Early Time in Beijing

Author: Isamu Hayashi

At my age of four years old I was brought from Tianjin to Beijing by my parents. At that time my father worked in the National Youth Association of China.  This organization was located in No.1 Guandongdian street , east district of Beijing. This was an ancient style complex with a huge antique red front door, stone stairs, and guarded by two big stone lions. The complex was surrounded by gray colored high walls. There was a court yard surrounded by housing on the north, south, east, and west. Several fig trees decorated the court yard. There were two huge urns at least three feet high holding gold fish. Only when my father lifted me up then could I see the gold fish.

The east and west house had corridors. It separated into small rooms of offices. The north house was a big meeting hall. The staff families were in the area behind the north house where there was a row of rooms. My parents lived in the east end room. The neighbor was Mr. Huang Zhensheng’s family. The dining hall and kitchen rooms were on the west side behind the inner houses.

In the early 1950s Beijing was still a relatively quiet and simple city. At night there were not many street lights. It looked very dark. The popular thing in the street at night was selling green radishes. The salesman pulled a small gas lit cart carrying his radishes. He was shouting.

“My radish is better than pear!”

“My radish is better than pear!”

The voice echoed on the street. If you bought one, the salesman would cut it into vertical strips so that you could easily split it piece by piece to eat. The Beijing radish was green outside and purple inside. Its taste was actually not really better than pear because it was spicy hot.  

There were not many lights on the street. It was dark even in Tiananmen Square . The old city walls still occupied large spaces.

I remembered that sometimes my parents brought me to outside eating places. Sometimes we went to Nanheyan which means south river bank. It actually located near the east side river of the Forbidden City . There were several open small eating places. There were no rooms just several tables at the side of the street. Everything was very simple. We often ordered wonton and Shaobing (well baked bread with sesame seeds on the surface). Sometimes we went to Dongsi where there was a noodle bar also at the side of street and there were some tiger parrots in a bamboo stick cage hanging on the wall. I remembered that we ate chicken sliced noodles there. Despite the simplicity of these outside eating places their food was very delicious.

I remembered my mother taught me to draw the gold fish at our home. She could sketch a gold fish with just a few strokes.  She told me that the first step was drawing two eyes; the second step was drawing its mouth; then its body and tail; finally drawing its scales on its body. I could draw a vivid gold fish by just several strokes after learning from my mother. While my mother was teaching me to draw a gold fish my younger sister would be given a biscuit. She would eat the biscuit quietly while sitting in an armed chair.

Besides all of my family members, there were several other people living in the compound. Mr. Huang was the top leader of the organization and my father was the vice chairman. There was several staff working with them.

Mr. Shen Shoumei and Miss Zhu Boying were coming from Shanghai . Mr. Xie Taiwan was coming from Hunan . Some of the others were local. They all very much liked to play with me. They kept asking me to sing the songs. I sang songs and made funny faces for them. 

Some images from my early time are still in my mind. One of the images was Mr. Shen Shoumei used the grain of rice to seal his letter. Another image was quiet court yard under the sun shine, gold fish in the huge urn, green figs hanging on the tree. The favorite image was of a model airplane that always set on my father’s desk. It was a jet fighter model. Some times my father allowed me to take it to play.