英文小说：A Shadow in Surfers Paradise(47)天堂之影

洋八路

Chapter 47     1/2




The lecture theatre in Deakin University was far from his old idea about cascading classrooms. Students sat in hundreds of seats with a desk in the front, watching over the teacher at ground level and the projector screen on the rear wall. Indeed, ‘theatre’ was a precise word for this modern, spacious room equipped with an advanced surround-sound audio system and theatrical lighting. Like the library, it was, in Bing’s eyes, a luxurious facility for students.  

In the smaller classes for the special subjects, instruction was conducted in a relaxing, two-way atmosphere conducive to communication. The teacher-dominated, one-voice style of lecturing that Bing was used to, was not apparent in the sessions he took during his first week. And compared to many of his classmates who found it rather difficult to follow the lecturer, Bing had little issue with the language itself, although accommodating the Australian accent and capturing those not infrequent ‘little murmurs’ of the teachers would still require some time.   

Concerning him more, worrying him constantly in both his classes and his bed was money. First, he should move out from Maria’s place to somewhere cheaper so as to reduce the leakage of his dollar reserve; second, he had to find a job for an income to top up the reserve. To borrow more money from his sister was out of the question. She had already done her best to help him with the first part of his adventure.

So far, the rent-slips he had obtained from the noticeboards had been useless. The rooms on the ads were either already taken or the numbers he had called were always engaged or not answered at all. His three roommates, who probably had a better financial situation, had not shown same level of anxiety.

Then, one of his classmates, when asked about the renting information, told him the unit he was in had a bed available as someone had just moved out. It was in a two-bedroom unit in Box Hill, $50 a week. Though inhabited by as many as eight tenants, the unit was still considered twice as good as the living conditions for students in Shangwai and Jiaoda. And saving $40 a week was what he couldn’t resist.      

He decided to move immediately.

Parting from his newly acquainted three friends was a little emotional. It was as if the one and half weeks they had lived together had already become a lifelong friendship.  

‘Well, we will definitely see each other very often on the campus,’ Bing said to them, as they stood wondering if there was anything else they could help in addition to carrying his luggage. Maria wasn’t in; actually there were still two days left for his paid rent, but he wished to move out as soon as possible to take the opportunity.      

The unit he was going to was close to the Box Hill railway station. But because of his heavy luggage, he thought of taking a taxi instead of the bus which was also convenient. As it was not possible to hail a taxi in a quiet street in the suburbs, he browsed the Yellow Pages in the house, called the taxi service and was told that a taxi would arrive in thirty minutes.  

The day was drizzling, only lightly and intermittently. Close to the appointed time, his three friends accompanied him down to the street, where they waited for fifteen minutes but saw no taxi turning up. He returned inside the house and dialled the number again. But to his dismay, he was told his call was placed in a queue, while a message and some music was repeated continuously for almost five minutes. Chained and strained with the handset all the while to his ears in case he missed a live human voice, his arm was sore, his legs stiff with long standing. Finally he gave up and hung up and went down to his friends.

‘Maybe go tomorrow?’ suggested Mei, ‘or wait until Maria comes back.’

‘Hmm…’ he hesitated, and without a certain idea what to do, pacing the path, glancing at the dim dreary sky. At the moment the drizzling began again. ‘You are getting wet, please get back to the house. I may just wait for a while longer.’

David said: ‘Why don’t we just go on foot to the bus station, it is not far away, about fifteen minutes.’

‘Yes, a good idea,’ agreed Mei. ‘You and David carry the big one, and Susan and I handle the rest.’

‘But it is raining,’ said Bing, ‘and it is too much trouble.’

‘No trouble at all, it is only drizzling,’ returned David, ‘let’s go.’

When they arrived at the bus stop on the campus, three friends suggest they go farther with him to Box Hill. A hand was needed from this end, as they said in their insistence on their company, so was it at the other, and that they could also take the chance to visit Box Hill, and his new place.

Within minutes, the bus was ready to board. With David leading the way and hauling the luggage over the steps, the group filed into the bus. The passengers on board were predominately Chinese students; in the voices and tones of Mandarin, Bing felt he was like on a bus in China. It didn’t take long, only two stops, less than twenty minutes he reckoned, to get to the Box Hill station. The rain had stopped, but the day was still a little dusky. After getting off to the ground, he began to check his map. He located Bank Street, but first they needed to know how to get out of the bus station, towards a street which he could identify in the map. He noticed a young man who, wandering about, didn’t seem to have anything to do.

‘Where is Station Street?’ Bing asked him in English, and got an answer in Chinese, and he thanked him heartily with ‘Xie Xie’.

