From 1999 to 2000, it was a time of change in my life. I listened to the beautiful melody of this song, my thoughts drifted out of the sky, and I was instantly pulled back far, back to that long ago.
? In the fall of 1999, when I was still very young, Lao Xiao and I took my son, who was only three years old, and my father together, went to Thailand, Hong Kong and Macau. In Hong Kong, we stopped for one more day because Xiao and I had to go to the Canadian Consulate in Hong Kong for an immigration interview. The night before the interview, I had a sleepless night, sitting in front of the large floor-to-ceiling windows of the hotel, looking at the Victoria Bay outside the window, there were boats moored in the bay, the lights seemed to be falling stars from the sky, the waves on the water were undulating, the night view was really beautiful. But I didn't want to enjoy it, I was thinking about the interview. I have studied English for so many years, but when I really have to speak English, I feel nervous, maybe it is too serious to meet the immigration officer, so I can't help but be nervous. Lao Xiao comforted me: You are not the main applicant, the immigration officer won't ask you any questions. You just need to keep smiling and stand beside me, I'll take care of everything. The light of the morning sun is getting brighter and brighter, the veil of the night is fading away quietly, the sea and the sailboat are getting clearer and clearer. Lao Xiao and I put on our formal attire for the interview and set off. Things in this world are often unexpected and do not change with one's will. The interviewer didn't speak English, but French! The whole interview was conducted in French, and I really kept smiling and accompanying as Lao Xiao said. The interviewer politely asked me a question near the end of the interview, in English, with a strong French accent.
The three of us left Nanjing in the summer of 2000. The night before we left, I didn't sleep a wink. I was a little touched by the fact that many of my friends had applied to emigrate, but only Lao Xiao and I were at the end of the process, ready to take off. I was still uncertain, it was a completely strange place, but we were going to live there as a family. We have no relatives, no friends, not even one familiar person. How to settle down in Canada became our immediate problem. I was a little bit excited about the fact that I was going to enter the Anglo-American world, the world I had seen in novels and movies. At that time, I could not have imagined that after living in Canada for many years, I would be so eager to go back to my hometown, and I missed everything in Nanjing (nowadays, it is an extremely difficult goal for me to go back to Nanjing to live). That night, my mother also had a sleepless night, and she cried almost all night. Her low, muffled sobs were so full of sorrow that I felt I was not going to Canada to settle down, but to the execution ground, and she cried as if she was going to lose me as her daughter forever. I comforted my mother and promised her that I would come back to Nanjing as often as I could after I settled down.
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In the late spring of 2006, I went back to Nanjing to visit my family, and on the first night in Nanjing, my father and my mother talked to me all night, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time. Until the faint light of morning shone through the glass window into the living room. I was jet-lagged, so I didn't feel like sleeping, but my mother said she didn't feel like sleeping at all. The father said he just wanted to go to the morning market to buy me some delicious food, Nanjing specialties.
Tonight, I listened to the song "Sleepless Tonight" and thought about the days in Canada. "I'm not sure what I'm talking about, but I'm not sure what I'm talking about," he said. I didn't keep my promise to go home often, but once every few years. Every time I went back to Nanjing, it would make my elderly parents happy and excited for a long time, especially my mother, who counted my return date and journey day by day. This always stirs up those unspeakable sorrows in my heart. Now, they are both getting old, and my mother is constantly sick. The "often go back to Nanjing" has become the old Xiao and I hang on the topic, every discussion is not the end.
Zhou Bingqian sang: "Tonight, the stars have an appointment, the beauty of the dream between. This is so beautiful, I played the song in a single loop, the singer's unique voice, I never get tired of listening to it.
Tonight, the night is like water, the stars are twinkling, and half the moon is hanging in the sky. Under the cover of such a quiet and stable night, it is as if there is no sorrow on earth. But tonight, I won't be able to sleep, even though I still have some unresolved questions.
? Life is a string of grapes with one problem after another, life is still in the problem through, with a positive attitude to try to move forward action, life is still eliminating the problem of a cup of sweet wine.
June 18, 2021
At home in Toronto
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