by Tam King-fai
respect of other people, however, and using some excuse, left town and
looked for work elsewhere. As for Xiao Xi, she was forced to marry a
twenty-some-year-old peasant.
The following year, Xiao Xi gave birth to a little girl, but died from
complications of childbirth.
When Ah Tong came back from his wanderings, he learned of Xiao
Xi’s death. He bought some paper money and food and offered them to
her memory at her graveside. Thus their ill-fated affair came to an end.
Later, whenever Ah Tong mentioned Xiao Xi to other people, he
_W]TL [Ia _QP MIZ[ QV PQ[ MaM[ ¹1N PMa PIL UIZZQML @QIW @Q W UM
she never would have died! I’m over thirty years old—I would have
SVW_VPW_WISMKIZMWN PMZ_PMV[PMNMTTQTTº
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qr
Feng Zikai
Feng Zikai (1898–1975) was a man of many talents. During his long
career, he made significant contributions as a writer, a painter, a
musician, and most of all, as an educator. In 1922, after returning from
an eight-month stay in Japan, where he studied art, music, Japanese,
and English, he joined the faculty of the Chunhui Middle School in
Zhejiang, an experience that had a lasting effect on him and on other
writers of the so-called White Horse Lake School. His writing years
span from the 1920s to the 1970s, but beginning from the mid-1940s,
he directed his energies to painting (which he called manhua, after the Japanese term) and music education.
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IZQÅKQITIVLKZQXXTQVO_PQTMKPQTLPWWLQ[X]ZMIVLVI]ZIT)\QUM[PM
views he expresses seem to take on a Buddhist shade, further reinforced
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echoes both in his subject matter and style. He frequently painted and
wrote about the simple joys in life, the greater beauty of nature, and the
unpretentiousness of children in a style that can best be described as
direct and unassuming.
Feng the humanist comes through clearly in the three essays chosen
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recounts how music salvages what could have been a disappointing
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aW]VO _PQTM ¹) 5MIV )TTMa_Iaº Q[ I ZQJ]M W 5I AQN] PM KTI[[QKQ[
whose solemn attitude to life represented an ideal to which Feng aspired.
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116
A Garden of One’s Own
Children (1928)
I remember that four months ago, for no particular reason at all, I
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that they are—from our rented house in Shanghai. As if escorting
prisoners under guard, I put them on a train and took them back to
my home village, where I put them up in a dingy one-story house. I
then returned to the international settlement in Shanghai, and lived
there by myself for four months. For what purpose did I undertake such
an action? And what plan could I have had in mind at the time? On
ZMÆMKQWV1KIVPIZLTaJMTQM^MQVW_Ua[MTN1VNIKJWPPM[WKITTML
plan and the purpose were all an illusion that I conjured up just to
deceive and worry myself. What practical good did they do? All they did
was bring to my life more senseless labor and tribulations, conjure a few
rounds of happiness and sorrow, and add to the scars that were already
on my soul.
When I got back to Shanghai and walked into the lonely, empty
rented house, my mind kept returning to the two lines of the Buddhist
canon Leng Yan"¹
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QTT][QWV_QPQVIVQTT][QWVº
That night, I cleaned up the place. I gathered together all the
M`ZI ÅZM_WWL ITT PM ZQKM TMN JMPQVL QV PM JI[SM[ PM ]ZV[ IVL
vessels by the stove, and other miscellaneous daily necessities that I had
accumulated in three years of living in the house. I gave them to the
son of the neighborhood shopkeeper who used to work at our house
part-time. I don’t know why, but for some reason I did not give away
the four pairs of old, torn children’s shoes. These I arranged neatly
under my bed. Later, whenever I caught sight of them, I felt a twinge
of unnamable happiness. I kept this up until several days later, when
my friend from next door came over for a chat. He said that there was
something eerie about those shoes under the bed when there were no
children to be seen in the house. Only then did I realize how foolish I
had been, and I put the shoes away.
My friends often remark that I care a lot for my children. Indeed,
I do, and I often think of them, especially now that I am living alone.
But in addition to being an instinct, I believe there is something to my
concern and thought for my children that goes further. It is because of
this particular element that I often disregard my ineptness at writing
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Feng Zikai
117
and painting and endeavor to depict children in my works. Because my
sons and daughters are all still little (the oldest is only nine years old),
my concern for my own offspring is in part a concern for other children
as well, that is, for all the children of the world. I cannot say now how I
will feel about my children after they grow up, but I can predict that it
will be different from how I feel now, in that this additional element will
no longer be there.
