What does it mean to be seventeen? Everyone has their own "seventeen years old", at this point in time, something to gain and lose, and finally make their own decisions.
Today is May Fourth Youth Day, and the public account of "Flower City" excerpts Tanaka He's novel "Seventeen Years Old". The novel tells the story of a county family in the 1920s, and the different encounters of six family members at the age of seventeen. Seventeen means growing up, but it also means endless possibilities, endless unknowns.
Seventeen years old
Tanaka was grinning
Flower City Press
Mother Tian Qin
Seventeen years old: taking on family responsibilities
Shortly after my grandfather's death, someone proposed to my mother. The man is a lantern maker who often sets up stalls in Paifang Street, his home is in the east of Wenfeng Pagoda, three miles away from the city, not a large household, not a poor person, parents and brothers live together, more than a dozen acres of land to grow and eat. My grandmother went on a blind date and thought it was not bad. It is a matter of parents to appoint children, and there is no need to consult their children. In order to avoid misconduct in youth, do not marry and worship the world, do not let them know who the other party is, and can not have private contacts. However, the grandfather had given up on all these tedious and mundane affairs, the aunt was reluctant to interject on the marriage of the mother-in-law, and the mother was very willful, so the grandmother had to violate the usual etiquette and call the mother over to discuss the matter with her.
Mother said, can he buy a donkey for my mother?
The lantern maker promised to buy a donkey for his grandmother, and her mother agreed to the affair.
When she was about to get married, my mother said to my grandmother and aunt that I had changed a donkey for you.
My grandmother had a donkey again, and the lantern maker in Archway Street, surnamed Zhang, became my father.
Big sister Shu Gui
Seventeen: Sentimental times
The second sister and the eldest brother are the first people to perceive the mood of the eldest sister. They often saw her sitting alone at a table silently weeping. They snuggled up to her, listened to her blow the whistle, and listened to her read sentimental poems to them. I imagined a nine-year-old boy sitting quietly in front of the dark window of the box, listening to a sixteen-year-old girl talking to him. There is war outside, adults are running in chaos, and the eldest sister creates a sentimental time for the eldest brother. She always told him that some people were not interesting in living, what the world in heaven was like, and what kind of words he could not understand, and told him what kind of dream she had, and that when people died, there would be a light. He widened his eyes and looked into his sister's face, knowing that she didn't ask him to understand. She complained, just because he was a kid who didn't understand anything.
I picked an autumn leaf
Thrown into a whimpering mountain stream
Go gently drifting towards the sea, drifting into the distance
Tell those heroic warriors
Stray children
Rushing to make winter clothes for them...
The eldest sister often stood alone in the twilight and sang this song. The second sister and the eldest brother listened silently, looked into the tearful eyes of the eldest sister, and shared her inexplicable sadness.
Second sister Shuwen
Seventeen: Love that came suddenly
When morning came, my sixth sister (because the second sister was the sixth eldest in the family, so the "sixth sister" in the book) woke up feeling more relaxed than ever, she put her hands out of the bed, moved a few times in front of her head, and then lay quietly looking at the morning light coming through the window, a strange feeling warmed her, a feeling that had never been experienced before. Knowing that there was a person in the world who cared for her, who cared for her, whose heart was like a flower blowing in the spring breeze—being cared for by a boy she had never known could bring such a wonderful feeling. It is completely different from the love of a mother, the love of a brother and sister. Before that, she didn't know anything about him, but once she knew about their relationship, my sixth sister felt that this boy was no stranger. He was hiding in a place she didn't know, and now he had suddenly fallen from the sky, in fact, he and she had long been connected by something.
Hearing her mother's footsteps, she slowly sat up from the bed. The mother pushed open the door and walked to her bed, looking at her lazy and weak appearance, the mother looked at her face uneasily, Liu'er, what do you think today? My sixth sister said delicately, Mom, give people a bag of mulberry paper. Mother said in surprise, how are you? Who knows if it's good or not, it's coming again anyway. Mother said happily that there were still two doses of medicine that she had not taken!
Big Brother Shuxun
Seventeen years old: The cowardice of the first time
The main town on the Pinghan Line is a soot-laden station that greets guests from afar with loud noises, chaotic figures and streets with sewage. Although he was with three traveling companions, asking for directions and finding a shop, my eldest brother, a teenager who had just left the house, still felt his own innocence and delicacy, and the city hidden in the night made him unable to see through its face, and he followed others like a timid child, not as relaxed as walking on the familiar road in his hometown.
