1 Returning to the Village
The year I started junior secondary school, I broke both my legs.
The journey I had walked every day suddenly became a long one. The secondary school in town was several kilometres from home, and its classrooms were in a building with upper floors. On two crutches, simply getting from home to school was hard enough, let alone climbing stairs. Other children could shoulder their bags and leave; I had to plant both crutches firmly before inching forward. Steps were especially daunting.
Father was busy with work then and could not take me to school and back every day. After much discussion, the family decided to send me to the countryside to stay with my maternal uncle.
The village secondary school consisted of rows of single-storey classrooms with earthen walls and tiled roofs. There were no stairs. My uncle's home stood next to the school: through the village and round to the entrance was only a short walk. Sitting at home, I could hear the school bell perfectly clearly. For me, at that time, it could hardly have been more suitable.
And so, once again, I left town and returned to the village.
All I knew then was that moving would mean less walking and an easier recovery. How could I have imagined that, years later, so many of the buildings and streets in town would fade from memory, while this village, where I stayed temporarily because of my injured legs, would grow ever clearer? I have not even forgotten that little glow inside the house after nightfall.
2 On the Kang
At the head of the kang, the broad, heated brick sleeping platform, stood a fourteen-inch black-and-white television—the very one from our little home at Zhongnan post office.
When our family bought a large colour television, the old set was taken to my uncle's. Small as it was, once it stood on the kang, the room had a reason to draw people together every evening.
Our family filled the kang; neighbours squatted on the floor below. Children squeezed between grown-ups' legs and, once they found a gap through which they could see the screen, refused to move. Latecomers had to stand by the door. A whole roomful of people, a whole roomful of eyes, gathered around that tiny screen. When someone on television began to speak, conversation in the room subsided; when things grew lively on screen, everyone above and below the kang stirred together.
In town, it had been an obsolete possession. In the village, it became the centre of a roomful of people again.
It seems there is always somewhere you will find your audience.
Country people went to bed early. After supper, once darkness fell, the whole family would be on the kang by half past seven or eight. We watched just one episode of a television drama, switched off the set, and it was almost time to sleep. During a power cut, even that one episode was lost. After a day's work in the fields, the adults fell asleep quickly. However unwilling the children were, we had to lie down too.
At night I shared one large heated kang with my grandparents and my uncle's two younger sons. I slept at the very edge.
Grandmother worried that the kang was too hard and laid an extra soft sleeping quilt beneath me. The same kang was good enough for everyone else, but for her grandson with injured legs, she could not feel reassured without another layer. After spreading it out, she smoothed it with her hands, flattening every wrinkle. All I had to do was lie down; she still needed one last look from the edge.
There is a kind of hardness that exists because Grandma thinks it is hard.
Once the light was out, the room that had been packed during the day slowly fell quiet. We could no longer see each other's faces, but we could hear the rustling of someone turning over or tugging at a quilt. That was when Grandfather began telling stories and reciting rhymes.
His rhymes were long and dense, one line after another, and he could go on for quite a while without stopping. I lay listening, delighted. After hearing one just once, I could repeat it without missing a word.
In the darkness, my grandparents paused in surprise. Grandmother was the first to laugh:
“This child! How can he remember it after hearing it only once?”
Nowadays I can no longer recall those rhymes in full. Yet Grandmother's words, and the surprise and delight in her voice, have stayed with me. When I think of that kang, what often comes back first is her laughter in the dark.
3 Working in the Fields
At busy times on the farm, I went to the fields with my uncle and aunt. My legs had not fully recovered, so I could not do heavy work, but I helped wherever I could.
At 1.85 metres, my uncle was famous in the village for his height. Walking beside him, I always had to look up. Yet when he bent to work in the fields, there was nothing clumsy about his hands. At wheat harvest he led the way, cutting a broad swathe with each sweep of his sickle. My aunt was quick and deft, busy alongside him, keeping up with every task.
Each production team in the village had its own threshing ground. At summer harvest these too became busy. Cut wheat was brought in from the fields; people came and went, and the air smelled of straw and dust. Suddenly, the familiar village seemed full of work waiting to be done.
By the time we harvested maize, my legs were better. My uncle pulled the handcart in front, and I pushed behind.
We often worked until the light began to fail. The cart, loaded with maize, was heavy, its wooden frame rocking with the uneven dirt road. I pushed hard, feet planted in the earth. In front of me was a cartful of maize, and beyond it my uncle's broad back.
He said nothing, simply leaning into the work. His back rose and fell in the dusk as the cart crept towards the village. I pushed in time with his steps, unsure how much help I was really giving, but feeling that if the cart moved forward, I too had contributed.
