Locust Tree Hutong had been a serene neighborhood in Beijing. Every morning, the residents woke up to birds chirping on the locust trees. Chess lovers played Chinese chess in the hutong--the narrow alley between the courtyard houses--with several bystanders observing. Five years ago, the neighborhood changed when a new business complex was erected one block outside Locust Tree Hutong. More suits and ties appeared in the neighborhood. Some families rented out rooms to the young professionals; some turned their courtyard houses into hotels; some set up food stands in the hutong to sell soy milk and buns in the morning. You would rarely see onlookers surrounding two chess players now. Everyone here was talking about one thing: Locust Tree Hutong would be demolished soon for the developing of new Beijing.
It was a summer morning. The red door of a courtyard house was pushed opened from the inside. Out walked an old man, carrying an empty birdcage. The neighbors called him Old Lin. He wore a straw hat, his back slightly hunched and his gray hair combed to the back. Age had carved two deep lines on his forehead. His white short sleeve shirt hung loose over his navy blue polyester pants. No wind. Cicadas shouted “too hot” up in the locust trees. Lin looked between the courtyard houses, behind the food stands, and up in the locust trees. Once in a while, he called loudly, “Little Green! Come home!”
Little Green was a parrot, who had been Lin’s best companion after his wife, Yue, died ten years ago. When Lin first saw Little Green at the bird market, he was instantly stunned by her beauty. Her body was covered with bright green feathers. Her curved red beak matched the red circle around her eyes. In a high-pitched sweet voice, Little Green greeted Lin “Ni hao!” (Hello!). Right then right there, Lin made the biggest purchase decision in his life. He left and soon came back with 6,000 yuan, his three-month stipend, and took Little Green home.
Little Green didn’t like cold weather, so Lin stayed home with her by the stove in winter. He taught Little Green many new words, such as: “hao” (good),” “bu hao” (not good), “leng” (cold), “e le” (hungry), and “zao shang hao” (good morning).
In summer, for the past ten years, Lin carried Little Green in a birdcage to the bird market to meet his bird-loving friends every morning. On the way to the market, Little Green greeted every passerby “Zao shang hao!” The market was swamped with bird lovers. Some of them were first timers; some were experienced and willing to give a lecture to the newcomers at any minute. A variety of birds were chirping from birdcages hung on both sides of the alley. With his friends surrounding him, Lin let Little Green stand on his straw hat. Little Green greeted the crowd, “Dajia Hao!” (“Hello everyone!”) One time, Little Green suddenly shouted, “Da bizi! Da bizi!” (“Big nose! Big nose!”) Everyone turned and saw a European-looking man nearby. Everyone laughed, including that foreigner, who understood Chinese. A man in the crowd offered Lin 20,000 yuan for Little Green. Lin said, “Little Green is not for sale.”
“Little Green! Come home!” Old Lin’s desperate voice echoed in the hutong. He couldn’t believe that Little Green was gone. Yesterday, Lin’s seven year old granddaughter, Xiao Yu, took Little Green to the courtyard to let her fly. She had read a story about a caged bird who longed to fly freely in the sky. Little Green had been let out before and had never flown away. But yesterday, the sudden loud noise from the construction site nearby scared her. She flew to the roof, and then after another loud noise, Little Green was nowhere to be seen. They all thought Little Green would return home before it was dark--but she didn’t. “Little Green! Come home!” Lin stopped where the hutong ended. The world outside the hutong made him dizzy. A wide bustling street was filled with cars, buses, electric scooters, tricycles, a few bicycles, and people. People were everywhere. The new subway station was on the left and the business complex was on the right. Two blocks down, a new shopping mall was under construction. Several cranes were busy transporting building materials to the scaffoldings. As the contemporary saying goes, the crane is China’s new “national bird.” Lin had an urge to cry.
In the past fifty years, nobody had ever seen Lin cry, not even when his parents died, nor when his wife died, nor when he received a notice informing him that he had to move to give room for new Beijing. He had a high tolerance towards life because he had survived the Japanese invasion, the Great Famine, and the Cultural Revolution. In the past two decades, the economic miracle in China had made him proud. It was the beginning of the new millennium, China could finally have a say in the world again, but then the world moved too fast for him to grasp and nobody cared what he thought or how he felt.
Across the street, a group of young people were gathering in the new park with their expensive bicycles. They wore helmets and tight cycling outfits. When did riding bikes become fashionable? He remembered when he was a math teacher in a local middle school, he rode his old black bicycle to school alongside Yue, who was an English teacher, every day. In the narrow street outside Locust Tree Hutong, they joined hundreds of other bike riders. The “ding-ling-ling” sound of the bike bells was a collective composition of the morning symphony. Lin looked at Yue; her face looked beautiful in the golden sunlight, and her short black hair danced with the breeze. They first met in the street when everyone in Beijing was out celebrating the surrender of the Japanese army in August 1945. He was 20. She was 19. That day, she wore a green Qipao that fit her elegantly.
“Little Green! Come home!” Lin turned back and walked home. It was almost noon. In front of his house, he sighed and pushed the red door open. It was a typical Siheyuan--a traditional courtyard house--in Beijing. Three families shared this courtyard. Lin’s house faced the red door--the south, and the other two families faced each other. A tall locust tree stood by Lin’s living room window.
Lin’s family had lived in Locust Tree Hutong since the Qing Dynasty when his grandfather arrived with his starving family escaping from the famine in the North. Lin himself was now a grandfather with six grandchildren. When the grandchildren visited him, they were always busy texting or playing video games, except Xiao Yu, who loved to read books.
Lin put the birdcage on the black wood table and sat down. The image of him with his head down reflected on the sunglasses by the birdcage. Lin stared at the empty birdcage for a long time. It was a redwood-colored bamboo birdcage. The handle on the top was real redwood carved with a dragon on one side and a phoenix on the other. A week ago, in that birdcage, Little Green said “Happy birthday!” to Lin at his 75th birthday in front of his relatives and friends. Xiao Yu had taught her those words. Lin took off his straw hat. As his fingertips touched the claw marks that Little Green had left on the edge of the hat, tears rolled down his thin cheeks. He might never see Little Green again! The whole neighborhood would be demolished within a week. How could Little Green find her way home? He felt a pang in his heart as if it were being pinched from the inside.
Lin looked around and his eyes landed on Yue’s framed photo, which stood on the shrine table against the north wall. She was smiling. Lin walked towards her and began to sob like a child. All the tears he had held inside for the past fifty years were pouring out like water rushing through a broken dike.
The sun was gone now. The empty birdcage was waiting in the dark.
(First published in The Looking Glass Quarterly, p. 16, College of Marin, July 2014; republished in sPARKLE & bLINK, issue 64: april 2015). Reading @ Quiet Lightning in San Francisco.
(First published in The Looking Glass Quarterly, p. 16, College of Marin, July 2014; republished in sPARKLE & bLINK, issue 64: april 2015). Reading @ Quiet Lightning in San Francisco.
