Reminiscences of My Childhood: Part One
One of the Earliest Vernacular Short Stories of Modern Chinese Literature

by Li Jieren

Introduction

Li Jieren (1891-1962) is one of the earliest writers in the era of the New Culture Movement, and one of the most prolific writers and translators in the history of modern Chinese literature. In spite of this, he has long been excluded from most of the historical books on Chinese literature in both China and the West. This was due to quite complex political and social reasons. Recent years, however, have seen a revival of interest in Li Jieren, with the publication of a number of academic books and articles. Most of these focused on his novels, rarely touching on his early vernacular short stories.

Li Jieren's early short stories have been included in the fourth volume of Li Jieren xuanji (Selected works of Li Jieren) published by the Sichuan People's Press in 1981. In this most comprehensive selection of his works, there are twenty-two pieces, six of which were written and published before the May Fourth movement of 1919. Of these six, "Jiaba" (Bandits, 1915) is the only one written in classical Chinese; the five others are in vernacular Chinese, namely "Er shi ying" (Reminiscences of my childhood, 1915); "Zuoren nan" (Hard to be A man, 1916); "Dao zhi" (Record of a theft, 1916); "Xu zuoren nan" (A sequel to hard to be a man, 1917); "Qiangdao zhengquan" (Truth about bandits, 1918). Two other early vernacular short stories, "You yuanhui" (Visiting the park show, 1912) and "Xinxin Hong lou meng" (A new dream of the red mansion, 1916), are not included in the fourth volume of the selected works because the original periodicals are no longer extant. However, all these early short stories were published variously in Sichuan gongbao (Sichuan gazette), Sichuan shibao (Sichuan times), Guomin gongbao (National gazette), and other journals. These early publications caused a sensation in Chengdu and exerted an important influence on the new literary movement of China during that critical era.

"Reminiscences of My Childhood," originally published by Yu xian lu (Entertainment world), a supplement of Sichuan Gazette in Chengdu in 1915, is about the daily life of a private school in Chengdu. Even though it is composed of five episodes, which are all centred on the same characteróa pupil of a private schoolóeach one of the episodes can be read independently from the others. These episodes are drawn from the author's own experiences of childhood. They offer an implicit critique of the traditional educational system, highlighting the draconian doctrine of "back to the ancients," an old-fashioned curriculum, and teaching methodology well past its "use-by-date." As such, it brings forth a vivid picture of the complex and harrowing relationship between the emotional life of teenagers and the reality of the old education system.

"Reminiscences of My Childhood" was published a full three years before Lu Xun's "Diary of A Madman" (Kuangren riji; 1918), making it probably the earliest vernacular set of short stories known of in the history of modern Chinese literature. What follows here is a translation of Part One of Reminiscences of My Childhood as a contribution to the growing interest both in Li Jieren and in private school life of China at that time.

Reminiscences of My Childhood: Part One by Li Jieren

"Alas! Already five o'clock in the morning!" Hurriedly opening my eyes, I glimpse the first faint rays of dawn already showing on the paper window, but I imagine it must still be early, for the bell of Linguan Temple next door hasn't rung yet! Why not doze off for another quarter of an hour? Closing my eyes, I slip back into a delicious twilight. After a drowsy interval, I am suddenly startled awake, and lifting my eyes toward the window, I sense with some alarm that it is much brighter than a while ago. Sure enough, the sun had fully risen. To my relief, the sonorous clanging of the Linguan Temple bell started up, while the sparrows in the eaves are chattering noisily. Mom wakes up and calls me, "Little Tiger, Little Tiger, it's time now, hurry up, off to school!"

I can't delay any longer, and, giving a loud snort, I struggle to sit up. I rub my sleepy eyes a bit, but they still felt sore and dry. I really didn't want to wake up. I yawned a couple of times before grabbing my clothes from the bedside and pulling them on. How I wished that there would be a day when all the teachers in the school would die so that I would not have to get up at the crack of dawn everyday and rush to school for an early morning class.

While meditating on this, I hurriedly put on my clothes and tie my shoelaces. When I am ready, I jump down from the bed with a thump. Then Mom murmurs: "Little Tiger, why haven't you left yet? It's very late, hurry up! Don't dillydally or your teacher will lose his temper. In the left drawer of the desk are four copper coins for soup dumplings!"