As darkness gathered, fireflies began to glow along the field ridges and among the maize. Blinking, drifting high and low, they looked as though someone had scattered a handful of stars over the earth. The day's seemingly endless labour now led to something I could look forward to on the road home.
Looking back, the tiredness has left little impression. What remains is that cart of maize, my uncle's back, and the fireflies blinking all along the road at dusk.
My aunt loved me too. I never had to worry about my clothes. I could take them off and leave them anywhere; within a day or two they would be washed clean and neatly folded. Back then I simply put them on, seldom wondering how, with so much fieldwork and so many people at home, she managed to care for everything and everyone.
Later, when my grandparents grew old, she cared for them day after day, staying with each until the end. In all those years, I never heard her complain. When I was young, I saw the clean clothes. Only as I grew older did I begin to see the whole household she was holding together.
Even now, whenever I return and see her, I still lift her up and spin her round a few times. Grown as I am, beside her I sometimes become that rather thoughtless little nephew again.
4 School
At the village secondary school, with its earthen walls and tiled roofs, the bell would send a courtyardful of children running into their classrooms. Footsteps and voices rose in successive waves, settling only when the teacher came in.
We had evening study sessions then. There were no electric lights in the classroom; each pupil lit a candle on the desk. Dozens of candles, dozens of bowed heads, each guarding a little patch of light. Pages turned, pen tips touched exercise books, and candlelight flickered on the earthen walls until nine or ten at night.
Winter was cold. The longer we sat, the deeper the chill seemed to creep into us. Our hands had to remain outside to write, while our feet huddled beneath the desks, unable to get warm however we placed them. Once, several boys in the back row could bear it no longer. Abandoning their books, they went to the rear of the classroom and stamped about, filling the room with thuds.
While they were stamping, the door opened.
Our form teacher stood in the doorway.
He was known throughout the school as a fearsome man. The classroom, so noisy a moment before, fell deathly silent. The boys darted back to their seats and bent over their books, scarcely daring to breathe. Everyone nearby tensed too, waiting for the scolding to begin.
But the teacher said nothing. He turned and left.
We all sat stunned, unable to understand what had happened. Those boys who had just rushed back to their seats must have found it hardest of all to believe.
I do not know what he was thinking. Perhaps he saw how badly the cold was affecting us; perhaps he simply did not feel like reprimanding anyone that day. Whatever the reason, the scolding we thought unavoidable never came.
After all these years, I still remember that door suddenly opening. Even such a fierce man had this gentle side. He usually kept it very well hidden.
5 The Road at Night
The village roads were dust in dry weather and mud in rain. By day, you could choose where to put your feet; at night, everything was pitch-black, and every hollow disappeared. The more afraid you were of stumbling, the harder you looked down—though looking down did little to help.
While my legs were injured, I had to cross this stretch of village road on two crutches after every evening study session. What was only a few steps for others meant testing the ground with my crutches before shifting my weight forward. After rain, I dared go even more slowly.
There was a girl in my class with neatly cut, ear-length hair. She had clear, fair skin and was rather pretty.
After evening study, she often said she was going my way and would walk with me for a while.
Without asking, she would reach over, slip my schoolbag off my shoulder, and put it on her own. Before I could say anything, she was already carrying it. With two schoolbags on her back, she walked beside me, while I, unburdened, concentrated on steadying my crutches. Beyond the school gate, everyone else's footsteps receded, and we slowly fell behind.
Neither of us spoke. We simply walked slowly together through the night.
I felt a warmth I could not quite name, something hazy and half understood. I wanted to say something but did not know what. I planted my crutches and moved another step; she took a step with me, never hurrying me.
With her beside me, that road did not seem so dark.
Only at my uncle's door did she hand back my bag and turn away. Her shadow flickered and vanished into the night. I stood in the doorway looking after her, and once again there was only a pitch-black road.
Only later did I learn that her home was not on my way at all.
The road she walked back alone after bringing me home was one I never saw.
The muddy village road has long since been paved with concrete. Yet if I close my eyes, I can still seem to see those earthen walls, and her walking slowly beside me with two schoolbags on her back.
6 New Year
My uncle's was a large extended family. At New Year, even the courtyard seemed small.
My eldest uncle came back from Gansu with his whole family; my second uncle returned from Qinghai with his. My mother's sister brought her family back to her childhood home. Relatives from my grandparents' side gathered at my uncle's too. People normally scattered far apart could finally sit together on one kang and talk.
The courtyard, the kang, the floor below—everywhere there were people, everywhere voices. Adults had endless news to exchange; children threaded their way between them. A place would barely become free before someone else sat down. Whenever the door opened, another visitor came in, and greetings travelled from the doorway to the far end of the kang.
