Scholar Trees, Winter Melons, a Mountain Temple, and My Mother

Every year in the fifth and sixth lunar months, Beijing's streets and lanes bloom with scholar-tree flowers. The Chinese scholar tree is one of Beijing's main landscaping trees; people who have long lived in Beijing must feel affection for the groves of scholar trees by their doorsteps. When my mother was in Beijing, she especially loved Beijing's scholar trees. On walks after meals she would always say that if only there were such a shade of scholar trees near our hometown fields, then when tired from working in summer, resting in the shade would surely be a pleasure.

In the last years of her life, my mother lived with me mostly in Beijing. After her stroke, my mother was left with a little residual disability; fearing for her safety crossing the street, I always held her hand as we walked along the tree-lined roads. When the scholar trees bloomed and fell, my mother's joy was beyond words. My mother was a person who loved life and was easily satisfied. The least pleasing sight before her eyes was enough to make her happy for a long while.

Now my mother has been gone for nearly ten years. Ten years really is like a snap of the fingers. Every year when Beijing's scholar trees are in full bloom, walking in their shade, I still deeply miss the days when I held my mother's hand and the two of us walked along the tree-lined road. Now I commute every day between home and the foot of Xiangshan, and the whole way is lined with scholar trees. Lately the flowers have been falling in large numbers; beneath the trees is a white-green carpet of scholar-tree blossoms, beautiful to see.

A few days ago I wrote a poem: "Scholar tree, scholar tree, laden on the boughs; in the fifth month of midsummer, falling one by one, fragrance filling the horizon. Scholar tree, scholar tree; a wanderer far from home, missing his mother, forever parted by yin and yang, with endless sighs. Scholar tree, scholar tree; silently, accompanying me as I plant vegetables at the foot of Xiangshan."

I am someone whose feelings are easily fixed by environment; I often see an object and think of the person. The imprint of past life on me is not easily erased. My mother lived with me in Beijing for about ten years, so many things easily evoke memories of her.

Lately I have been planting vegetables, and the scene in the garden also easily brings back memories of my mother. After she died, I often went back to my hometown to tend her grave. My mother's grave is in our own responsibility field; my father planted some pumpkins and winter melons beside her grave. Their vines spread all over her grave, and the winter melons and pumpkins they bear often rest right on the mound. Sometimes when I go home to visit my mother's grave, I pick a winter melon or pumpkin from her grave to take home and cook.

In the countryside, the living and the dead are close. Unlike city people, who must travel to a distant cemetery to sweep graves, our burial hills are all around the village, and the crops are all around the village. So country people are not so afraid of death; after a loved one dies, there is no tearing feeling—we know our dear ones lie not far from home; when we miss them, we go to their grave to see them, and when we work we pass their grave.

Elderly country people also know roughly where they will be buried after death, knowing that even after death they will not be far from their loved ones, so they do not feel death is such a desolate thing. Before my mother died, she was not especially sorrowful.

On my way home from the vegetable plot I pass a temple called Miaoyun Temple, on Yuquan Mountain Road at the foot of Xiangshan; but its gate is closed year-round. Even so, it reminds me of the Medicine King Temple back home. Every first day of the lunar New Year, my mother would invariably take my brother and me to the Medicine King Temple to pray. We went just for the bustle—because on New Year's Day the area before the temple was packed with people, truly lively—only Mother went there to piously pray for blessings.

My brother and I are very individual people—my brother was the top scorer in the college entrance exam (if I had not been absorbed in reading and writing, I too would nearly have been the top scorer); after four years at a famous university, he burned his diploma (of course my parents did not know of this; only I knew, because he burned it in front of me). As for me, after entering university, feeling greatly disappointed, I left. We both belong to people who cannot be understood by ordinary logic (this is also a failing of many members of my family: my cousin and my eldest uncle were both top scorers in the college entrance exam, and their behavior is equally puzzling; so I very much hope my son's generation can escape this strange circle, just as Ji Kang hoped his son would live an ordinary life). But before our mother, we were still docile. While she lived, she had absolute authority over us; only she could rein in her two wild-horse sons.

The first time I passed Miaoyun Temple I thought of my mother, feeling rather sad; how beautiful life would be if she were still alive. I often feel my parents paid too much for their two sons to go to university, and that it was not worth it. I feel Chinese people take going to university too seriously; and I often feel that our two brothers' youthful brilliance was a huge burden to our parents. If my mother had not worn herself out for us, she would not have died before her time. What is more important than being alive? We all, like madmen, struggle toward some universally envied life goal, forgetting to cherish our most precious lives—truly foolish. I also often regret not having practiced medicine earlier; if my early medical skill had reached today's level, I believe my mother would not have died. Now I can only remember her through these things that remind me of her.

Sometimes people say to me, "You have such a good state of mind now." In fact, the so-called good state of mind is simply that, after losing the most precious thing, one understands that everything else is unimportant; having walked so many wrong roads, one is no longer willing to repeat them.

I miss my mother very much. Previously I would go back home several times a year, each time staying a while, wandering to her grave morning and evening, as if she were not far away and I were visiting and keeping her company. This year I cannot go back; my heart feels empty, and wherever I go I think of her.

I often tell my family: when I die in future, donate my body for medical research. If someone wants my body, then burn my old clothes at my mother's grave. If no one wants it, then scatter my ashes at my mother's grave; there is no need to make a special grave for me. I came into this world because of my mother, so I should return to her side.