暖冬cool夏
這裏一年四季溫暖如春，沒有酷暑沒有嚴寒......
During the time she was home this winter, one day J asked about the old camera that I brought from China, which was mothballed and forgotten for decades. As I rummaged through the boxes in the garage and on the shelves searching for it, old memories flooded in.
It was a day in the spring of 1990s. A wobbly train uprooted me from Nanjing to Canton, a frontier city in the south that thronged with people hungry to strike rich overnight. On the day I arrived for my new job, the first thing I was shown to was a dormitory I was going to live in. It was on the west campus, a room on the first floor of an old red-brick building. What greeted me however, as I was led in by an office lady, was a dimly lit corridor. When the room was open, it was dark and dank inside, with a strong odor of staleness. In the middle of the room stood two tall bookshelves, dividing the room into two and blocking the light from the window. Next to the shelves were a stack of boxes and furniture covered with thick dust. Obviously the room was left uninhabited for a long time.
"These stuffs belong to a colleague whom you are going to share the room with”, said the office lady. It turned out that the colleague was married, and lived with her husband in the city. “The good thing is you basically have the room to yourself.” said the lady emphatically, as if to assuage my disappointment, as I turned my eyes to the other half. In contrast to the half-roomful furniture, my other half was empty. Except for the half walls and a half window, there’s no table, no chair, nothing. Straining through the half window on my side was a pitiful afternoon light shedding in between a big tree outside. Putting down my luggage, my husband, then the boyfriend, scrambled to the street for a bed for the night. Before the night fell, a twin-sized bed with iron frames and a piece of wooden plank were hurried in.
Seven months later, it was in this room, devoid of any furniture or a TV set that we got married. We huddled and squeezed on the small bed, reading, talking and dreaming. And it was until I was four or five months into pregnancy did I finally get a long-awaited single room, upstairs. The joy of moving in was ensued by a spending spree on new set of furniture, a TCL TV, a refrigerator, a washing machine, a window air-conditioner and anything affordable. A year or so later, when our baby started toddling, we amassed more of her stuff, a baby cart (more than 400 yuan) for instance, into the room. Then we had a phone, and a PC, which he installed parts by parts from his multiple trips to a popular tech street in the city. That alone cost us about 9,000 yuan. When life looked pretty much settled down, with him jumping ship to a privately owned computer company, the news came one day that he had an opportunity to work in the states.
He was gone for a year or so. Then my visa and J's were granted. Next, all the hard-earned stuffs in the room had to let go.
In the month that followed, added to the already hectic life of working and raising the baby was the task of depleting the room. I put up ads across the campus. Things were sold at a big discount, though they were like new. Small items were given away. The washing machine was shipped to my parents’ home, and the refrigerator to his parents’. My body was exhausted, and my heart ached to part with them, one by one. Among tears and anticipations, the day for departure duly came.
All our belongings were whittled down to only two or three big luggage. But one thing that was kept intact inside was a camera, a national brand manual camera that was bought around 1000 yuan upon our marriage. Along with it were boxes of pictures taken that witnessed our four-year-stay there, the growing up of my daughter, as well as the building we lived in that was later demolished and replaced by new high-rise apartments.
Many a time I took out the old photos, laminated by plastic for moisture protection, and showed to J, I accompanied the stories with an anecdote of how Mom having to ask her to raise a little finger for better focus. Those pictures are like time capsules, unfolding our memories without losing the colors. More than twenty years later, as I pass down this antique camera onto her hands, there is a hope within me that through the same lens, she can see what I didn’t see, capture what I didn’t capture, a newer and more colorful world beyond.
等著我的年糕米糕，東西賣相不好，但好吃:) 心城新春快樂！
祝虎年吉祥！
謝謝你來閱讀我的文章。我十年前買的單反聚焦都出問題了，不過現在還在用就是了。等我女兒如果有比較好的手動相機拍的照片，我再來分享。
謝謝莆田，虎年吉祥安康!
