Chapter 16: Why is this?

Why is this?

94 pieces,

Why is this?

Liu Guozong

Unnoticed, I have already reached 2008. In 2007, what did I do? How much sweat did I shed? How much overtime did I work? How many reprimands and dirty looks did I get from the boss? How much grievance did I feel in my heart? How many times did I endure, secretly shedding how many tears of homesickness? How much money did I earn?

In 2007, are you happy? Are you joyful? Are you pessimistic? Are you disappointed? Are you energized? Are you striving?

On New Year's Eve night, I wandered alone in a foreign town's streets. In the dimly lit area, I recalled a story my mother told me in childhood:

Long ago, there was a poor lad who went to the mountains to gather firewood and got lost. This poor lad, while winding his way through the mountains looking for the path, saw a cave. He followed the cave entrance inward. Not far in, he saw a stone door. The poor lad lightly knocked on the stone door, and it opened. From inside the stone door walked out a smiling fairy.

The fairy sized up the poor lad before her, who was both hungry and thirsty. Having understood the reason, she led him into the cave.

The poor lad entered the cave and was astonished: inside the cave, sunshine was brilliant, flowers fragrant; stone stools, stone tables, stone pots, stone bowls, stone chopsticks, stone beds, stone pillows—truly a different world within. The fairy presented fragrant tea, brought sweet fruit, served a lovely meal, and, with warbling speech and laughter, said: 'Drink, eat. Then rest well; I will send you home.'

This poor lad ate and drank his fill, then slept soundly on the fairy's stone bed.

The next morning, the poor lad thanked the fairy: 'I must go home.'

The fairy said: 'You cannot go back. Even if you return, no one in your hometown will know you.'

'Why is this?' the poor lad asked the fairy, puzzled.

'No reason. Haven't you heard the saying, 'A day and night in the cave equals a thousand years in the world'? A thousand years have passed; your hometown has already undergone vast changes, people and things transformed. If you wish, stay in the cave and live this immortal-like life with me.' The fairy urged him to stay.

The poor lad's heart was set on returning home; he refused the fairy's urging.

'Why is this?' the fairy asked.

'My hometown has elders and brothers, and also a betrothed wife not yet brought into the family. How could I stay here with you and live this immortal-like life?' The fairy could not overcome the poor lad's insistence, and still let him go back.

When the poor lad returned to his hometown and saw, just as the fairy said: vast changes, people and things transformed.

The poor lad regretted: 'Why didn't I heed the fairy's advice and stay in the cave? Now returning, will she…?'

Now it is New Year's Eve of 2008, in the streets of this foreign town, for some reason I again recall the story my mother told me in childhood.

95 pieces,

One Year's Plan by Liu Guozong

Some say that the most beautiful time in a person's life is youth. Song dynasty poet Su Dongpo said: 'Who says one cannot be young again? The water before the gate can still flow westward.' Seeing how much our great poet loved youth, upon seeing the water flowing westward in the stream before the gate, he immediately thought: if time could flow backward like that water, returning to youth would be wonderful, how beautiful! Because in youth, whatever one looks at is beautiful; whatever one thinks of is fun. But in the eyes of a youth, things that seem ordinary to adults are not ordinary.

Green vegetable patches, smooth stone well railing, tall locust trees, purple-red mulberries; no need to mention cicadas chirping long in the leaves, plump wasps perching on the vegetable flowers, agile skylarks (called 'heaven's messengers'), suddenly darting straight from the grass into the clouds. Just the short roots of the surrounding mud walls alone offer endless fascination. Dragonflies sing here, crickets play music here. Turning over broken bricks, sometimes one encounters centipedes; also there are blister beetles; if you press a finger on its back, it will pop and emit a puff of smoke from its rear. Hewu vines and magnolia vines entwine; magnolia bears fruit like a lotus pod; hewu has swollen roots. Some say the hewu root resembles a human shape, and eating it can make one an immortal; I therefore often pull it out, repeatedly pulling it out; I have even damaged the mud walls because of it; yet I have never seen a root that looks like a human. If one is not afraid of thorns, one can also pick raspberries, like small coral beads forming tiny balls, both sour and sweet, their color and flavor far surpassing that of mulberries.

What's there to see in green vegetables? Isn't that just ordinary vegetables? But in the eyes of young Lu Xun, those vegetables are not ordinary, because vegetables are not only edible. But even more lovely is that if those vegetables bloom, they attract many butterflies. One can chase butterflies among the vegetable flowers and play. In our eyes, isn't it the same?

In youth, everything can enter poetry and painting: 'Looking at the mountains, they seem to come forward to greet me; looking closely, the mountains are unmoving, it is like a ship sailing.' Looking at the mountains, it seems as if they are greeting oneself; looking at the water, the green waves ripple, like pleasant music. Even when one reaches forty or fifty, the scenes of youth remain vivid in memory.

"In the night of forty-five years old,"

Suddenly I recalled her youthful eyes

I recalled that summer when she was sixteen

She walked slowly down from the hill toward him

Sunlight outside the forest was dazzling

And her clothing was so pure white

I still recall the hills covered with tea trees

The sky full of floating clouds

And the cicadas' chorus filling the ears

In the quiet, quiet forest

How deep a feeling! Even at forty-five at night, I still recall the lover of my youth: bright, affectionate eyes, pure white clothing, in the quiet little grove…

The saying goes: 'The plan for a day lies in the morning; the plan for a year lies in the spring.' The meaning of this saying is:

At dawn's first light,

The darkness has passed,

Light has arrived,

A new day begins again;

Spring has arrived,

She moves her frozen little feet,

Slowly toward the grass by the river

She walks. Then

She looks at the woods

Then comes to the city and harbor,

She gives life and strength to animals and plants.

Youth is the golden period of life; the ancients feared people would not cherish it, and repeatedly advised youth: 'If you do not strive in your youth, in old age you will only sorrow in vain.' I do not quite understand this advice of the ancients: people are old, everything has passed, why should one 'sorrow in vain'? Now I have somewhat realized: one's life plan should be safety, health, doing good to others, getting along with others, striving to do what one ought to do, with wholehearted effort, to serve the world in which we live; as for the plan for a year, it is the same as lifelong happiness, because a life is made up of day after day, month after month, year after year added together.