I first met Lu Gusun in Shanghai on April 18, 1979, at Fudan University. I was a member of the Chinese-English Translation Assistance (CETA) group delegation visiting China to explore cooperation with Chinese dictionary groups on our Chinese-English Dictionary, as well as gather information on language reform, language teaching and computer processing of Chinese.

The Fudan group consisted of members of the foreign languages and computer departments, and university officials. Lu stood out as the editor of the English-Chinese Dictionary, of which we were very familiar, and, of course, his excellent command of English.

The meeting was very cordial and mutually informative, so much so that we were invited to visit the English-Chinese Dictionary group at their offices in the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences the following day. At the meeting we were taken aback by the size of the group — over 40 lexicographers — and the amount of material they had collected, over half-a-million citation slips.

As I was to find out repeatedly, Lu was a most gracious and accommodating host. When asked to comment on their citation slips, I noticed the term “beachnik” which struck me as outdated, but Lu assured me that he had several recent citations. I deferred to his citation file, and soon discovered his fondness for modern English slang, and new and off-beat words.

Members of our delegation and the dictionary group met for dinner later that evening, and Lu and I enjoyed several beers together and discussed dictionaries, family, and how fruitful it might be for our groups to cooperate in the future on our separate projects. On parting we promised to keep in touch.

Shanghai was the last stop on our trip and we all left China excited about people we had met and dictionary and other language projects we had been introduced to, but did not have high hopes of follow-on because of political and social situation at the time.

I could barely control my excitement when I found out two years later, in 1981, that the CETA group was able to secure funding to bring two Chinese lexicographers from China to help us with our Chinese-English Dictionary, especially when one of them would be Lu, the other being his Fudan University colleague, Xue Shiqi.

The CETA group provided Lu and Xue (“The Duke”) an apartment in Washington DC and a CETA colleague was able to find us office space at the Library of Congress where we worked on the Chinese-English Dictionary for six months. Besides work, we would often get together for lunch and dinner.

During this time I made several trips with Lu and The Duke. One was to Toronto, Canada, for an Asian studies conference and another one was to New York City to visit the editors of the American Heritage Dictionary and to see the sites of city. While in New York, “The Boys” (as Lu and The Duke were known collectively) stayed overnight in a very prestigious Ivy League club in mid-town Manhattan.

I remember meeting them for breakfast and then accompanying them up to their room to gather their luggage before checking out. Upon opening the room door, Lu pulled the door handle completely out of the socket and then looked at me with an utter look of horror. “What should I do?” he asked me. My response was “Run!” We gathered the luggage, made a beeline to check out, and scampered out the front door never to return again. We laughed at this “blatant act of vandalism” for many years and Lu’s super-human strength against the poor, defenseless doorknob.

‘Heroic’ friendship deepens

The next year, in 1982, it was my privilege to reciprocate the visit and spend six months in Shanghai with a CETA colleague working on the English-Chinese Dictionary. We stayed at the Jinjiang Hotel and worked nearby in an office provided by the Yiwen Publishing House which was especially equipped for foreign guests — that is, it had a charcoal heater for those cold and damp spring days in Shanghai.

Our “babysitter” was Gu Jun whose English was as bad as my Chinese, so we got along fabulously, especially on out-of-town trips to Beijing, Xi’an and Hangzhou. Besides making new friends like Wu Ying and others in the dictionary group, the highlight would be when Lu would visit the office or invite us to his apartment at Fudan University, where, thankfully, he did not have to cook for us.

We spent many, many hours together eating, drinking beer, and talking about life, and dictionaries, but mostly laughing.

I remember one hot and steamy Shanghai summer day when Lu, several other members of the dictionary group, and myself went to lunch in a restaurant near the office. The restaurant featured cold, spicy noodles which promised relief from oppressively hot weather.

We were seated upstairs in a wood-paneled room when, all of a sudden, a panel opened and an elderly Chinese gentleman appeared and talked directly to us for a few minutes in a loud and excited voice accompanied by many hand gestures.

After he disappeared as suddenly as he appeared, I looked at Lu, and Lu looked at me, and we both asked “What did he say?!” I told Lu he must have been speaking Chinese, and Lu assured me that it must have been English. We both laughed and continued on with our meal and drinks.

