Zhang Xianliang Reads: Adolescence

Author: Zhang Xianliang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: When it comes to Zhang Xianliang, those who are somewhat familiar with Chinese literature would not be strangers to him. In the 1980s, this unconventional writer published works such as Spirit and Flesh, Greening Trees, and Half a Man Is a Woman, which stirred great waves in the reading of the Chinese people with their heartwarming stories full of humanity and sharp thoughts. After the 1990s, during the wave of "intellectuals going into business," Zhang Xianliang founded a film and television entertainment city in Ningxia, known for "selling desolation," becoming a unique sight in the literary world today. Today, Zhang Xianliang has combined the dual identities of a writer and an entrepreneur. This book selects five of his best works, allowing you to experience the extraordinary charm of this "writer and entrepreneur" type of literary figure.
By the early 1980s, I had already lived for over fifty years and only then did I learn about the term "adolescence." In the past, I knew there was a word called "youth," but when I first read it, I was just six years old and didn’t understand what it meant. My first teacher was an old scholar from the rural areas of Nan’an, Chongqing, but he was not originally from Chongqing. My mother said he was like us, having "fled" from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions to the "capital city" during difficult times, and was locally referred to as a "lower river person." Now, when I think of him, I can’t help but admire the ability of comic book artists and film makeup artists to recreate historical appearances. In modern depictions, whenever a past private tutor appears, he looks very much like my first teacher, including that classical melon-seed hat, making me always unable to forget his appearance. He only taught a few young men from my family, and classes began with Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty, unlike most private tutors who used A Thousand Characters, Hundred Family Surnames, and Essentials for the Young as teaching materials. It seemed he really liked Du Fu’s poems, and the first poem I learned was Viewing Mount Tai: "How high is Mount Tai, the peak stretching beyond Qi and Lu?" I recognized the rare character "Tai," which took me a long time to find elsewhere. Once, when he read the lines "Suddenly, news came from outside the sword region that Jibei had been recovered. Upon hearing this, tears filled my clothes. I looked at my wife and children, wondering where their worries had gone. I rolled up my poetry books with joy. Let’s sing and drink in the daytime; with youth as companions, let’s return home. From the Bajiaxia Gorge, we pass through the Wu Gorge, then head down to Xiangyang toward Luoyang," he suddenly covered his face with the book and cried uncontrollably, truly "tears soaking my clothes." His nose was rubbing loudly, and anyone hearing such a sound would be amazed at how large his nostrils must be. He cried so hard that his entire body trembled, especially his white beard under his chin, which shook even more violently. Tears and snot dripped onto the desk. Seeing an adult, a teacher we always feared, crying like us, the group of six- or seven-year-old children burst into laughter, screaming wildly. From then on, we no longer feared him.