Hi All,

Dr. Shou and I had a two-year, diurnal email relationship, of which I
told no one. I learned to spot all kinds of earthquake clouds, interpret
what they meant, look for them myself, and even teach my children to do
so. He was always very cordial in his emails, never berating me for
asking even the stupidest of questions.

This relationship broke apart because of an act of my ownÑsomething I
should have known might become a problem if I mentioned it, and mention it I did. Sigh.

I dared volunteer my own time and energy to edit all of Shou's writing for his American reading public. For this, I was greeted
with abject and inviolable silence, which continues to this day. This
silence is of the: "How dare you?" sort and still resonates.

Oh well. His loss is my time. The loss to his target American audience is real, as he is a poor English writer and translator (still, much better than I in Mandarin), and I believe his research is promising. The loss to the Chinese population, who cares deeply about earthquake prediction, is potentially real because they often have to read responses to questions translated from initially poor English into even worse Chinese.

Folks, this is my day job we're talking about, here. It's not as if
Maddie Mary Blitch from Salt Lick, Ky, offered to be fixin' his prose up real good and pretty, see? Besides, the poor woman is dyslexic.

Actually, Maddie Mary's job with him would have been much more fun than mine would have.

So, did he drop all contact with me because I offended his English and/or his ego?
His position (This seems preposterous? He knew of my doctorate from UCLA in 1979 and subsequent teaching jobs. But he is, I believe, well-enamored in a UC system that seems to only remember my name come that *ya gotta love it* donation time of year.)
He knew I had quit all teaching (don't gasp) "to devote myself to my
friends, family, and my fiction." And earthquakes. (Sounds, on second hand, pretty darn conservative to me. Chris? Canie?)
He knew I was American.
He knew we had adopted three times from S and SE Asia.
He knew those adoptions had been of of little girls.
He knew I had been published by Random House.
He also knew I was a woman. A very tall woman, but not a cm over 6'.
(And there you have it: Mixed measurephores.) [Steal that one, and you're dead!])

I mention these things only because they are already out there in cyber space, and because I legitimately believe some (or perhaps, all,) of these factors might have lead Dr. Shou to his seemingly drastic lack of response to my generous offer. I think his sudden cutting of all ties was one was a combination of factors, not all of them discrete. It's a complex situation. Input welcome.

Cathryn