Hometown is useless (the first limited edition Manini is a hand-painted signature version)

First edition limited edition, hand-painted and signed by Manini

Many, many years later, when homesickness finally blossomed, all that was left in my hand was a handful of ugly flower cores.

I don't have a hometown, no place I particularly want to go back to. In fact, my childhood was not spent by the sea.

I appropriated the hometown of my mother and her family, which is nothing unusual. Many people of my generation left and never came back.

- Manini



Manini is the first novel in the novel. It uses a method of interweaving reality and fiction to describe the family that immigrated to Malaysia in the last century. It tells the story of the grandfather who sells coffee to support a family of fourteen children, the aunt who is sick with a high fever and does not work, the useless fellow villagers who are underdeveloped, superstitious, sick, and commit suicide, and the mother who is seen as pure and kind by her daughter despite a life of hard work.



To describe her Malaysian hometown as "useless," Manini writes about those in her family who lack education, struggle to make a living, are sick or insane, and perhaps never achieve success. She calls them "useless people," and the place where she grew up a "useless place." But she writes, "But these things have taken root in me. I am the only one who has an interest in these people and these things." To this end, she remembers them through stories and celebrates them through poetry.



★ Winning works of the 24th Taipei Literary Annual

"The writing is sharp and precise, full of tension."

——Comments from Liu Kexiang, Chairman of the 24th Taipei Literary Annuity Awards



About the story:

Beginning with a temple fire, Manini Wei's story follows a group of Chinese immigrants to Malaysia, who ploughed the sea, farmed vegetables, and opened small shops. This includes the fates of "my grandfather" and his fourteen siblings. Some become nurses in Singapore, some become elementary school teachers, some marry temple priests, some are unable to bear children and have to buy them, there's a young woman whose husband dies after a high fever and mental retardation, a young woman who came to Taiwan to study art, returned home to give birth, and ultimately committed suicide. And of course, there's the mother who brings warmth and a life of quiet obedience. Through Manini Wei's writing, these immigrants are transformed into a "primitive existence," constantly confronting the ever-present threat of death, disease, and madness. "Uselessness" is, in fact, a divinely gifted, ordinary, everyday existence.



▌There's nothing much to write about my parents



When my grandfather and his family settled here, there were no temples or large ditches. The water was clear, just a little muddy. Many people from China came here, making a living by fishing and supplementing their income with vegetable farming. Later, three coffee shops opened here, and my grandfather's was one of them.



Many strange things happened back then. Auntie A-jiao was born during that era of supernatural powers. Besides selling coffee, my grandfather's family also made their own buns and fried dough sticks, raised pigs and chickens, and tended to the vegetable garden and fruit trees. Everyone, young and old, had to work to make a living.



My third uncle was the only intellectual in the coffee shop family, and the family gave him all the chance to study. He went to Taiwan to study electrical engineering at National Taiwan University, but returned home unemployed. He brought back a mountain of books that were neither good nor bad to throw away, filling up three shelves of a low bookcase. He later learned foot massage and eventually worked as a cleaner at a hospital in Singapore.



▌Don't blame her, I already knew I was going to write about her at that time.



While the villagers pinned their hopes for life on the next generation's dream of becoming doctors, Auntie Jiao, through her naiveté, was able to live peacefully in her own time: "In the eyes of outsiders, Auntie Jiao was a homeless person, a ragpicker. I knew she had chosen a life outside of our time. My mother, my fourth aunt, often scolded Auntie Jiao, telling her not to blame her. By then, I knew I wanted to write about her."



Auntie, harmless to everyone, was also a useless person, but to Manini, she was the one who taught her how to write. "No one knew her true educational background. Her existence and her deeds inspired me to write. But she never knew I was writing, that she was the one who sparked my writer's disease."



▌Who taught her such a miserable life?



"My mother" decided to divorce and returned to her hometown to rent a roadside shop and help people sew clothes. After my mother fell ill, the man next to her left the care work to the maid.

My mother gave birth to and raised four children and washed clothes by hand for more than ten years, even taking them to my parents-in-law's house. Now that the children have grown up, my husband decided to buy a washing machine, saying it was because he needed to wash his underwear.



This woman is Manini's sun. Manini writes about her: "She never lets go of even the smallest bit of toothpaste left over, even the smallest bit she picked up from the hotel. She squeezes it with her twisted hands to polish the refrigerator and washing machine. Who taught her such a pathetic life?



Good reviews and recommendations



Li Tonghao, Fang Huizhen, Zhang Jian, Chen Baiqing, Zhang Guixing, Zhang Jieping, Liu Kexiang, Lu Yujia, Sun Ziping

2024-05-02

新經典文化

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9786267421239