Mo Zhongbai
The old man could feel summer getting cooler day by day.
He was dying.
The old man didn’t want to die. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his clay house. He especially hated leaving his wife behind. She had given birth to and raised five sons and three daughters for him and they had shared a life of hardship.
The old man and his wife had many children and grandchildren, but their family seldom came to visit them at their clay house. Every year after summer harvest, his five sons would bring them some wheat for food. His daughters would bring them some wine and meat during holidays.
The old man and his wife did not complain.
They understood that their children also had children of their own. They had to worry about tuition, wedding expenses, and so on, just as the old man and his wife had worried back in their day.
The old man was happy as long as his children and grandchildren were happy. He often communicated his happiness to his wife, who, unlike him, fretted when their children had not visited their clay house for a long time.
The old man would comfort her, saying, “Our children are busy. Come with me to herd sheep at the north grove if you are bored. It’s fun to talk with sheep.”
His wife would ignore him and say, “They are avoiding us because we are too old.”
Falling silent, the old man would put his arm around a sheep and ask it, “Do you think we are old?”
The sheep would bleat twice, and the old man would grin and say to his wife, “See, the sheep says we are still young!”
“You old rascal,” she’d retort, laughing.
He liked to be called that by his wife.
The old man had refused to give in to old age until the summer day he fell on his way back home. He began to realize how old he really was when he couldn’t move his limbs to crawl.
He couldn’t stand up anymore and became bedridden.
Although he was incapacitated, the old man’s heart remained as lucid as a mirror.
As he watched his wife busily take care of him, her back hunched over at a right angle, the old man wanted to depart as fast as he could.
He had served in the military and fought the Japanese in the Second World War. He didn’t believe in heaven, but his wife did, and she told him good people would go there.
The old man really wished there were a heaven. He would like to go there a couple of years ahead of his wife, to set things up, so he might receive her into their new life together.
Although he was hallucinating about heaven, the old man remained clear-minded. The clear-minded old man was thirsty, so he reached for the cup of water on the table. No sooner had his hand touched the cup than he fell off the bed. When he looked up at the bed, less than half a meter off the ground, and found that he could not get back into it, his heart ached.
His wife returned. She tried to help him up when she saw him lying on the ground. The old man said to her, “You couldn’t do it when you were young, how do you expect to do it now?”
The old lady went to their sons for help, but the third, fourth, and fifth sons had left town for work, the second was at the market, and the eldest was herding sheep at the north grove. She had to ask villagers to come over to get the old man back into bed.
That night, the old lady walked with a stoop to her eldest son’s house and asked him to go shorten the legs of the bed.
“Please go check with your second son. He has a saw,” he told her.
The old lady went to her second son’s house. He asked, “Why do you want to cut off the legs of a good bed? Can’t my older brother do it?”
Their second daughter-in-law was annoyed. “Our saw is broken,” she said.
The old lady said nothing. Bent over her cane, she stumbled back toward their clay house by the threshing ground.
She came to the bedside, held the old man’s hands in hers, and said, “You might as well leave early.”
Taking her hands in his, the old man said, “I thought so, too. But it will be very hard for our children and grandchildren to endure this heat in mourning clothes, and the food for the funeral banquet will quickly go bad…”
“Why should you care so much?”
“They are our children and grandchildren, of course. I will care for them until I breathe my last breath.”
“How about you hold on till the end of summer and then leave for heaven?”
“I’ll try my best,” the old man said.
Eventually, one of his sons found a saw and shortened the legs of the bed.
The old man was able to reach the cup now, but he hardly had the strength to finish the water in it.
The old man spent most of the time in bed counting the remaining days of summer. Looking at the electric fan at his bedside, the old man thought: Like the fan, I will quit working at the end of summer, too. And then he thought again: When it gets hot next summer, the fan will begin turning again, but what will have become of me? Maybe there really is a heaven…Where else could my soul, still fully alive, go?
The old man felt that he was getting closer to heaven—he could already smell the sweet scent of osmanthus from the trees outside heaven’s gate.
He told his wife to call his children and grandchildren home.
His wife asked, “Can’t you hold on for a few more days?”