My own home had never been this lively. Among this great family, even listening to the adults discussing things I barely understood was interesting.
My eldest uncle was a school headmaster and played the harmonica beautifully. I learned to play as a child because he gave me one. In a child's hands that little harmonica was a treasure; in his, it could make truly lovely music.
My second uncle served in the People's Armed Police. He had started in a motor transport company and later became a regiment commander. When he came home in uniform and stood in the courtyard, he looked imposing. We children regarded him with a certain awe. He said little, but his mind was exceptionally orderly. He was good at chess and at repairing vehicles. Faced with things others found difficult, he seemed to know where to begin once he had looked and thought them over.
My two elder uncles made their lives far from home, one in education, the other in uniform. My third uncle stayed in the village and, together with my aunt, took good care of the old people. When everyone returned for New Year, there was a warm kang and room to sit. The family was together again.
Of course, we children also looked forward to New Year money.
Our uncles did not give much—half a yuan or one yuan—but we waited all year for it. We watched the adults' hands; when our turn came, we took the money and held it tight, content at last. Half a yuan had its own joy, and one yuan its own weight.
Now, when I remember New Year, the amounts no longer matter. It is that crowded room, and those people who travelled home from Gansu and Qinghai, who still stand clearly in my memory. At the time, I knew only that there were many people and much excitement. I did not yet know how hard it would become, once we grew up, to bring a family together so completely again.
7 Brothers
My uncle had two sons, both several years younger than me. While I was at secondary school, they were still at primary school.
Later, I no longer needed crutches and could ride a bicycle. Every day after school I rode to their primary school to collect them. Once both were there, I settled them onto the bicycle, one at a time: the younger on the crossbar, the older on the rear carrier.
Three of us, one bicycle, wobbling home together.
The little one sat just beneath my arms, with the other behind me, so I always had to steady myself before setting off. Once we were moving, we could follow the dirt road slowly home. I had arrived alone and was returning with a bicycle fully loaded. Even pedalling made me feel grown-up.
Only many years later did I realise that Father had once done the same: my sister on the crossbar, Mother and me on the rear carrier, pedalling all the way to Zhongnan town.
As a child riding along, I knew only that the road slipped backwards beneath us. I never thought how hard the person pedalling was working. Only when I held the handlebars myself, with my two younger cousins in front and behind, did I understand how much love and care a single bicycle could carry.
This time, though, I was the one pedalling.
The younger boy was especially tiny as a child, and everyone called him “Little Bullet.” When he was a little older, he shared my room. That tiny child who once squeezed onto the crossbar slowly grew up. He is taller than I am now, but whenever I say “Little Bullet,” I still see that little boy.
Sometimes I feel the years have flown; looking at my younger cousin, I know they really have. Yet although he has grown tall, the bicycle in my memory remains on the road home from primary school.
8 Back to Town
A few months before the senior secondary school entrance examination, I transferred back to the secondary school in town.
I had come to the village to let my legs heal and to live closer to school. Only when it was time to leave did I realise how many people I had grown reluctant to part from. The familiar bell, the candle on my desk at evening study, the road home—things that had seemed ordinary as the days passed now came sharply into focus.
When classmates parted then, we exchanged photographs and wrote farewell messages. I left with a great pile of photos and a whole book of messages. Small, one-inch portrait photographs were passed from hand to hand, with a few words on the back, as though that would help us remember one another in the years ahead.
Later, looking through them, I found a line written on the back of one little photograph:
“In my heart there is a picture: a green pine and a little red flower.”
After all these years, I have forgotten so much of what we said then, but I still remember that line. Perhaps because it left something unsaid, it made me want to turn the photograph over and look once more.
Later, I passed the examination for the county's leading senior secondary school and moved to the county town. The school was larger, and Jixian farther away. I shouldered my bag and went somewhere new, leaving those days at my uncle's behind me.
9 The Ones I Carry with Me
After all these years away, what my heart holds most dearly is still that place where family love gathers.
When I went to my uncle's home as a child, my grandparents were there, my uncle and aunt were there, and so were my two younger cousins. My legs were injured and even walking was difficult, yet someone laid soft bedding for me, someone washed my clothes, someone took my schoolbag in the dark. It all felt so natural then, as though this were simply how life should be. Only after going far from home and living many years of my own did I understand more and more how precious it is to be held in other people's hearts like that.
At the foot of the Qinling Mountains, the orchard turns white when the plum trees blossom. Mother lies quietly there, with the long ridges of the Zhongnan Mountains behind her. When I reach her and stand for a while, all the things I thought of saying on the way suddenly have no beginning.
At the foot of the Qinling Mountains, there is always someone I hold dear.