落英(上) : 早年讀書生活的回想

Abstract

(1) Professor Shôji Hirata has recently been studying the reading activities among Chinese. The present article is written at Professor Shôji Hirata's request. It covers my reading activities in a period from early childhood to early youth, that is, from the time of my primary education to the time of my graduate studies. I was born in November 14, 1937 in the town of Qintong (溱潼) in Taixian (泰縣) County, Jiangsu (江蘇) province. Qintong is a small town surrounded by water and was at that time self-closed and very backward. Since I was a boy, my father taught me Chinese characters when I was still very young. At about the nominal age of six, I paid my respect to the picture of Confucius and began my study in an old-style private school (私塾). The major activity at the time was to memorize and recite Sanzi Jing (三字經). After few years, I changed to a new-style private school, and later was enroled in Qintong primary school. I graduated in the fall, 1949 and that was half year after the 1949 revolution. In this part of the article, I concentrate my description on the folk custom in my hometown. In the description, I have sometimes adopted some dialectal expressions.