Night of Full Moon

 Written by  Ma Qiang     Yunnan University   

Translated by Mindy Brand

A full moon, a light breeze.

Under this soft moonlight, what are those eternal friends doing? I think of going with them to school together at dawn when we were kids, the bright moon lighting up the little road, the cool wind awakening the trees; I think of playing hide-and-seek under the moonlight, riding bicycles, swimming, scooping up the moon; I think of the dim streetlamps, heavy cart, and full head of sweat. Everything seems to have happened yesterday. Then, the happiness underneath the moon was unlimited, but now, I am the only one on the road, solitary and alone.

I remember that just after we entered the new century, the brick factory went bankrupt. The employees of the factory each went their separate ways, searching for a way out. I was continuously studying, not taking a single step out the school gate, and knew absolutely nothing about the outside world. Even when my family moved to another brick factory, I did not know about it until my father called to tell me. I knew the brick factory would go bankrupt sooner or later. I had heard that the factory director and contractors were insatiably greedy, with swollen bellies, and that the employees' salaries were pitifully lacking. I also knew that this place would not be my home forever, and that I would have to move sooner or later. I had already gotten used to moving, but I had never thought of the separation that moving would bring, and had never thought of how sad separation was.

After I went to high school, P told me that just about all our friends dropped out of school after leaving the brick factory. They stepped in the gate of society prematurely, because there was never going to be a more stable place than the brick factory where they could happily step in a classroom. But most of them had not even graduated from elementary school. I thought, in this world whose face is changing at the speed of light, which corner of society could they stand firmly in with this bit of education?

P also told me, he was quitting school too. P was one who still continued studying after his family fell apart. He would often write to me, telling me how he was. We would correspond, telling each other of our anxious thoughts on separation and our respective lives. He told me, he was going to persevere to the end. For himself and for the future, he would hold the pen tight even if it meant his life. After he had read a lot of books, his thought had also matured quite a bit. I found that he seemed to come to understanding about something. But now, he said he would quit. I really could not accept it. His father had special work skills. The financial situation of his family was not too bad. He wrote in a letter, “There is nothing I can do. I don't do well enough in my studies. My parents say if you're just going to screw around in school, you might as well come home early and help out. I have no reason to refuse.” I saw P's helplessness and heartache. Yes, when the parents give up their support, what could the child say?

The brick factory's bankruptcy changed many things. Parents who were ahead materially had backward thinking, and parents who had forward thinking fell behind materially. Children follow their parents from birth. If the parents receive hardship, the children suffer consequences. Just like after a bird's nest falls out of a tree and the little birds lose their way, twenty or so of my friends all left the school behind, threw down their beloved books, and scampered blindly in society. Today, the only one left on the path of learning is lonely me.

M is dark, strong, and a good laborer. I heard he almost got both his legs broken by a loose boulder. L's parents are already elderly and in a hurry to hold a grandson, and so forced him to marry a pretty girl. He is just waiting to be a father. H is willing neither to study nor to marry. He just works hard all day, exchanging tears and sweat for the meager income at the end of the month. M, L, and H are all younger than me. I remember that they were good at basketball. A few years ago they were even the stars of their rural elementary school team. But in only a few short years, they all prematurely tasted fully the hardship not belonging to their age.

The cold wind of the winter day pulled my thoughts back to the present. I saw the moonlight falling quietly in the flower bed in the school grounds, falling on the Hall of Confucius, falling on the smooth ground of the field. Although there was some cold wind mixed up in it, it was just as enchanting as ever. Even winter had such beautiful moonlight as this. I thought, the moonlight in the lotus lake of Learning Sea (the lake in the Confucian temple) must be as beautiful as that under Zhu Zi Qing's pen.

I thought of us as children on a winter day like this, bundled up and in a group, playing under the moonlight. The moonlight scattered the darkness of the night. Today, those happy times will never return. What is lost can never be had again, and what is in one's memory will gradually fade too. What I have are the textbooks on my desk, neat like a big building, and not much time till the High Education examinations. On a night like this, under the moonlight and in the breeze, I remembered them all of a sudden, just like waking up in the middle of the night and hearing the rain outside the window indistinctly.

On a night of full moon, I pray for them far away.

Postscript

A teacher once said, “Change what you can change, get used to what you can't change.” Birth cannot be changed, but goals are under my control. Thinking of the old friends of my childhood, I think, what I can do is to grasp today's opportunities. Because I believe, “I may have nothing now, but in the future, there is nothing I will not have.”