There was another memorable incident when we took a short trip to Wuxi. Both Lu and I always had a fondness for xiaolongbao and ate many steamers in Shanghai. After a long day of seeing the sites in Wuxi, we stopped in a restaurant for a snack before dinner, and, of course, as xiaolongbao connoisseurs, we decided to order several steamers.

The waitress asked us if we were positive we wanted so many steamers and we brushed off the question with a most emphatic “of course!” Unbeknownst to us the xiaolongbao in Wuxi were at least twice the size of those in Shanghai, and, upon opening the steamers, our eyes almost popped out of our heads.

Nonetheless we had to be “heroic” so we ordered a few more beers and ate every one so as not to disappoint the restaurant staff who were watching our every move with much interest and amusement. That evening we skipped dinner, and maybe even breakfast the next morning.

When I was in Shanghai for Lu’s funeral last month, a friend told me that Lu had referred to those six months in 1982 as some of the happiest in his career as a lexicographer. I hope I contributed in some small way to his happiness.

I got to know Lu more as a friend or even older brother when, in 1985, he and his daughter Xiao Ji, stayed in my house in Takoma Park, Maryland, for six months while he was on a Fulbright scholarship. As the prefect guest he would insist on helping with the cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping.

Lu was especially helpful in keeping my Irish Setter, Darby, company while I was away at work. Lu, Xiao Ji, and Darby become great friends, “heroic” friends as Lu would say. In the many letters I received from Lu after his return to China he would always ask about Darby’s wellbeing.

It was especially heartwarming to watch Lu dote on Xiao Ji who was just 15 at the time. He enrolled her at a nearby school and walked her to and from almost every day. To “reimburse” him for the school tuition, Lu had Xiao Ji learn five new English words a day and test her regularly.

My next collaboration with Lu was in the summer of 1990 when I spent a month in Shanghai putting the final touches on my dictionary of the Wu dialect. Lu was a great help by explaining many Shanghai colloquial terms to me.

During this visit I spent a week living with Lu at his Fudan apartment working during the day, sharing meals together, and especially taking long walks in the evenings in the fields surrounding the university. Luckily, Lu had a wonderful ayi to do the cooking and take good care of us two helpless souls.

Fond farewell

In the late 1990s Lu invited me to help him with a supplement to update the English-Chinese Dictionary. How could I refuse?

Whenever I found a potential new word I would cut it out of the newspaper and every several weeks send the clippings to Lu, eventually amassing hundreds of citations. The supplement was published in 1999 and I happily attended the launching ceremony in Shanghai and once again spent many days with Lu and got to meet the new generation of Chinese lexicographers such as Gao Yongwei (aka “Smiley”) and others.

Over the next few decades, Lu and I fell out of touch. He was increasing busy with his work and me with mine. This sadly happens even among the best of friends as life tends to get in the way, especially when separated by great distances, and changing e-mail addresses.

Nonetheless, I was always quick to respond when Lu had a question about a new or odd English word, and he was equally speedy in correcting my misguided interpretations of Chinese words new and old.

Thanks to Smiley whom I met at a lexicography conference in Manila this June, I was reconnected with Lu. After exchanging several e-mails I was making plans for an extended visit in October when I received the terrible news from Smiley that Lu had suffered a massive stroke.

I contacted Xiao Ji to ask her if it would be appropriate for me to join her in Shanghai at this stressful time for her. She graciously welcomed me to visit and lend my support. I made plans immediately and left the next day for Shanghai. As fate would have it my flight was delayed several hours and I landed a few hours after dear Lu passed away.

I was met at the airport by Zhang Xuhua and driven directly to the hospital to pay my respects. I was greeted by Smiley at the hospital and immediately escorted in to the ICU where Xiao Ji was at Lu’s bedside. Xiao Ji and I exchanged hugs and tears and I brushed Lu’s forehead with my hand as a final “goodbye” to my Comrade. Xiao Ji was kind enough to include me as “family” at the funeral service which helped make a most difficult situation somewhat less painful.

It was my great and good fortune to know Lu for almost 40 years. Most will remember him as a great lexicographer, others as a great translator, and still others as a great teacher. All of that is indeed true and memorable. I will always remember him as good friend, a good son to his father, and a loving father to his daughter. Rest in peace, my friend, my comrade!