當然欣賞你的美文同等重要～～。
舊海鷗相機拍出照片色彩真好（最後一片？），看上去並不亞於世界名牌。我十年前買的單反相機都早成姥爺級別了，買儲存卡都受限了。相機更新換代很快很快。
等你的餡餅上來回來收藏。感謝！
除夕快樂，辭舊迎新；金虎送福，恭賀佳節！
春節吉祥，幸福安康！
還在想今年的年過的如此冷清，是網上的網友讓這節日有了氣氛，有了溫暖，感謝師傅重新出山，帶給大家歡樂，感謝師傅的惦記，送上徒兒心中的歌和祝福! 願師傅虎年生龍活虎，快樂安康!
用老相機拍的海邊景致，別有一番韻味，像是一幅名畫呢！
給暖冬拜個早年，祝你闔家虎年快樂吉祥，幸福安康。期待著聽到暖冬更多甜美動人的歌聲！
另外，我是浙江人，隻去過一趟西安:)
謝謝覺曉的推薦，你讀的書很多，你這部我都不知道。我現在每天讀的最多的就是雜誌:)
感謝覺曉的真心誠意，新春快樂！
剛剛看見你貼新歌了，我這就去聽。謝謝秋水的祝福，同祝願你們全家新春快樂!
聽到暖冬女兒說，“現在有那麽一小部分人喜歡用手動相機..."，還真是的，我兒子喜歡攝影，也買了手動相機，買膠卷，年輕人複古了？：）看到暖冬的相機有了良好的歸宿，也是一種欣慰吧：）
暖冬女兒小時候好可愛！看著她的小樣兒是不是也很感慨，轉眼間她們也是我們年輕時的模樣了~~~
周末過來看看親愛的暖冬，要過年了，給暖冬拜個早年！：）
我家老早也有一台海鷗相機，後來不知去了哪裏了。。。
女兒買的是比較好的膠卷，在Amazon上買的，三十多塊，具體多少我沒問。但是去衝洗我們是一起去，剛開始網上看到的是說$5，後來才知道$5隻是把底片衝出來，那樣又看不了，所以要換成digital,還不包括衝洗出來，隻是變成digital,要$14，其實她這個36張裏麵就五六張還行。不過就是玩玩，讓她盡興就好。謝謝遐西，新周快樂!
看來你們的相機保養得不錯，你女兒有興趣可以好好玩玩。
我帶了一台Konica Minolta，來美後不久就買了傻瓜數碼相機，膠片機難得再用，睡大覺了。再後來買了單反，就忘了膠片機。前幾年發現鏡頭有些汙點，拿去相機店維修。這裏清洗極貴，幹脆帶回去給我弟讓他處理。
沒想到現在膠片和衝洗那麽貴。
暖暖當年拍的相片真好，女兒也是那麽可愛：）
確實有點可惜了，你沒有帶過來，不過好像隱約中你有其他中國寶貝:) 好好保存，傳給女兒吧，其實傳下去的就是一個念想。
孩子小時候總是可愛的，放這張照片之前問過女兒能不能放，她同意的，因為小時候的模樣跟現在相差太大了，她不care，因為別人也認不出的。你女兒也很懷舊，我們的女兒有點類似!
謝謝小小每次都這麽認真留言，預祝全家新春快樂!
我想每個小孩小時候都是很可愛的，女兒小時候比現在漂亮:)) 這種朝天辮子，我拍了很多張，估計那裏天氣熱，紮了一段時間的，反正小孩子怎麽紮都好看的。
謝謝你這麽認真地讀英文，這篇確實花了一點時間寫的，最後一句也是昨天出門買菜開車回家的路上突然想起這樣一句，自己也很喜歡這樣的結尾。這是一般範文的寫法，最後總要概括點新意出來:)) 雖然這篇中英文的觀點完全不同:) 這就快過年了，也預祝mm新春快樂，健康平安!
