Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
scape, deserves its world-renowned reputation. Tourists from many
countries come, drawn by the enjoyable scenery and the educational
prospects. These same tourists have a choice of visiting Paris, Rome,
London, or Niagara Falls—but here, in beautiful Stone Bell Moun­
tain, they have made their choice. Let us meet two of them, a pros­
perous family from San Francisco in America.”
She switched to English: “Sir, lady, please to tell us what you think
this place, Stone Bell Temple and Mountain.”
“It’s beautiful here,” Marlena said, “even in the rain.” She did not
know whether to look at the camera or at the woman in pink, so she
did both, glancing back and forth, which gave her a furtive appearance.
Harry assumed his television posture, a more erect back, chest
forward, a steady and honest gaze at the camera: “This place is truly
spectacular.” He gestured to an elaborately painted beam. “Abso­
lutely charming. We don’t have anything like it back home. Noth­
ing quite this old or, for that matter, so...so vibrant, so vibrantly
red. The aesthetic is utterly, utterly Chinese, absolutely historical.
Oh, and we can hardly wait to see the magnificent grottoes we’ve
heard so much about, the female one.” He looked back at the inter­
viewer, gave a quick nod to indicate that he considered his delivery to
have been an adequate take.
The woman switched back to Mandarin: “Even young children are
so intrigued they beg their parents to come to Stone Bell Mountain.”
She gesticulated to the cameraman, and he immediately switched his
direction toward Esmé. She was walking in the courtyard, which was
decorated with bare crape myrtle trees and tubs of prunus flower
bushes, their tiny pink buds in various stages of emergence. At the
far end of the courtyard, an old woman sat on a stool with a baby on
her lap, the mother and daughter, respectively, of the caretaker who
lived on the temple grounds. Beside them was a dirty-white Shih Tzu,
toothless and deaf. It reminded Esmé of the little puppy back at the
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