E-Book, Englisch, 352 Seiten
Hua City of Fiction
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-78770-566-1
Verlag: Europa Editions
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 352 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-78770-566-1
Verlag: Europa Editions
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Yu Hua is one of China's best-known writers. Born in 1960, he is the author of six novels, several collections of short stories and essays. He has also contributed op-ed pieces to The New York Times. His work has been translated into fifty languages. He has received many awards, including Italy's Premio Grinzane Cavour for his novel To Live and France's Prix Courrier International for his novel Brothers, which was also was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. He lives in Beijing.
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2.
This roaming northerner had come from north of the Yellow River, over a thousand away, where fields of sorghum, corn, and wheat covered the land, where in winter the yellow earth stretched as far as the eye could see. He had spent his childhood dashing in and out amongst the lush green crops, and the sky of his youth had been shaded over by sorghum leaves. By the time he was sitting in front of a kerosene lamp moving his fingers over an abacus to take stock of the year’s harvest, he had already become an adult.
Lin Xiangfu had been born into a wealthy family. His father was the only one in their town to have passed the county-level imperial examinations, and his mother was the daughter of a man from the neighboring county who had passed the exams at the provincial level; although her family’s fortunes were in decline at the time of her birth, she was still well-read in the Confucian classics, giving her an agile mind and nimble hands.
When Lin Xiangfu was five years old, his father suddenly passed away. He loved woodworking, and had been making a small desk for Lin Xiangfu, along with a little stool to go with it. When they were finished, he laid down his tools and called out for his son. The last few sounds he made, however, were not Lin Xiangfu’s name, but rather cries of agony as he gripped his chest and fell to the floor. When the five-year-old Lin Xiangfu came to the door of the workshop, the sight of his father rolling around on the ground made him burst into giggles. He laughed until his mother came rushing in, knelt down beside his father, and began issuing a series of alarmed shrieks. Only then did the boy’s laughter turn to terrified wails.
This was perhaps Lin Xiangfu’s earliest memory. Several days later he saw his father laid out on a door plank, perfectly still with a white cloth covering his body. The cloth was a little short, and his feet stuck out the end. The young Lin Xiangfu studied this pair of white, bloodless feet for a long time; on the sole of one, he noticed an open wound.
His mother donned clothing he had never seen before. Draped in a hempen mourning cloak, she carried a bowl of water past him and out to the front gate. She stepped over the threshold and set the water on the ground, then sat down on the threshold and stayed there until the sun set below the mountains and the sky was completely dark.
His father’s death left Lin Xiangfu with over four hundred of land, a courtyard house with six rooms, and over a hundred books—bound volumes in their own cases, some with broken binding threads. His mother passed down to him both her familiarity with the Confucian classics and her deft management of the household, and as soon as he began to learn to read and write, his father’s last piece of craftsmanship—the little desk and stool—was placed in front of his mother’s loom. His mother would administer his lessons as she did her weaving. Amidst the creaking of the loom and his mother’s gentle voice, his studies progressed from the to the and the
When he was thirteen, he began accompanying Tian Da, the steward, down to the fields to examine the crops. Just like the tenant farmers who worked his family’s land, he would walk along the edges of the fields, his legs covered in mud, sometimes crossing through paddy fields with Tian Da. When he returned home to continue his studies in front of his mother’s loom, his legs would still be covered in mud. He inherited his father’s love for woodworking, and at a young age he had already become familiar with axes, planes, and saws; when he set to work he would nearly forget to eat and sleep, and once he entered the workshop he would remain there for long stretches of time. When the fields were fallow, his mother would take him to neighboring towns and villages to learn from the master woodworkers there, and he would usually stay on as an apprentice for a month or two in the master’s house. The woodworkers who taught him their skills all praised his ability and dexterity, as well as his capacity for hard work, which was nothing like one would expect from the young master of a wealthy family.