When I think about the four leisurely and tranquil months I spent
living by myself, I miss the time I had then and I also feel thankful for
it. However, as soon as I returned to the single-storied house in my
hometown and was surrounded by my children, I could not help feeling
a kind of self-pity, because compared with their innocent, healthy,
and energetic ways, my way of life—whether sitting in boredom and
meditating, or studying and engaging in research, or merely going
PZW]OPPMUWQWV[WN OWWLUIVVMZ[IVLN]TÅTTQVO[WKQITWJTQOIQWV[¸
is altogether perverse, sick, and maimed.
And so I returned to my hometown one hot summer afternoon.
Toward the evening of the following day, I took my four children—nine-
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three-year-old Ah Wei—to the ash tree in the yard, and we sat down on
the ground under its shade to eat watermelon. The red of the scorching
sun was gradually fading and the blue cool of the evening was growing
M^MZ UWZM ZMNZM[PQVO
hair and the perspiration vanished from our bodies. In the midst of
such complete contentment, my children seemed to be almost bursting
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>
PMQZ PIXXQVM[[
and rocking himself about in his satisfaction. While he munched on
watermelon, he let out a sound— ngam ngam— that resembled that of
a cat enjoying some food it had just stolen. This musical expression
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W LMTQ^MZ PQ[ XWMU" ¹BPIVbPIV MI[ _IMZUMTWV ;Q[MZ *IW MI[
_IMZUMTWV:]IVZ]IVMI[_IMZUMTWV)P?MQMI[_IMZUMTWVº
poetic recitation in turn aroused a prosaic mathematical response from
the seven-year-old and the nine-year-old, who immediately summed up
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XMWXTMIZMMIQVONW]ZXQMKM[WN _IMZUMTWVº
I silently played the role of adjudicator, evaluating their
performances. I found the musical expression of three-year-old Ah Wei
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118
A Garden of One’s Own
most incisive and complete, and most capable of expressing the delight
he felt. Five-year-old Zhanzhan had translated this happiness into (his
own brand of) poetry at something of a loss, but thanks to the rhythm
and melody of his lines, a sense of life’s vigor was still allowed to
emerge. The prosaic, mathematical, conceptual expression of Ruanruan
IVL)P*IW_I[JaKWVZI[M^MVUWZM[]XMZÅKQIT-^MVPMVPW]OP
between their attitude and their complete immersion in the act of eating
watermelon, what they managed to apprehend with their unclouded
minds was still more complete than what adults can achieve. Of all
people, only children are capable of the healthiest level of discernment,
and only they can appreciate in the most accurate and thorough manner
the world’s realities. Compared to them, my perceptions have already
been hampered and even injured by my worldly intellect, and I have
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if that word implies respect.
I set up a desk temporarily by the south window in our single-story
building, on top of which I laid down in neat order my drafting paper,
envelopes, writing brush, inkstone, ink-bottle and glue, as well as a watch
and a tea set. I do not like it when people move my things around; this
was something I had developed when I lived alone. I... no, we adults
are always guarded, careful, circumspect and polite in our behavior
and we perform such actions as grinding ink, putting down the writing
brush, and pouring tea all quite gingerly. The arrangement of our
desktops is thus the same every day so that things do not get damaged
or disturbed. In my case, the movements of my feet and arms have
been so constrained by their surroundings as to have developed a kind
of cautious inertia. But, as soon as the children climb up onto my desk,
they proceed to upset its order, mess up its arrangement, and destroy
the objects I placed there. They pick up my fountain pen and give it a
violent shake, spraying spots of ink on the desk and their clothes, then
put the nib into the bottle of glue. Then they yank off the copper cap
of the writing brush, knocking over the teapot with the back of their
PIVL[IVL[MVLQVOPMTQLKZI[PQVOWPMÆWWZ1IUWN KW]Z[MQZZQIML
when all of this happens, and I cannot restrain myself from screaming
at them, taking things away from them, or even slapping them on the
cheek. But I come to regret it immediately: My scolding is followed by
laughter, what I took from them I return at double the amount, and
the hand that went out to slap them goes limp halfway and becomes a
hand that caresses. I realize my mistake right away: How absurd it is
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Feng Zikai
119
for me to insist that my children behave as I do! My... no, our— adults’
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been oppressed by the world around us to such an extent that they have
grown cramped. Children, on the other hand, are still in possession of
their god-given bodies and their inborn, active, pristine life force. How
can we expect them to be hampered like us? Scraping and bowing,
advancing and withdrawing properly, walking and carrying oneself with
fastidious precision—these are all the manners of adults. They are like
implements of torture, there to maim the healthy body given to us by
heaven. As a result, a vivacious person goes numb in the arms and legs,
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healthy behave as he does!
