qianqian
10-03-2016, 09:41 PM
The Boy of Mt. Puh
朴山男孩
In 1970, the Cultural Revolution was in full rampage throughout China.
That year, I was only seven, when my father was suspected of some past politically incorrect deeds and, for that reason, sent to a so-called “thought-reform” center located in a village in Mt. Puh. The village was in Chinese called Puh-Shan, after Mt. Puh. Mom had once told me that the Chinese character Puh (樸) was often used for referring to “the unpolished or intact state” of something as is found in Nature. Coincidentally, my aunt’s family had also relocated to the village earlier, due to her husband having been an alleged “counterrevolutionary.”
That summer, my mother brought me along for the first time to see my father in Puh-Shan. While we were there, we stayed temporarily in my aunt’s house. The village was surrounded by hills on all sides, with patches of terraced fields far and near, creating the sceneries I had never before encountered in the city. I particularly remember a small hill-side area where I dared not even tread, for the grass was literally knee-high even for grown-ups. I heard folks say that there were snakes in there.
One day around noon time, I was alone taking a stroll up a hillside path when my eyes were caught by a huge banyan tree some distance ahead by the roadside. From its rugged trunk, gigantic boughs spread out to form a canopy of thick twigs and leaves, blocking the sun from scorching the ground underneath. I casually glanced over the shady area around the tree and noticed something wiggling down there.
As I walked closer, I recognized that that was not something, but somebody, a young boy to be exact. He was squatting there, his head drooping over the ground, doing something I could not figure out. That somehow aroused my curiosity, so I stepped quickly over to take a closer look. It was not until I walked up right beside him that I found out that he was drawing something on the ground with a dried twig. He was so absorbed in his art that I did not dare to interrupt him but squatted down by his side, quietly watching him draw.
After a while, I figured out that it was a bird that he was sketching. “So you are drawing a little birdie?” I could not help but ask.
Soft as I thought I sounded, my voice still startled him a little. He looked up at me briefly and then went back to drawing again, his eyes seeming to suggest that my question was too far-fetched for him to understand.
“It is a little birdie you are drawing, isn’t it?” I asked a second time.
“It’s not a bird,” he broke his own silence. “I’m drawing my older brother.”
“…your older brother?” I was puzzled.
“This is the bird my brother once gave me,” explained the boy.
At last, I was beginning to get into the sense of what was going on.
The boy raised his head again and gazed into the distance. Only then did I catch a complete view of his face, a thin and narrow type. He was about my age, yet his eyes were gleaming like a grown-up’s.
“My brother once climbed over the gable of our house to catch a bird for me,” he began to expand his story a bit, as if telling it to me, but at the same time, to himself. “Mom stopped him, afraid the mama bird w’d be sad; but brother told her he’s catching the bird for me... He slipped off the ladder and injured his left arm…”
“Your brother, where is he now?” I jumped in.
The boy stopped talking but kept randomly scratching the ground.
“Where’s your brother?” I looked around. “Where has he gone?”
“He’s dead.”
“Your brother died? How come?” I gasped, totally unprepared for the answer.
“A bunch of people came over, yelled and screamed... he was hit, by a wooden stick... Gosh! Don’t ask no more!” the boy abruptly threw up his palms onto his ears.
I was so taken aback that I did not know what to do but turned to look at the towering main peak of Mt. Puh. (Original Chinese by qianqian (Minglu Zeng); Translated by Dajian Wang)
--- From "The Wonder of Encounters" (available in Amazon)
My previous post on 09/22/2016
朴山男孩
In 1970, the Cultural Revolution was in full rampage throughout China.
That year, I was only seven, when my father was suspected of some past politically incorrect deeds and, for that reason, sent to a so-called “thought-reform” center located in a village in Mt. Puh. The village was in Chinese called Puh-Shan, after Mt. Puh. Mom had once told me that the Chinese character Puh (樸) was often used for referring to “the unpolished or intact state” of something as is found in Nature. Coincidentally, my aunt’s family had also relocated to the village earlier, due to her husband having been an alleged “counterrevolutionary.”
That summer, my mother brought me along for the first time to see my father in Puh-Shan. While we were there, we stayed temporarily in my aunt’s house. The village was surrounded by hills on all sides, with patches of terraced fields far and near, creating the sceneries I had never before encountered in the city. I particularly remember a small hill-side area where I dared not even tread, for the grass was literally knee-high even for grown-ups. I heard folks say that there were snakes in there.
One day around noon time, I was alone taking a stroll up a hillside path when my eyes were caught by a huge banyan tree some distance ahead by the roadside. From its rugged trunk, gigantic boughs spread out to form a canopy of thick twigs and leaves, blocking the sun from scorching the ground underneath. I casually glanced over the shady area around the tree and noticed something wiggling down there.
As I walked closer, I recognized that that was not something, but somebody, a young boy to be exact. He was squatting there, his head drooping over the ground, doing something I could not figure out. That somehow aroused my curiosity, so I stepped quickly over to take a closer look. It was not until I walked up right beside him that I found out that he was drawing something on the ground with a dried twig. He was so absorbed in his art that I did not dare to interrupt him but squatted down by his side, quietly watching him draw.
After a while, I figured out that it was a bird that he was sketching. “So you are drawing a little birdie?” I could not help but ask.
Soft as I thought I sounded, my voice still startled him a little. He looked up at me briefly and then went back to drawing again, his eyes seeming to suggest that my question was too far-fetched for him to understand.
“It is a little birdie you are drawing, isn’t it?” I asked a second time.
“It’s not a bird,” he broke his own silence. “I’m drawing my older brother.”
“…your older brother?” I was puzzled.
“This is the bird my brother once gave me,” explained the boy.
At last, I was beginning to get into the sense of what was going on.
The boy raised his head again and gazed into the distance. Only then did I catch a complete view of his face, a thin and narrow type. He was about my age, yet his eyes were gleaming like a grown-up’s.
“My brother once climbed over the gable of our house to catch a bird for me,” he began to expand his story a bit, as if telling it to me, but at the same time, to himself. “Mom stopped him, afraid the mama bird w’d be sad; but brother told her he’s catching the bird for me... He slipped off the ladder and injured his left arm…”
“Your brother, where is he now?” I jumped in.
The boy stopped talking but kept randomly scratching the ground.
“Where’s your brother?” I looked around. “Where has he gone?”
“He’s dead.”
“Your brother died? How come?” I gasped, totally unprepared for the answer.
“A bunch of people came over, yelled and screamed... he was hit, by a wooden stick... Gosh! Don’t ask no more!” the boy abruptly threw up his palms onto his ears.
I was so taken aback that I did not know what to do but turned to look at the towering main peak of Mt. Puh. (Original Chinese by qianqian (Minglu Zeng); Translated by Dajian Wang)
--- From "The Wonder of Encounters" (available in Amazon)
My previous post on 09/22/2016