Chinese New Year Couplets

As Christmas rolls around, school is let out for a two-week vacation. For the past few years, my only "recreation" during the holiday has been working on a paper. It's kept me so busy that I've naturally forgotten that feeling of drifting about in a foreign country. This reminds me of the time when I was a child. While others were celebrating the New Year, I was out on the streets selling Chinese New Year couplets. Likewise it kept me busy and took my mind off of the hard-ships of my family.

Twenty years have gone by like the swift flowing of a stream. It's vacation time again, which means that everyone has left for home. I was sitting in my office typing away deep into the night. Suddenly I paused for a moment only to realize how quiet everything was. Looking through the window, I stared up into the pitch-dark sky. I thought back on the time when I was a middle school student selling those Chinese couplets during the New Year. It's been twenty years since then.

I never used to look for-ward to the New Year. I could never understand why my father owed everyone so much money. They would come, one after another, knocking on our door. First it would be the oil and salt shopkeeper asking us to clear our bill, only to be followed by the rice shop clerk. Since none of the grownups would hang around during this time and since I was the eldest son, the burden of paying off these bills fell upon my shoulders.

No matter how much the shopkeepers ranted and raved, it was useless--there wasn't a cent to be had. I would avoid them by going out and selling couplets together with my younger sister in order to earn money.

Setting up shop was not a big task, yet there were a few problems to confront. Firstly, where does one find the money to start? In my case I pawned a rug belonging to my mother. I would be sure to make enough money to get it back.

The second problem was how to keep the ink from freezing. After a bit of research I discovered that adding a little lime did the trick.

Thirdly, a good spot had to be taken up quickly! In order to avoid being bullied by the big guys who wanted to take over our spot, my sister would threaten them by saying that she was going to get our "big brother" after them. Hearing this they wouldn't persist any further.

Business was best around the New Year. We'd earn a bit of money and then send my younger sister running back to pay off part of the bills. This is how we four children spent our New Year.

As in all battles there's a price to pay. Our noses ran in the freezing cold, and our tears left streaks as they ran down our faces. After closing up shop on New Year's Eve we would head back home in cutting winds which blew down from the north. And so another year would go by.

When I got back to the warmth of the house, my younger brother would run over to greet me. "I've been practicing my characters," he'd say. "Next year I'm going to sell couplets and you can stay home."

No matter where I find myself, I always enjoy looking back on that time.

Chieh-ju knows how much I love to write couplets, so when I came to the U.S. she stuffed an ink stick and a brush in my luggage. I always send a few couplets back each year. This year's are already completed.

Taken from Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Literature