by Hua Laura Wu
Then a dark figure jumped off the roof. As the shadow dropped onto the ground, it sprained one of its feet, and its movement was slowed. When the shadow finally struggled to its feet, Zhongyue saw a shiny stick in the figure’s hands.
It was a hunting rifle.
Before Zhongyue had a chance to speak, he heard a bang. The trees shook; birds were startled out of their nests and covered half of the night sky. His shoulder felt numb, and something warm gurgled out. He wanted to cry, but his voice couldn’t reach his throat.
“Joy!” Dawa, like a lioness, growled wildly and jumped toward the figure. She grabbed him tightly, and the two struggled fiercely. Zhongyue heard another loud sound. After a moment, Dawa fell silent in his arms. Zhongyue wanted to help Dawa sit up, but she was soft and boneless. He stared around in the dark, a kind of endless blackness without beginning or end. He felt himself falling into the abyss. No rope could pull him out of that darkness—he knew that he’d lost his sight.
In the pitch darkness, he heard some rustling. Then he was able to make out Joy’s boots stumbling through the woods. The sound of his footsteps was slow and hesitant, and then it stopped altogether. The world seemed to hold its breath; everything quieted down, becoming as silent as the ancient rocks. Suddenly there was another bang, and Joy fell heavily on the grass.
When Zhongyue was finally able to pull himself up,, he looked over at Dawa, who was lying on his leg. A bullet had passed through her neck and come out from her back. He was spattered with blood; it was thick like tomato sauce. He couldn’t tell whether it was her blood or his. Her eyes were cloudy. Before mist completely covered her eyes, he saw something in them, something like a corner of starry sky.
“Neil … is … the child … of the northern lights,” Dawa said.
Xiaoyue,
I was discharged from the hospital today. My world was swept by the hurricane; only debris was left behind. I need to clean up the debris little by little and to see if I can remake the world into its original shape. I must do this myself. Nobody can help me.
When Neil brought Zhongyue to the cemetery, the first snow in winter had fallen. The snow in the northern area was very dry and light, like fine dust floating in the sky. Without warning, it had already covered the entire town.
Zhongyue and Neil walked along a shovelled path and entered the cemetery. Snow had blanketed all the tombstones. There were snow banks of different heights. Some corners of the crosses were slightly exposed. Birds that looked for food flew from one mound to another, the rustling sound they made accompanied the falling snow triggered by their wings. Under each snow bank was a totally different story, but the heavy snow erased all the differences. Neil stood in the middle, and suddenly he lost his way.
An old cemetery keeper came and led them to the end of the row of holly trees. He shovelled out a narrow path. He told them that the tomb they were looking for may be the third or fourth one, and that they could find it by themselves.
Zhongyue bent over and dug into the snow bank with his hand. It wasn’t difficult since the snow was very loose. But it was chilly, even though his hands were in thick leather gloves; they couldn’t protect him from the fierce coldness of the north. Finally he scraped the snow off a tiny tombstone that had a little angel with wings was on top. The inscription was:
John Harrison
2001-2004
The way to Heaven is led by a child.
Zhongyue knew it wasn’t the right tomb. He took off his gloves and inserted his hands into his down-filled jacket to get warm. Then he began to scoop the snow on the next bank. As he worked, he wondered how that three-year-old child had died. Car accident? Disease? Unexpected disaster? Keeping company with such a young child must be her preference. In her life, there were too many people coming and going. Now she just needs peace and quiet.
The tombstone was slightly higher and easier to work on, but his hands felt frozen, so he had to take off his gloves more frequently to warm them. After many scoops and a few pauses, his fingers were almost completely numb by the time he reached the surface of the stone tablet. It was his first time seeing the tombstone, but he remembered the inscription—he had written it in Chinese.
Cher Dawa
1968-2005
Born in a place where the cosmos blooms.
Died on her journey to climb mountains.
Zhongyue’s fingers caressed the carved inscription. Even though it had been under the snow for a night, the tombstone felt slightly warm to the touch, as if it had felt sunlight, meadows, golden bumblebees, and cosmos all over the mountains.
