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My Nephew
"Auntie, auntie, when will grapes grow on the grapevine tree?"
That was the question my nephew asked me when he was three years old. I told him: "Grapes don't grow on a tree — they grow on a vine. They ripen in late September or early October." He asked again: "Oh, and why do grapes come in so many colors? Some are red, some green, some purple." I said, "It's because... because... I don't actually know." Then he asked me yet another question: "Why do grapes grow in bunches, instead of one by one like apples?" And I said, "Why, why, why — must you always ask so many whys? What's the point of all these questions?" I had no patience for him at all that day.
My nephew was an extraordinarily bright child — by the age of three, he could already compose verses. Once, when he was ill, the doctor prescribed a red medicinal syrup, and after taking it a few times, he began to feel better. One morning, as soon as he woke up, he told his mother, "Mama, I made up a poem." I happened to be there, and his words caught my attention right away. His mother said, "A poem? Let's hear it, then." And he recited: "Little red water, sweet, so sweet. Add a bit of sugar, sweeter still, so sweet." Childish as it was, the rhythm and rhyme held together — remarkable, I thought, for a child his age. Perhaps it came from the influence around him, since all of us had been teaching him to recite Tang and Song poetry. Back then, all it took was a single piece of candy to get him reciting every verse he'd ever memorized.
Spring Festival soon arrived, and my elder sister and I took him along to the neighborhood community center to watch the festivities. On the way, struck by a sudden impulse, I began composing a little doggerel verse. Just as I was searching for the fourth line, he piped up beside me: "Firecrackers popping, crackling away." I can no longer even remember my own lines from that poem, but his — I remember to this day.
I loved spending time with him back then. One day I posed a question to him and to my niece, who was four years older than him. I asked, "When does a rainbow appear in the sky?" My niece answered, "A rainbow appears after it rains." "That's right," I said. But my nephew objected: "No, no — a rainbow only appears after the rain stops and the sky clears." I was astonished that a child so young could observe things so precisely. My niece's answer had been correct, too, but his was more exact still.
When my nephew was in the fifth grade, he entered a mathematics and literature competition for primary school students across the four provinces of Northeast China, and won first prize in both categories. Sadly, the manuscript of his winning composition has long since been lost.
Even now, I often find myself recalling the joy he brought us in those years. They've all grown into adults now — and there's no going back to when they were small.
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