Chapter Seven – Beijing Memories, the old town west
(1) Railway Station
Childhood memories are fragmented, but they are also the clearest. Now every time I hear the whistle of the train, it will bring back my infinite memories. My eldest sister went to a remote countryside in Shanxi to work there as a farmer in 1967 and my second older sister went to the Heilongjiang construction farm in 1969. Every return of the sisters is a source of excitement for our four kids who is still at home in Beijing. Everyone scrambled to go to the station to pick them up. Seeing the locomotive approaching little by little, the conductor standing at the door of the carriage felt so envious. Every time the eldest sister came back and looked at us with a tired smile on her face after the long journey. The four of us rushed over together, took the handbag, and the backpack from my sister’s hand. Feel genuinely happy. My second older sister often came back with a group of friends in the same farm and their faces were flushed joyfully.
What I am most afraid of is the farewell at the train station. Every time I hear the whistle and the train moves slowly towards far away, I can’t help crying. Dimly watching the train drive away little by little, leaving behind a cloud of white smoke and endless melancholy. The most painful thing in life is parting from life and the death of loved one. I said to myself over and over again in my heart: How wonderful it would be if our whole family could be together all the time everyday. I missed lying in bed with my sisters and listening to them tell scary stories and talk about the interesting things happened in the countryside. This kind of life lasted for 7 or 8 years until my sisters come back to Beijing. My mother’s hair gradually turned white during this hard time and I also grow up without much knowing what the future of myself.
(2) The year of 1989
My son is born in 2000 and he always observed the surrounding world with wide and curious eyes. There was a hint of maturity in his eyes that reminded me of the days when my father was in the hospital bed in 1989. He loves fishing. In the spring of 1989, when the weather was just warming up a little, he rode a bicycle to go fishing. Unfortunately, when he came back, he fell down and was admitted to the hospital with high paraplegia. I felt so sad at father’s bedside touching his face where he could feel how much I loved him, I have never been so close to my father, touching him and watching him in the eyes. Dad was great and he has been served in the army most of his life, raising our six children under extremely difficult time. Our life is just getting better but he didn’t enjoy much. Dad only had his arms and head to move, and his eyes revealed an unprecedented expectation and purity. I cried helplessly. Those eyes were her last memory of her father.
Dad passed away on April 29, 1989. It was an eventful year and lots of things happened in Beijing with constant parades on the street and slogans resounding throughout Chang’an Avenue. Tiananmen Square was occupied by students, covered with tents and various flags, most notable were the flags of the eight art academies. I also came to Tiananmen Square that day and felt a burst of hopes. Some students were erecting a statue of a girl holding a torch embracing freedom. Tears flowed down, and the emotions that had been suppressed for too long burst out like a spring. Even an ant has a sense of mission and no one cares about the ending. The days passed in uneasiness, and I felt that the air was full of tension. A large number of military vehicles drove into the suburbs of Beijing. More and more military vehicles passed by on Chang’an Street and the Second Ring Road. On the evening of June 3, China Central Television broadcast “Please stay at home and don’t go out”. Suddenly, gunshots were heard, coming from Chang’an Avenue not far away. It’s getting denser. My elder sister’s friend Xiaodi took the child and planned to go back to the home across Chang’an Street from Yuyuantan but it’s blocked so they have to returned to our house. In the early morning of June 4th. Yuyuantan was not quiet anymore, shouts, police cars and ambulances passing by which all aroused my concern. The Naval General Hospital next door was full of people as a large number of wounded were sent there. After dawn, I couldn’t help but cycled to Chang’an Avenue. I was stunned, full of tanks and soldiers with live ammunition. I Looked up at the gray clouded and windy sky and felt stuffy in my heart. I wanted to shout loudly to release the depression but I couldn’t make a sound, I felt so powerless and guessed that people can be suffocated. The year of 1989 shed too many tears in my life. I needed a change of my career, quitted from a well-known state-owned enterprise to worked for a private enterprise, and then worked for a foreign company. I still had a restless heart, and I wanted to go out and see the world.