The four members of the team, in the same manner as before, handled his luggage. Having reached Station Street, he was able to sense the direction. They moved left to right, and right to left; the Chinese characters that marked the doors, the windows, the walls and the awnings of the street shops intimately and delightfully impressed him, until they found a subway through which they passed to Bank Street. Then he heard a train rattling along the railway, producing a sound familiar to the depth of his memory. Unlike the lazy and snoozing tram in the city, this one, with a web of rusty lines over its top, had heavy and impatient steps; as if with its power, it could carry a body to an infinite future or even reverse a soul back to his remotest past.

‘What number?’ David laid the case down and turned to him, panting.

‘71,’ Bing answered, checking the numbers on the buildings, ‘here is 47, some blocks further.’ Then catching up, he took his turn to carry the case that seemed to grow heavier by seconds in his hand, as he laboured towards a destination not as near to the station as he estimated. Susan and Mei, chattering happily all the time, were lagging behind.

At last, he got to the front of a red-bricked house marked the number 71, feeling the soreness of his arms. He couldn’t recall his last time of bearing such a weight for such a distance, bare-handed, without even the help of a bamboo stick. Waiting for the rest three coming to him, he took his chance to stretch and relax his body.  

‘Is it here?’ asked Mei, curiously. ‘The house is bigger than the one on Peacock Street.’

Susan, pushing up a little her spectacles with her forefinger, and with a little frown looking at the house as if reading a book, said thoughfully, ‘Oh, this is not a house; it is a flat.’

‘Flat?’ asked Mei and David almost the same time.

Susan then went on her lengthy explanation about the notion of unit, apartment and house in Australia. Bing was amazed at Susan’s remarkable store of information, behind her black-rimmed glasses that she had to push up from time to time as if her nose was too low to hold them steady.

On the door step of a room at second level, Bing knocked the door once, and twice, before it was swung open. A stranger Chinese poked out his head, ‘Hello.’

‘I am after Simon, my classmate,’ said Bing.

The stranger turned and called aloud, ‘Simon, your classmate is here,’ and turned back, ‘come in, come in.’

One after one, they slid inside. The room, already crowded with chairs, tables, bags, clothes, bowls, shoes, books, computers, so on and so forth, appeared suddenly very small. The carpet in the living room was very dirty, indeed; some spots were as black as rich, solidified soil.   

A creaking sound was heard from an open bedroom. Simon came out.

‘Hi, Bing,’ he said, his surprised eyes scanning the four faces in the room.

‘Hi, Simon,’ Bing made an introduction. ‘They are my roommates, helping me with my luggage,’

‘Oh, didn’t you take a taxi?’

‘I have called and made an appointment, but the taxi didn’t come, so we took the bus.’

‘All right, then,’ he motioned to another room, ‘I have already told the landlord, so just move things in.’

The bedroom had two bunk beds occupying two corners at the window. Presently two boys were lying in the two beds of the left bunk and, hearing them enter, they both sat up; the one in the upper made a greeting, ‘Hey, welcome to the family.’

‘Thank you,’ Bing smiled, reaching up to shake hands, ‘I am Wang Bing.’

‘I am David.’

Bing pointed to another David, who had just come in, ‘This one is David too, my roommate, actually ex-roommate.’
He repeated the same courtesy to the other boy.  Then he turned and saw Susan and Mei still standing in the living room on the same spot of the carpet; with their girlish consciousness they moved their heads and eyes only a little to satisfy their curiosity about the place. Bing thought he could settle himself after seeing off his friends. He was about to say something, but David grabbed his chance, ‘Okay, Bing, we’ll leave you here to unpack things.’



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洋八路

Chapter 47     2/2



He hesitated for a moment whether or not he should demonstrate the hospitality of a host, but conscious of the poor condition of the unit, he said, ‘Ehm, Okay then, let me see you off.’

They went down together to the front of the flat. Then, as they were about to bid the farewell, Bing realized it was nearly the supper time.

‘Hang on,’ he said, ‘I am hungry. Why don’t we go together to Box Hill for supper?’

The three faces exhibited an immediate expression of hunger, yet looking at each other, without replying.

‘You know what, I have saved the taxi fare, and you have worked hard with the luggage. We deserve a decent meal in one of the Chinese restaurants in Box Hill, don’t we?’

Chuckles of mirth rippled remarkably in the air.

‘Never mind, Wang Teacher,’ said David, ‘we do A-A style.’

‘No, no, I will treat you this time, let’s go.’ Immediately he set to lead the group towards Box Hill Station. Half way there, it was drizzling again. They walked faster; but the faster they walked, the more rapidly the rain fell as if to match their speed.      

They ran and laughed and, reaching the subway, stopped to pant, to wipe away the raindrops from their faces. The dull tunnel had now become a nice shelter for them, echoing and amplifying their voices like an ancient Chinese bronze plate responding to strikes. ‘We are a bit like soaked chickens,’ said Mei, shaking and ruffling her hair. ‘I wonder how we could get back to Peacock St.’