The old man said, “I should have been gone in the summer. Now it’s getting cold. I’m afraid that the road to heaven will become slippery when it gets colder!
His wife laughed, “You old rascal, true to yourself to the end!”
She stayed with him until, smiling, he departed.
The old man’s children and grandchildren all came home and gave him a grand funeral.
His five sons calculated the expense: Each sustained a loss of 500 yuan after taking into account the cash gifts they had collected.
The daughters-in-law said, “The cool weather is a real blessing. The food won’t go bad for another few days; some of the meat dishes can now have a chance to be cooked twice. Had it been hot, we would have suffered a huge loss from this fifty-table banquet!”
The old lady handed them the cash gifts that had been under her care for the day. After dividing the money among them, the five sons looked at one another—there was 2,500 yuan more than they had calculated.
The old lady shook her head as the rest of her family gathered to double-check and recount the money. Bending over her cane, she stumbled back toward their clay house by the threshing ground.
(2007)
VOCABULARY AND USAGE
| 吃苦 |
chīkǔ |
endure hardship |
多吃苦才能成大事。 |
| 儿孙满堂 |
érsūnmăntáng |
have many children and grandchildren |
儿孙满堂是大福气。 |
| 知足 |
zhīzú |
content |
知足者长乐。 |
| 供 |
gōng |
pay for (education) |
爸妈太穷，没钱供你上大学。 |
| 操心 |
cāoxīn |
worry about; take pains |
父母甘心为孩子操心一辈子。 |
| 唠叨 |
lāodao |
chatter |
她一不高兴就唠叨起来没完。 |
| 怨 |
yuàn |
complain |
别怨孩子不懂事，是大人没有教育好。 |
| 安慰 |
ānwèi |
console; comfort |
两位老人相互安慰。 |
| (得)慌 |
(de) huāng |
awfully; unbearably |
他一上课就困得慌。 |
| 老不正经 |
lăo bu zhèngjīng |
old but still licentious |
文中老人的”老不正经”让老伴很开心。 |
| (不)服老 |
(bù) fúlăo |
(do not) acquiesce to old age |
他不服老，92岁了还天天上班。 |
| 摔倒 |
shuāidăo |
fall down |
他摔倒了，再也站不起来了。 |
| 使唤 |
shĭhuàn |
order about; use; handle |
我想把话说清楚，可舌头不听使唤了。 |
| 信奉 |
xìnfèng |
believe; believe in |
基督教徒信奉上帝。 |
| 滚 |
gŭn |
roll |
那枚硬币滚进路边的草丛，不见了。 |
| 掉 |
diào |
fall; drop |
我睡觉不老实，从床上滚掉地上了。 |
| 老人家 |
lăorénjiā |
a respectful form of addressing a senior |
这位老人家是新郎官儿的爷爷。 |
| 蹒跚 |
pánshān |
stumble; hobble |
他喝多了，蹒跚离去。 |
| 披麻戴孝 |
pīmádàixiào |
be dressed in deep mourning |
葬礼时，老人家的学生都为他披麻戴孝。 |
| 放 |
fàng |
save; keep; preserve |
天太热，这菜不冷藏的话，一天都放不了。 |
| 谁叫… |
shuí jiào |
…shouldn’t have… |
爸爸不该打你，可谁叫你不听话呢？ |
| 装 |
zhuāng |
be concerned with |
女儿的幸福，他时刻装在心上。 |
| 撑 |
chēng |
hold out (until) |
没有水，我们在沙漠里撑不了几天。 |
| 歇工 |
xiēgōng |
stop working; knock off |
你们工地一般几点歇工？ |
| 灵魂 |
línghún |
soul; spirit |
很多人相信灵魂不死。 |
| 飘(香) |
piāo (xiāng) |
(fragrance) floating/drifting |
桂花一飘香秋季就到了。 |
| (临)走 |
(lín) zŏu |
(be about to) die; be gone |
老人临走还为孩子们备好了办丧事的钱。 |
| 扣除 |
kòuchú |
deduct |
扣除饭费和房租哪里还有零花钱？ |
| 赔钱 |
péiqián |
sustain economic losses |
没人愿做赔钱的生意！ |
| 回锅 |
huíguō |
twice-cooked |
餐馆的回锅肉不好吃。 |
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Write a character sketch of the old man, especially what makes him different from his wife.