He didn't know exactly how many people had gathered in this noisy place, and as he walked along, almost all the inns were full. Fang Xianggong said a lot of good things to the innkeeper, and they were placed under the eaves of a small building. In the dimly lit shophouse, he understood that the inn was almost occupied by officers stationed on the Pinghan Line and rich people who had escaped from their hometown. The guys in the shop made floors for them in the upstairs hallway, and the four of them slept on two proposals. Fang Xianggong carefully placed the precious tobacco leaves he had carried for more than three hundred miles in front of the head of the bunk, so as not to be kicked by people walking through the corridors. If it were not for the war, this young man who had come out of the small county town would never have had the honor of living on the same building as the battalion commander and company commander who carried the box gun in his waist, and was separated from them by only a wall. The fatigue along the way was disturbed by the drinking orders and the sound of men and women laughing from the other side of the wall, this middle school student who had never seen the world for the first time in his life heard officers and prostitutes flirting, he was surprised to find that those scary swear words could be easily used by some men and women, only couples could whisper things in the dark night, once they were spoken out loud by many men and women, there was no shame to answer. Like the scene of hearing the roar of the train that will never be forgotten, the little song sung by an officer is deeply imprinted in his memory, and decades later he can still clearly remember: "Playing tooth cards, playing tooth cards, heaven cards, earth cards... I held the man's card in my arms. When he was about to fall asleep, "Wow-- " The mahjong card suddenly fell down, a noise rose up, and the shuffling sound of the cards resounded not far above his head, "Ma La..." Fang Xianggong whispered a scolding, tang Huisheng and Ma Yaohua also turned their bodies, and a muttering sound was emitted from their mouths. Ma Yaohua simply sat up and smoked, and the flame of the cigarette butt lit up in the shadows, illuminating the strange sneer floating on his cheek.
The second brother is a book
Seventeen: Light rain on the way to school
"Walk and repeat, and separate from Junsheng." More than 10,000 miles apart, each in the sky. "When I read this ancient poem in my high school textbook, the scene of the second brother quitting his family and traveling away appeared in front of my eyes, arousing my deep thoughts about him. At that time, I understood that in fact, the two ambiguities and my feelings were very deep. The day he left home, it was raining lightly, and the river was flooded. The second brother boarded a wooden boat on the ferry and left the dock in the yellow water. The county seat, which sits on a high shore, gradually turns into a pile of blurred shadows in his vision. He crossed the Shuangfeng Mountain along the muddy road, walked one hundred and ten miles of sandy dirt road in the drizzle, and gathered with more than twenty new classmates in Nanyang, took an open-top truck, and went to an unfamiliar ancient city thousands of miles away to study. When I returned to my hometown from college and stood in front of the graves of my father and eldest sister to hang on to my relatives, I silently recited the ancient poem: "The day of separation is far away, and the day of the clothes and belts has eased." Floating clouds cover the day, and the wanderer does not care to return. "When will we see the second brother again in the land of my hometown?"
The third brother Shuqing
Seventeen: Departure and farewell
My love affair with Xie Minzhi is not a comedy, nor is it a tragedy. The end of the book is not the end of my story with her.
At the Nanyang bus station at dusk, I took my own luggage—a bag, wrapped in a change of clothes; a mesh bag, containing books, an enamel teapot, and two steamed buns. After most of the bumps in the day, I threw up a few times on the road, and when I got out of the car, I felt very weak. My sister had moved out of the city, and I was walking alone in a strange downtown, not wanting to eat or find a hostel. In order to make sure I could buy a ticket to Xuchang early tomorrow morning, I decided to spend the night in the waiting room. There were a lot of people in the waiting room, and they would keep me from feeling lonely.
Renting a mat from the old lady who sold tea, I settled myself closer to the ticket window and sat down against the wall to rest. I put my hands on my knees and aimlessly looked at the people coming in and out.
Xie Minzhi appeared at the door, where she stood hesitantly and looked into the waiting room. There were many mats on the floor, and her gaze swept over the faces of those who were sitting, standing, and walking. Finally, we saw each other.
I stood up. She straddled the bags and parcels on the ground. I held out both hands, and she held out both of them. We stood there holding hands face to face.
I came here to find my aunt. She said she was at the Flower Gauze Company, and I came yesterday.
So you're at the station...
I know you're leaving, qian xiu said to me.
I was a little moved. I said I had just arrived and I hadn't eaten yet.
Let's go eat the noodles, the noodles in the restaurant opposite are delicious.
We went to eat two bowls of noodles together. She said her uncle had just sent her fifteen dollars and asked me not to argue with him. I obediently sat there and asked her to pay.
I dropped the mat in the waiting room and found a hotel opposite the station. In fact, I didn't have to worry about the ticket at all, the hotel handled the ticket, and was responsible for waking up on time the next morning.
We said many, many things.
I shouldn't have packed those poems in my bag, and I shouldn't have told Qian Xiu the meaning of those few poems. She said stroking my cheek.
Since I wrote poetry under her name, shouldn't she show off to her girlfriend? Even I couldn't help but say those few poems to Feng Yaoshan.
She didn't spend the night at the hotel. She said it was not early, it was time for me to leave, and the door to my aunt's place should be locked.
We hugged each other and she stood in my arms for a long time.
Excerpts completed
Everyone starts their own journey at the age of seventeen
Step into the depths of the years
What were you doing when you were seventeen? At the end of the article, the two readers who have received the highest number of likes will receive "Seventeen Years Old" from Huacheng Publishing House as of 24:00 on May 5! Come and leave a message~
Image credit: pexel
Editor: Li Jiaping
Review: Du Xiaoye
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