Poetry Land
I grew up in WenZhou, a city in west central China about 12 hours away from Shanghai by riverboat. Although a medium-size town, WenZhou feels like a little village. It was the place where I learned how to read and write in Chinese. People used to call WenZhou “Poetry Land,” because most of the people there were highly educated and they loved poems. You could often hear women singing poetry at laundry time, children reciting poetry in the morning, and old people poetizing in their back yards.
I remember when I was five years old, there was a child poetry competition in the town. At that age I really did not like to read or write at all. My best interest at that period of time was to collect different kinds of dolls. However, my mom really wanted me to participate in that year’s competition. She hoped that I could bring more honors to our family. In the past my grandpa had won a prize at a senior competition and my father had won a prize, too. Our family’s reputation wasn’t bad in the whole town and my family hoped that I wouldn’t embarrass them.
One night after dinner my mom came to my bedroom and she had something to say.
“Yan, my sweetie, you know mama loves you so much, right?” She said as she stroked my long hair. “Yeah, but mama, you haven’t bought me a new doll in a long time!” I replied with my sweet voice.
“Honey, you have twenty dolls already, you cannot just spend all your time with these dolls. You are a big girl now; mama wants you to learn more poetry, so you can win a prize. Don’t let mama down.” My mom sounded serious.
I wasn’t happy: “No, I don’t like poetry and I neither want to read nor write it. Why should I go to the competition?”
My mom became angry: “Yan, how could you talk to mama like that? You have to be present in this year’s competition, because you are from the Cheng Family; Cheng’s children are always the best at poetry.”
I really didn’t understand all the sentences my mom was saying, but I know she was very mad. Whenever she was mad at me she would...