When he was nineteen, his mother fell ill. Although not yet forty, she had already reached the end of her life. Years of hard work and the burden of widowhood had turned her hair gray, and deep wrinkles covered her face. Now she examined her son with new eyes—she noticed that he had grown as tall and sturdy as his father had been, and a look of relief flooded over her face. Whenever he came in from his workshop or from surveying the fields, he would move his little desk and stool over by the kang where his mother lay, prepare his ink and paper, open his books, and continue receiving her tutelage. By that time his woodworking skills had begun to garner a reputation, and although there were plenty of buyers for the desks and stools he turned out, he still used the little set his father had made him.
Right before she passed away, a series of images floated in front of his mother’s eyes—she saw her son grow bigger and bigger as he sat at the little desk and stool, while the writing brush in his hand grew smaller and smaller. A peaceful smile spread over her face, as if a lifetime of difficulty had finally achieved its just reward.
On the last day of the tenth lunar month, his mother, who for some time had been unable to move, gathered the last of her strength and turned to stare at the open door, waiting for her son to appear. But as she waited, the light in her expectant eyes gradually faded. Her parting words to her son were nothing more than two large tears hanging in the corners of her eyes, as if to show she still worried about her son walking the road of life alone.
The scene that Lin Xiangfu saw when he was five years old repeated: now his mother lay on a door plank, her body covered with a white cloth she had woven before she died. Draped in filial mourning garb, Lin Xiangfu carried a bowl of water out to the gate, where he placed it on the ground. Just as his mother had done fourteen years earlier, he sat on the threshold. As evening approached, he looked out over the little path that stretched from their gate and wound its way to the main road. The main road continued on under the drifting chimney smoke and over the spacious land, stretching out toward the flaming sunset on the horizon.
Three days later, Lin Xiangfu buried his mother beside his father. Gripping the shovel with both hands, this young nineteen-year-old man stood there for a long time; behind him was the steward Tian Da and his four younger brothers. They stood there in total silence until night was about to fall, and only at Tian Da’s prompting did Lin Xiangfu slowly trudge back home. Then he wiped the tears from his face and resumed his life, just as he had been living it before.
Just as before, he rose early each day and went out to the fields with Tian Da to survey the crops, chatting with the tenant farmers as they worked. Sometimes he would roll up his pantlegs and work alongside them—he was no less proficient at farm work than they were. When he had spare time, he would spend long stretches of it sitting on his threshold; without the sound of his mother weaving, he no longer went to read those volumes of thread-bound books. He lived by himself like this for five years, gradually becoming more and more reticent. The Tian brothers were the only ones who came to his home, and only when they discussed the fields and crops would Lin Xiangfu’s voice be heard within those walls.
Every year in late autumn, Lin Xiangfu would gather together the silver he had accumulated from the year’s harvest, lead his donkey into town, and go to a —a local private bank—to exchange the silver for a small gold bar. He would also buy one or two lengths of satin. The gold bar he would place in a box hidden in an interior wall, and the satin he would store in a wardrobe in one of the inner rooms.
When she was still alive, this was something his mother would do. Storing away the gold had begun with the Lin family ancestors, while the satin was to use when her son got married. In the last year of her life, on sunny mornings when the weather was nice, this severely ill woman continued to take a length of satin, put it in a satchel, and wearily climb up on a donkey. Then Tian Da would lead the donkey down the dusty road, rocking and swaying into the distance.
As Lin Xiangfu recalled, his mother must have done this around ten times. Each time she returned, there was no longer any satin in her satchel, so he knew that his mother must not have taken a liking to the young woman—the satin had been left to help her family get over the disappointment, as was the old custom. When his mother returned home and handed the donkey over to Lin Xiangfu, she would give an exhausted smile and say,
“I didn’t stay for a meal.”
Lin Xiangfu knew this was the answer to the potential match. If his mother had stayed for a meal, it would have meant she had taken a liking to the girl. After her death, Lin Xiangfu continued this custom—when he went to town, he would pick up a length or two of satin in preparation for when he got married.
Matchmakers had visited several times to introduce him to a future bride, and he dutifully followed them to the homes of these young women. Whenever he was in the home of a family of equal status and wealth, he appeared particularly hesitant.
Accustomed to his mother making these sorts of decisions for him, Lin Xiangfu was unsure how to handle all of this. The fact that she had come away...
