Miyayama's Story Collection: Birthday

"Big Birthday" is a realistic novella based on the 80th birthday of Jin Dao old man. Using "crooked mouth" as the core metaphor, through the time and space span of a week before and after the birthday banquet, it depicts the dignity and loneliness of an ordinary Chinese old man amid family power transfer, intergenerational conflict and physical decline. Lao Ding, an old fisherman with a crooked mouth, became a prop on display under the spotlight of the birthday banquet. The birthday banquet is not a celebration, but a gathering for the children to confirm that he is "not dead yet". In the mixture of microphones, flashlights and saliva, his crookedness was consumed as a "kind smile", and his existence was pushed to the edge of the world. He wanted to say "thank you", but his pronunciation became "write vent"; he wanted to forgive his elder brother, but what he said was "eyebrow shit" - words were betrayed by the body, and good intentions were misunderstood by the world. What supports him is his wife Lao He's clumsy protection: cooking noodles, wiping the corners of his mouth, and protecting him from wind and rain. When the cerebral infarction pinned him to the bed, only Lao He's hand was left holding his, like two pieces of weathered wood that had been heated, supporting each other in the darkness. The novel explores the life proposition that aging is not loss but deformation, and dignity lies in continuing to survive after accepting distortion. Chapter eight goes from resistance to acceptance, and finally ends up with a bowl of longevity noodles that has been leaked and wiped, wiped and fed again - it has been weathered by the years, but it is still a complete life worth living.