Childhood Memories

  I feel that Grandma Qin doesn't like me, she rarely speaks, and when she sees me being mischievous, she glares at me. Many times I wanted to leave her house, but she would stand by the door and say, "You can go, don't come back, let Qin Yuanyang find you himself in the wild cat's den."

  I was so scared that my feet were rooted to the ground, I was afraid of the wild cat cave, and heard from villagers that it's a place with monsters. Adults would scare kids like this, whenever they cried while sleeping, they'd say "If you cry again, we'll abandon you in the wild cat cave." And so, the kid would sleep quietly, no longer crying or making a fuss.

  The children in Qin Village are all very obedient and listen to the words left at the entrance of the wild cat's den.

  I'm no exception!

  Scolded by Grandma Qin like that, I obediently stayed behind, afraid of being caught by the monster in the wild cat hole.

  At that time, Uncle Ah didn't live in Qin Village. He could only come to see me once every half year, buy me new clothes and candies. I would wear my new clothes to stroll around the village, making those kids who ignored me envious.

  The big pillar had a piece of gauze wrapped around it, which was bandaged by the old Chinese doctor in the village after I punched a hole in it. His mother would occasionally come to the door of Qin's house to scold me, but Qin wouldn't open the door and I didn't dare speak either.

  Dàzhù saw me wearing a new red dress, hiding under the osmanthus tree in his house and calling me. His mother shouted at the door of Qín's house every day: "Don't let that wild girl play with my Dàzhù, that girl is cheap, but my Dàzhù is still a precious treasure. If she gets another hole on her head, can she afford to pay for it?"

  But Da Zhu didn't believe it and hid behind the Osmanthus tree, calling me to come over and play with him.

  "A Li, this piece of clothing is really nice, lend it to me to wear."

  I looked at Da Zhu with a dirty face, pouting and hiding far away. Those were the new clothes Uncle had bought for me. "These are your aunt's clothes, don't get them dirty."

  Dà zhù kě bù xǐ huān bié rén shuō tā zàng, "nà bùyào nǐ zuò wǒ xí fu r le, bǎ yī fu jiè gěi wǒ chuān chuān, wǒ jiù sòng nǐ yī zhī guā guā."

  Translation:

  Dazhu didn't like others saying he was dirty. "If you don't want to be my daughter-in-law, lend me your clothes to wear and I'll give you a grasshopper."

  I hesitated to lend it, when Dazhu's wife came out from the backyard, pinched Dazhu's ear and dragged him back, scolding as she walked, "You rascal, you forgot the lesson on your forehead so soon."

  "Mother, gently, gently..."

  As the distant calls of the big pillar faded away, I finally felt like an extra person in Qin Village, even though Uncle Ah had bought me new clothes.

  My uncle is a city person. When I was young, I heard villagers say that city people are all rich, so I started dreaming of being an obedient child and letting my uncle take me to the city too, to become a city person.

  Every day looking forward to Uncle's arrival, Qin Nainai said to me for the first time, "Don't look anymore, your uncle won't come so early."

  Her one sentence shattered all my expectations.

  At that time, I thought Uncle Ah didn't want me. After all, I was a child he picked up and not his own flesh and blood. He must not care about me. For the first time, I began to envy Da Zhuang. He had a mother who loved him, even though she would pinch his ears.

  I wrote a few words on the muddy ground with a twig at the entrance of Dazhu's house, and then went to the village entrance to wait for him.

  Dàzhù hurried over, panting, the gauze on his forehead already torn open. He asked me, "Where did you see the phoenix egg?"

  I crouched on the ground with a branch and drew circles, "No phoenix egg, fooling you."

  Dazhu squatted down with me and said I was a wild girl, but actually I just wanted to play with him. Then Dazhu seemed to think of something and pulled me forward, I shook off his hand.

  "Where are you going?"

  "I know there's a place up ahead, come with me."

  When we arrived at the riverbank, we had already left the village far behind. Da Zhu took me down to the river to catch fish with my bare hands, which was something I enjoyed doing.

  Found a withered wisteria vine and strung all the caught fish on it. Dazhu was in charge of catching, I was in charge of distributing.

  Dazhu is a master at catching fish, in less than half an hour he caught several big ones. I kept the bigger ones for myself and gave the smaller ones to Dazhu, he was so upset that he shed tears, saying I wasn't being fair.

  I glared at him, "What's unfair about that? To say the least, I'm older than you by a few days, so I'm your sister. Since I'm bigger than you, the fish I want should also be bigger."

  Dà zhù bèi wǒ shuō dé yī lèng yī lèng, zhǐ néng jiāng xiǎo yú chuàn zài le lìng yī tiáo téng shàng.

  Translation:

  The big pillar was stunned by what I said and could only string the small fish on another vine.

  Dazhu was quite mischievous, his pants were always torn. I told him to wait for me where he was. When we were young, we were quite bold and didn't care about anything. I directly caught a water snake and threw it into Dazhu's pants, scaring him so much that he ran back to find his mother without even looking back.

  I knew I was in trouble again, so I went back to hide on the locust tree at the gate of Grandma Qin's house. Climbing trees was taught by Big Pillar.

  The moon rose, and the Qin family lit up their house. Dazhu's wife pulled Dazhu to stand in front of the Qin family's courtyard again, yelling at the door until finally, she managed to scold out Mrs. Qin.

  Dazhu's wife rushed forward two steps as soon as she saw Qin's wife, and began to argue, "You say your family's Ali, a 7 or 8 year old girl, is not surprising to learn from boys to climb trees and catch fish. My family's Dazhu has a new pair of pants, which was thrown into a snake by your family's Ali. This kid, you don't even take care of her."