later he talked about a certain situation, saying if that had happened, "then the consequences would be...", then pausing for a long while groping for the right word. i knew the right word and in my heart i said "catastrophic". after the long pause he finally said, "then the consequences would be catastrophic."
so there i was, a foreign student with english as a second language, beating ford on this little "fill in the blank" game. it sure was fun.
2)
******水落石出******
and then it was several years ago when president bush paid a visit to mainland china. he was giving a talk somewhere. i was watching it live on tv.
the translator was an american who's very fluent in chinese.