor how much we have to learn from each other, and from other cultures.
It has especially made my world-loving heart happy to see so many different languages represented. You’ve shared words and phrases in everything from Sanskrit and Spanish, to Swahili and Swiss-German.
While I worked on last week’s call-out, I thought of another phrase that has remained with me over the years — as well as a lovely friend who made learning the phrase mean even more — and I’m excited to share the story with you today in a new illustrated essay.
I hope you enjoy it, and if you’d still like to share a word that has stayed with you, it’s not too late. Just leave a comment here, and I can’t wait to read it.
With love,
Candace
很高興認識你 means Nice to mean you!!!
Candace, I'm lost for words. You made our London days so vivid just like that happened yesterday.
You even remember the sweet red bean soup, however I've forgotten this part.
Except the dessert, everything about you always keeps in my mind.
The emotional tears on your beautiful face, every single email and the card you painted are so precious for me. And I remember we almost could see each other in Bangkok but eventually missed that chance.
Farewell doesn't mean goodbye. I believe that we will reunite someday somewhere somehow with our loved ones.
Miss you evevy time your name just bumps into my heart.
I love this so much, Candace. For many years, I taught adult classes in ESOL. I had students from countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Mexico, Central and South America...all over the world. Sometimes I would come home with funny anecdotes, but other times, my students would turn to me for help with problems they were experiencing because they had no other place to turn and I did what I could to find answers or resources for them. I am still in touch with some folks I taught over 10 years ago, which brings me so much joy. But, the big takeaway is that I will always believe that I learned far more from my students about life and the world at large than the grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, etc. that I taught them.