4 posts tagged with "Essay"

Lao Wang, Wang Shouyi – a plain name for a down-to-earth man – had been a clerk in the sub-district's "Comprehensive Governance Office" for what felt like an eternity, nearly twenty years. The office window faced the central garden: flowers in spring, cicadas in summer, fallen leaves in autumn, and the longing for heating in winter. Life, well, it was like the seasons outside his window, one after another; bustling on the surface, but not much real difference underneath.

The day was stifling, like a sealed soy sauce vat. The Start of Summer had just passed, and the real summer heat hadn't truly arrived, but in a place like Shanghai, once the crowds gathered, the warmth rose up on its own accord, like from a stove. Old Wang, Wang Deshun, retired for nearly five years, had been pestered endlessly by his little grandson today. Giving up his usual chess game at the alley entrance, he'd reluctantly trailed along to this confounded "Happy Valley."

Doctor Liu felt a bit wronged, like he’d swallowed a cold, hard bun that lodged in his chest, neither going down nor coming up.

Old Liu Tou recently felt a constant tightness in his chest, like a lump of poorly chewed wotou stuck there. That old locust tree at the entrance to the hutong, its leaves had yellowed and greened, greened and yellowed again; it had witnessed Old Liu Tou age from "Little Liu" to "Old Liu," and it had witnessed his son, Minghui, grow from a little tyke into a young man who had made something of himself, gotten into that... oh right, "Intelligent Monkey Academy," a company so bright it dazzled the eyes.