2. Is the old man spoiling his children? Why isn’t he mad when his love for his children goes unnoticed?
3. What is the essense of xiao for a parent? Does the old man exemplify it?
4. Do you feel sorry for the old couple?
5. How is the idea of “heaven” in this story different from the one with which you are familiar?
6. Where do you think the extra 2,500 yuan comes from? What do you think will happen when the five sons figure it out?
7. If the old man’s heart is “as lucid as a mirror,” what is being reflected?
1. 请给老人 “画” 张特写，尤其要展示他与老伴的不同。
2. 这位老人是不是太娇惯孩子了？他们对他的爱视而不见他怎么也不生气呢？
3. 对做父母的人来说，孝的真髓是什么呢？老人的言行是这一真髓的体现吗？
4. 你觉得这对老夫妻可怜吗？
5. 这个故事里天堂的概念跟你所熟悉的天堂概念有什么不一样？
6. 多出来的那2500元是哪儿来的？你觉得五个儿子明白以后会有什么反应？
7. 如果老人的心 “像镜子一样明亮”，那它折射出了什么？
AUTHOR BIO
Aili Mu got to know Mo Zhongbai (1977–) through this award-winning story when serving as a judge for a 2007 national short-short competition in China. Talented, young, and handsome, Mo Zhongbai was full of energy; his writing career exploded thereafter. Now a member of the China Writers Association, Mo Zhongbai has published four volumes in diverse genres: the short-short collection Heaven as in the Gate of Heaven and Peace (天安门的天); two volumes of novellas and short stories, Recollections of Northern Jiangsu (苏北往事) and The Eagle over Potala Palace (布达拉宫天空的鹰); and a volume of prose essays, Warmhearted Strangers (温暖的陌生人). Many of these works first appeared in prestigious literary journals across China—Beijing, Anhui, Shandong, Gansu, Jiangsu, Tibet, and Wuhan. Mo Zhongbai has won two national awards: the Wu Cheng’en Literature Award (吴承恩文学) and the Pu Songling Literature Award (蒲松龄文学奖).
Born Cheng Liang (陈亮) in a village in Sihong, Jiangsu Province, Mo Zhongbai had never left the small town of Plum Blossom until October 2014. Before that, Mo had turned down an offer of a salaried editorial job with a metropolitan publisher. In 2013 he even gave up his comfortable newscaster job at the township and assumed the office of party secretary after winning a village election. His village work diary, which offers a window into his inner world, can be found at http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/articlelist_1296379313_0_1.html. The entry for August 24, 2014, for example, registered how he, then in his thirties, juggled many different roles—a son, a husband, a father, a village leader, and an emerging writer—and how he was learning to love it. http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/articlelist_1296379313_0_1.html.
Mo Zhongbai never attended college or received formal training in creative writing. Writing came along for him “like a sheep grazing along the country road it knows.” He writes because his heart aches seeing the rural China he knew disappearing. Words “well up” with his nostalgic desire to retain it under the acacia tree at the end of his village, by the haystacks in the fields, and along the little streams of his hometown. The old man in the story was a real part of that vanishing life. The story was born of Mo Zhongbai’s desire to honor him. Yet never for a moment does Mo Zhongbai regard himself as the voice of the marginalized: “Their pain and my ache are different. They experience the hurt; I not necessarily.”
Mo Zhongbai left for Suqian in 2014 after all to join the literary academy in that city of 5.9 million people. The following description is a summary of the academy provided by Mo Zhongbai.
Suqian Literary Academy (宿迁市文学院), a new section in Suqian Federation of Literary and Art Circles (宿迁市文联), was established on March 31, 2014, with six authorized staff members and full funding from the government. The Academy is tasked with representing the city’s literary production, training literary talent, leading literary studies, and serving the public needs for art and literature.
A good knowledge of academies like this and people in them is beyond the scope of this book. Their large network in China starts with the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles on top, with provincial-level institutions in the middle, and the city-level organizations at the base. Getting to know these institutions, which have no counterpart in the West, may be a necessary step for readers wanting to understand China’s cultural orientation.