Peels for Salt

A Note from Russell Leong: As a writer myself, I am often intrigued with other people's lives because they show other ways of living beyond my own. Luo Xuanmin has an interesting life, beyond his activities as a scholar and work as a teacher and translator. He is simply a naturalborn storyteller. Whether it is in a Japanese restaurant in Beijing (where King-Kok Cheung and I first heard this story) or in a Persian cafe in Los Angeles (where he told another story), Xuanmin tells stories the way they should be told: pithy, with empathy, and with remarkable detail. So I asked Xuanmin to share one his stories with readers, and due to our urging, this is the first story he has written in English.