1911: Alone and a pair

Bamboo Study by Wang Wei

Alone sitting amidst the quiet bamboo,
Playing the harp, with a long song,
Deep in the woods, nobody knows,
The moonlight comes, shine on each other. 


1911 - age 10 (cont.)

On certain dates, we wrote essays. Our teacher gave us a subject and everyone needed to write a composition and give it to the teacher to correct and edit. On other dates, we learned to write poems. In the beginning, we wrote Five Character Lines then gradually advanced to Seven Character Lines, then more and more. There are given names to every level of certain periods of our studies.

Our teacher's name was Zhang Cuenxin. He retire because he was getting old and his strength lessened. After he retired, the parents held a conference and asked Zhang Wusen to be the teacher. 

During a school break, I went to Jioujiang to visit my grandmother. On the way back, I passed a street called Foreign Street. In 1858, the Chinese and English warring parties formed a treaty, and Jioujiang became a port open to foreigners. Because it was a commercial port, foreigners could come and built streets and buildings. Jioujiang become quite modernized. There I saw a foreign woman riding a bicycle very fast. I was very puzzled because it only had two wheels: how could she balance without falling down? I thought, one of these days, if I can ride something like that, it would be so great. I didn't understand the principle of balance, there's no support. 

1912 - age 11

Our new teacher Zhang was from a place very close to where I was born. He was young and talented. He interpreted all the Classics, poetry or literature, very well. He corrected our essays and inspired us to learn and develop. Once in a while, we wrote some good articles, and teacher Zhang would share them with the neighborhood for people to read and recite. Because of the recitation of the students' articles, the school became well known among the community. 

In those times, when there were learned people in the community, they have some money at home and they have upright character and are highly respected by the community. When people had fights or quarrels, they would come to the learned people for judgment. There was a man called Wei Guojun and another man, Mr Dan. These two were important people in our village. One day, each man was riding a beautiful horse, they came to inspect our school and our writing. They tested us with questions, to write parallelisms. We did very well, so our school became even more popular. The good name spread afar. Because of our reputation, lots of the neighboring counties sent kids to our school. One regretful incident, that winter, teacher Zhang had to leave. Our parents couldn't find someone to take his place. Then our school declined in prominence. 

In my family, my great-grandfather, Cijue, had three sons: Guangzhu, Guanglian, and Guangliang; my grandfather had three sons: Daxian, Dachien, Darong; in the Wen generation there were three sons: Wensuen, Wenhuan, Wenwei (myself). In April of that year, my brother was born, called Ciling, named Wenyin. He was called Ci for forth month (April) and ling means forest and is written with two tree characters together, as his fortune was lacking wood. This broke the record of one son per man, and everyone celebrated that Darong had two sons.