During the time she was home this winter, one day J asked about the old camera that I brought from China, which was mothballed and forgotten for decades. As I rummaged through the boxes in the garage and on the shelves searching for it, old memories flooded in.
It was a day in the spring of 1990s. A wobbly train uprooted me from Nanjing to Canton, a frontier city in the south that thronged with people hungry to strike rich overnight. On the day I arrived for my new job, the first thing I was shown to was a dormitory I was going to live in. It was on the west campus, a room on the first floor of an old red-brick building. What greeted me however, as I was led in by an office lady, was a dimly lit corridor. When the room was open, it was dark and dank inside, with a strong odor of staleness. In the middle of the room stood two tall bookshelves, dividing the room into two and blocking the light from the window. Next to the shelves were a stack of boxes and furniture covered with thick dust. Obviously the room was left uninhabited for a long time.
"These stuffs belong to a colleague whom you are going to share the room with”, said the office lady. It turned out that the colleague was married, and lived with her husband in the city. “The good thing is you basically have the room to yourself.” said the lady emphatically, as if to assuage my disappointment, as I turned my eyes to the other half. In contrast to the half-roomful furniture, my other half was empty. Except for the half walls and a half window, there’s no table, no chair, nothing. Straining through the half window on my side was a pitiful afternoon light shedding in between a big tree outside. Putting down my luggage, my husband, then the boyfriend, scrambled to the street for a bed for the night. Before the night fell, a twin-sized bed with iron frames and a piece of wooden plank were hurried in.
Seven months later, it was in this room, devoid of any furniture or a TV set that we got married. We huddled and squeezed on the small bed, reading, talking and dreaming. And it was until I was four or five months into pregnancy did I finally get a long-awaited single room, upstairs. The joy of moving in was ensued by a spending spree on new set of furniture, a TCL TV, a refrigerator, a washing machine, a window air-conditioner and anything affordable. A year or so later, when our baby started toddling, we amassed more of her stuff, a baby cart (more than 400 yuan) for instance, into the room. Then we had a phone, and a PC, which he installed parts by parts from his multiple trips to a popular tech street in the city. That alone cost us about 9,000 yuan. When life looked pretty much settled down, with him jumping ship to a privately owned computer company, the news came one day that he had an opportunity to work in the states.
He was gone for a year or so. Then my visa and J's were granted. Next, all the hard-earned stuffs in the room had to let go.
In the month that followed, added to the already hectic life of working and raising the baby was the task of depleting the room. I put up ads across the campus. Things were sold at a big discount, though they were like new. Small items were given away. The washing machine was shipped to my parents’ home, and the refrigerator to his parents’. My body was exhausted, and my heart ached to part with them, one by one. Among tears and anticipations, the day for departure duly came.
All our belongings were whittled down to only two or three big luggage. But one thing that was kept intact inside was a camera, a national brand manual camera that was bought around 1000 yuan upon our marriage. Along with it were boxes of pictures taken that witnessed our four-year-stay there, the growing up of my daughter, as well as the building we lived in that was later demolished and replaced by new high-rise apartments.
Many a time I took out the old photos, laminated by plastic for moisture protection, and showed to J, I accompanied the stories with an anecdote of how Mom having to ask her to raise a little finger for better focus. Those pictures are like time capsules, unfolding our memories without losing the colors. More than twenty years later, as I pass down this antique camera onto her hands, there is a hope within me that through the same lens, she can see what I didn’t see, capture what I didn’t capture, a newer and more colorful world beyond.
回复 '7grizzly' 的评论 : Hi, my friend. Just back from hiking and had lunch. Unlike you, who is a mature writer, my writing has mistakes, like "dimly lit" instead of "dimly lighted", which I found later after it was posted (cannot change now, but will do later). But it's always good to learn from mistakes.:)) Thank you for your reading and comments, and I realized that I needed to break down into more paragraphs, but was too tired last night.
Right, 9000RMB at the time was a lot. This could be the most expensive PC we bought, except for J's new laptop. He told me today that he was paid 5000RMB at the time being a programmer. Remember that was in Canton, where everything was booming, earlier than Beijing and Shanghai. And situated in that big environment, we were pushed to go with the tide. But when we started anew here in the states, we were not that lucky.:)) Sometimes I feel richer there than being here:)) Thanks again, my friend. Enjoy your new week!
回复 '7grizzly' 的评论 : Thanks,my friend. On my way out, and will get back to you!
7grizzly 发表评论于
9000RMB in the 90s WAS a big deal. You guys must have done very well. I was glad
that I didn't try to assemble a PC for myself. But then I paid $1000 for an HP
Pavilion once in America and had to sell it cheap a few years later. I know how
it felt :-)
Never an aesthete, I have no taste in the fine art of photo-production. But I can
empathize with your appreciation of things that last. The well-made camera could
become a family heirloom :-)
Enjoyed the detailed account of those early years and liked your word choices, e.g.,
mothballed, straining, etc. I think it'll be more readable with a bit more paragraphing.
记得那时国产的两类相机, 一种叫120, 一种135. 我家的是120, 立体方盒子,120胶卷大;你这个是135。 我记得特清楚怎么在家里洗相片和放大, 冲交卷要去照相铺子。 亲戚家有135,体积小。 The little girl in the pic is so cute。
The English part of the article is also interesting. 9K yuan computer and all gave away/sold furnitures/appliances... The memories vivid of my own time leaving homeland, except for being a girl not even reached her 20's, there were so many unknowns ahead - career, love, marriage and family. Thanks for the sharing.