I grew up inland, where mountains held the horizon, and the city followed their curves.
A small Chinese city where the seasons arrived on time, each in its turn tending the land. Faithfully. Years came evenly, one after another.
The Qinling Mountains reach us.
The Dan River and Han River run along our edge too.
I climbed trees for mulberry leaves, feral and unthinking, not yet knowing I would soon be stilled by the translucent work of my silkworms.
In spring and autumn, we were taken out of classrooms to clear streams and endless fields, where we learned to strike fire.
Años más tarde, I understood that the noodles we boiled by the water, under open sky, were made of vitality and patience.
🌿
Preschool began when I was about four.
We were placed in a large lecture room, the kind used for public classes.
There was a projector.
Everything felt new, giant and almost magical.
Music drifted in from outside – the school band rehearsing.
The room was lively.
And I wanted to move.
I swung my legs, checking out if they could fit into the drawer beneath the desk in front of me.
I slid my legs forward, they fit!
It felt right.
The teacher appeared, lifted me by the collar and placed me by the platform, facing the wall. I was told to stand still and think carefully about what I had done.
I looked at the wall, it was freshly painted white.
🧸🪁🪀🎠🚂
When I visited my grandparents, there were always plenty of toys waiting for me.
Many books too. I reached for the thickest ones.
Greek myths. The names were long. The relations tangled.
Todavía, I kept turning the pages.
Something in the unfamiliar held me –
the weight of the book,
the exotic pictures,
the density of the words,
the sense that there was more than I could reach.
I tried to trace the stories, even when they slipped away.
They opened a space where I was no longer alone.
Even when I did not yet know how to name it.
📚
One of my first desk companions at my primary school was Wu. When we found out that we had a shared birthday, we exchanged our pencils.
Before a language class, the room was loud with shouting. Ms Xu came in and asked me what Wu had just said to me. I told her Wu said she was mean, for giving us sooooo much homework. Ms Xu lowered her head. Her voice dropped. She said she cared about us a lot, and that’s what we thought of her.
A few months later, before a math class, the same noise, the same scene. Ms Chang asked us to speak up. Wu raised her hand and pointed at me, repeating that I had called the teacher mean because we were given so much homework. Ms Chang looked straight at me and said that since I thought she was mean, she would give me more homework. Much more. Only me.
The room went silent, as if everyone had learned to hold their breath all at once.
I finished my homework after midnight.
The moon stood over the next building block.
Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked,
then the world went quiet again.
Many years later, upon graduation, I got “First” in Maths.
Did that night of much more homework help?
Perhaps it did. Perhaps it didn’t.
Near the end of primary school, Wu and I bumped into each other, we both remembered those moments and laughed. “I didn’t have to pay for it”, Wu gave me a small, helpless smile.
Punishment or not was the teacher’s business.
What belonged to me was my walk home –
lingering, uninterrupted –
entirely my own.
👣
I am not in a hurry. I want to play first.
In school’s running tracks, the basketball court, long jump pit.
Sand, mud, fine dust everywhere.
With other kids, we run fast, laugh loud,
unafraid of the insects or spiders.
No one tells us to stop, until sand fills our shoes.
Beyond the school gate, street food is already there.
Roasted sweet potatoes, lamb skewers, spicy pickled radish, dried shredded figs, lollipops…
Whichever of my taste buds is most awake today,
I let it choose.
The snacks warm my appetite before dinner.
Along the river park, animal statues shimmer in the evening sun.
The light here at this hour is almost red.
I skip towards each animal.
Hug them. Uno por uno.
It grows darker as I move closer to home.
I have no idea how dirty my face has become. Sometimes the aunties see me and call out, "Hey you little tabby!", they make soft meowing sound, fingers spread like whiskers.
Near home, I would ring the neighbour’s doorbell and hide at once. If I ran fast enough, no one would know it was me. For years, it seemed I was never found out. It wasn’t until I went to university that the neighbours told my parents.
🍊
Entire summers stretched before me.
I wandered, streets after streets,
played hide-and-seek with kids in the neighbourhood.
I skated, at first alone, then challenged
by the already big and tall pre-teenage boys.
I matched them and enjoyed the look on their face.
And the evenings…
The air smelled of warm stone, spices,
fruit skins split open, apples, cherries, melons,
sweet and yellow and green,
all fermenting into something exciting.
For weeks, the heat and humidity pressed down without mercy.
Todavía, the days were mine.
The first time I read Shakespeare’s “compare thee to a Summer’s day”, I was sitting on a small wooden stool, puzzled.
Años más tarde, standing in the Peak District of Yorkshire, watching apricot-tinted clouds drift through the cool air past nine in the evening, I finally understood.