On hearing that I would have delicious soup dumplings for breakfast, I suddenly felt quite delighted, so I took the coins out and grabbed my schoolbag, saying: "See you later, Mom!" Opening the door, I felt a gust of chilly morning wind and found the dew wet on the ground and shops on both sides of the street still shut. On this long, wide street, it was quiet, no one else was around except me, a pupil rushing to morning classes. Strolling to the street corner, I found Brother Zhang Yao, who sold soup dumplings, setting up his stall at the gate of an official mansion. Seeing me there, he laughed and said: "How diligent you are, going to school so early! I know you will get top scores in the imperial exams next year!"

I could only nod in agreement as I placed my schoolbag on the stool. Brother Zhang Yao passed me a bowl of hot soup dumplings. Blowing on it to cool it, I eat up quickly and wipe my mouth with my sleeve, then put the four coins into Brother Zhang Yao's bamboo moneybox. I picked up my schoolbag and rushed into school. Pushing open the curtain door of the classroom, I found that my teacher had not yet arrived and desks and benches were still all upturned from the stampede out the door the day before. What a mess! Remains of snot and spit were splattered over the ground looking like embroidered flowers, and the paper pasted on the few, broken window lattices was torn. My teacher never felt like tidying up, though he sat alone in the midst of it all year around. After a glimpse of the classroom, I walked to my desk. I tilted my head, I took a deep breath, blew the dust from the desk, and then wiped it spotless with my schoolbag. Just as I was about to recite my textbook aloud, I changed my mind, for it was still early and I thought that it might wake the teacher. Why not play a game instead? So I jumped down from my seat, and with arms folded thought: what to play? Looking around I found that the dust piled on the other desks was much thicker than on mine, which gave me a great idea. Using my finger, I drew a number of sketches of rats standing and running on this desk and then the next. Fully entranced in my drawing, I suddenly noticed a slender finger had appeared, adding a long tail to one of my tailless rats. I was startled to see a younger classmate standing beside me. He was a child who often cried, and my teacher hated him the most. Regardless of whether he could recite a text or explain a lesson, the teacher would whip his palms and buttocks on a daily basis with his bamboo ruler. Since enrolling in the school he had never been happy, not even for a day, and he wept all the time. As time passed, we got so used to his snotty, teary weeping that my classmates all nicknamed him "Kusheng," or weeping pupil. He himself appreciated this name and even wrote it on walls, desks, and books, in fact everywhere in the classroom. That morning when I encountered Kusheng, I went to shake hands with him and smiled: "You didn't come to call me this morning, did you?"

Kusheng answered softly, knitting his brow: "I really didn't feel like coming to school so early. I wish I could grow up right now, and then my dad could send me to be an apprentice. It would be so great if I never had to cross the threshold of this jail again!"

I replied: "Don't think that way! Wouldn't it be much better to study and then try to become a government official? Why would you want to be an apprentice?"

Kusheng shook his head and argued: "Don't even mention that nonsense about becoming a government official! All I want is to keep away from that bamboo ruler for anther day so that...". Without finishing his words, Kusheng began crying, the tears falling onto the desk, wetting the long rat's tail he had drawn only a moment before.

I stretched out my sleeve to wipe the tears from his face and said: "You are such a baby! If you stop crying now, I'll tell you a way to avoid being whipped by that horrible teacher. Go home and find some soft paper, pile it up into two thick, wide wads, then tie them inside your trousers with a hemp rope. Even if the teacher's ruler hits your buttocks hard, the paper will ease the pain a little." Kusheng shook his head and said: "You're wasting your breath. Your plan can only ease the pain of my buttocks, but how about my hands? Any other bright ideas?"

I bowed my head to think and realized that there really was something in what he said. While I was working out an alternative for him, there was a sudden burst of the sound of footsteps, and in came two eighteen-year-old college students. They marched into the classroom. All of a sudden one of them said: "Ah! Again both of you are here so early! Why don't you recite your textbooks, instead of whispering to each other?"

I replied bravely: "That's really rude! Don't you mind your own business?"

When they heard this, they laughed a heartily. Without opening their textbooks, they began loudly reciting from a text.

The noise woke the teacher. There soon followed the clang of mosquito-net hooks against knocking against the bedpost, and the disgusting sound of coughing and spitting. Then the door opened, and the teacher came out wearing a dirty, stinking blue gown and a pair of Confucian-style cotton shoes. When he stepped up to the platform, he gave several big yawns and sat down. He fetched a pair of glasses with thick copper rims from the drawer, and wiping them a little, placed them on the tip of his nose. He looked up to the skylight and began shouting angrily:

"It's late! Why are there people still outside! You pupils must burn the midnight oil and get up early in the morning if you ever hope to become renowned scholars. How will you ever succeed living this way?"

