A Good（大钱饺子英汉互译）.docx

A Good-luck Dumpling Zhang Lin In the second of those tumultuous years, I was labeled one of the "reactionary gang." What 1 feared most was not being queued up among this gang of so many, but the vicious practice of being publicly denounced on a truck in front of my own house. Well, fear or no fear, the lot fell on me soon enough. When the truck drove to the gate of my own house, my mother, who was already in her eighties, spotted me on the truck. Her lips trembling and eyes shut, she first leaned against the wall, then collapsed, weak and limp like soft mud on the ground. Meanwhile, my wife just stood there dumbfounded like a blockhead, forgetting even to help my mother up. There and then I was afraid Mother would leave me forever. Thank God, she somehow managed to survive. On the eve of the Spring Festival of that year, I was unexpectedly released to return home. As I stepped into the house, Mother looked me up and down with unbelieving eyes before she threw herself on me and caressed my face. Then burying her head in my arms, she wept bitterly while my wife and children stood sobbing at a distance. "Daughter-in-law, let's start making dumplings for the Festival!" Mother said to my wife. Instantly the whole family began chopping meat and kneading dough. In no time, all had gathered around the table to make dumplings. Just then an idea dawned on my mother, and she suggested, "I say, let's put in a coin and make a good-luck dumpling. Whoever eats it will be blessed." I agreed to make Mother happy, hoping that the coin would fall to her. With all my heart I wished her a long life. Mother took a blue cloth parcel from the wardrobe, unfolded it and picked out a copper coin of the Daoguang period. With shaking hands she put the coin on a dumpling wrapper, added some filling, and made one which we used to call a good-luck dumpling. During the process, Mother secretly made a mark on the edge of the dumpling before mixing it with the rest. She pretended nothing had happe