Zhongyue stood up, and, facing the tomb, he slowly made some signs. He didn’t turn his head, but he knew that Neil was weeping.
Xiaoyue,
I have decided to apply to the social welfare department to adopt that deaf and orphaned child.
Translated by Zoë S. Roy.
“Toward the North” was originally published in Harvest, No 1, 2006.
1The lyrics originate from a Miao folk song. Quoted from Zejia Hu’s Dreaming of Guizhou Mountains in Harvest No.1 (2006).
Contributor Notes
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
Yuanzhi Cai (pen name Yuanzhi) was born in Jinjiang of Fujian province, China. In 1988, she came to Vancouver to join her husband who was studying for a graduate degree. She now lives in Toronto and teaches Chinese at local high schools. Yuanzhi’s writing career began in 1999 and she has since written a novel, numerous short stories, and essays. She has been awarded top prizes in writing contests by The World Journal (1999 and 2001) and The People’s Daily (Overseas edition, 1999). She is now the vice president of The Chinese Pen Society of Canada, a Chinese-Canadian writers’ association based on Toronto.
Daisy Chang was born in Shanghai and grew up in Taiwan. She was an acclaimed journalist, novelist, and television host in Taiwan. She moved to Canada in 1969 and retained a professional designation in accountancy in 1981 while continuing her commitment to public service as a community leader. She served the community at local, provincial, national, and global levels in activities ranging from advising on multiculturalism to helping restructure the taxation system in projects sponsored by the United Nations and the Government of China. She has published six novels, one novella, two short story collections, three humorous prose collections, one professional book on Canadian immigration, and one professional book on Canadian tax planning. She was a recipient of the Governor General of Canada’s 125 Commemorative Medal for “significant contribution to Compatriots, Community and to Canada” on May 24, 1994.
Xiaowei Chen (pen name Chen He) was born in Wenzhou of Zhejiang province of China. He was in the Chinese army when he was young and then worked in the transportation business. He went to Albania in 1994, where he was engaged in the trade of medicine for five years. Since he immigrated to Canada, he has lived in Toronto. He is currently a freelance writer. His major publications include novels The War in Sarawak, A Clothe Doll, and A Fatal Long Journey, stories “The City in a Black and White Film,” “River Credit,” “West Nile Virus,” “I Am A Tiny Little Bird,” “Night Patrol,” and “The Night of Yibao.” He has won several major literary prizes, including the first Café Literary Award for Short Fiction (2009), the Yu Dafu Literary Award for Novellas (2010), and the fourteenth Fiction Monthly Baihua Award (2011).
Yafang Shi (pen names Yafang and Eryuelan) lived in Hangzhou and Jinhua of Zhejiang province, China in her childhood. She went to Hangzhou University to study journalism. In 1992, she left China for London, England where she studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science, before coming to Canada in 1994. In 2002, she returned to London where she studied for her M.A. degree in sociology. Between 2003 and 2006 she worked in Shanghai, China. She immigrated to Canada in 2006 and currently lives in Markham, Ontario. She has worked for some Chinese-language media and CBC Radio. She is now the editor-in-chief of www.lov
ingsisters.com. Yafang was a columnist for a Toronto Chinese-language newspaper and her prose and poetry works appear in some local Chinese-language newspapers.
Bo Sun was born in Shanghai, China. He received his B.A. degree from Shanghai Normal University and taught there before he came to Canada as a visiting scholar at the University of Waterloo in 1990. He has worked for The World Journal and Sing Tao Daily in Toronto. He is now the editor-in-chief of 365netTV.com. Sun began his writing career in 1997 and has since published more than ten books. including novels and prose writings. He also edited three collections of stories and two collections of prose essays. He co-wrote and published, with Xiaowen Zeng, a twenty-episode TV drama which won a Chinese Writers Erduosi Literature Award and a Zhongshan Cup Overseas Chinese Literature Award in 2011. He is now the president of The Chinese Pen Society of Canada.
