Waiting at the XuanWuMenDong bus stop, I could not help shivering with cold. I had waited for the No.T4-bus for at least half an hour, while approximately five No. 7-buses which brought me to that bus stop had passed by.

The day before, the weather forecast reported that it would be -4℃~4℃. Quite nice! I felt lucky. But was it really that nice?

Why was it so cold? Had the weather forecast report made a mistake? Or did my feeling go wrong? I could not stop shivering and my feet became senseless. Looking up at the grey sky, I could do nothing but just sigh.

I was going to a shop to fetch my hairdryer, which I had ordered from the internet. I had finished the payment using online banking. Mostly in this case, people would wait at home for the courier to bring him the goods. However, I intended to argue myself into believing that I went to the shop not because I wanted to save that 8yuan of freight, but to have a look at the shop and see whether it deserve further “cooperation”.

Why did I buy the hairdryer from the internet, while it could be seen on the shelves of all super markets? Why did I keep my little room in a simplest decoration? Why did I do the cooking every day?

I could, anyhow, find a reason for everything I did. I liked simple decoration, especially when I was not determined about where I would be the next month. I cooked because I had a light taste which could only be satisfied by my own.

However, someone could easily lay bare my lie. “You are just niggardly with money.”

He-he…yes, I am merely a niggardly woman; I have been a slave to money…I have been used to economize on money since I have a poor family and that I am a good girl. But I have grown up now, I earn my own money now, yet I still have to save on money. What a shamed…

I know that money doesn’t grow more by saving, but grows more by making. However, sometimes if you could not make something grow more, you have to stop it from getting less.

I wrote this article, to some extent, to comfort myself in mind. Sometimes I really feel ashamed when my friends kid with me about my penny pinching. What’s more, I am a little worried that I will be still too niggardly in future even when I become a millionaire. Ha-ha…

The banana-induced Memory

“What does your family do for a living? Plant banana?” Someone asked me when he knew that I am the child of a farmer in Guangdong.

Ha-ha, it seemed that his knowledge about farm produce in Guangdong was nothing but banana.

Well, I am not going to introduce how many species of fruits Guangdong produces, because you can easily find the information from the internet. However, his question brought me back to my childhood in which those fruit trees waving in the wind.

Our village is very small, with 8 households still living in it and several households moved overseas and one or two moved to the city or other developed district of China. Of the 8 households, 5 are in a big family, including my family and other 4 being my uncles’; 2 are also brothers in another family. Really small, isn’t it?

I love banana, but the fact is we don’t plant banana.

It is a self-sufficient village with just a few scattered farmlands to plan rice biannually. We also plant peanuts or sweet potatoes on the hills at the back of the village. There are other crops such taros, corns, all kinds of beans and vegetables. The climate is suitable for many kinds of the crops in the world, but the villagers probably don’t want to bother themselves by planting excess farm produce, so we don’t live on farm land. Most of the middle-age men find jobs as construction workers in the town.

Sorry, I had talked too much about non-banana…

We don’t plant banana, but when I was young, there were many plantain(芭蕉，大蕉，板蕉) trees. Plantain doesn’t taste as good as banana. But perhaps it is much easier to bear fruits, so they could be seen all along the roadside of the village. By the roadside there were also longan(龙眼) trees, leechee（荔枝）trees, Chinese wampee fruit(黄皮) trees, guava(番石榴树) and so on. However, they were not planted by the villagers, but grew by themselves after people throwing their seeds onto the soil.

Sadness aroused when the road was rebuilt. It had to be broadened so all the fruit trees had to be cut down and removed or buried. It was really a pity because the trees not only bore delicious fruits but also contributed a wonderful paradise for us children. I missed one of the big longan trees so much that I could not find any other one produces tastier longans, and I missed the little green house the small guava tree and the vines set up for us. By the way, I remembered there was a nice species of guava alongside a brook by the farm land, but, god, it was also be killed! I wonder whether it was because they adults were angry at us for as soon as the guava became ripe, they were all picked off by us children. 

Concerning the fruits in the village, I would also like to talk about grape. My father had ever planted a green grape tree in front of our house. After several years it bore grapes! Years later more and more grapes appeared on the tree, and the vine became thicker and thicker. It was the only one in the village, so it was popular. Every year we would brought some to my grandmother’s; and when some distinguished visitor (who would give children big red packets) came they were treated our special delicious grape. I suggested planting more grape trees utilizing one piece of our farm land but my father didn’t adopt it. And the grape tree died a few years ago due to neglect of maintenance! What a shame!

Frankly speaking, my parents are not very good at farming. I had always thought that vegetables and fruit grew much better in other family’s land than in ours. However, we did do well in maintaining the pawpaw（木瓜)and sugarcane（甘蔗）.

Now being far away from my hometown, I often struggle in my mind for a long time to decide whether to buy the expensive fresh fruits. Oh, I miss the fruits in my hometown so much…