This article is translated and rewritten based on my Chinese diary posted on my QQ Zone on 27th February 2011.

In 2010, my parents made the decision to build a new house by the road, after living in our old house for nearly thirty years. Since I left my hometown at the age of fifteen, I hadn’t spent much time in the new home. So, when I dreamed about my childhood at night, those dreams were always about the old house.

During the Spring Festival of 2011, I returned to my hometown. On a sunny day, I took my four-year-old nephew to visit the site of the old house. The adorable boy skipped ahead of me on the narrow road made of cement, earth, and stones. This road connected my old house to the main road and our main farmland. On this long and winding road, we used to carry coals, corn, potatoes, and raw tobacco leaves back home. I had told friends living on the plains that my house was on a mountain, but they had no idea what “on a mountain” really meant.

The clay and stone walls had been knocked down, leaving only the front wall standing, reaching up to my height. There were a few white pieces of lime hanging here and there, along with a pair of faded New Year scrolls on the right and left sides of the window frame. The cemented floor was covered in earth, and it appeared smaller than when we lived there.

The house was originally built as two large rooms. Like all the houses in the village, the left room served as the main room for ancestor worship. It was also the place where I played with sandbags and shuttlecocks, while my brothers played with paper-folded squares and fought with each other. My father’s carpentry workshop was also located in this room, where he made tables, chairs, doors, window frames, and beds. The right room was divided into two smaller rooms, with the back one serving as my parents’ bedroom and storage area, and the front one serving as the kitchen, living room, dining room, and me and my brother’s bedroom. The small window was covered with semi-transparent plastic, allowing dim light to enter the room. I can’t recall when it happened, but my father had placed a palm-sized square glass at the bottom right corner of the window. At night, the three of us would gather around the square glass to catch a glimpse of the faint flickering light from the cypress-skin-made fire torch. It was a signal that my parents were returning home after helping our neighbors with farming or other important events.

At last, the semi-transparent plastic was replaced with clear glass, the tree-skin torch with an electric one, the clay stove with an iron furnace, and the kerosene lamps with electric lamps.

When my brothers and I started going to school—I was in Grade Five, my first brother in Grade Three, and the youngest one in Grade One—we were outstanding students and excelled in our studies. My bed faced the window, while my brothers’ beds were positioned next to it. Between the stove and my bed, there was a square table where we would do our homework. The side of my bed was far from the furnace and not warm, the right side was dimmer when we wrote, and the perfect spot was on the left side. So, on weekends or holidays, every morning when we woke up, the first thing we did was fight for the left seat. Looking back, the more crowded it was, the warmer and happier we felt.

I started reading novels and stories in Grade Five and would often stay up late. Sitting in bed, I would place the novel over a textbook and read until my parents asked me to rest because I had to wake up early the next day. Whenever I heard my mom or dad get up from bed, I would quickly push the novel under the blanket and pretend to be reading a Chinese or English book. My father was proud of me and would ask my brothers to take me as an example of someone who studied diligently until midnight! Little did they know my secret, lol!

When I entered middle school, my dad built three stone rooms at the back of the house. I had the room on the right, and my brothers had the one on the left. The middle room, without a window, was used for storage. I was so excited to have my own room that I worked tirelessly to clean it when we were asked to remove the earth. Since the rooms were built against the slope of the earth, they were prone to humidity. Whenever it rained, the rooms would flood. In the corner of my room, grass grew, and in the gaps between the stones, which were filled with earth to hold them together, light green empress trees sprouted. I had a small bookshelf, although it mostly contained school books that needed to be placed in the sunlight to prevent them from becoming moldy.

On the left side of the house, there was an empty plot of land. When I was a child, my mom would sit me down on that land and comb my hair under the warm spring sunshine. To earn money to support our higher education after we finished middle school, my parents started growing tobacco. They built a tobacco drying house on that land. I have no idea how many times my dad had to wake up in the middle of the night to check the temperature and humidity and add coal to the stove. But I do remember that during the tobacco harvest season, when the corn was ripe, we would pluck the tender corn from the stalk, peel off the skin, insert a metal bar through the core, and place it over the stove in the drying room. Soon, the corn would turn a dark golden color, pop, and become sticky, sweet, and crispy to taste.

My parents didn’t buy a television because they thought it might distract us from studying and wanted to save money. During summer nights, we would all gather in the yard. Two elms stood beside the yard, accompanied by two round stone benches. The sky stretched tall and blue, adorned with countless stars, and the moon shone big and bright. Shooting stars were a common sight, and airplanes mingled with the stars, leaving long white trails in the sky. Especially during the milky way season, the stars were particularly abundant. The entire village was quiet. A man we called “Uncle Xie” lived in a higher position than our home and would often play the flute or the erhu, filling the village with music. Mom and Dad would discuss the price of chemical fertilizers, the low selling price of the potatoes in the market, the weather, and the next day’s farming plans. My eldest brother would gaze at the sky, humming and asking peculiar questions like, “Why is that star big, but that one is so small?” “Why is the moon round?” and “What does it feel like to take a plane?” My youngest brother would jump around the yard, pretending to be the monkey from the show “Journey to the West,” holding a bamboo stick and shouting, “Shifu! Shifu!” (Master, Master). When we finally bought a TV, only Dad would take a brief break in the yard after dinner, and then we would all gather around the stove to watch TV shows.

I was lost in my memories until my nephew called out to me and said he loved the new house more. I felt a sense of longing—I missed the old house. Seeing the piles of earth, I knew I couldn’t go back anymore. Even if the house could be rebuilt exactly as it was before, the stories and moments couldn’t be recreated. I am someone who despises parting with friends and cherished moments, but a friend once told me, “Time is easy to pass, but life always moves forward.” Yes, life goes on, and more exciting stories await. I took one last look at the site of the old house, holding my nephew’s hand, and returned to the new house. In the future, when I reminisce about those old stories, I can smile and feel a sense of security; that is enough.

P.S.

In April 2016, I returned to my hometown with my 14-month-old son. My mom accompanied us to the old house. The site was as flat as any other regular farmland, covered with corn, pumpkins, and bean shoots. There was no trace left to indicate that a house once stood there. My son stumbled on the earth, picking up dirt and tossing it away, murmuring and giggling. It was also a sunny and warm day, but I didn’t feel as lost as I did in 2011.