Tao Yang was born in Xi’an of Shaanxi province, China. He immigrated to Canada from Shanghai in 1998 and lived in Toronto for many years. He is now living in Vancouver and working as a real estate agent and writer of TV drama series. Yang started creative writing in 1993 and has produced two novels, as well as many short stories, TV dramas, and TV documentaries.
Xi Yu was born in Shanghai, China. He immigrated to Canada in 1996 and has lived in Toronto since. He is now a journalist for Ming bao (Toronto), a major Chinese-language newspaper based in Hong Kong and circulating in Canada and the US. Yu started writing creatively in the 1980s, and he was already a published writer before he came to Canada. After immigration, he has continued his literary pursuit and has published many novels, stories, and prose writings in Harvest, Dangdai, Zhongshan, and other famous literary journals in China. His stories have been selected and republished by the influential Fiction Monthly.
Xiaowen Zeng was born in Heilongjiang province, China. She began writing fiction in 1991, immediately after earning an M.A. in Literature from Nankai University, and continues to pursue her passion. She moved to the U.S. in 1994, and studied and worked there for nine years. In 2003, she immigrated to Canada, and since then she has been living in Toronto and working as an IT professional. She has published three novels in China: Shattered Dreams in Texas, The Night is Still Young, and The Immigrant Years; three collections of novellas and short stories: The Kilt and Clover, Too Tired to Love, A Double Petaled Woman; and three collections of non-fiction: Turn Your Back to the Moon, Carrying the Soul Back Home and The Woman Born A Leaf. Her works have been included in a number of collections in China, the U.S. and Canada. She won a Central Daily News Literature Award in 1996, a United Daily Literature Award in 2004, a Chinese Writers’ Erduosi Literature Award, a Zhongshan Cup Overseas Chinese Literature Award in 2011, and the 2011 Best TV Script Award, and she was awarded the top prize at The First Global Chinese Prose Competition in 2014 for Carrying the Soul Back Home. Her short story “The Kilt and Clover” was ranked in the 2009 Top 10, and her novella Gold Dust was ranked in the 2017 Top 10 by the China Fiction Association.
Ling Zhang lived the first twenty-two years of her life in Wenzhou, a small town in the southeastern part of China, which has later become the setting of many of her stories. She worked as a lathe operator and substitute teacher in Wenzhou until 1979 when she left home to attend Fudan University in Shanghai, where she obtained her B.A. in English in 1983. Upon graduation, she was employed by China’s Ministry of Coal Industry in Beijing as an English translator. In 1986, she came to Canada to pursue her M.A. degree in English Literature at the University of Calgary, and then, in 1993, she obtained another M.A. degree in Communication Disorders at University of Cincinnati. Having travelled extensively and tried many different career paths, she eventually settled in Toronto. She started to write and publish her fictional works in Chinese language in the late 1990s. In the course of over ten years, she has published eight novels and several collections of novellas and short stories. Her writings have won her several important literary awards in China.
TRANSLATORS AND EDITORS
Norah Creedon graduated from the University of Toronto, and recently decided to return as a specialist in Chinese Literature. In 1994, before retiring from teaching, Norah travelled to Shanghai and Nanjing to study Chinese medicine with Chinese doctors at two local hospitals. After retiring, she went to Shanghai for a summer to study the Chinese language at Fudan University, then returned to Toronto to study Chinese and Chinese literature at the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and Seneca College. Currently, Norah is continuing to translate Chinese short stories with John Stowe.
Cory Bieman Davies, Professor Emerita at Huron University College (Western), has published on nineteenth and twentieth century British Literature. She owes her interest in Chinese Canadian Literature to her love and respect for her Chinese Canadian daughter-in-law, and to her friendships with her colleagues in Chinese, Japanese and East Asia Studies.
