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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Budding Writers -> 
An old house
    2016-04-13  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

    By selecting furniture, a home space is defined, while a lifestyle is established by choosing a house.

    I have been living in an old house for three years, which is an unexpectedly bittersweet experience.

    I’d like to picture my old house as a battlefield where weather defeats me completely. Cold winter, chilly spring, hot summer and cool autumn, four seasons of low humidity in western China are deep in my imagination, but Guangzhou, where I live now, as a southern city, is too typical when it comes to periodically damp weather in spring. Water magically seeps from the walls and even the floors are wet. I am afraid to take off my pillowcase in case mildew is on the pillow.

    The idea that old houses are lifeless is not true. Mice are full of passion in my house and they chat all night without pause. It seems that everything in the house can trigger their thirst for exploration. Once I was so annoyed and yelled at them loudly, but they only stopped for a moment and went back to their game again. I have considered adopting a cat, but then I will just have to clean up after the cat. I also doubt that a city cat will be a good mouser.

    Moving into an old house is far more than dealing with damp weather, peeling walls, random short circuits, lively mice and greedy cockroaches. While introducing me to an old area it reveals a unique lifestyle — “with both of vitality and leisure, modernity and tradition, independence and interaction.” I feel more and more intimate with my old house whenever I try to look at it from far or appreciate it from near.

    A day usually begins with a doggie peeping out from next door with eager eyes, an elderly person unlocking the latch and pushing the door open while I open the door, meet the doggie’s dark shiny eyes and say “morning” to the neighbor. Then I probably squeeze myself into the crowd under a traffic light, gazing at pointed shoes an office lady wears, guessing the weight of the schoolbag a student in a uniform carries, peeping into the swell shopping bag an old lady carries or winking at the golden retriever who leans on his master’s knees.

    It is amazing to realize the capacity the Guangzhou natives possess to balance between new trends and old conventions. My neighbor Qiao, a 68-year-old lady, schedules her weekend this way: burning incense in Hualin Temple, having Cantonese afternoon tea and then dancing on Chen Clan Academy Square.

    The old house is significant to me. It is not just a place where I live, but a home. Just last weekend, I was invited to have dinner with the restaurant owner downstairs. He said, “Your job must be very important because I see you are busy all the time.” I always thought there would be no conversation among city neighbors, but now I believe it will happen some day and in a unique way, same as the interactions between myself and my landlady.

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