by Tam King-fai
student added a little bit more and gave the money to him. Only then
did he quietly accept it, his face expressionless like a piece of wood, as if
the money were beneath his dignity.
After the matter of the gratuity is settled, it is time to roll up the
bedding. But even at this moment, one has to proceed cautiously. If
you show any impatience, you will get another lecture, even though
you have already paid up. Only after the bedding is packed away does
your oppression come to an end. Now it’s time to get ready for another
round of exploitation from the porters on the dock, not to mention the
attendants in your hotel.
4
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Zhu Ziqing
149
I started out by saying that I would write about my trip on the
Perhaps I appear to contradict myself—but, no, all crows are black. It
would not be too far wrong to apply this saying, with caution, to Ningbo
attendants on any boat. Although I have spoken about attendants in
general, those on the Tongzhou boat are included in the lot; whether I
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qr
Lao She
Lao She (1899–1966) is a well-known novelist, playwright, and an
accomplished amateur actor of different types of regional drama. He
also experimented with various forms of popular entertainment such
as shuoshu and xiangsheng. His travels in England and the United States and his wide reading in English literature have left a deep imprint on
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dialects, his writings are nevertheless imbued with a sense of humor
that can be traced to English literature. His novels depict the lives of
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and was driven to drown himself. His suicide has since been regarded
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complete breakdown of social order during the Cultural Revolution.
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;PIVOLWVO XZW^QVKM 4QSM UIVa WPMZ WN PQ[ M[[Ia[ ¹?QVMZ QV 2QVIVº
has been included in Chinese textbooks for its expert use of language.
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152
A Garden of One’s Own
Winter in Jinan (1934)
For someone like me who has grown used to living in Beiping, it is
miraculous not to hear the wind howling in winter. In Jinan, though,
you don’t feel the wind at all in winter. For someone like me who has
just returned from London, it is puzzling to be able to see the sun at all,
but in Jinan, the sun is always out in winter. Of course, in tropical areas,
the sun is always vicious, and a luminous sky only strikes fear in people’s
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warm and sunny in winter—Jinan is indeed a wonderful place!
If it were only the sunlight, that would not be so unusual. But close
your eyes and imagine this: An ancient city, with hills and rivers, lying
warm and comfortable under the blue sky, waiting only for the spring
wind to awaken it. Now, isn’t that just a perfect scene?
A range of small hills forms a circle around Jinan, with only a small
opening toward the north. This circle of small hills is especially lovely
in winter, when Jinan seems to have been placed in a little cradle, with
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JM _IZU PMZMº 1VLMML XMWXTM QV 2QVIV [MMU W [UQTM ITT _QVMZ TWVO
When they look at the hills, they feel reassured and at ease. As their eyes
move from the sky to the hills, the thought naturally comes to them,
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does not materialize, they are in no particular hurry, because with such
a benevolent winter, why would anyone wish for anything more?
Jinan is at its most wonderful after a light snow. The short pine trees
appear so dark green, while their tops sport a head of white blossoms,
making them look like Japanese nurses. Their white peaks give the
blue sky a silver border. In some places up on the slope, the snow is a
bit thick, but in others, one can still see the color of the grass. With a
patch of white here, a patch of light yellow there, the hills seem to have
donned a wavy-patterned shirt. As one watches, the whole shirt seems to
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beautiful complexion. When the sun is about to set, light yellow sunlight
shines on the middle of the hill. The thin layer of snow seems to grow
bashful and blush a light pink.
But only a bit of snow will do, thank you. Jinan cannot take heavy
snow—those little hills are far too delicate.
Ancient Jinan, so cramped inside the city, but so spacious outside!
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Lao She
153
Lying on the slope of the hills are some small villages, and lying atop
the houses there is snow. That’s right, this is a small landscape painting,
which might well have been the handiwork of some famous painter of
the Tang dynasty.
What about the river? Not only does it not freeze, the heat actually
seems to hover above the waterweeds. The waterweeds are so green they
seem to be giving forth all of the green they have been storing up for an
entire year. The brighter the sky, the greener they become. If only out
of regard for the greenness of the water plants, the water cannot bear to
freeze. Besides, the long branch of the dangling willow still wants to cast
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in the river, to the sky above, then higher still and all the way up. It is so
limpid, so blue! The whole scene, from top to bottom, is a delicate blue
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This is winter in Jinan.
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qr
Bing Xin
Bing Xin (1900–1999) is one of the most eminent C
hinese women
writers of the twentieth century. She was educated at Yenching
Univesity, where she wrote for the school newspaper. Later, when she
was pursuing an MA in literature at Wellesley University in the US,
she incorporated her overseas experiences in her writing in the form of
short letters, which she entitled To the Young Readers. Thus began her long-standing interest in children’s literature even as she continued to write
for adults.
The Bing Xin Style, which critics use to describe her distinctive way
of writing, is informed by an unwavering sense of optimism and her
profound faith in human love. These qualities are evident in the two
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war, but that does little to change her view of human nature, which will
always resurface in the end.
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156
A Garden of One’s Own
The Smile (1936)
The sound of rain has gradually quieted down. Faintly, crisp light comes
in from behind the curtain. I push open the window. Ah! The cool
clouds have dispersed. Under the moonlight, the lingering drops of rain
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there could be such a beautiful picture after an evening of bitter rain
and loneliness.