Zoë S. Roy, a Toronto-based fiction writer, is the author of a collection of short fiction, Butterfly Tears, and two novels, The Long March Home and Calls Across the Pacific. A third novel, Spinster Kang, is forthcoming from Inanna Publications in 2019. Educated both in China and in Canada, she holds a B.A. in English Literature, an M.A. in Atlantic Canada Studies, and an MEd in Adult Education. Currently she works as an adult educator with the Toronto District School Board.
Lloyd Sciban was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He studied in Taiwan from 1976 to 1985 and received an M.A. degree from the Department of Chinese Literature at the National Taiwan University. He also holds a PhD degree from the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto and is currently a professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Calgary. His current research interests are the influence of Chinese culture in Canada and Confucian ethics. His recent publications include “The Objectivity of Wang Yangming’s Standards for Moral Decision” (2012) and “Calgary’s Chinese Kinship Associations: Their Role in Chinese Canadian Integration” (co-authored with Lloyd Wong, 2013). He has also translated, alone and with his wife, Shu-ning Sciban, a number of fictional and non-fictional works from Chinese into English.
Shu-ning Sciban was born in Taipei, Taiwan. She immigrated to Canada in 1982 and holds a PhD degree from the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. She is a professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Calgary. Her current research interests include Chinese diasporic literature, Chinese literary language, and modern Taiwanese literature. She has co-edited with Fred Edwards two Chinese-English translation anthologies, Dragonflies: Fiction by Chinese Women in the Twentieth Century (2003) and Endless War: Fiction and Essays by Wang Wen-hsing (2011), and has translated, alone and with her husband, Lloyd Sciban, a number of fictional and non-fictional works from Chinese into English.
John Edward Stowe was born and raised in Vermont, and then moved to New York City, where he studied Chinese-English Bilingual Education at Columbia, graduating with an EdD in Comparative International Education. For ten years, he taught the Chinese language and English Composition at New York University before immigrating to Toronto in 1997. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a PhD in East Asian Studies, focusing on Contemporary Chinese Literature. After he graduated from National Taiwan University in the 1980s with an M.A. in Classical Chinese Literature and after returning from teaching at Peking University, he started translating Chinese short stories into English. Currently, he is the Academic Coordinator for the Chinese courses in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures as well as The Chang School at Ryerson University. His areas of research are Chinese Language Pedagogy, Contemporary Chinese Literature, Canadian Chinese Literature, the Traditional Chinese Novel, Traditional Chinese Culture and Chinese to English Translation.
Hua Laura Wu was born in Beijing, China. She came to Canada in 1985. She studied comparative literature and Chinese literature at the Centre for Comparative Literature and the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto, where she got her PhD deg
ree. She is Professor Emerita at Huron University College in London, Ontario. Her current research is a comparative study of Chinese Canadian writers who write in English (Asian Canadian literature) and in Chinese (Sinophone literature). She has translated many literary and scholarly works from English to Chinese and from Chinese to English. She is translating stories by Chinese immigrant writers in collaboration with Cory Davies.
Dongfeng Xu is from Beijing, China, where he was born and raised. After earning graduate degrees in comparative literature from the University of Alberta and the University of Chicago, he is now teaching in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at University of Hawaii at Manoa. His current research interest is cross-cultural encounters between China and the West since the late sixteenth century, focusing especially on the Chinese writings by the Jesuit missionaries and the exchanges between the missionaries and the Confucian literati.
Xueqing Xu holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Chinese literature from Fudan University and a PhD in Chinese literature from the University of Toronto. She was a lecturer at the Lun Xun Literary Academy in Beijing between 1985 and 1990, and Assistant Professor at Huron University College in 2001-2002. She now is an Associate Professor at York University. Among her publications is a book on Confucius, and she contributed approximately five hundred entries to an encyclopedia of modern Chinese literature. She contributed a chapter to a book on Chinese literary societies in the Republican era. Her current research interest is Chinese-Canadian literature, on which she has published over a dozen articles since 2006.
Acknowledgements
This anthology would not have been possible without the support of our authors and translators. Thanks in particular for their patience.
Our thanks also go to Barbara Ireland, who helped edit the manuscript in its early stages.