My father's only Russian word
My father has never learned to speak Russian, even though, in his seventies, he still remembers one word, which he encountered during his middle school time. Spectacularly, the word is "перо", meaning "the writing point of a pen", or "nib".
His favorite word is always a laughing stock that I am used to bother him with, whenever he starts to boast about his studies during the 1950's, when the whole of Chinese worked for the liberation of all human beings.
"Why is перо your only word?" I would challenge him.
"I do not know." He would answer embarrassedly.
In 1999, when I met Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin in the corridor before my dormitory room in UIBE, I recounted my father's story to him, which amused him too.
"Your father should have learned more." He suggested in English.
Until fairly recently, when I looked through a digital textbook of Russian printed in 1951, I came across the very word "перо". Unexpectedly, it appeared just in Lesson Three of Book One.
His favorite word is always a laughing stock that I am used to bother him with, whenever he starts to boast about his studies during the 1950's, when the whole of Chinese worked for the liberation of all human beings.
"Why is перо your only word?" I would challenge him.
"I do not know." He would answer embarrassedly.
In 1999, when I met Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin in the corridor before my dormitory room in UIBE, I recounted my father's story to him, which amused him too.
"Your father should have learned more." He suggested in English.
Until fairly recently, when I looked through a digital textbook of Russian printed in 1951, I came across the very word "перо". Unexpectedly, it appeared just in Lesson Three of Book One.
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