You can call her Jett. Everybody does, "I like Jett", she says, "It's fast. Easy to remember." 

She found her new name in a dictionary, right next to a picture of airliner. However, her real name is He Xiao Ru. "My family name is He," she explained. "In china the family name comes first." 

At the hospital in Beijing she was Dr.He.

"Why Jett?" asked the reporter.
"My French teacher could not say my name when I arrived in Montreal in 1990." He told me to find a name he could pronounce. " 

In fairness to the teacher. He isn't nearly as easy as it looks when it' s pronounced the Chinese way. It isn't He as in thee, or it and me isn't He the way you might pronounce it in French if it has an accent. 

The visitor even took a few runs as Huh before she said. " You can call me Jett, Jim. "

"The teacher liked Jett? " 

"Oh, no. He said it was a name for an airplane. However, I liked it. Nobody forgets Jett." 

We are visiting next to a massage table on Victoria Ave. in Westmount. The reporter, aging fast and increasingly anxious to bond with anyone who is sensitive to life's frozen shoulders and sore backs, was here to check out reports that a Chinese woman had opened Axion Physiotherapy, a clinic that featured acupuncture and other forms of traditional Chinese medicine. 

"Would you like to see acupuncture first?" she asked. "Needles?" 

"Not right now. First, tell me your story. " 

She poured some of the jasmines-scented tea her family sends over from china, and said she was 44. "Chinese women are different, " she said. "We don't mind questions about our age. " 

"Refreshing, " said the reporter. 

She'd come from Beijing after practicing Chinese traditional medicine for nine years at a hospital not far from Tiananmen Square.

"I wanted to be an obstetrician - I love babies - but the government said I must study orthopedics because I was very tall and strong. That's good for treating patients with the hands. " 

She was the youngest of seven children and her late father had been a professor of Japanese at Beijing University. He'd studied the language in Japan. 

"My mother died 43 days after I left home. She cried for 43 days and then she died. She lived with me. When they get old, parents always live with the youngest child in China. Children take very good care of parents. Much respect." 

She sees less of that respect in he adopted homeland. 

"Old people are often alone here. Forgotten. It's very sad. Jim. In China the old people always get the first piece of cake. Children get the last piece. "

"Here, old people are often very lonely, I tell my staff : "let them talk during treatment. Listen to them. Nobody listens to old people here. " "Children always get the first piece of cake in Canada. Sad for grandparents. Sad for children, too. " 

We sipped a little tea. 

"Why Canada for you?" 

"Canada is safe and clean." said Jett. "Medicare for the sick. Polite people." "Really? You find us polite?" 

"Oh yes. Everyone says please and thank you here. You said please and thank you for the Chinese tea."

She remembered the French-speaking Montreal woman who went out of her way to walk her to the correct bus stop when she got lost shortly after arriving in Montreal. 

"And then she told the bus driver where I lived and where to let me off. French people are very warm. Big hearts." 

The visitor pressed her for more. "What else surprise someone who comes to Montreal from Beijing?" 

"Fresh air," she says, smacking her chest. "Good air, low buildings, lots of sun, flowers and so many trees. Lots of room to walk. Not many people. Walking on Mont Bruno, riding my bicycle near Magog....... I'm enjoying very much. But I have a good helper." 

"Who 's that?" 

"The Quebec government. The government guaranteed my loan at the bank to buy equipment and open this clinic one year and four moths ago." 

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