Chapter 207 bridge

The plane gradually flew into the clouds, and when I looked down, I couldn't even see the neat green fields of the motherland and the winding and twinkling rivers. Linda suddenly felt that at this time, she seemed to be in many places. I said in a short poem I wrote years ago: Hate lies in the fact that I can't touch the sky with my hands and don't often step on the ground. In the past three weeks, the life I lived at my aunt's house made her much more lively, more comfortable, and more at ease. A lot, generally speaking, it's like a small fish in a fish tank suddenly returned to the clear stream!

She had been away from the motherland for forty years. At that time, she was only ten years old. She first went to Taiwan with her parents, and then to the United States.She received higher education in the United States, married a Chinese who grew up in the Philippines - Liu Dawei, and gave birth to a daughter - Anna. Dawei is a professor of economics in a university, and his daughter is also well educated.She tries to speak "Mandarin" at home, and also teaches her daughter some classical Chinese poetry. It can be said that she is a very happy Chinese-American family.But since her mother passed away seven years ago, she felt like a lonely boat floating on the ocean, reaching nowhere.It is the gentle and quiet mother who loves literature that makes her deeply immersed in the spiritual environment of the beautiful literature of the motherland.Thirty-six years ago, her parents, her aunt and aunt were both teaching in Taiwan. They also received a letter of employment from an American university. The aunt and aunt returned to the motherland resolutely. Her father finally chose the road to the United States!The mother who does not speak English often feels infinitely lonely in a foreign country, and she is not used to playing bridge and mahjong with those Chinese wives living in the United States, and she is not used to talking endlessly with them about the family's shortcomings. Yu, just picked up Chinese poems and novels to chant and recite.At this time, Linda was close to her mother, listening to her reciting, listening to her describe and miss the old capital of the motherland and the scenery of the south of the Yangtze River.She felt that her mother was an abstract motherland in her heart!Her mother also encouraged her to write poems, and copied her poems neatly into a small book.

My mother died, and the news about the motherland that my father got from Taiwan all said that under the tyrannical power of the CCP, all industries withered and the people were in dire straits.When Linda thinks of the motherland that her mother loves and misses, she always recalls the words in the old poems: Last night, in the east wind, I bear to look back at the moonlight, and the homeland is desolate here; Every day she is sad, she is depressed, and she also feels that in a certain aspect of her personality, except for her mother who cannot speak English, no one has a common language with her in the bottom of her heart.She can only write the words accumulated in her heart into short poems one by one to commemorate the dead, the past years, and the past dreams.

In the early 1980s, Dawei and Anna joined a tour group to China during the summer vacation. Linda dared not go with them because she was afraid of seeing the ruined motherland.When Dawei and his daughter came back, she couldn't wait to ask them how they felt.Dawei said that the mainland is not as terrible and pitiful as Taiwan said.He went to the hometown of his parents, which he had never been to—Meixian, Guangdong. The farmers were very rich, and many families built three-story buildings.There are no beggars anywhere in the mainland, and the people coming and going on the streets are all neatly dressed, working in a hurry and happily.Anna also said that the mainland is beautiful, the palaces in Beijing are so majestic, and the mountains and rivers in Guilin are so beautiful, all of which are not found in the United States.But Linda felt that when they talked about China, they kept talking about "mainland, mainland", which lacked a sense of intimacy.In Anna's eyes, the Great Wall of China and the Colosseum in Rome are equally old and majestic, and the Temple of Heaven in Beijing is as majestic and tall as the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Linda felt a little lost when she was so depressed, so attached, and had such a "my own country" expression.

But Dawei and Anna brought a short note written by their aunt on antique letterhead with a brush: Dear Linda: I was so happy to see Dawei and Anna that I didn't know what to say!Anna really looks like you, but more lively than you when you were young.Why don't you come with them this time?You must come to visit relatives next year and stay here with me. Both your uncle and I miss you very much.My Aunt Who Loves You Today, when Dawei and Anna were visiting a university campus, they inadvertently asked the names of two old professors—they thought the two professors had passed away during ten years of turmoil—by accident I heard that these two old people are still alive. Although they have retired, they still live on campus. Anna said that when they visited, the two old people were very happy and entertained them with Beijing cakes. The two had to go to the Beijing Opera, so they couldn't stay for dinner.Seeing that the elderly are healthy and live comfortably, the house is full of bookshelves and the yard is full of flowers!

