Life strolling

Author: Liu Hua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Let's set this aside for now and get back to the usual chit-chat. During our conversation, I noticed the old man looked a bit unusual, as if he had something on his mind. I changed the topic and waited for him to speak. The old man couldn’t hold back any longer. He cleared his throat and said, “May I ask you something?” I encouraged him, “Go ahead.” “Now that you’re a celebrity, everyone says you have talent. We grew up in the same village in Jianhu back home, and then we became neighbors when we moved to Sheyang. I’ve been watching you grow up. To be honest, I didn’t see anything special about you when you were a child. But over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about it, and if I have to say something, it’s that you’re a bit eccentric. Don’t get angry if I say this.” “I won’t be angry. Please continue. What do you find strange about me?” “For example,” the old man said, “When school was out for summer vacation, the teachers and students had all gone home, but you’d sneak into the classroom every day through the window with a book.” I explained, “It’s nothing unusual. You see, my house is small, and there’s no quiet place to read. When school was closed, the classrooms were empty, so it was the perfect study for me.” The old man seemed skeptical and said to his granddaughter, “You remember this.” After a moment, the old man asked again, “You always go to the same barber shop for your haircuts—the one east of the old bank, just past the corner. Once, when the shopkeeper, San San, offered to give you a free haircut, you sat down, put on your scarf, and then suddenly stood up and went to that shop anyway. Some say you were obsessed with the female barber there, while others say you’re crazy.” “Really? You have a good memory.” I admitted that what the old man said was true, but I never imagined the world would think that way. “It’s easy to see through,” I told the old man, “The walls and ceiling of that shop were covered with dozens of reproductions of Western masterpieces—by da Vinci, Rembrandt, Goya, and others. They were the only ones like them in the town, and nowhere else had them. So I used to take the opportunity of getting a haircut to go there and admire them.” The old man thought for a moment, turned to his granddaughter, and asked if she understood. Getting a positive answer, he hesitated for a moment, lowered his voice, and asked in a mysterious tone, “There’s one more thing I’d like to understand today. One evening, you tied a bundle of things to a brick and threw it into the middle of the west river, then bowed to it and walked away. To be honest, I noticed this too. I was curious, so that night I went down to the river and fished it out. I thought it might be a deed or some important document, but it turned out to be a roll of ink paintings, completely ruined by the water. Why did you bury it at the bottom of the river?” “You want to know the story?” I laughed, laughing at the old man’s mystery and also at my own solemn and eccentric behavior at the time. I revealed the secret to the old man: “That was a series of comic strips I created, also my final work. I used to be passionate about painting and had all sorts of wonderful dreams. But later, I realized I wouldn’t go far in art, so I decided to switch to writing. You ask about the difference between painting and writing? The main thing, I believe, is that painting requires guidance from a master, and I didn’t have one around me. Writing, on the other hand, doesn’t lack mentors—every piece of writing in the world is a teacher for you. Once I made up my mind,