My Brother and I 我和我哥 松鼠跪鱼2022-02-04 17:22:09

I learned my first Chinese characters not from a schoolteacher but my older brother. He is five years older than me. According to Chinese astrology he is a pig born in 1959 while I was born in 1964, a dragon. Believe it or not, that means something, and it's been proven by our lives. The dragon flew all over the world while the pig stayed in the village all these years. 

My older brother went to primary school in our village while I was a preschooler helping my mother with our younger brother at home. I was always curious what was written in his very thin textbooks. But I could only guess what was there by looking at the simple illustrations. So I begged him to read for me. He, not just reading from the book, was always creating his version of the stories. I didn't believed him totally because I knew he was not reading to me exactly from the textbook. Eventually my brother grew tired of me and told me if I wanted to know what was in the book, I should learn from him how to read. I think he just wanted to be a teacher. Years later he became my real teacher in the same village school after he finished high school at the best school in the county. 

So began our lessons. It was still the time of the Cultural Revolution. The school textbooks were full of propaganda.  No surprise that the first phrases I learned from my brother were: Long live Chairman M, Long live the Com- Party, etc. He would write down a line of slogans with the white chalk on the dusty floor of our living room, and I would repeat five lines of the same words beneath it. After school he'd check on my homework. I always felt his writing was so pretty and neat, while mine where tiny tree branches twisting and straining beneath his beautiful characters like some funny, bouncing clowns. But I was so happy that I could begin to learn to become a more educated person. 

One day my brother asked me "do you want to learn how to write your own name?" Of course, I wanted to learn! So the very first time in my life at the age of six, I learned the three Kanjis of my name. I was so proud of myself! 

One day the neighbor boy came to brag about his new school life. I could hardly believe it! What! He was in school but why wasn't I? I am half a year older than him!  But he said all of the kids his age in the village started their first grade in school but me! Damn it! 

There was no kindergarten in my time. The villagers' children begun their education at age of seven. It turned out I was not registered for school because my mother decided I should stay home for a year longer to help her take care of my three-year-old little brother.  It was later I realized that at the same time my mother was in her midterm pregnancy with my youngest brother. But I was already seven and half years old! My mother wanted me to stay home another year?! I was so mad and shocked by the news. "I want to go to school"! I declared, and I cried and shouted at her like nothing would stop me from my desire of going. 

Eventually my mother agreed that I would go to school in fall that year of 1972.  During the same semester my older brother finished his primary school in our village and started middle school in the headquarters of our township. In the same winter my lovely youngest brother was born to my great disappointment. Because I dreamed and hoped that my mother would give me a little sister. 

Today my youngest brother and I talked over the phone for two and a half hours. The time went by without notice. In a few days his daughter my niece will start high school in Xi'an entering a new era of her life. Congratulations! Now it's yoga time for me. 

Scorpion

我的第一个汉字不是从老师那里学来的，而是跟我哥学的，他比我大五岁。根据中国属相他是1959年出生的猪，而我1964年出生的龙。不管你信不信我相信这里有说法的，我俩的生活轨迹已经证明了这一点。这些年来，龙飞遍了世界，而猪则一直留在了村子里。