‘Well, if the rain never stops,’ Bing said, drying his glasses with part of his t-shirt, ‘I won’t mind staying the night in this tunnel.’

Cheerfully, Susan agreed, ‘What a good idea! We can even have a picnic.’

David chimed in, ‘Now I am hungrier than ever before.’

But the gust of rain went as quickly as it had come. In another minute, they were strolling on the street, poking their heads here and there to seek a restaurant where their now enlarged appetite ought to be assuaged.

‘Which one to go to? Sichuan Spicy? Vietnamese Noodle? Or Xinjiang Stretched Noodles?’ Bing read signs on both sides of the street. ‘But it is a pity, there is no shop selling Tianjin’s dog-do-not-bother dumpling, or Nanjing’s salty-duck, or...’ he looked at Susan, ‘Susan, what special cuisine do you Shanghainese have?’

‘Shanghai cuisine? Maybe Shanghai Dessert? Or Shanghai Little Soup Dumpling?’

‘You are not even sure yourself, are you? Anyway, there doesn’t seem to be any Shanghai restaurant here.’

David chimed in, ‘Susan, you should open one here; you could call it Shanghai Susan Dumpling.’

Immediately the group burst into a guffaw, drawing a number of curious eyes from the street.

But they couldn’t be fed just by their laughter. ‘Oh, stop laughing, or my stomach will be broken,’ David pressed hard upon his tummy. ‘Now, Wang Teacher, which one to go to? Maybe Sichuan? I don’t favour noodles, we have had too many noodles recently.’

‘Then we’ll go for the Sichuan Spicy, is anyone allergic to chilli?’ Bing said, browsing the three faces, lending a doubtful look at Susan, ‘Susan? But we can always ask for milder dishes.’

‘No problem for me,’ answered Susan, whose face and voice seemed to have already turned hot from the running and laughing exercise.

Inside the restaurant, the waitress, dressed beautifully in a type of laced costume for certain ethnic minorities in China, spoke Chinese, and led them to a small rectangular table. A menu was handed over and Bing began to enquire and choose and made the final selection: a large bowl of soup - sickle vegetables and thin slice of meat, a dish of chicken – hot-fried with peanuts, red chilli, and red-coloured, square-cut carrots, a dish of beef - delivered on the hot iron plate, a dish of tofu - brown-skinned, well-cooked, with prawns.

Waiting, he felt his mouth watering. He felt a sudden desire for a drink. Beckoning the waitress over, he asked about the beer. From the brands she told him, he picked VB, Victoria Bitter, after the solicitous girl had explained to them what it stood for.

‘Please bring four VBs,’ he said, without asking his friends whether they wanted it also.

Susan said, ‘No, Wang Teacher, I don’t drink,’ which was followed by Mei, ‘nor do I.’

‘No, each of us must drink one,’ Bing said, suddenly assuming a stern face like a lecturer assigning homework to students. ‘Otherwise how can we toast our first dinner in a restaurant in the country?’

David chuckled, obviously very amused with the docile expression of the two girls. Bing went on, ‘Come on, don’t worry, if you can’t finish, we here have David from Tianjin, who must have a horse-belly for beer.’

Seeing Bing not as serious as a moment earlier, Mei said, ‘Wang Teacher, your students must have been very scared of you.’

‘Yes, especially if they didn’t submit their homework on time,’ he acknowledged, ‘but I am myself a student now, and like you, will have to worry about homework and assignments.’

‘Your English is very good. You won’t have any problem,’ said David, ‘not like me, finding it so difficult to follow the class.’

‘The teacher is speaking too fast,’ said Susan, ‘some of my classmates have to use a recorder.’

‘Well, no doubt, English is the main hurdle to study. But there is no short cut to tackle it,’ Bing said. ‘Try to read as much as you can, not just the books of your subjects, but novels, magazines, newspapers, anything you can get hold of.’

‘But I think my difficulty lies more in listening and speaking, reading is okay for me,’ said Mei.

‘Of course, one should try every chance to talk, listen, and write as well. But compared to other efforts, reading has its practical advantages. First, the materials here in Australia are plentiful, unlike talking and listening where you will have to find a partner; second, reading will greatly enhance the way of thinking in English, which is essential to your competence in writing and speaking. Language is all about repetition; extensive reading will reflect the words and expressions again and again in your linguistic mind, until they become the sort of fluent, instinctive parts of language composition in a situation.’
‘But what to read? I have tried to read some novels or newspapers, but had to look up dictionary all the time, until I got tired after only a few pages,’ said Susan.

