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Looking ahead through remembrance of things past
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Spring is coming to a close in the city, with hot and dusty days heralding the approach of summer. For me, this time of year always brings a tinge of nostalgia.
Recently, I sat sipping coffee at a street corner cafe on Donghu Road, steps away from a narrow lane, at the end of which my grandparents lived. While my family long ago moved out, the three-story art deco architecture looks pretty much the same.
I can still remember a Sunday afternoon in May, shafts of sunlight filtering in through the skylight as I played on the stairway. When I looked up I found myself surrounded by sunshine. I鈥檓 not sure if I was five at the time; now I鈥檓 36.
Memories, most of them sweet, mingle with the stories my mom told me. Beside the garden of my grandparents鈥 home was an abandoned graveyard.
My mom told me that it was once her playground after school. She was not afraid of playing there, and with her schoolmates would pick up skulls and bones.
I was so excited when I heard this story and wished to be part of the adventure.
Graveyard flattened
The graveyard was later flattened to be site of a tall apartment building at the intersection of Donghu Road and Xiangyang Road. My mom鈥檚 childhood, and even mine, moved further and further away.
Opposite the lane there used to be a cinema where I would go when my mom took me to visit my grandparents. There was also a video game arcade there, where a cousin was a frequent visitor. And I always remember Sunday lunch at my grandparents 鈥 the yummy taste of home cooking.
All that happened in the 1980s or early 1990s. Then things gradually changed: Office buildings and restaurants appeared, one after another, altering the street forever.
My grandparents have both passed away and someone else lives in that house now.
While I was brooding over things past, the sound of a huge digger passing by brought me back to the present. Indeed, as the old cliche goes, time flies, I thought. And with its passing, a world of change occurs.
The passing of time, of course, brings changes to our personal circumstances too. Just a few days ago, my uncle was diagnosed with a tumor on his liver, leading to an anxious time.
And in recent years, some of my parents鈥 friends and former colleagues have passed away.
But in my parents鈥 eyes what I always see is calmness; the calmness of people who have seen half a century pass like the day just gone by.
In last year鈥檚 Luc Besson science fiction movie 鈥淟ucy鈥, about a woman who gains psychokinetic abilities, the character of Professor Norman, played by Morgan Freeman, considers our relation to time.
Gaining time
鈥淔or primitive beings like us, life seems to have only one single purpose: gaining time,鈥 says Norman. This objective can only be achieved in two ways, says the professor: 鈥淏e immortal or reproduce.鈥
Reproduction is certainly the easier option, passing down 鈥渆ssential information and knowledge to the next cell, which hands it down to the next cell and so on,鈥 says Norman. 鈥淭hus, knowledge and learning are handed down through time.鈥
This came to mind about a fortnight ago, when I attended an event held by the Turkish Consulate General in Shanghai for Turkey鈥檚 Children鈥檚 Day celebrations. What Turkish Consul General Ozcan Sahin said at the gathering made a big impression on me.
He told children gathered there that we invest confidence, hope and most importantly, entrust the future in their hands. 鈥淚t is today鈥檚 children who will carry our countries and the world to a better future,鈥 said Sahin.
Next month, when the heat鈥檚 arrived and the plane tree seeds have dispersed, China will mark its Children鈥檚 Day.
And while we may lament the inexorable passing of time, perhaps feel nostalgia for our own childhoods, we should draw comfort from the fact that through our descendents our aspirations and delights continue.
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