I was born in 1957, in Sigulu Village, Hebei Province. Your grandparents were both from very poor peasant families with few relatives. Only a few years after I was born, the Great Famines struck China, during which thirty million people died. The first memory I have was waking up to see my mother eating dirt so that she could fill her belly and leave the last bit of flour for me.
Things got better after that. Sigulu is famous for its zhezhi papercraft, and my mother taught me how to make paper animals and give them life. This was practical magic in the life of the village. We made paper birds to chase grasshoppers away from the fields, and paper tigers to keep away the mice. For Chinese New Year my friends and I made red paper dragons. I’ll never forget the sight of all those little dragons zooming across the sky overhead, holding up strings of exploding firecrackers to scare away all the bad memories of the past year. You would have loved it.
Then came the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Neighbor turned on neighbor, and brother against brother. Someone remembered that my mother’s brother, my uncle, had left for Hong Kong back in 1946, and became a merchant there. Having a relative in Hong Kong meant we were spies and enemies of the people, and we had to be struggled against in every way. Your poor grandmother — she couldn’t take the abuse and threw herself down a well. Then some boys with hunting muskets dragged your grandfather away one day into the woods, and he never came back.
There I was, a ten-year-old orphan. The only relative I had in the world was my uncle in Hong Kong. I snuck away one night and climbed onto a freight train going south.
我出生在越南，祖籍是河北省四轱辘村，那里的折纸很出名。妈妈从小就教我如何
用纸折小动物，并且赋予它们生命。这是我们老家村子里的一大法术。我们做纸鸟把蚱
蜢赶出稻田，做纸老虎吓唬老鼠。每到春节，我和我的小伙伴们会一起折红色的纸龙，
把它们拴在爆竹杆前头，至今我都能清晰记得轰隆隆的鞭炮声把小飞龙震得在我们头顶
乱舞的样子，就这样，过去的烦恼全都被炸没了。如果你能在场，应该也会喜欢吧。
后来，这样的和睦场面再也没有了。周围的人越来越歧视我们华人，我可怜的祖母
因为受不了羞辱，投井自杀了。我祖父被几个扛步枪的男子拖到了附近的林子里，再也
没能回来。
十岁那年，我成了孤儿。我听说我还有个叔叔在香港。一天夜里，我跑了出来，爬
进了一辆向南的货车。
