The Bud Era of Banana Pears

I've always thought that the life I lead is an ordinary one.

I've never suffered any bone-deep schemes or persecution, nor have I been showered with extravagant affection. I've never grasped the extraordinary wisdom and lucky chance of an unwritten book of secrets, nor had the remarkable fortune of picking up shoes for the Yellow Stone Elder. My intelligence is average, and my mind is ordinary. I have neither the power nor the desire to oppress others, and I lack the resolve and courage to stand up for justice and right a wrong.

For decades, I've lived an utterly unremarkable life, like the winter scenery beyond the Great Wall: unhurried and untroubled, neither sad nor joyful. It doesn't put on airs to feign beauty, nor does it deliberately pile up mountains and dig pits to create dramatic ups and downs.

The people who have appeared in my life are all ordinary folk just like me.

I forget whose novel I read it in: even in the middle of Chang'an Avenue in Beijing, little weeds grow. It was probably a novel by Teacher Wang Meng or Big Brother Wang Shuo.

I often think: living in China in the second half of the twentieth century, my life experiences have been so utterly ordinary that it's hard to feel proud of them!