城南旧事插图集Illustration of the Story:

Memories of Peking-South Side Stories

Music: Dreaming of my mother and home (J.D. Ordway)Lyric rewritten in Chinese

作者：林海音插图：关维兴

Written by Lin HaiyinIllustrated by Guan Weixing

Memories of Peking (Chengnan Jiushi, 城南舊事 ) is an autobiographical novel by Lin

Haiyin, first published in 1960.Written in lively, evocative prose from the

point of view of a precocious and impressionable young girl, the work records Lin's childhood memories of the city and the

everyday people around her.The novel consists of six short stories:

Winter Sun, Childhood Years, Camel Caravan, Hui-an Hostel, Let us go and see the sea, Lan Yi Niang, Donkey rolls’ and Papa’s Flowers Have Fallen -And I Was No Longer a Child.

Winter Sun, Childhood Years and the Camel Caravan

The camel caravan came, stopping outside our front gate. I stood right in front of the camels, watching them munch straw.

Papa was bargaining with him. Over the twin humps of each camel were two sacks of coal. The herdsmen were unloading the coal.

Summer came and not even a shadow of a camel could be seen. Summer had gone, autumn was over, winter had arrived and the camel caravan was back again; but childhood had passed away, never to return. But now I missed the people and places of those childhood years spent in the south side of the city of Peking! Thus I have written this collection, Memories of Peking: South Side Stories.

Hui-an Hostel

Hui-an HostelFrom the mind’s eye of a six year old, Xiu-zhen, the madwomen at Hui-an hostel, is a lovely person, worthy of pity. Ying-zi describes their first encounter, “Her eyes stared un-movingly at me as if searching for something in my face. Her face was pale, with a bluish tint, most probably chilled by the cold wind.” The confused Xiu-zhen mistakes Ying-zi for her illegitimate daughter forcibly taken away from her.

Xiu-zhen takes Ying-zi’s measurements, thinking she would make a new dress for

her daughter.

In Ying-zi's childish mind, Xiu-zhen is "playing house" with her.

Hui-an hostel had been built by the Hui-an Clansmen Association for young men from Hui-an to stay at when they are attending college in Peking. Xiu-zhen fell in love with one of the college student, who was a revolutionist and later left her. Her parents discovered that she was pregnant. The child was taken away and abandoned. Xiu-zhen thus lost her mind, known as a madwoman in the neighborhood. Only Ying-zi can enter her world and share her feelings about the loss of a lover and a child.Xiu-zhen and her lover

Ying-zi’s little playmate, Niu-er, is beaten up all the time and is eager t’ look for her real parents, since she was picked up by her adopted father.

Singing Peking opera at an open square, Niu-er earns money for her adopted father, a former Qing dynasty officer, who becomes poor and poorer after revolution.

Ying-zi told Niu-er she knows where her mother is. By the birth mark on Niu-erh’s neck Xiu-zhen realized that she is her daughter.

Knowing that her lover has been imprisoned and might be released, Xiu-zhen set out by train to look for him with Niu-er.

The neighbors all said that the madwoman Xiu-zhen kinapped Niu-er

and alnost Ying-zi as well. However Ying-zi thinks she is the only one who

knows the truth.

Ying-zi’s family moves to another resident area installed with electric

utility afterwards.

Ying-zi is growing, she begins to imgine her future.

Let Us Go And See The Sea

Let us go and see the sea,Let us go and see the sea.The boats upon the blue seaRaise their white sail.

The golden-red sun rises up from the sea,Shining upon the prow and the sea.Let us go and see the sea,Let us go and see the sea.

Let Us Go And See The Sea

“Let Us Go and See the Sea” tells the story of a thief. Ying-zi comes across a stranger when she is playing and he becomes her secret friend.

He has a younger brother attending Ying-zi’s primary school who would graduate soon. He confides in her and says that to send his brother to school, he has to do a quite a few unacceptable things.

Ying-zi and her parents attend the graduation ceremony, her secret friend and his brother are also there.

Around this time people in the neighborhood often complain about the loss of clothes and other stuff. The culprit is apprehended at last and to her amazement it is her secret friend. What hurts her most is that she is the unknowing informant that led to his apprehension by the police.

Her mother tells her that the thief is a bad guy but Ying-zi refuses to accept this view; she has her own interpretation. She recalls teaching this stranger friend to recite a passage from her textbook, ‘Let us go and see the sea!...The golden-red sun rises up from the sky…’ Couldn’t I now say it falls from the sky or rises up in the sea. “Yes, one day I will write a book to distinguish the sea from the sky, to tell the difference between good people and bad people, between crazy people and thieves.

Lan yi-niang

The story describes how sensitive the eight year old Ying-zi is to man-and-woman relationship. Exceptionally precocious in this regard, she serves as a go-between for Lan Yi-niang and Uncle De-xian. Thus she also succeeds in preventing her parents’ potential martial crisis.

Lan Yi-niang is the ex-concubine of her father’s friend. Out of sympathy her father agrees to let her stay in the house.

Ying-zi’s father buy a bit of silk textiles for Lan-Yiniang despite her mother’s reluctance.

One day Ying-zi sees her father holding Lan-yiniang’s hand while she is serving Ying-zi’s father to smoke opium, Ying-zi realizes her father intends to cheat on her mother.

Uncle De-xianis is another person whom her father shelters. He is a revolutionary youth who came to hide from the political persecution. Little Ying-zi has a plan in her mind, She speaks well of Uncle De-xian in front of Lan-Yiniang, and tells Uncle De-xian that Lan Yi-niang likes him.

Ying-zi sets up opportunities for them to meet alone.

Finally thins develop as planned. Lan Yi-niang and Uncle De-xian take a trip away and never return again. None of the adults in the house knows that this was Ying-zi doing.

Donkey Rolls

“Donkey Rolls” tells the story of Ying-zi’s younger brother’s wet-nurse Song Ma who is helping the family to take care of children for four years. “Donkey Rolls” is the trade name

of a Peking traditional snack.

Song Ma is the wet-nurse of Ying-zi’s younger brother and younger sisters.

She help Ying-zi’s family to care care all the children.

Donkey rolls is one of the Ying-zi’s favorable snack.

Song Ma’s husband, who shows up to see his wife twice a year, always brings alone with him a donkey.

The donkey always rolls in Ying-zi’s house yard and tramples grass and flowers.

Song ma’s child had been given away by her good-for nothing husband. Little Ying-zi had searched for the child aimlessly with Song Ma.

Finally, Sung Ma rides back home on a donkey with her husband. This is the first time Ying-zi learns something about poverty; it can lead to family separation.

“Papa’s Flowers have Fallen” describes the time when the twelve year old Ying-zi, just graduating from primary school

with the diploma still in her hand, learns of her father’s death, she shows

a self-restraint that is more mature than her age. She says, “My skinny

sister is fighting with her younger sister over a toy; little brither is pouring sand into a bottle. Yes, among all of us, I am

a small-grown-up.” Through the experiences of the joy of life and the

sorrow of death and separation, Ying-zi bids farewell to her childhood.

爸爸的花儿落了Papa’s Flower Fallen

英子居住的四合院The quadrangle residence of Ying-zi’s family

Edited by zqPei

Author’s former residence?

Click Here to repeat