‘Well, it is very important that you do not lose your interest in reading by the burden of frequently looking up a dictionary, especially during the initial period when your reading passion is vulnerable and easily dampened by the tediousness of vocabulary checking.’

‘But…’ Susan began and stopped, for the waitress had just come over with their first dish.

‘Let’s eat, and talk…’ said Bing, then turned to the waitress, ‘waitress, VB please.’

To his surprise, the VB bottle delivered shortly afterwards was small and stumpy, with Victoria Bitter printed on a greenish label. For a moment it reminded him of the bottles used to store some toxic pesticide in his village.  

‘Susan, and Mei, look at the beer, only half of the standard amount in China, you two will have no problem finishing it.’

Then he looked about the table for an opener, and failing to find one, he signalled the waitress with a bottle-opening gesture. She came over, but without an opener in her hand. She took the bottle from him, twisting the cap with her bare palm. The cap was at once off.

‘No need for an opener, just twist it,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ he gave the opened one to Susan, at the same time took another one to practise. Indeed, on the cap he noticed an arrow sign plus a word ‘twist’.

He showed it to David, who immediately set to open the other two bottles with boyish fun and curiosity.  

Getting ready, Bing toasted with the four bottles clinking together. The first mouthful of drink and the hot peanuts were just beautiful.

In a while, Susan resumed the topic again, ‘Wang Teacher, you said do not look up dictionary.’

He raised his brows, for a brief moment not able to recall his former speech. ‘Oh, yes, I mean do not let the dictionary wear down your reading efforts.’

‘But you can’t understand it if you don’t rely on the dictionary.’

‘Well, let me ask you,’ he said, in an exact manner of a teacher in a classroom, ‘what percentage of new words is roughly in a page, I mean in your previous reading experience?’

‘It depends, thirty or forty percent?’

‘Okay, say forty percent, which means you know or you are able to recognize about sixty percent of the words in a page.’

‘Yes.’

‘Now, do you think you are able to use those sixty percent of words fluently? I mean, in speaking and writing?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Ehmm, not familiar enough?’

‘Exactly right, when you read the book, you know their meaning, but you are not familiar enough to use them as fluently as you wish. They are just like the people you have encountered once or twice, no friendship has yet developed, therefore, they are not yet ready for the immediate assistance in a situation.’

‘Now I see, you mean I need to read them more, like seeing friends more often to build an intimacy so that they will help me the moment I want their assistance.’

‘Yes. The theory here is, instead of spending so much time on checking up the new meanings with a dictionary, which will eventually, and rather quickly exhaust the last drop of your reading interest, you choose to enhance and deepen the existing friendship or relationship of those words and expressions.’

‘So you just keep reading to the last page?’

‘Yes, imagine how many existing words in a book or a magazine you will have the chance to repeat. Even if you comprehend less than half the plot, it is still far better than quitting altogether after a few pages, no matter how many new words you might have checked in the meantime.’

David and Mei said one after another, ‘Great, I am going to read this way tomorrow.’ ‘Very good advice.’

‘Try to read twenty novels from the library this way. Also remember this is not asking you to skim the books, but to maintain reading without the frequent interruption of a dictionary. After completing twenty books, I bet your English will be heaps better, and your progress will help you read more, and you will be on a road of constant improvement, at which time using the dictionary or not won’t daunt you any more. Plus, you can always read those books a second time if you have missed the plot and details at your first reading.’

‘Thank you, Wang Teacher,’ they cheered him with their bottles.

After dinner, Bing escorted them to the bus station. He waved to them. He saw Susan touching her glasses, but was unsure if she was in her sentimental mood or simply re-positioning her spectacles.

On the way to his new lodging, he did his math work: the cost of the meal was $47, about 280 Yuan. Not too expensive, he said to himself; but the beer was. At almost three dollars for a bottle of that size, he could have bought eighteen of them in China, or nine big bottles for the equivalent amount of liquid.

Now that he had found a cheaper dwelling, his next challenge was to get a job, any job that would generate an income to keep him living in this new territory.



-- End of Chapter 47--

Gone

斌的算术小心思很可爱。。他不会和 Mei 或者 Susan 中的一位出轨吧。。

洋八路

Gone 发表于 2014-6-27 16:54
斌的算术小心思很可爱。。他不会和 Mei 或者 Susan 中的一位出轨吧。。

正在计划让他出轨一下，不过没确定哪一个，你提提建议？lol

Gone

呵呵。。兔子不吃窝边草。。还是一夜性吧。。像斌的性格。。  。

洋八路

Gone 发表于 2014-6-29 21:28
呵呵。。兔子不吃窝边草。。还是一夜性吧。。像斌的性格。。  。

也是，到了澳洲，眼界要宽，不能再找中国人了...

Gone

哈哈。。视野很宽哦。。等着眼珠子掉一地。。