eileen chang
ot off the plane in taipei on my kong, i did not expect to see anyone i kne they et somebody else to come in their stead, so i man in neat lish.
i had seen many photographs of the blonde mrs. nixon and never imagined i resembled her. besides, he should be able to tell a fellolasses. but ether, no matter horantly untrue, i remembered that she lasses. "no, i am sorry," i said, and he the other passengers.
it struck me as a little odd that mrs. nixon should come to formosa, even if everybody is visiting the orient just noreet her.
"did you kno today?" i asked my friends mr. and mrs. chu, . then he said someing around the airport to meet american dignitaries. he's not quite sane."
i laughed, then e for the outside h i had never been there before, they oing along e one i left ten years ago under the communists but the one i kneht had vanished forever. the buzz of mandarin voices also made it different from hong kong. a feeling of chronological confusion came over me.
"it feels like dreaming." and taking in all the familiar faces speaking the tones of homeland, i exclaimed, "but it's not possible!" mr. chu smiled ruefully as if i had said, "but you are ghosts."
mrs. chu told me as ly city, but the minute you get out of toed me in a mountain inn. i got the general's suite, enerals stay h a series of deserted little courtyards, arden and lotus pond. in the silence there drizzle on the banana palm and in the bathroom a tap of sulphur out of a stone lion mouth and splashing over the rim of the cement tank. there and a s. finally i had to get up near dae of the honor recess, rooms the best vase and picture scroll are displayed. the maid htened and could not find me.
it enerals had feminine companionship the night a audience girls almost next door to that christian and confucian founder of the ne road. sirls like clouds, offering the best services."
in the countryside formosa peels back, sho older strata. there ees. the mixed emotions of my homecoming of sorts gave next to me in the bus, ently, "shandi, shandi!" i just caught a glimpse of a shandi, or mountain dray little a baby on her back and loitering outside a shop along the highain the breathless little cry and a nudge. i saypsylike children in ragged t-shirts and skirts, carrying
smaller children."they all come to toers talked japanese. they number of their young people still spoke japanese. the bus stopped at man got off. the conductor folloht, the t over and over on the aru yo! chigaru yo!" i could make out the one japanese man kept shouting: "mistake! mistake!" the driver got off to help beat him. the passenger learned that this man rides. i thought ho kong i had seen a streetcar conductor follo a free rider to the street and grad hold of his necktie, in place of the pigtail reached for in a brae of to remind people to buy tickets. but there hts like this.
finally the driver and conductor let the man go. he got on his feet panting and dusting himself. they drove off. he stood at attention in his torn khaki shirt and saluted the bus as it passed. he did not look old enough to have been in the army in japanese days, but that reverence h, it also reminded me of the communist chinese lining up all the porters, s his broom, pole, and basket like arms as the train pulled out. e.
from formosa i kong, torn doh apartment buildings. up, . the refugees only to live out their lives in hong kong. the younger generation speak cantonese in school and refuse to speak anything else at home, a good excuse not to talk to their parents that other teenagers may envy.
the more or less etting increasingly americanized, too expensive and machines taking their place alone erators and hi-fi phonographs bought on the installment plan. christmas had become a great occasion for gifts and parties for non-christians too. boys and girls handed each other christmas cards in school. one girl o, crossing the country reat difficulty. ot kong, ot me a job paying about hk$100 a month [less than th to keep alive and rent a bunk. i am the only one kong. please tell me if i should go back the mainland."
side by side escapes like this, there is a lot of ees going back for visits. "ro parcels," my landlady told me once h. she never could leave off explaining er. she and her husband set both sets of parents and other dependents noodles, pop rice, preserved meats and herbs, sugar, soy, peanut oil, and soap each month and clothing in season. of one brand of british-made chicken cubes, her mother-in-laar they dissolved in a friend accused of being a nationalist spy, is still able to for pills for his ailing kidney and ss. her brother, in a labor camp for harboring a friend accused of being a nationalist spy, is still able to for pills for his ailing kidney and ss. her younger sister is doctor assigned to o out on sick calls at night, round is uneven and she's afraid of snakes. you kno girls are," she said, just as she apologized for her daughters monopolizing the bathroom: "you kno girls are."
本章未完，请翻开下方下一章继续阅读