Right, 9000RMB at the time was a lot. This could be the most expensive PC we bought, except for J's new laptop. He told me today that he was paid 5000RMB at the time being a programmer. Remember that was in Canton, where everything was booming, earlier than Beijing and Shanghai. And situated in that big environment, we were pushed to go with the tide. But when we started anew here in the states, we were not that lucky.:)) Sometimes I feel richer there than being here:)) Thanks again, my friend. Enjoy your new week!
也讓我想起了我的海鷗相機，我買的是比較便宜的，好像幾百塊：））
買過120的，後來又買了135的。
我小時候也喜歡拍照，爸爸還給我做了一個暗箱，底片是到店裏衝，到了晚上關在小黑屋裏自己在家印：））可惜後來走南闖北的，這些東西都丟失了，當時覺得過時了，輾轉搬家時就沒有帶，現在想來好後悔啊。
我女兒也是，帶她回南京時，就喜歡翻我的一些老古董，然後帶回來留念。
暖冬周末快樂！
that I didn't try to assemble a PC for myself. But then I paid $1000 for an HP
Pavilion once in America and had to sell it cheap a few years later. I know how
it felt :-)
Never an aesthete, I have no taste in the fine art of photo-production. But I can
empathize with your appreciation of things that last. The well-made camera could
become a family heirloom :-)
Enjoyed the detailed account of those early years and liked your word choices, e.g.,
mothballed, straining, etc. I think it'll be more readable with a bit more paragraphing.
唐西這張玉照是青蔥歲月的記錄，人年輕加上好的照片質量自然是上乘之作了。我們都到了懷舊的年齡了，感謝曾經擁有的美好時光! 感謝唐西的留言，預祝新春快樂!
是的，寫這篇時，覺得當年自己還是挺能花錢的，9000塊電腦來美以後都沒有買過這麽貴的，而且來美以後好像縮手縮腳的不敢花錢。當年的廣州給人的氣息是蒸蒸日上，大家都忙著賺錢。京妞二十不到就來了，一路讀書工作成家一定比我們辛苦，但今天也比我們有成就的。我們出來的時候國內的條件跟今日比起來是翻天覆地的變化，中美的差距也越來越小。謝謝京妞的留言和共鳴，周日快樂!
現在潮流時髦古董，個性化，越古的東西就越有味道。
早年我也有過海鷗相機，一次委托在長江船上一個老農大叔給我來一張”玉”照。大叔說平生沒有摸過照相機，照不好不要怪他。我說你就隨便照，沒關係，大叔就來狠的，按了好幾張。時隔幾天後，在武漢照片洗出來了，居然到了今天仍舊是人生中最好的一張照片之一。
海鷗相機，不錯，感謝上海阿拉們的精心製作。
喜歡暖冬學究氣的英文和懷舊的海鷗古董相機，記得大家原來都玩這個，還自己洗相片。好喜歡這幾張海邊的片片，非常有情調。女兒好可愛啊，看到了暖冬美女的影子！：）
謝謝分享。“膠卷……，一卷36張”，大有穿越之感。也驚訝於還能買到膠卷 -- 什麽牌子的呀？
好可愛的小姑娘。這張老照片的確清晰。
+1
膠卷相機看上去好親切
英文的那段帶著我們回到了二十多年前的往事，一個空空簡陋的宿舍卻被暖冬一家的快樂幸福填滿了。留下了深刻的記憶。所以出國行李再重，暖冬都要把這相機帶在身邊啊！最後一句寫得真好，一語雙關啊！給暖冬點個讚！
膠巻片、別有一番風味。看慣了第2張的色彩、第１張似乎更有歳月感
The English part of the article is also interesting. 9K yuan computer and all gave away/sold furnitures/appliances... The memories vivid of my own time leaving homeland, except for being a girl not even reached her 20's, there were so many unknowns ahead - career, love, marriage and family. Thanks for the sharing.