Voice Messages from Grandma

By Zhao Ting

Late at night, my bus was crossing the border of Vietnam and Laos, with high mountains, deep valleys and barren lands disappearing slowly at each side of the silent road. Finally, the bus pulled up by the muddy roadside near the border. I then picked up my cellphone and found that it was luckily connected to a free WiFi network nearby. Six or more messages popped up on my cellphone through WeChat.

I pressed the first message and the others followed automatically. A familiar voice reached my ears:

“A Ting, it’s Grandma. How are you? Hahaha.”

“What are you doing now? Have you had your meal yet?”

“Is the food abroad delicious? It’s getting colder and colder, so don’t forget to cover yourself with two quilts when you sleep.”

“Can you understand foreigners when they speak? Have you bought me some delicious snacks?”

I checked my watch and found it was past eleven o’clock, which means it was past midnight in China. Grandma should have been asleep. I looked at the stars in the sky, and sent a voice message to my grandma: “Hi, Grandma. It’s A Ting. How are you?”

When I was ready to get back to the bus, to my surprise, I received her reply: “Oh, A Ting, why do you stay up so late? Go to bed now! Remember to cover up well, and don’t leave your feet outside the quilt.”

I lay down on the bed and answered, “Don’t miss me so much. I’ll be back soon.”

这一路，崇山峻岭，旷野荒芜，驶过无人公路，开过越南老挝边境。

夜深了，汽车停在离越老边境不远的一条土路边。我本能地拿起手机，发现竟然连上了WiFi。有一个人连续给我发了六七条语音。

我按下第一条，传出温暖的声音：

阿挺啊，我是你外婆啦，你还好吗？哈哈哈哈哈。

你现在在干吗？吃饭了没有呀？

国外东西好不好吃？天气越来越冷，睡觉要盖两条被子。

外国人讲话你都听得懂吗？好吃的给我买了没呀？

我看了一下时间，十一点多，此时中国时间是十二点多，外婆应该早就进入梦乡了。我看着满天的繁星，给外婆发了一条语音：我是阿挺，外婆，你还好吗？

准备再次上车时，微信有了提示音，外婆竟然发来了语音：哦，阿挺啊，这么晚还没睡啊？

你赶紧睡觉啊，记得被窝要盖好，脚不要露在外面，手脚都要放到被窝里。

我躺在通铺里说：你不用太想我，我马上就能回来了。

汽车发动，沿着土路缓缓往前开去，我看着这条语音转啊转一直没发出去，于是赶紧加了一句：你早点睡啊，我马上就回来看你，给你买了很多好吃的。

我本来打算从老挝飞缅甸，然后再去印度，一路向西，继续我的背包穷游生活。现在我一路回听着外婆的语音，觉得应该先给外婆带点什么吃的东西回去。

第二天早上六点，车才到达琅勃拉邦（老挝著名的古都和佛教中心），我从琅勃拉邦坐了十二小时的汽车到了老挝首都万象，从万象又坐了一天两夜的国际大巴终于到了昆明。在昆明，我疲惫不堪，连走路都想睡觉，在市区匆匆买了鲜花饼后就坐上了回宁波的飞机。

The bus restarted, going slowly along the bumpy road. I found my voice message had not been sent out yet, so I added one more: “Go to bed early. I will come back to see you soon, and bring you a lot of delicious snacks.”

I had planned to take a flight from Laos to Burma, then to India, all the way west, to continue my backpacking journey. However, replaying my grandma’s messages on my phone again and again on the bus, it came to me that I should stop my journey and buy her some snacks first.

At six the next morning, the bus finally arrived in Luang Prabang (a famous ancient capital and the Buddhist center of Laos). It took me twelve hours to travel from Luang Prabang to Vientiane, the capital city of Laos by bus, and then a day and two nights from Vientiane to Kunming by international bus. In Kunming, I was so tired that I nearly fell asleep while walking. After I grabbed some flower cakes from a downtown store, I got on the plane back to Ningbo.

When I got off the plane, I didn’t go home. I went straight to my grandma’s house with five boxes of flower cakes.

Grandma looked at me for a long time before she opened a box and took a bite of a flower cake. She exclaimed, “Wow, it is so delicious!”

I was surprised by her “wow.”

Grandma asked, “In which country did you buy it?”

I faltered, “L, L... Laos.”

Grandma responded: “Weird name, but delicious food.”

And then, my grandma handed me a flower cake and she began to eat one at a time. I said: “I have eaten flower cakes all the way here.”

With a small amount in her mouth, Grandma said, “Don’t lie to me.”

That day, my grandma ate over half of the box of flower cakes. While eating, she took out a Chinese-made smartphone that she got as a free promotional gift and said, “I can also use WeChat now. By the way, I am going to learn about computers at the university for the elderly, so that I can communicate with you at any time in the future.”

When I unlocked the screen, I found the interface was her WeChat dialogue with me, and I casually pressed the back key to the main page.

Upon seeing it, Grandma grabbed the phone and said: “What are you doing? You closed the page, how can I chat with you again?”

I calmed her, “Why? You can open WeChat again.”

Grandma said, “It’s too complicated. The young man next door taught me to keep the screen like this, so that when I wanted to talk to you, I could just press the speak button and then press down to listen, but now you made the buttons disappear.”

I opened WeChat again and reopened the dialogue page between Grandma and me.

Grandma said, “Yes, that’s it. Don’t touch it any more.”

In her world, putting the WeChat dialogue page between her and me as an interface meant a lot.

Holding the smartphone in her left hand and a flower cake in her right, she said: “It’s really delicious. Buy me some more next time, OK?”

Twenty years ago, I had asked the same question. While eating a big piece of chicken from KFC her house, I said to Grandma, “It’s really delicious. Buy me some more next time, OK?”

(FromGrandma’s Heroic World, Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing, Ltd. Translation: Zhou Honghua)

下了飞机，我没回家，带着五盒鲜花饼径直去了外婆家。

外婆上上下下端详了我很久，才打开盒子拿着鲜花饼咬了一口，说：“哇，这么好吃？”

我被这声“哇”吓了一跳。

外婆说：“哪个国家带来的？”

我支吾说：“老……老挝。”

外婆说：“名字这么难听，东西倒蛮好吃的。”

说完，外婆递一个给我，就一口一个地吃起来。我说：“我吃过了，一路吃着鲜花饼过来的。”

外婆嘴里塞着鲜花饼说：“莫骗我哦。”

那天，外婆吃了大半盒的鲜花饼，边吃边拿出一部促销送的国产智能手机说：“我也会弄微信了，对了，我老年大学准备学计算机，以后和你随时沟通。”

我打开这部智能机，只见界面就是和我的微信对话框，我随意地按着返回键，退到桌面。

外婆一把夺过手机说：“你这干吗，都把我弄掉了，我还怎么和你聊天？”

我说：“你可以再打开微信啊。”

外婆说：“太复杂了，隔壁年轻人教我的时候就说这样别动，想和你说话的时候就按住说话，听的话按一下就好了，现在全被你弄没了。”

我又打开微信，回到外婆和我的对话框。

外婆说：“对，就这样，别动它了。”

在这个世界上，永远把和我的对话框作为手机界面，这就是一部智能机对于我外婆的全部意义。

她左手拿着那部廉价的国产智能机，右手拿起一个鲜花饼，说：“真好吃，下次再给我买一点，好吗？”

二十年前，我也是这样，在外婆家，啃着肯德基的大鸡块对外婆说：“真好吃，下次再给我买一点，好吗？”

（摘自《外婆的英雄世界》江苏凤凰文艺出版社）