就像中國的先賢老子所說的那樣：“福兮禍之所伏，福禍福所倚”，我童年輟學，飽受饑餓、孤獨、無書可讀之苦，但我因此也像我們的前輩作家沈從文那樣，及早地開始閱讀社會人生這本大書。前面所提到的到集市上去聽說數人說書，僅僅是這本大書中的一頁。

Our Taoist master Laozi said it best: “Fortune depends on misfortune. Misfortune is hidden in fortune.” I left school as a child, often went hungry, was constantly lonely, and had no books to read. But for those reasons, like the writer of a previous generation, Shen Congwen, I had an early start on reading the great book of life. My experience of going to the marketplace to listen to a storyteller was but one page of that book.

輟學之后，我混跡于成人之中，開始了“用耳朵閱讀”的漫長生涯。二百多年前，我的故鄉曾出了一個講故事的偉大天才——蒲松齡，我們村里的許多人，包括我，都是他的傳人。我在集體勞動的田間地頭，在生產隊的牛棚馬廄，在我爺爺奶奶的熱炕頭上，甚至在搖搖晃晃地進行著的牛車社，聆聽了許許多多神鬼故事，歷史傳奇，逸聞趣事，這些故事都與當地的自然環境，家庭歷史緊密聯系在一起，使我產生了強烈的現實感。

After leaving school, I was thrown uncomfortably into the world of adults, where I embarked on the long journey of learning through listening. Two hundred years ago, one of the great storytellers of all time – Pu Songling – lived near where I grew up, and where many people, me included, carried on the tradition he had perfected. Wherever I happened to be – working the fields with the collective, in production team cowsheds or stables, on my grandparents’ heated kang, even on oxcarts bouncing and swaying down the road, my ears filled with tales of the supernatural, historical romances, and strange and captivating stories, all tied to the natural environment and clan histories, and all of which created a powerful reality in my mind.

我做夢也想不到有朝一日這些東西會成為我的寫作素材，我當時只是一個迷戀故事的孩子，醉心地聆聽著人們的講述。那時我是一個絕對的有神論者，我相信萬物都有靈性，我見到一棵大樹會肅然起敬。我看到一只鳥會感到它隨時會變化成人，我遇到一個陌生人，也會懷疑他是一個動物變化而成。每當夜晚我從生產隊的記工房回家時，無邊的恐懼便包圍了我，為了壯膽，我一邊奔跑一邊大聲歌唱。那時我正處在變聲期，嗓音嘶啞，聲調難聽，我的歌唱，是對我的鄉親們的一種折磨。

Even in my wildest dreams, I could not have envisioned a day when all this would be the stuff of my own fiction, for I was just a boy who loved stories, who was infatuated with the tales people around me were telling. Back then I was, without a doubt, a theist, believing that all living creatures were endowed with souls. I’d stop and pay my respects to a towering old tree; if I saw a bird, I was sure it could become human any time it wanted; and I suspected every stranger I met of being a transformed beast. At night, terrible fears accompanied me on my way home after my work points were tallied, so I’d sing at the top of my lungs as I ran to build up a bit of courage. My voice, which was changing at the time, produced scratchy, squeaky songs that grated on the ears of any villager who heard me.

我在故鄉生活了二十一年，期間離家最遠的是乘火車去了一次青島，還差點迷失在木材廠的巨大木材之間，以至于我母親問我去青島看到了什么風景時，我沮喪地告訴她：什么都沒看到，只看到了一堆堆的木頭。但也就是這次青島之行，使我產生了想離開故鄉到外邊去看世界的強烈愿望。

I spent my first twenty-one years in that village, never traveling farther from home than to Qingdao, by train, where I nearly got lost amid the giant stacks of wood in a lumber mill. When my mother asked me what I’d seen in Qingdao, I reported sadly that all I’d seen were stacks of lumber. But that trip to Qingdao planted in me a powerful desire to leave my village and see the world.

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