So, this summer Linda came back to China for three weeks of happy family leave. My aunt has no children, but the house is very lively, and there are always people visiting, either their students or their students' students.The guests called their aunt Lu Lao and their aunt Geng Lao.Facing guests, my aunt always put her arms around her shoulders, and introduced to her students affectionately: "This is Lu Linda, my niece, who came back from the United States to visit us." Therefore, these middle-aged and young people are very enthusiastic. He came over to talk to her and praised her for speaking Mandarin well, unlike someone who has lived in a foreign country for a long time.My aunt also asked her students to take her to see some new things, saying: "You will definitely come back often. The places of interest are always there, but they will be repaired more completely and beautifully every year. Let's go and see some of them." The new factories, villages, and individual professional households can be compared to the continuous development and progress of the motherland." So when Linda visited with them, she always wrote down some notes carefully, and at the same time she also asked some questions carefully. She thinks it is impossible to ask questions, such as: During the ten years of turmoil, have her aunt and aunt been tortured, and will the "Cultural Revolution" come back again?

She was surprised to find that the people who answered these questions were very natural, optimistic and frank.They said that her aunt and uncle, like other old intellectuals, were criticized, lived in a cowshed, and left a cadre school, but they have always been calm and optimistic, thinking that all this violates the normal human nature and physics. The party and the people will not tolerate such a thing, and it will inevitably be eliminated soon, so they survived like this.As for the "Cultural Revolution", they believe that it will never be repeated, because the "Cultural Revolution" suffered by the Chinese people is too heavy and deep. They are spreading their wings and taking off, and they will never let this monster bind their wings again.These conversations and excursions with young people made her know and love her motherland better.But she thought that the most enjoyable time was the time of chatting with her aunt and aunt at home.My aunt often mentioned that it was she who led the bond between my mother and my father.Because she and her mother are the most intimate classmates.Talking about her mother's loneliness and depression in the United States, my aunt became a little excited and said, "It would be nice if you would go back to China with us, your father is too..." At this time, my aunt gently patted the back of my aunt's hand , smiled and said: "It's a thing of the past, what are you talking about?

Linlin, where are you going to play today? "When talking about these old things, it was mostly in the morning, and everyone ate breakfast: bread, eggs, porridge, and pickles, and it took more than half an hour to eat. Compared with Linda herself who drank a cup of coffee in a hurry at home in the United States, it was just a matter of time. It’s much more leisurely to drive on the highway to catch the morning shift in the library. At night, the old aunt of my aunt’s family will cook all kinds of delicious dishes for her that she can never eat abroad. When there are no guests , my aunt talked to her many stories about her childhood, and then put her on the bed, covered her with a towel, kissed her on the face, and gently closed the door to go out. At this time, she always thought of her mother and thought:

Who said that the heart of an inch of grass will repay the three springs? I think of the last stanza of the short poem "Waiting and Hope" I once wrote. A hand on her shoulder woke her up from her contemplation. When she opened her eyes, it turned out to be a middle-aged woman with yellow hair and blue eyes. She smiled and said, "Mrs. Liu, you also traveled to China. !” This familiar woman probably often came to the library to look for Chinese materials, but she couldn’t remember her name, so Linda also smiled and said: "I'm here to visit relatives, how are you doing in China?" At this time, this "what lady" had already turned back to talk to others.

The plane got out of the clouds again at some point, and when looking down, it was the sparkling blue sea, the Pacific Ocean separating China and the United States, right?The "Mrs. Liu" just now called her back to the other side of the Pacific Ocean, her "home" where she had lived for thirty years! Linda held the lukewarm handkerchief soaked in the tears shed when she left her aunt two hours ago, and the strong aunt actually cried without saying a word.On the contrary, my uncle held her hand tightly and said, "You are not a marginal person out of reach at both ends, you are a bridge, and the feet of the bridge at both ends are on very solid ground. You have to let the people on both sides of the bridge, constantly On this bridge, the culture and feelings of the two countries are exchanged..." These few words rang like bells in Linda's ears!

Linda suddenly stopped being sad. She stretched her clothes, sat up straight with her chest out, "I am a bridge!" she said to herself in a low voice. September 16, 1984