The Hedgehog's Journal

Everyone's youth, especially a boy's, is always full of confusion, hot-blooded impulses, and sexual naivety. Don't waste your youth, or you'll regret it when your hair turns white. The fiery spirit of my youth, along with the scent of my hometown, Danfeng, keeps flickering through my black-and-white film. Li Yue, bright as a half moon, and Xiao Ling, pure as a new moon, still entwine with me in my dreams... In the early 1990s, Danfeng saw a generation of young people like this. They were young then: Danjiang, Chen Yan, Xiao Ling and the others, along with Sister Hui, who was a little older. They fought, drank to excess, stole chickens and dogs, and formed gangs. They were young and reckless, the kind of “wild beasts” people talk about. Let me tell you: Looking back after growing up more or less safely as a child born with a bellyful of mischief, I feel that growing up was no easy thing. It was knowledge, civilization gained bit by bit, that pulled me out of ignorance (in Yisha's words)! There is some melancholy, some regret, some confusion. Looking back on those days, we were ignorant, uninformed, and wild. It is almost too painful to revisit them; all I can do is sigh. In villages and small county towns, boys and girls acted out a youth drama that was both ordinary and cruel. When those years had passed and we had safely grown into adults, looking back, we couldn't help but feel a shiver of relief...