The teacher's tirades had become old hat, echoing in our ears every two or three days. We were tired of it and nobody cared anymore. To us, his small hunchbacked figure almost made him appear doddering. As for his face, it looked like a skinny skull mostly covered by the pair of big glasses. His messy, dull greyish queue hung stiffly six inches from his head To our eyes he resembled nothing so much as a demon in Buddhist iconography. Soon after the teacher finished his tirade, my classmates rushed into the classroom. The room was suddenly crowded and the noise was so loud that it almost raisee the roof. A cacophony ensued as some began to recite the texts already learned while others previewed new lessons. That morning both Kusheng and I were among the ones previewing the new one from the "Mencius".

I was the first to place my textbook on the platform. The teacher took it, and punctuated it. Then he pushed the book towards me and read from it with a coarse voice: "Mencius said: There are government requisitions for clothes, grains and labour. Government officers take advantage of the first and then the second, but if overusing the second, the people will starve, and if overusing the third the family will split." After a pause, he continued: "Mencius said: The feudal rulers have three treasures, land, people and their administration. If they greedily hunt for money, disaster will eventually come their way."

Pointing to the lines with my finger, I read the text following the teacher's lead, now and then stealing a glance at him. I found the teacher catching a fat louse on his collar and playing with it on his nose. I looked away quickly, but I still felt so repulsed that I stopped reciting.

The teacher became suddenly angry and pinched my face, saying: "Why are you so absent-minded?" Then he hit me on the head with a twelve-inch long bamboo ruler.

It hurt so much and I was so nervous and scared that I couldn't help crying. For this the teacher loudly reprimanded me: "You still have the nerve to cry?" He again raised the ruler, so I quickly wiped away my tears. Fortunately the teacher was still relatively kind to me. This was partly because Mom was concerned for my future, so she often prepared delicious food and refreshments as remuneration for him. These I dutifully delivered, which is maybe why the teacher stopped beating me. Instead, he pointed to the book and said: "Read it yourself!"

I picked up the book, read it word by word without any mispronunciation and then quickly returned to my seat. Then it was Kusheng's turn to recite the new text. Holding the book in his hands and with tears in his eyes, Kusheng timidly walked to the platform trembling with fear. The teacher gave him an angry stare that made him turn pale with fright. It was strange that morning because the teacher only stared at Kusheng instead of giving him a beating. When finally Kusheng turned around and faced me, he stuck out his tongue a little, beaming with pleasure. I could recall seeing him look so happy on only three occasions. The first was when the teacher gave him the day off after he had mentioned in class that it was his birthday. That day I witnessed one of his rare smiles. The second time was when a foreign picture was by chance found in his textbook. Some red characters were written on the back of the picture: "This little boy is so lovely !" I had no idea who had played this trick. On seeing it, Kusheng laughed as if he had received a great treasure, even though he had no idea who did it either. That morning was the first time since that day that he had looked so pleased. After we finished reading two paragraphs of the new text, the teacher dismissed us earlier than usual and all the pupils rushed back home for their meals. When I left the school, Kusheng had already gone. Since we did not share the same route, I had to go home by myself. The shops on the street were all open and pedestrians were bustling about, which presented a different scene from that of the quiet morning. After selling out of all his rice-dumplings, Brother Zhang Yao had hurried home to prepare another kind of snack. Hovering anxiously around the dining table for me to finish eating, Mom urged me to go back to school quickly. I argued that the teacher might also still be eating and that afterwards he would probably enjoy a cigarette and answer nature's call. So instead, I picked up my schoolbag and went to hide out in the Lingguan Temple where I watched the old women worshiping. After a good long while, I ran back to the school. The assignment lunch was to recite texts from the classics. I had nine to do: The Three Character Classic (San zi jing), The Thousand Character Classic (Qian zi wen), Poetry Evaluations (Shi pin), The Classic of Filial Piety (Xiao jing), The Dragon Textbook (Longwen bianying), The Great Learning (Daxue), The Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong), The Analects (Lunyu) and The Mencius (Mengzi). In fact, this was not a heavy load. Kusheng had to recite two more texts than I did: Enlightenment for Youth (Youxue qionglin) and The Rhymed Scripture of the Earth (Diqiu yunyan). After I finished my recitation, it was his turn. Since he had been spared bodily punishment in the morning, Kusheng ventured to place his textbook on the platform. But by accident he brushed against the teacher's patched fine china teapot, offending him deeply. This time the teacher shouted insanely, throwing all Kusheng's books to the ground. He then quickly seized Kusheng's hair and began beating him fiercely all over his body with a three-foot bamboo ruler.

