Part I

Childhood Nurse and the Ancient Books On Cultural

GeographyLu Xun/

From the Grass Garden to the Threeflavor StudyLu Xun/

The Spring Festival of BeijingLao She/

Spring Festival CoupletsLao She/

On EatingXia Mianzun/

Food and Other Things in FuzhouYu Dafu/

My MotherZou Taofen/

Part II

Concern About the Old Man Under the MoonYe Zhishan/

The Dragon Boat FestivalChen Baichen/

Tianyi Pavilion in the Winds and RainsYu Qiuyu/

The River I Always RememberZhou Peihong/

Woman Matchmakers in ChinaTu Ao/

Part III

The Smallfruited Fig Trees of My BirthplaceHuang Helang/

Recollections of My ChildhoodLiu Meng/

The Prearranged EatingtogetherYan Lianke/

West of Mount GaoligonYu Jian/

The NineCurve TurningLiu Chengzhang/

The Fire GourdsLiu Chengzhang/

Yulin—A City in Northern ShaanxiLiu Chengzhang/

The Song for the GodsZhou Tongbin/

The Barbershop Carried on a Shoulder PoleZhou Tongbin/

The Dining Place Under the TreeZhou Tongbin/

……

<<<Childhood Nurse and the Ancient Books On Cultural Geography

Childhood Nurse and the Ancient Books

On Cultural GeographyLu Xun

Mum Long1 was a woman servant in my family who had taken care of me, or, in more ostentatious terms, my childhood nurse My mother and many others called her Mum Long to show a sort of politeness The only exception was my grandma who called her Ah Long I normally called her Ah Mum However, when I was angry at her, for example, when I knew she had murdered my pet mole, I would call her Ah Long

Actually, there was nobody with the family name “Long” in our neighborhood; nor was “long” the adjective to describe her since she was short and stout I remember once she told me her maiden name, which had nothing to do with “Long,” though I cannot recall what it was She also told me why she was called Ah Long: years before, there had been a very tall woman servant in my family, so the word “long” was just her nickname When this tall servant quitted, my nurse, whatever she was called at that time, took her place As everyone in my family was already accustomed to calling the woman doing this job “Long,” she had ever since become Mum Long

Although it is not good to make captious comments about others behind their backs, I cannot refrain from saying that I did not admire her at all, to tell the truth  The most loathsome thing about her was that she liked nothing more than whispering endlessly to others, with her forefinger waving up and down or pointing at the listeners nose or her own Whenever disturbances arose in the household, I irresistibly suspected that these were somehow related to her whispering I disliked her also because she forbade me to move about If I pulled up a weed or turned over a small piece of stone, she would scold me for being naughty and tell my mother all about it  Summer nights, she had a habit of sprawling like a Chinese character “大” right in the middle of the matted bed This left me only a narrow, sunned edge of the straw mat, so narrow that I found it difficult even to turn over in bed Sometimes I tried to push her or wake her up, but all to no avail

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