Coming Home

回 乡 偶 书

Written by He Zhizhang in 744

少 小 离 家 老 大 回，乡 音 无 改 鬓 毛 衰，

儿 童 相 见 不 相 识，笑 问 客 从 何 处 来。

　

Version 1:

Meeting My Kids

I left home early in my life and came back in my old age

My native dialect did not change but my hair turned white and gray

I didn’t recognize my kids at first nor did they know me

No wonder why they treated me a guest and asked me where I stayed

Version 2:

Coming Home

Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong

I left home young, now old, return care free,

My tongue unchanged, my hair now thinner be.

Unknown I am to the boys and girls I meet,

Smiling they ask, “Sir, from whence come thee?”

  I posted two different versions of this poem. The same as the “thinking of you”, these two versions have different titles. Actually the real meaning of the original title is only “writing something in a coincident case when I back home”. So the second title is translate it directly but the first one making “meeting my child” as a title is abstract from the whole poem totally.

  In fact, it`s distressing story to author. He left hometown when he was young even he was still in adolescent, but he back the hometown at the age of 80s as a retired man. In ancient China, the acreage of a village always be small and limited people lived in, therefore, you would know all your neighbors and fellows. But at the last two sentences of this poem, it said the child in our village coming towards me, and he asked smilingly “where are you from”.  The climax of the poem occurs, the child should be known the author as the fellows in the same village. It proved that the author left home too long to let the child had never been seen him.

  He Zhizhang, the author, wrote this poem to express the unchanged accent and changed environment when he was 86 years old. We can feel a slight sorrowful atmosphere from the question that the child asked with smile.