I grew up in China. My sentiment beholding the holiday lights is probably very different from those who had Christmas trees, Santa's gifts and "Silent night...Holy night..." throughout the joyful winters of their childhood. Lights gleaming through the piercing evening often send my mind back to the yonder spot in my youth...

I myself had a decent childhood with my parents' secure jobs and grandma's loving care. We lived on the campus of a large university where my father taught, scattered on the rural hills and secluded by mixtures of pines, bamboo and evergreens. Under those hills ran the majestic river QianTang. Across the river stretched vast farmland and on the river floated the homes of fishermen.

Many of the fishermen farmed in summer time. During the slack season of winter they earned food by fishing. Each morning the fishermen set the nets before daybreak and started their brief life of the day. It was always a beautiful scene to see their silhouettes in the drifting brume against the faint sunrise. In the afternoon the fishing boats berthed along the shore and did their trade with the local people. Wrapped in soft cotton jacket and mittens, I often followed my grandma to the snow patched river bank to buy fish and clams. Adults bargained and started fire for meals. Their older kids, about 6 or 7, mended nets with swollen fingers and helped with chores. The very small ones, bare footed and shivering, huddled their tiny bodies in strips of rags. When I stared at them, they stared back timidly. Sometimes little girls whispered to each other and smiled at me. I don't remember how many times I went to the river bank and each time saw different boats and people. The winter was always frozen and the motionless gazes of the eyes of those children seemed always the same, timid and curious. My grandma often shook her head and murmured:" those poor little ones, those poor little ones..." I felt helpless.

I watched those boats from my school, from the hilltop of the campus and from the 600 year old pagoda nearby. I watched those boat kids work, eat and play along the shore. I watched the fishing in early morning and their trembling lights in the evening gusts. Year after year, while I finished elementary school, attended middle school in town and entered university, the fishing boat scene was forever the same. And many evenings on the bus heading home I gazed at those feeble lights and their reflections in the water and wondered what kind of things the boat children were doing...

In the winter of 1990 I went back to my hometown. I visited the place which appeared so many times in my dreams. To my surprise the whole strip of shore near the university was straightened by a newly constructed freeway. Bushes along the river, streams meandering from the hills and rocks where my young friends and I used to sit and talk tales around the world were all gone. I searched with disbelief. The fishing boats were nowhere to be seen. In front of me was the bare misty gray water. I realized then that more than a decade had passed, and that those boat children with frozen cheeks and wondering eyes must have had their own families and kids like myself. It was said that the life in the countryside was getting better. All I could wish was for the next generation of those boat children to have a better and warmer life ...

When my children argue about the gifts and holiday meals, and when I put on the colorful decorations, I always feel a sole and faint light burning in my heart, on the river and in the winter mist...