career. She had to take care of things at home.
After lunch, she found it hard to concentrate on the books again. Downstairs, a squabble seemed to be breaking out in the kitchen. Hua called in, saying that he wouldn’t be coming in that day. Peiqin had another idea about the red mandarin dress, so she decided to take the afternoon off.
She might be able to learn something about it from the movies. The dress could have some specific meaning that she was not aware of in her lusterless daily life. She walked out, heading toward a DVD store on Sichuan Road. The afternoon had turned cold. She wrapped herself more tightly in the cotton-padded army jacket, one of the few remainders from her army farm days in Yunnan. Ironically, the imitation army jacket, too, seemed to be getting popular again.
The store was huge, with thousands of VCDs and DVDs displayed in various sections. To her amazement, she saw quite a few new movies that had not been officially released.
“So how can there be DVDs so quickly?” she asked the storeowner, who was also a customer at her restaurant.
“Easy. Someone sneaks into a preview with a camcorder,” he said with a broad grin. “We guarantee the quality. You can return the DVD for a full refund.”
She thanked him and looked around. In the section of Western classics, she came upon a movie entitled Random Harvest , adapted from the novel by James Hilton. It was the first English novel Chen had read in Bund Park, Yu had told her. The Chinese version had a fascinating title: A Pair of Mandarin Ducks’ Dream Re-dreamed. In classical Chinese poetry, a pair of Mandarin ducks stood for inseparable lovers. So this must be a love story. She put the movie into her shopping basket.
In the domestic section, she picked up A Nurse’s Diary , a movie made in the fifties. She remembered having seen a poster of the young nurse wearing a mandarin dress. Another love story, judging from the glamorous DVD cover. She also chose Golden Lock , a Hong Kong movie based on a novel by Ailing.
But she failed to find a documentary movie about the dress, nor any movie with a title directly connected to it.
The moment she got back home, she turned on the DVD player. There were still a couple of hours before she had to worry about dinner. She took off her shoes and socks, stretched herself out on the sofa, and covered her feet with a cushion.
She watched Random Harvest for only ten minutes. Too old-fashioned Hollywood for her. What would Chen think about the movie, she wondered.
A Nurse’s Diary was a different story: it was about a group of young people dedicated to building a new socialist China. By today’s standards, it didn’t come close to being a romantic story. The young nurse was too busy making the revolution to have many romantic thoughts. In fact, romantic affairs were far from encouraged at the time. The movie appealed to Peiqin, however, particularly for the idealistic theme song: “‘Little swallow, little swallow, / you come back here every year. / Can you tell me why?’ / The little swallow replies, / ‘The Spring is most beautiful here,’ . . .”
The most beautiful “here” in the song, she contemplated, must refer to somewhere along the northwest borders, still impoverished, undeveloped, forsaken. No one would ever think of going there today.
“The Spring is most beautiful here.” On the screen, the slender nurse, played by the actress Linfeng, was humming the song, her face lit up with the passion of the socialist revolution. Years later, Linfeng emigrated to Tokyo, where she was said to be running a Chinese vegetarian restaurant. There she sang the song occasionally for overseas Chinese customers, her figure out of shape and too much makeup on her face. Of course, it would be naïve to expect an actress to keep playing such a role—or showing such a figure—all her life.
As it turned out, in the movie the dress was worn by the nurse’s mother, a middle-aged lady of the upper
After lunch, she found it hard to concentrate on the books again. Downstairs, a squabble seemed to be breaking out in the kitchen. Hua called in, saying that he wouldn’t be coming in that day. Peiqin had another idea about the red mandarin dress, so she decided to take the afternoon off.
She might be able to learn something about it from the movies. The dress could have some specific meaning that she was not aware of in her lusterless daily life. She walked out, heading toward a DVD store on Sichuan Road. The afternoon had turned cold. She wrapped herself more tightly in the cotton-padded army jacket, one of the few remainders from her army farm days in Yunnan. Ironically, the imitation army jacket, too, seemed to be getting popular again.
The store was huge, with thousands of VCDs and DVDs displayed in various sections. To her amazement, she saw quite a few new movies that had not been officially released.
“So how can there be DVDs so quickly?” she asked the storeowner, who was also a customer at her restaurant.
“Easy. Someone sneaks into a preview with a camcorder,” he said with a broad grin. “We guarantee the quality. You can return the DVD for a full refund.”
She thanked him and looked around. In the section of Western classics, she came upon a movie entitled Random Harvest , adapted from the novel by James Hilton. It was the first English novel Chen had read in Bund Park, Yu had told her. The Chinese version had a fascinating title: A Pair of Mandarin Ducks’ Dream Re-dreamed. In classical Chinese poetry, a pair of Mandarin ducks stood for inseparable lovers. So this must be a love story. She put the movie into her shopping basket.
In the domestic section, she picked up A Nurse’s Diary , a movie made in the fifties. She remembered having seen a poster of the young nurse wearing a mandarin dress. Another love story, judging from the glamorous DVD cover. She also chose Golden Lock , a Hong Kong movie based on a novel by Ailing.
But she failed to find a documentary movie about the dress, nor any movie with a title directly connected to it.
The moment she got back home, she turned on the DVD player. There were still a couple of hours before she had to worry about dinner. She took off her shoes and socks, stretched herself out on the sofa, and covered her feet with a cushion.
She watched Random Harvest for only ten minutes. Too old-fashioned Hollywood for her. What would Chen think about the movie, she wondered.
A Nurse’s Diary was a different story: it was about a group of young people dedicated to building a new socialist China. By today’s standards, it didn’t come close to being a romantic story. The young nurse was too busy making the revolution to have many romantic thoughts. In fact, romantic affairs were far from encouraged at the time. The movie appealed to Peiqin, however, particularly for the idealistic theme song: “‘Little swallow, little swallow, / you come back here every year. / Can you tell me why?’ / The little swallow replies, / ‘The Spring is most beautiful here,’ . . .”
The most beautiful “here” in the song, she contemplated, must refer to somewhere along the northwest borders, still impoverished, undeveloped, forsaken. No one would ever think of going there today.
“The Spring is most beautiful here.” On the screen, the slender nurse, played by the actress Linfeng, was humming the song, her face lit up with the passion of the socialist revolution. Years later, Linfeng emigrated to Tokyo, where she was said to be running a Chinese vegetarian restaurant. There she sang the song occasionally for overseas Chinese customers, her figure out of shape and too much makeup on her face. Of course, it would be naïve to expect an actress to keep playing such a role—or showing such a figure—all her life.
As it turned out, in the movie the dress was worn by the nurse’s mother, a middle-aged lady of the upper
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