Overlooking from the 22nd floor, with computers all around, I was conscious of a strange feeling of familiarity and remembered the summer four years ago when Amy asked me what my ideal working environment was. I liked her immediately because I had never been asked such a question by HR staff before and even never thought of it.

Now the answer comes to my mind finally, more like a dream, an illusion which I can only keep it in my own space.

 

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As a book lover and one who regards reading as a necessary part of life, my ideal working environment is undoubtedly a library. However, I would want to work far away from any modern buildings with a computer system. It should be an old pavilion, a place conducive to reading and contemplation.

 

In ancient times, traditional Chinese bibliophiles constructed such buildings for their book collections. The pavilion would be located in a tranquil place, with a river flowing in front of it. On sunny days, I can put all those old manuscripts on stones for airing, smell the ink from the past 1000 years, and try to figure out the writer's mood when he or she wrote those lines. When darkness falls, I turn the pages carefully in the pavilion, like talking with old friends. The moonlight shines upon the sleepless, I write down what I learn.

 

As if there is always an intangible string there, in the continuity of traditional culture, which links the two worlds, my previous and present life.