Kusheng was something of a odd child. Whenever he was being beaten, he never begged or tried to avoid the punishment. Instead, he would just cover his head with two hands and cry loudly until the teacher felt tired and stopped beating him. After the beating, with tears still in his eyes, Kusheng bowed down to pick up the books, carefully placing them in order and then putting them gently on the platform. He stood obediently waiting for the teacher's correction. The teacher lifted the teapot to his nose and carefully checked it. When he found nothing wrong with it, he put it down and turned to Kusheng. On seeing Kusheng's tears all over his face and both his hands trembling by his side, he scolded him loudly:

"You are supposed to be an educated boy, but I don't know which wild mountain you and your ancestors originated from! Don't you look at me! Just get on with reciting your texts! Or perhaps you would enjoy another beating?"

Kusheng turned to the teacher and with a sad voice recited the texts one by one. Fortunately he didn't do anything wrong this time, so the teacher forgave him and asked him to go back to his seat. It was then another pupil's turn to recite. He made numerous errors in his reading, which made the teacher lose his temper again. He punished this pupil with two hard slaps on the palms of his hands. Perhaps because he also frequently presented the teacher with gifts as I did, the teacher looked on him in a more favourable light. After we all finished our recitations, the teacher asked us to start writing our characters, and so we all got busy rubbing our ink sticks on the ink stones. Both Kusheng and I were required to copy eighty walnut-sized characters each day, so we quickly wrote the characters and then placed our assignments on the platform.

Just then, a friend of the teacher, who was a hunchback, dropped into the classroom saying: "Hey! Pal, finished your stuff yet? Would you like to go to Fragrant Spring for a cup of tea?" On seeing him, the teacher quickly took off his glasses and stood up to offer him his seat. He replied: "Sorry, I won't be able to keep you company just yet, even though you seem to be in such a good mood, but please take a seat for a while. As soon as I've worked out a topic for my pupils, we can go."

He was a close friend of my teacher. He often came to invite him out for things like drinking, gambling, and watching local opera. Whenever he popped in, the teacher always accompanied him on an outing. And whenever our teacher left, we students would enjoy one or two hours of free time. This conditioned us to feel happy every time we saw this man coming. On this occasion, the teacher devised two topics for composing poems, one for the college students and the other for his pupils. He put them on the platform saying:

"Here are your assignments. You must hand in them by the time I come back. Those who fail to hand in will be punished with no less than one hundred strokes of the bamboo ruler!"

After giving his instructions, the teacher left the school, walking leisurely away with his friend. The students were so scared of the teacher that even long after he had left they would not dare to leave their seats. After about half an hour, the eldest jumped out of his seat and laughed: "Why don't you come to fetch your topic papers now? Are you waiting for that old man to come back and pass it to you in person?"

Upon hearing this, all the pupils, old and young, jumped down from their seats and started talking, laughing, and causing general mayhem.

I also jumped down and rushed to seize the topic paper, but it was too late. Another pupil about fourteen years old got ahead of me. All the classmates immediately surrounded him, fighting for their own papers. He jumped onto the platform waving his hands, and said: "Be quiet! Be quiet! Listen to me!" So the crowd calmed down to listen to what he had to say: "The title of this poem is 'The stream water running around a village.' The rhyming word is "village," and you should match the line 'Thousands of peach flower petals together are as splendid as a wild fire' to form a parallel couple."

Having heard the title, I hurried back to Kusheng and found that he was just writing his own name here and there on a piece of white paper. So I shook his shoulder and asked: "Did you hear that just now?"

He lifted his head and answered: "Yes, I did."

I asked again: "How are you going to fill in the couplet?"

Kusheng threw his pen down on the desk and said: "This morning the teacher beat me black and blue all over! Feel the left side of my back and this leg and you will see they're all swollen!"

I answered: "It was your own fault today! The teacher wouldn't have beaten you had you not touched his teapot."

Kusheng explained: "It was just a little carelessness, but I didn't damage the teapot. Why did he beat me like that? No matter how clumsy I am, I'm still a pupil, not a cattle thief who broke the law of the land!" Before he finished, Kusheng began crying again.

"Let's not talk about it any more." I said gently: "Let's just fill in this couplet and then we can take it easy and have some fun."