I stand by the window for some time, and begin to feel slightly
chilly. I turn around, and all of a sudden, the light seems to play tricks
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of brightness. Only the angel in the picture on the wall is bathed in a
sheen of quiet light. This angel, clad in white, is holding a bouquet of
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Unaware, I sit down by the window, thinking—silently thinking.
The curtain of my mind, which has up to now been tightly closed,
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abandoned road, the mud under the donkey’s feet was still slippery.
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nearby villages were all enveloped in mist. The crescent moon was like a
bow hung on the top of a tree. I was riding along. There seemed to be a
little child on the roadside, his arm holding something dazzlingly white.
The donkey had already passed him by, and I, without thinking, turned
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smiling at me.
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thinking, silently thinking.
Another curtain appears and then slowly opens. An impression
from ten years ago emerges. Drop by drop, rain from the eaves of the
thatched roof fell on my clothes. By the steps, water bubbles turned and
churned. Cleansed by the rain, the wheat growing in rows and the grape
trellises outside the door were splendid and fresh in yellow and green.
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the slope. Ahead of me, I could see the moon rising from the sea. All
of a sudden, I remembered that I had left something behind. I stopped
and turned around. The old woman from the cottage—she was leaning
against the door. Flowers in her arms, she was smiling at me.
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Bing Xin
157
drift, slowly converge, and are now mingled together.
At this moment, my mind is bright and quiet, as if I had joined the
realm of the immortals, or returned to my home country. Three smiles
appear in my eyes, and for an instant they melt in the harmony of love,
inseparable.
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158
A Garden of One’s Own
The Treasure That Will Always Be with Us (1946)
Wenzao came back all smiles. Under his arm was a thick book, A
Collection of Famous Chinese Paintings, which he had just bought from an old bookstore for 600 yen.
I watched him pore over the book under the lamp. I didn’t say
anything, but instead sat quietly in a corner of the study and looked at
him. This lovable, forgetful scholar of mine had forgotten his sorrowful
past.
The two of us, especially Wenzao, loved to buy books. When he was
studying in the United States, he very often had exhausted his spending
money by the end of each month because of his unrestrained purchase
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cold water, and thought that food for the spirit was more important than
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candy or anything special, but rather, all sorts of rare books, timeless
masterpieces of literature, philosophy, and art.
After we were married, the living room and study of our small new
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Even the walls were decorated with quite valuable calligraphy and
paintings.
Ten years later, the books in our possession had increased in
number, including both those we bought ourselves and those given to us
by friends. On the average, we added ten or more books every month to
our collection, not counting magazines and various academic journals.
In our living room, we placed new books on the semi-circular padauk
table, and changed them almost every week. When friends and students
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IVLÆQXPZW]OPW]ZJWWS[
Over those ten years, as we collected books, we traveled to quite a
few places, took many artistic pictures, and bought many paintings, a lot
of antiques, and other souvenirs. After our friends and we had looked
and marveled at them, we would hang these treasures or store them
away with great love and care.
On June 29 of the twenty-sixth year of the Republican Era (1937),
we came back from Europe on the Siberian Railway. We came through
the three provinces in the northeast, entered the Shan Hai Gate, and
returned to Beiping. Twenty or so relatives, friends, and students came
to the train station to meet us. When we reached our home, they could
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Bing Xin
159
not wait to help us unpack our luggage, and eagerly looked at the things
we had brought back home from distant places.
On July 7, war broke out on the Lugou Bridge.1 1V WZLMZ W ÅOP
&n
bsp; for peace and justice, we decided to move to the rear line to give what
little we had to the war of resistance. But because our little daughter,
Zongli, was soon to be born and we also had to help with the launching
of a new school year at Yenching University, we stayed in Beiping
for another year. During that year, there wasn’t a single day when we
weren’t preparing to leave Beiping: We took most of the furnishings and
objects for display in our home and either gave them away to friends,
donated them to public causes, or sold them. Only those things that we
treasured the most were left behind. We were unwilling to take the risk
of bringing them with us into exile, and therefore carefully put them in
boxes and stored them in the rooms above the classrooms at Yenching
University. These included the diaries that Wenzao had kept at Tsinghua
University, my diaries from my three years in the United States, our
complete and lengthy correspondence over the previous six years, and
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Many read like poetry and essays, and there were also the letters and
poetry my father had written to my mother in his younger days in
Shanghai. After my mother died, they came to me for safekeeping. Also
included were autographed books given to me by other writers, such as
Rabindranath Tagore’s The Crescent Moon and other works by him, To the Lighthouse and other works by Virginia Woolf, books by Lu Xun, Zhou
Zuoren, Lao She, Ba Jin, Ding Ling, Su Xuelin, Ling Shuhua, and Mao
Dun—altogether over one hundred titles. Then there were the large and
small photos of the children and our trips, different sorts of rare books,
picture albums, letter collections, works of calligraphy and paintings,
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thirty cloth binders of lecture notes and teaching materials that Wenzao
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As we packed these things away, there were always many students
there to help us. Some kept a log of our things, others wrapped them
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1
Known in the West as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. On July 7, 1937,
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