Wildflowers in youth

Author: Liu Nien Nien, edited by Chen Ping
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-11-01
Features: The term "80s writers" refers to a group of young writers born after 1980. Han Han, Guo Jingming, Zhang Yuexuan, Ma Ning, Li Shasai, Jiang Feng—these are a string of dazzling names of talented youth. The New Concept Composition Competition, initiated and organized by the Menghua magazine, aims to encourage more young people to engage in independent creation using their own language and way of thinking. A large number of currently so-called "idol-style" 80s writers, such as Han Han, Guo Jingming, Zhang Yuexuan, and Li Shasai, all emerged from the New Concept Composition Competition. This series of books collects the works of past winners, including a wealth of novels, essays, and miscellaneous writings, most of which are newly written and exclusively selected for this publication. During the publishing process, it received comments and recommendations from renowned writers such as Zhou Guoping, Yu Jie, and a group of Peking University professors. It is both a literary creation series and a record of youthful stories.
The wildflowers of youth, like the gentle breeze of March, have swept through memories once sweet and intoxicating.
——Preface
The winter in Beijing is dry and cold, and I walk alone in the campus of Communication University of China, clad in a long coat that seems somewhat inadequate for the weather. The campus of Communication University is very small, and I say this perhaps to disappoint countless children who have long yearned for and become obsessed with it. Yet, it is indeed so. The small campus is divided into two courtyards, north and south, and it takes about 20 minutes to walk at a steady pace. The buildings are very old; the broadcasting building, famous nationwide, has only two floors and is painted in a drab gray. Many joke that it "looks less impressive than a public toilet." But to our photography alumni, this campus has a certain charm. The artistic atmosphere is so dense that it seems about to explode rather than just overflow. This is my university, this is my life.
In senior high school or even earlier, I began to imagine my future university in my heart. It should have a spacious campus, sprawling lawns, pretty girls, and white-haired professors. It should have an impossibly deep library, boys riding bicycles with girls, and romantic, hazy love stories... But here, none of these things exist. Here, there are only many beautiful and dazzling girls and handsome boys, yet the stories between them are neither romantic nor hazy. They fall in love at the speed of light and break up at the same speed. Their love is simple and direct, their affairs clear yet mundane. I often stand before them, asking myself, what have I truly wanted all this time?
I love the wind of Beijing. It is the only thing from which I can sense the majesty of the city. The wind of Beijing is cold, harsh, and rough. On windy days, I love to wear skirts with flares like lotus flowers, letting the hem flutter in the breeze. Those skirts have lovely patterns and shapes. One of them, in a wine-red hue with ambiguous, mottled flowers, is my favorite. To this day, I cannot explain why I have such a strong obsession with skirts. I remember in high school, one winter, I bought a light pink skirt with a bow and wore it to school. As a result, my homeroom teacher scolded me, calling it "odd attire." At the time, filled with extreme grievances, I thought, "I must study hard to get into university so that I can wear the beautiful skirts I love whenever I please." But now that I have indeed entered a great university and can wear skirts freely according to my preference, why do I no longer feel as happy as I did in high school when I wore them?
High school life was very monotonous. The high school I attended was the best in our city, a key provincial school. The children in the key provincial school were obedient and resilient, silently enduring the monotonous and tedious days. We had no spring outings, no movie nights, no relaxation. Many girls cut off their long hair after years of growth to save time. The boys gave up the football they loved. We did countless mock exams, expending our mental energy, sincerely hoping for a bright future. I remember a girl in my class who always took meticulous notes of what the teachers said in class, diligently completing every set of assignments, yet never scored well on exams. I remember how many times she cried after receiving her mock exam results, asking why her efforts were not rewarded. She made me understand that the world is not entirely fair. So sometimes, I feel we are quite pitiful. But whenever I recall those years, I realize they were the best three years of my life.
Sometimes, I the carefully preserved English notes from my high school days, so detailed and clear that they could be published. I smile—they bear witness to a period of my hard work. And there are those exam papers with varying scores. Among them, there was a political exam paper with a score of 60. I remember the shock and panic I felt when I received it. But soon after, when I learned that my score still ranked in the top three in the entire grade, I began to laugh and cry at the same time—our school often organized very difficult exams, with papers so hard that we often jokingly said, "We are easily discouraged." Those were such vivid and lively years.
Xiao Ke called me, greeting me in Russian. While laughing, I felt a touch of sadness—this boy who aspired to study law had finally bowed to the pressures of the college entrance exam and enrolled in the Russian department, a field he had never considered before. Like me, I had always dreamed of studying Chinese at a southern university. The distance between dreams and reality is truly vast, and how many can resist the face of reality?
Xiao Ke was my classmate in junior high and a very close friend. Back then, he was one of my main rivals in academics. In our second year of junior high, we went to the suburbs to watch a meteor shower. Xiao Ke said it was the most beautiful memory of his middle school years. Years later, when I asked him what he wished for as the meteors streaked across the sky, he hesitated for a long time before earnestly telling me, "May every friend around me be happy, safe, and never part." "May we never part." This was also my hope. But the reality is— I am in Beijing, Xiao Ke is in Kaifeng, Apple is in Hohhot, Fei is in Changsha, and Crazy is in Wuhan. Five points so far apart on the map.
In middle school, we learned many Tang poems in school, such as "Human life is rarely met, like the stars Orion and Canopus." Back then, we laughed at those old Tang scholars for being overly sentimental. Now, however, I fear reading such lines. Sometimes, holding the microphone, I suddenly fall into silence. The friend on the other end of the phone asks, "Why aren't you speaking?" I always say, "I don't know what to say." Really, I really don't know how to organize my words to say what I most want to say to them in such a short time.
The last summer vacation of high school was exceptionally hot. The wisteria in the campus bloomed more vibrantly than ever. Xiao Ke and I often bought ice cream and ate it under the wisteria. I have forgotten the brand of the ice cream now, but I remember it was chocolate, crispy and sweet, a popular choice among students. We liked to bet on it, with the loser treating the winner to another. That was one of the small joys we still had in our senior year of high school. Another joy was folding countless paper planes in class and throwing them back and forth, each with warm or humorous words written on the wings. I was often the target because I sat in the middle of the classroom. There was a plane with one broken wing, and I still remember the words on the remaining wing: "No matter how far the distance, no matter how long the road, I will walk with you through thick and thin." It was unsigned, but it moved me deeply.
On my first Christmas in college, I stayed in my dorm room all day. They said Wangfujing had artificial snow, and there were fireworks being set off in many places. I immediately thought of the Spring Festival of 2003, when my small town set off brilliant fireworks. Xiao Ke and I went to watch them. Xiao Ke pushed his rusty bicycle, gazing at the sky while describing his vision for the next ten years. That night, the night breeze was cool and peaceful, and the fireworks in the city sky bloomed one after another, merging into a somewhat bloody hue. My MP3 played Wang Fei's "Flowing Years" repeatedly: "To witness a fireworks display, with the cycle of time." At that moment, I really wanted to ask Xiao Ke what a cycle of time looked like, but I never did. I think I will always remember that night—the sky, the fireworks, Xiao Ke's clear eyes, the warm people around me, and the little happiness beside me. It was endless nostalgia, the warmth of time deep within, the blossoms in the corner of memory, the indescribable attachment.
I love the lyrics from "B Minor After the Rain": "An old tree under the west wind, a house by the pond, scattered wildflowers." I think my memories, my loves, my nostalgia are like those scattered wildflowers by the pond, silently swept away by the flow of time. And that clear stream—I don’t think I will deliberately reach out to scoop it. Perhaps the place it flows to holds more beautiful treasures for me.