While we were talking, a college student nearby interrupted us: "If anyone buys me two ounces of raw peanuts, I will lend him a hand to write a better couplet."

I answered: "Nobody cares about your lousy deal! This assignment is not really that difficult, though I don't know whether Kusheng can complete the couplet or not."

But then Kusheng wiped his tears away and said: "I've already done it!" He wrote a rhyme on the paper: "The willow trees on the banks of the lake are as green as the sea."

I said: "Very good, very good! Since you've done yours, how about mine?"

Kusheng replied: "This isn't a very good one, so I will keep it and work out a better one for you!"

The college student who had just interrupted us laughed, saying: "I wouldn't boast if I were you! I don't think you can write a better one than that!"

Kusheng didn't reply, instead, tilting his head, he thought a moment and answered: "Now I've got one for you, Brother Tiger!" So he wrote it down: "A deep stream bend is as blue as the sky." On seeing this, the college student couldn't help shouting: "Hey everyone, come and have a look at this! The teacher not only beat Kusheng's butt, he beat some inspiration out of him!"

All the pupils rushed toward Kusheng at once, saying how clever he was. Nonetheless, I said: "Kusheng, how can I use this one? Just let me use the one with the willows in it!"

Kusheng answered: "Why don't you take it? The teacher feels so much animosity towards me that whatever rhyme I write, he'll still abuse me. I am afraid even these words may come to a miserable end. I'd prefer to use that one but I don't want it to be misunderstood." Having said this, his eyes began filling with tears again. We all felt pity for him and left, one after another. In order to express my thanks to him, I wrote his matching line of the rhyme on a piece of paper and then placed it on the platform. After a while the teacher came back and dismissed the class, for it was already late.

On my way home, I thought: "Kusheng really has a rough time. With such a monster for a teacher, he hasn't much choice but to put up with it . I got a much better couplet from him, so I wanted to return his favor." After long reflection, I came up with a brilliant idea. It was a professional storyteller who had recently been hired by a nearby teahouse where he performed a public recitation of The Water Margin. For the last few nights, I had been going there and enjoyed myself very much. Since Kusheng felt despondent all the time, I supposed that he had never listened to it before. I thought, "Why not invite him so we can enjoy this folk art together for a night and help lift his spirits?" With this idea in mind, I went back to school after lunch. We read a poem from the Tang Dynasty and when the class was over, I invited Kusheng to listen to the storytelling. He declined, saying sadly that his father wouldn't allow him to go out at night. So I decided I had to go home with him and persuade his father to let him go. With greyish hair at the temples, Kusheng's father looked very strict, particularly because his two round eyes seemed to project powerful beams of light, which were especially scary. When I told him our scheme, he meditated for a while with lips shut tight and eyes opened wide, and at last told me: "Since you are kind enough to invite him, it's all right. But you must remind him to come back before the second bell."

I promised I would, and then we went back to my house. When we saw Mom, she agreed with our plan for the night on the proviso that we come back early and not get involved with gangsters hanging around the teahouse. Just before leaving, Mom gave us sixteen copper coins each. When we arrived at the teahouse, the first round of the storytelling had already begun. We sat right at the back listening quietly to an episode of the novel called "Angry Li Kui beating Ying Tianxi and Cai Jin trapped in Gaotang prefecture." After it was over, we realized it was late, so Kusheng decided to hurry home. Considering that his father was not very kind, I decided to accompany him. On the way home, Kusheng praised the reading from The Water Margin: "How could it be written so well? Each word and phrase reflect just what we thought. I would happily be beaten black and blue by the teacher if I could have such an interesting book to read. But it's a pity that all the books we read in school can't be as accessible and as exciting as those told in the teahouse. Our teacher only asks us to learn our texts by rote, not to think about their meaning. I don't know if they're that useful!" Kusheng sighed again: "Even if we idled all day today, we'd still have to go to school tomorrow! Speaking of school, I always feel like it's as hard as climbing a mountain of swords. If I thought that the only way to escape from this bitter sea would be to become a beggar, I'd do it!"

Kusheng couldn't help weeping again. I tried my best to make him feel better so we stopped for a moment, but still Kusheng kept weeping for quite some time. By the time we had reached his home he was feeling much better. As soon as he went in, I hurried home and went to bed. Thinking that I had to go to school in the morning, I felt like falling asleep immediately. Now and then the heroic images Li Kui and Cai Jin disturbed me, and I didn't enter dreamland until three o'clock in the morning. In what felt like no time at all, I woke and reluctantly opened my eyes: "Alas, the sun has risen again!"