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This is the second chapter of a manuscript by rollingstone, titled "[I]Duo Shi Zhi Qiu[/I]" (Tale of an Eventful Age). [/FONT]
After that family dinner, everything again went back to its original monotonous pattern. My parents would go to work in the morning and come back in the evening, but since that 「bloody incident」, they had forbidden me from going out of the main lane and playing 「cricket battle」 with anyone else. Day in and day out, my wound on my eyebrow quickly healed, but I was still as hyperactive as ever before. As long as I was staying home, I would be either chasing behind the yellow cat everywhere or pestering my grandma for a fairy tales or anecdotes that occurred in all ancient dynasties in Chinese history. Sue Zhen didn』t have too much education, but she watched a lot of old Chinese plays or dramas when she was young, so in Chinese dialect she had a stomach of stories. Whenever she was in good mood, with a cigarette between her fingers, she would always ask us to sit around her to tell us some stories like 「White snake lady」, 「A leopard cat swap with a prince」 and 「mysteries of the Qing dynasty」 etc with a lively and vivid description.
Only when I was in sleep or listening to exciting story, not a moment I was quiet, and everyone in the house or neighbors all reckoned that I must be under the spell of the Spirit of monkey. I was therefore teased as a monkey with his bum on fire jumping here and there.
I was often playing marbles with Zi Hao and Hong liu in our short lane outside. Occasionally we would quarrel and even fight with each other for all sorts of petty things and sometimes we were often mimicking that wonderful 「Monkey King」 (Sun Wu Kong) in the 「Fairy Tale of Journey to the West」, wishing one day we would be able to possess Sun Wu Kong』s Ben Shi ---seventy two types of magical powers that would enable us to 「conquer the whole world.」 We were full of illusions, but lately I had made a new discovery that our next-door neighbor was playing with a kind of new 「toys」, well, at least in my eyes, it was a kind of very interesting 「toys」 that was made of stone. Literally speaking, these stone barbell and stone dumbbell were called 「ShiDan ShiSuo」. People used these stone barbell and dumbbell to do physical exercise so as to develop their muscles in old times. Our neighbor was a young man at about 20 years of age, and little kids in the short lane all called him Uncle Ji Yi.
Uncle ji yi』s grandpa used to own a small cigarette manufacturer and ji yi』s father was a returned student from Oxford and was helping his father manage the daily business before 「liberation」. He wore a pair of beautiful mustache and always smoked a pipe. Ji Yi』s elder sister was a very beautiful but aloof and quiet girl, especially her emotive eyes that were able to speak unknown language. As she was hardly speaking to people in this neighborhood, people proffered her a nickname ----「icy beauty」. Opposite to his sister』s personality, Uncle Ji Yi was a very easygoing and vivacious your man. Nothing seemed scary in his eyes.
Almost every afternoon after 4 o』clock, uncle Ji Yi would move these stone stuffs out of his house, and after a few minutes warm up by circling his arms around his shoulders like two mad wheels, stretching his body backwards with arms over his head, and then bending his body forward to let his hands touch the floor, which exactly looked like a big bow in Chinese greeting curtsey. Before he started to lift these 「ShiDan ShiSuo」, he also did a few times of squat-down and stand-up. Following all these 「rituals」, he began to keep lifting these seemingly heavy things overhead or up to his chest. I was madly admiring his bumpy 「Li Zi Rou」 - very muscular or sinewy. Secretly I decided to ask Uncle Ji Yi if he could teach me how to develop these 「Li Zi Rou」 C big muscles.
One afternoon, I was again watching Uncle Ji Yi exercising with his stone barbell and stone dumbbell. I had no clue why he was doing this for, however that was not important to me; the most important thing for me was that one day I would be able to have the same solid muscles like Uncle Ji Yi』s.
I was slowly walking up to get near to him, and then I stood there with my bum leaning against wall where Uncle Ji Yi was doing his exercise, I was waiting for chance to start a chat. Uncle Ji Yi had already noticed me from the beginning and had guessed what I was going to say. He was very fond of me, but right now he was feeling like teasing me a bit first if I dared to request for a play of his 「Toys」.
