I raised my head and cracked open my eyes to the fracas on the dome of Church of Sant’Ignazio.
That beauty blinded me.
A peculiarly familiar sensation expanded inside of me, which reminded me of Déjà vu, but somehow vaguely I knew it was not the case. “It is feeling of indissoluble connection, of belonging inseparably to the external world as a whole.” The words from Freud’s book whispered behind my ears like gentle breeze cooling the heat of July.
I do not recall my age at that time when I first reached gingerly for the Xuan paper with my tiny fingers, coarse and reassuring. I sniffed at the air which was stained with the entrancing scent of ink. How could sense of antiqueness be so fascinating? The very almost fainted memory of my childhood started in hutongs, a narrow passage which being sandwiched by two row of low houses, the original alleyway in Beijing, where I was born and grew. …show more content…
Cars, tricycles, bikes and pedestrians made room for each other to get through. Horning noise of vehicles and voice of talking neighbors penetrated my eardrums. Although modern had already seeped into every aspect of people’s lives, the veins of hutongs are still flowing with the blood of traditions of the old Beijing, where traditional architecture and culture being displayed and passed on.
After Yongding Men, Fucheng Men and many other historic relics being scrapped down in that so called “revolution”, after they were completely replaced by skyscrapers, the memory, the last breath of the old Beijing was held in hutongs, where I survived.
Scenes and memories