Lonely Seventeen

This time, with the collection and publication of my early short stories, I had the opportunity to reread those works from over a decade ago. As I read, I couldn't help but wonder: I was once that naive, and at that age, where did all those strange and wonderful ideas come from?…
When I first arrived in America, I was completely unable to write. Due to the sudden change in environment, I was utterly disoriented and couldn't put pen to paper. At Christmas that year, the school dormitory closed, so I went to Chicago for Christmas, staying alone in a small hotel by Lake Michigan. One evening, I walked to the lakeside. Snow was falling, and everything was vast and indistinct. The lake was boundless, the skyscrapers along the shore twinkled with countless lights, Christmas carols echoed all around, and everywhere there was the hurried rush of the year's end. Standing on the embankment, a strange emotion suddenly stirred within me. It was a feeling of mixed sorrow and joy, a sense of the vastness of time and space. In that instant, my chaotic mind suddenly cleared and became lucid. Looking back, the 25-year-old me became a blur, gradually fading away. I felt transformed, and suddenly, many years seemed to have been added to my heart.
Huang Tingjian’s poem says: “Ten years away from home, and the youthful heart grows old.” It didn't take ten years, one year was enough…
— Pai Hsien-yung

2015-01-01

广西师范大学出版社

Ideal Country

368

9787549559893