When “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was first shown to the public last month, a group of excited animal activists gathered on Hollywood Boulevard. But they weren't there to throw red paint on fur­coat­wearing film stars. Instead, one activist, dressed in a full­body monkey suit, had arrived with a sign praising the filmmakers: “Thanks for not using real apes (猿)!”

Why did the animal activists gather on Hollywood Boulevard?

It was the day of the big cross-country run. Students from seven different elementary schools in and around the small town of 100-Mile House, British Columbia, were warming up and walking the route through thick evergreen forest.

I looked around and finally saw David standing by himself off to the side by a fence. He was small for ten years old, with messy red hair. But his usual big toothy grin was absent today. I walked over and asked him why he wasn’t with the other children. The only response he gave me was he had decided not to run. What was wrong? He had worked so hard for this event! David’s cerebral palsy (脑瘫) prevented him from walking or running like other children, but at school his peers thought of him as a regular kid. He always participated to the best of his ability in whatever they were doing. It just took him longer. He had stubbornly run a total of twenty three kilometres in practice runs to prepare for that day’s two-and-a-half-kilometre run, and he had asked me to come and watch. We sat down together on some steps, but David wouldn’t look at me.

I quietly said, “David, if you don’t want to run today, no one is going to make you. But if you’re not running because you’re afraid someone is going to laugh, that’s not a good enough reason. There will always be someone who will laugh and say mean things. Are you going to let them get in your way? If you really want to run, David, then you run!” I held my breath as David took this in. Then he looked at the field and said, “I’m gonna run.”

The starter’s gun sounded. But he had only gone a few metres before he tripped and fell flat on the ground. My heart sank. As I started to shout encouragement, David picked himself up and started again. All the other runners had disappeared over the hill. But it didn’t matter. He had worked for it, and he wouldn’t give up!

I waited anxiously by the finish line as the most runners completed and another race had begun. Still no David! I started to feel sick. Had I done the wrong thing? Could he have become lost? Finally, a small figure emerged from the forest. David raised his arms in triumph as he crossed the finish line to wild cheers and applause. He caught my eye, flashed me a toothy grin and said, “That was easy!”

Fifteen years ago, I took a summer vacation in Lecce in southern Italy. After climbing up a hill for a panoramic(全景的) view of the blue sea, white buildings and green olive trees, I paused to catch my breath and then positioned myself to take the best photo of this panorama.

Unfortunately, just as I took out my camera, a woman approached from behind, and planted herself right in front of my view. Like me, this woman was here to stop, sigh and appreciate the view.

Patient as I was, after about 15 minutes, my camera scanning the sun and reviewing the shot I would eventually take, I grew frustrated. Was it too much to ask her to move so I could take just one picture of the landscape? Sure, I could have asked her, but something prevented me from doing so. She seemed so content in her observation. I didn’t want to mess with that.

Another 15 minutes passed and I grew bored. The woman was still there. I decided to take the photo anyway. And now when I look at it, I think her presence in the photo is what makes the image interesting. The landscape, beautiful on its own, somehow comes to life and breathes because this woman is engaging with it.

This photo, with the unique beauty that unfolded before me and that woman who “ruined” it, now hangs on a wall in my bedroom. What would she think if she knew that her figure is captured(捕捉) and frozen on some stranger’s bedroom wall? A bedroom, after all, is a very private space, in which some woman I don’t even know has been immortalized(使……永存). In some ways, she lives in my house.

Perhaps we all live in each others’ space. Perhaps this is what photos are for: to remind us that we all appreciate beauty, that we all share a common desire for pleasure, for connection, for something that is greater than us.

That photo is a reminder, a captured moment, an unspoken conversation between two women, separated only by a thin square of glass.