In Fifty Years

Ouyang Yu

Many of these people, these youngsters in their early 20s, walking in front of my eyes, in all directions, crossing the street regardless of the rushing traffic, equally regardless of them even when they are walking on the zebra crossing, in a civilization that remains semi-savage, these young people, with vastly different faces that are basically the same, and names that must remain different no matter what, some of them already fallen in love, perhaps rightly, walking hand in hand, all with bags behind their backs, mostly of medium height, a few taller, a few others shorter, mostly average, not one, not a single one recognizable as having being taught by the eyes of the beholder, or the owner of the eyes watching and thinking, these people moving en masse, in close proximity, to each other, and with each other, before the university gate, in the piercing spring cold, near the approaching evening dark, will have died.

Ouyang Yu has published 105 books in both English and Chinese in the field of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, literary translation, and criticism. His second book of English poetry, Songs of the Last Chinese Poet, was shortlisted for the 1999 NSW Premier’s Literary Award. His third novel, The English Class, won the 2011 NSW Premier’s Award, and his translation in Chinese of The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes won the Translation Award from the Australia-China Council in 2014. He is now professor of English at the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics in China.