你相信“一见如故”或“一见钟情”吗？也许不，因为人与人之间认识并相互了解是需要一个过程的。但本文的故事告诉我们：“一见如故”的情况是确实存在的，而且是如此的动人心魄。原因是追求友谊与和平的共同愿望将几个素不相识的人连接了起来……
One of our closest friends is Stan Dale. Stan teaches a seminar on love and relationships called Sex, Love and Intimacy. Several years ago, in an effort to learn what the people in the Soviet Union were really like, he took 29 people to the Soviet Union for two weeks. When he wrote about his experiences in his newsletter, we were deeply touched by the following anecdote.
* seminar：“专题讨论会”、“研究班”的意思。在本文中，Stan Dale就指导这样一个研究班，讨论“爱与人际关系”的话题。
* Intimacy：隐私、亲昵、亲密关系。
* anecdote：“轶事”、“趣闻”的意思。
While walking through a park in the industrial city of Kharkov, I spotted an old Russian veteran of World War II. They are easily identified by the medals and jackets. This is not an act of egotism. It is their country's way of honoring those who helped save Russia, even 
though 20 million Russians were killed by the Nazis. I went up to this old man sitting with his wife and said, "Droozhba, emir" (friendship and peace).
* spot：当名词讲时是“斑点”、“地点”的意思，当动词讲时表示“发现”、“认出”的意思，尤其指从许多人中认出某人。
* veteran：“老兵”、“退伍军人”，在美国，这个词还常常特指参加过二战的退伍军人。这个老兵一定对他的军旅生涯引以为豪或非常怀念过去的生活，因为他还戴着过去的奖章、身着军服。
* egotism：“念念不忘自我”、“自大”等意思。可能很多人见了这个老兵的打扮，都会觉得他是个自大的人，念念不忘过去的事。其实不是的，这只是俄罗斯人的一种感恩方式，他们以此来表达对那些曾经在二战中挽救过俄罗斯的军人的感激和怀念。
The man looked at me as if in disbelief. He took the button we had made for the trip that said "Friendship" in Russian and showed a map of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. being held by loving hands, and said, "Americanski?" I replied, "da, Americanski. Droozhba, emir." He clasped both my hands as if we were long lost brothers and repeated again, "Americanski!" This time there was recognition and love in his statement.
* clasp：本义是“扣子、勾”等，引申为“紧抱”、“紧紧握住”的意思，就好像钩子钩在一起。所以在这里，clasp充分体现了退伍老军人见到作者后那种激动心情，长期以来藏在心中的感恩之情此时完全爆发出来了。