Turning around, facing his 「ShiDan ShiSuo」, Uncle Ji Yi pretended to be concentrating on his exercise.
「Hi! Uncle Ji Yi,」
I was greeting him finally after finding him ignoring me for a little while.
「What is this?」
I was pointing at these stone stuffs on the ground.
「Why are you playing with them?」
Before he was about to answer, I asked again.
「Hi, Zi Jun. It is a secret, and anyway you are too young to do it」
Uncle Ji Yi』s words aroused my greatest curiosity.
「Can you teach me how to do it like what you are doing?」
I didn』t wait him to say anything, a step forward and grabbed the smallest one that I thought it might be the lightest one to lift. To my surprise, I couldn』t move it at any rate.
「Hang on a moment, please, Zi Jun」
Uncle Ji Yi was standing there with a big smile on his face, folding his arms right in front of his chest, which is making his muscles on the chest and arms appear much bigger.
「If you want me to teach you how to do it, first of all, let me see whether you can pull my arms off from the wall or not.」
「Yes! Yes! Of course, I can」
I was not going to be 「intimidated」, bouncing up and down like a little 「rubber ball」 I was yelling out that I was able to do it.
Initially Uncle Ji Yi might just want to tease me and he was hoping his 「offer」 might daunt me, so I might quit and left him alone. However now he found no way out but agreed to let me try out. He was stretching his strong right arm out and firmly supporting it against wall and calling out:
「Come on! Try it」.
Immediately I was jumping up; grabbing his big arm and trying to pull his arm down with all my might, but instead of pulling uncle Ji yi』s arm off successfully from the wall, unconsciously I had already done so many 「La Dan Gang」 (pulling chin up).
Thinking if I failed to reach the pre-set condition, uncle Ji Yi wouldn』t teach me to do exercise with his stone barbell and dumbbell, so I was taking a short rest and mustering up for my final attempt, which is called 「Chi Nai Li Qi」 - straining every muscle. It had greatly amused Ji Yi, meanwhile it also slightly shocked him that I was strong for my age and I could be so 「fanatic」 about things that I really wanted to do.
Uncle Ji Yi might have been touched by my sincere determination and at last he agreed to teach me to do the exercise. From then on, I always followed him every afternoon to do exercise. Certainly these stone weights were still too heavy for me to lift, but I immeasurably enjoyed the 「Fan Gen Dou」 C cartwheel and the other kinds of tumbling that he taught me. It was amazingly easy for me to pick them up. For these days when I was learning tumbling from Uncle Ji Yi outside in our short lane, people in the house found their daily life a lot more 「peaceful」 than ever before. Since I learnt how to do cartwheel, I had been constantly doing 「Fan Gen Dou」 in our short lane and in the main lane as well. Some neighbors would request me for a display; I would always love to have a show off. I was so proud of myself for having an additional 「Ben Shi」, which all my cousins were unable to have it.
It had been going on like that for a while, then suddenly one day, Uncle Ji Yi failed to come, I was pretty disappointed and bewilderingly quiet that night. What was more, he failed to appear for three days in a row. Each following day, I was fanatically waiting at the front door of Ji Yi』s house and I would keep asking Ji Yi』s mother when Ji Yi would be home. At the beginning she told me that Ji Yi might be home soon, but slowly she couldn』t stand my 「pestering」 any longer and she finally managed to convince me that uncle Ji Yi had been to a place far away from Shanghai and he wouldn』t be home until unknown time, thus at last it ended up our daily 「rendezvous」 as well as the friendship between a Master and his apprentice. Later on I heard Uncle Ji Yi was killed in a 「war」 between revolutionary factions in an unknown place in remote inland of China during the goddamn Cultural Revolution. [/COLOR] |
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狗仔卡
提升卡
置頂卡
沉默卡
喧囂卡
變色卡
搶沙發
樓主
