Fleeting life's nonsense

Author: Hu Xudong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: The unrestrained "Hu's Nonsense," profound humanistic heritage, vibrant sense of humor, focus on the underprivileged, uniquely styled "scholarly absurdity," the "local boy" life and alternative observations of a Peking University scholar. A man of character writes characterful words. — Xu Xing
Poet Hu Xudong often calls himself a "basket of nonsense." In an era where language serves only function, poetry is indeed "nonsense," and the "nonsense" outside poetry is undoubtedly a marvelous basket of nonsense. — Zhai Yongming
Hu Xudong's writing stands out among the mediocre columns and garners widespread popularity—I once suspended his column for three months and received widespread criticism—but there is good reason for it. In a nutshell, it is because of his extraordinary insight. — Wang Xiaoshan
I'm not Hu Gua, nor am I Dong Gua; at least, I haven't tried to be. One day, I happened to see Hu Xudong's column in a copy of World Expo, and out of boredom, I came across his work. Jealousy surged within me—Who is this guy? Then, in a mix of curiosity and discomfort, I scoured through all issues of World Expo that contained his work and read them avidly under the bright but dusty sunlight streaming into my dormitory window, my mind filled with a whirlwind of bizarre thoughts. I felt like I was doomed, completely captivated. — A Xiao Fei (from Baidu's Hu Xudong)
Head Mod of Hu Xudong's Baidu: Please don't call me "teacher." The peach blossoms by the lake in my famous university are in full bloom these days, so the fee for entering the campus has been changed from a one-time fee of one yuan to an hourly rate of one yuan. It is rumored that the ostensible purpose is to alleviate traffic pressure caused by people sightseeing in the campus, but from another perspective, we can also view it as an advanced "peach blossom tax" with a touch of market spirit. In the face of such a brilliant "peach blossom tax," a small group of car owners are scratching their heads in frustration, while the foot-powered class like me are beaming with joy. To uphold the great banner of walking, promote the economic advantages of walking, and to make up for the long time I haven't been wandering around campus, I decided to go on a "peach blossom" spree with my wife. Just as we were being charmed by the peach blossoms, a proud and confident girl suddenly walked up to us on a quiet path behind a teaching building. About one meter away from my wife and me, she shouted, "Teacher, hello!" The effect was like "listening to thunder in the silence," shaking both me and my newly recovered hearing wife to their cores. Trembling, I asked, "Student, how can I help you?"
The proud girl laughed loudly, "Teacher, didn't you recognize me? I'm one of your students this semester!"
Alas, it is good that students respect teachers, but scaring both the teacher and his wife on a night of blooming romance made me long to bow from general to slave and become a bad student. Nearly three years into teaching, I still haven't adapted to the role shift from student to teacher. A simple reason is that students are usually in the shadows, while teachers are in the spotlight. As the saying goes, it's easy to dodge a direct shot but hard to guard against hidden arrows. The criticism and education arrows teachers wield often fall into an "empty formation," lacking a specific target, while students' arrows—whether complaints, respect, gossip, or Cupid's little flower arrows—hit their mark every time, leaving teachers covered in "happy scales."
I still remember an incident from my first year of teaching. One day, I bought a yogurt at a campus shop and finished it outside the door. Following my twisted habit from student days, I carelessly threw the empty yogurt carton into a bicycle basket by the roadside. Just as I tossed the carton, I heard a crisp and sweet voice beside me, "Teacher Hu, hello!" From that day on, I've been afraid of being called "teacher." Fortunately, I don't look that old, and many of the aunts in our office still call me "that student," "Help me move that box, what are you standing there for? It's for you!" I don't mind at all. Every time I hear strangers on campus call me "student," I feel overjoyed, as if a bad egg who escaped the sharp eyes of the masses has once again slipped into the ranks of the revolution.
No need to mention the past when one's waist is no longer slender
One morning, as I was getting dressed, I suddenly let out a heart-wrenching scream, scaring my wife, who was still in a deep sleep, half to death. She thought I had woken up to find a missing body part. When I explained why I screamed, she laughed so hard she nearly fainted.
Why did I scream in the morning? It was because of my fat stomach! My stomach, which had always been modest for thirty-one years, had now shamelessly asserted its status as a stomach. The direct consequence of the stomach's rampant growth was a thicker waist. That morning, I despaired to find that almost all the pants in my wardrobe were too tight to wear. The pants that used to be tight when I cinched the belt to the last notch now barely buttoned! I couldn't accept this painful reality and leaned against the bed, reminiscing about my once slender waist.
For years, I prided myself on being thin. As a man who always weighed around 100 jin and swayed gently, I had become so immersed in the word "thin" that I took pride in it, not feeling ashamed but rather honored. I often boasted of being one of the "Top Ten Skinny Stars of China's Literary Circle" and a "landmark-style thin reed in Haidian District."
What made me proud was that since puberty, my waist had never exceeded one foot nine. No matter how much I indulged in food, I naturally maintained my minimalist-style, "clear water reveals the reed, nature removes the ornamentation" waistline. This made many people, whose rhetorical style for the waist often involved repetition, parallelism, exaggeration, and eloquence, covet my figure and harbor thoughts of "killing the waist."
But all that is past. From now on, must I bid farewell to the ranks of the thin with a sense of tragedy and become a male fatso I've despised since childhood? Reflecting on the reasons for my weight gain, of course, it was still the maniacal family cooking campaign after marriage. I was always good at cooking, and my wife is a cooking maniac. Now, in the circle of aging artistic youth in Beijing, it's rare to see a scene like ours, where both husband and wife compete to cook at every meal, determined not to stop until they've loosened their belts and undone their belts.
They say there are two vulgar customs for newlyweds: women getting their hair straightened and men getting a haircut. On the day of our wedding, my wife couldn't resist the sales pitch of a barber and got her hair straightened. Since then, I've been worried that the second custom might fall upon me. And indeed, a round belly that seemed to scream "I got a haircut!" in bold letters finally declared the complete fulfillment of the "two vulgar customs of newlyweds."
Of course, if I could truly join the ranks of the fat, that would be fine. What's is if my belly grows while my limbs remain as slender as ever. If that happens, I'll simply weep farewell to my wife, leave my homeland, and go into hiding in Uganda as a refugee with an extremely standard physique.
P34-36