What is my relationship with my children? I feel perplexed and
curious because I did not come to this world with the intention of
becoming a father. For now, they and I belong to totally different worlds.
They are far wiser and healthier than I, but they are my children. What
a peculiar relationship! People in this world regard having children
as a blessing, and hope that their children will become an extension
of themselves. In truth, I do not understand what is in their minds. I
believe that of all the relationships in the world, the most natural and
reasonable is between friends. Under the most natural and reasonable
circumstances, all other bonds—between rulers and subjects, parents
and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives—are merely
friendship in a broader sense. This is why friendship is in reality the
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JWVL JM_MMV UMUJMZ[ WN PM [IUM [XMKQM[º 6]Z]ZML Ja PM [IUM
land, we are friends to each other, and are all children of Nature. Some
have forgotten their Greater Parents in Nature, and recognize only
their lesser parents in the human world. They think that since parents
can give birth to children and, as a corollary, since children are born to
XIZMV[ PMa KIV ÅVL PM KWVQV]IQWV WN PMU[MT^M[ QV PMQZ WNN[XZQVO
and thus will exist forever. As a result, those without children complain
about the blindness of the will of heaven, and those with children of no
merit come to pity their own lot and drown their sorrows in the cup. In
reality, when does heaven ever show any partiality to its own children, all
of whom it begets and nurtures? I really do not understand these people
at all.
Recently, my mind has been occupied by four things: the gods
and stars high above, and children and the arts down below. My own
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120
A Garden of One’s Own
offspring, like a pack of swallows, are the few people in the world who
have the strongest bond with me. They occupy the same position in my
heart as the arts, the stars, and the gods.
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Feng Zikai
121
&n
bsp; A Mean Alleyway (1933)
In Hangzhou, all the side streets are called alleyways. This is a word
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child, my attention was drawn to this word. In the past, when I had
come across the passage in the Confucian Analects ¹4Q^QVO QV I UMIV
ITTMa_IaWVIJW_TN]TWN ZQKMIVLITILTMN]TWN _IMZº1 I had no idea
what a mean alleyway was like.... In my imagination, it was merely a
dirty, narrow lane with a broken wall that, favored by some fortuitous
elements, had become the dwelling place of a cultivated person like
Yan Hui. In my hometown, there was no shortage of dirty and narrow
lanes, but none of them conjured up in my mind the image of a mean
alleyway. Only when I got to Hangzhou and learned this word did it
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probably referred to those narrow lanes in Hangzhou. Whenever I walk
by this kind of alleyway, I always suspect that living on the other side of
those dilapidated walls may be a latter-day Yan Hui. One lane especially
seems to me to represent the typical mean alleyway. At the mention of
PM _WZL[ ¹UMIV ITTMa_Iaº QUIOM[ WN PQ[ XIZQK]TIZ TIVM KWUM W Ua
mind. In fact, I have been to this mean alleyway only three times, but
each time it left an impression on me so distinct that I can now write
about them.
It was almost twenty years ago when I first visited this mean
alleyway. I was only seventeen or eighteen at the time, and was studying
at the Hangzhou Junior Teacher’s College. My art teacher, Mr. L.,2 must
have found the power of the arts inadequate for his spiritual needs.
He gave us all of his paintings, music books, tools, and instruments,
and went up to the hills to fast for seventeen days. He then came back
to study Buddhism and prepare to become a monk. One day, shortly
before he joined the order, he took me to this alleyway to visit Mr. M.3
I followed Mr. L. into an old house in the alleyway. A middle-aged man
came out to greet us. He was short and stocky, and his face was covered
1
This line describes Yan Hui, Confucius’s favorite student, who is well known for his modest way of life and his ease in the face of hardship.
2
Li Shutong, 1880–1942, an extraordinary man of many talents with
accomplishments in different areas of literature and the arts, was a strong
