Excerpt from The Story of the Sahara

Excerpt from the favorite sentences in this book, which is deeply missed by Sanmao!

Hotel in the desert

* I am not a supporter of the women's liberation movement, but I am extremely reluctant to lose my independent personality and inner freedom after marriage, so I have repeatedly stressed that I will "go my own way" after marriage, or I will not get married.

* Anyway, couples are always eating, and the rest of the time is busy earning money for eating, which is really not very interesting.

* "yellow-faced woman" is still gentle sometimes. "It's not illness, it's eating badly."

* After seeing my boss off, it was already late at night. I quickly took off my long skirt and put on worn jeans, tied my hair with a rubber band, and washed dishes vigorously, redoing the Cinderella shape to set me free physically and mentally.

wedding notes

* San Mao, what are your big plans for next year?

* Jose has a great advantage. What Sanmao does may seem crazy to others, but it is taken for granted to him. So it's also a pleasure to be with him.

* I believe in Jose. He always does what he said in the past.

* Jose was a little unhappy and shouted, "I've known you for so long, and you're always running around. Finally, after I finished my military service, you have to go alone again. When can I be with you?"

* I think very clearly that the only way to keep you by my side is to marry you, otherwise my heart will never lose this painful feeling. Shall we get married in summer?

* Three months passed quickly. Jose worked hard to make money during this period, and at the same time began to make furniture. In addition, he moved some of his things to my place every day. I carried my backpack and camera, went to many nomadic tents, watched many different and colorful strange customs, wrote down notes, arranged slides, made many Sahrawi friends, and even began to learn Arabic. Life is fruitful and pleasant.

Saving the world by hanging a pot

* "It's really a strange thing in the world. Teachers who haven't given birth teach mothers who have given birth how their children come." Jose said laughing. "In the past, they only gave birth, but now they know what is going on. This is the truth of difficult to know and easy to do." At least these women can gain more common sense, although this common sense can't make their lives happier and healthier.

* I, a witch doctor, have an effect on everyone, except Jose, who is very afraid of me and never gives me a chance to cure him on weekdays, but I try my best to make him have confidence in me.

doll bride

* I think that's their Sahrawi custom. I can't criticize this matter with too subjective eyes, so I don't talk anymore.

* I said disapprovingly, and somehow I was a little envious of Guka. When I got married, I didn't earn any sheep for my parents.

* I think the people waiting outside, including me, are all bastards. It is strange that no one will change it under the pretext of custom.

Night on a barren hill

* I can't leave you

* I've been controlling myself. Don't be emotional. I'd better find someone to save Jose when I drive back to see him. I didn't leave him.

* Cold, stabbing me like hundreds of small knives. It should be less than zero, but I am about to fall down with cold. I can't stop. I have a lot of things to do quickly. I can't stay in the car.

* you-you have suffered.

Bathing in the Desert

* The spring finally appeared. It was really touching to see the water coming out of the ground for the first time in the desert. It's in a room.

* that's a deep well.

* According to the aesthetic concept in the desert, a fat woman is beautiful, so most women try their best to make themselves fat.

* According to the proprietress of "Quan", it takes three times a day to wash the interior, and it takes seven days to finish it. It's a veritable spring cleaning. It's incredible that a person can hold so much water in his body.

the search for love

* "From the beginning to now, he has always understood clearly in his heart, but he refused to wake up. He refused to save himself. Who can save him?"

* What he wants is love, affection, home and warmth. Such a cautious, lonely and young heart, when it comes to a little fake love, of course, will be desperate to seize it.

* "I'm thinking that moths must be extremely happy when they put out the fire."

Neighbors

* I don't keep in touch with them on weekdays except when I open the door when giving medicine. I am very strict with the principle that a friend of a gentleman is like water.

* I put nine bonsai under the new roof. A piece of new green. My life has improved a lot because of this.

* People here can have four wives. I don't like four women sharing Jose's salary bag together. "Don't look anymore, when she is a mirage."

* Besides my toothbrush and my husband, is there anything in our family that you are not interested in?

Amateur fisherman

* Sitting here, I often forget that I am in the desert, as if I were back in the good old days.

* ah! Here comes the happy bluebird!

* Long-term desert life can only make people learn one benefit, and any little enjoyment in real life will incidentally make the mind infinitely satisfied and sublimated. In other words, we pay more attention to our stomachs than our brains.

* Only we know "the art of living", and we have endured the hard life, and our life is not too bad.

* Friendship is also priceless wealth.

Ladder

* The real bad guys in this world are just like the "dragon" we say in China. They can be big or small, but they can be hidden. You can't catch them and you can't keep them.

* With the hot photos, the mood and look of driving are very different from before, and only by comparison can we see the spring and autumn.

starting a family from scratch

* I have traveled in many countries for half my life. I have lived in a highly civilized society, seen through it, and tasted enough. I am not touched, and my lifestyle is more or less influenced by them. But I have never left my heart in a fixed place for the city where I live.

* was inexplicably handed over to that strange land without reservation.

* I often say that I'm going to take a trip to the desert, but no one takes me seriously.

* Fortunately, how others analyze me has nothing to do with me.

* Apart from my father's encouragement, there is only one other friend. He doesn't laugh at me, stop me or drag me down.

* When this man went to the desert to suffer for love, I had decided to wander with him all my life.

* Because I have never felt like a member of all sentient beings in this world, I often have to run out of the track of ordinary life and do things that cannot be explained.

* Where there are people, there is indescribable anger and interest.

Life, in such a secluded, backward and poor place, is thriving, but it is not struggling to survive. For desert residents, their birth, illness, death and illness here seem to be such a natural thing.

a free life, in my interpretation, is spiritual civilization.

* Our first home, I'll take you in. From now on, you are my wife.

* This is a very plain and far-reaching combination. I have never loved him warmly, but I feel very happy and comfortable.

* My potential will be proved by my future life.

* Only when I went deep into the desert and watched the beautiful scenery of herds of wild antelopes at sunrise and sunset, did my heart forget the boredom and hardship of real life.

* Home has suddenly become an indispensable place.

* I'm not discouraged. People, more life experiences are always valuable.

* For a while, I was like a wounded beast, and every little thing would offend me. Even weak and crying.

The Sahara desert is so beautiful, but life here requires great perseverance to adapt itself!

I don't hate the desert, I just suffered a little setback in the process of getting used to it.

* I am very beautiful in the photos, with my long hair hanging smoothly over my shoulders and smiling-

I look at the past one by one, leaving behind a large stack of photos and falling to the ground in vain. That kind of mood is like a dead body, and my soul is as disappointed and helpless as being led to the homesickness platform to see his relatives.

* The process of life, whether it's spring snow or green bean curd, I have to taste what it is, so as not to waste such a visit!

* What we think of is to improve the environment and overcome the great material and spiritual suffering.

* I am very proud to have such a husband.

* Silence is a woman's greatest virtue.

* When we formally got married, there was a bookcase and a table in this house, a long row of hanging wardrobes were set up in the bedroom space, a small coffee table was put under the cooking table in the kitchen, and there were new colored striped curtains of desert linen ...

* It was good to get married.

* A home like this has the mood of striving for perfection.

* I often analyze myself, people, and it is difficult to get rid of the stage that they were assigned when they were born. Nothing in my home is necessary for the Sahrawi people, but I can't get rid of this shackles and make the surrounding environment as complicated as before.

slowly, I step back to my old self, that is to say, I am having an affair again.

* no money. For those who know how to appreciate it, it is priceless, and for those who don't, it is worthless.

* Rome was not built in a day.

* Man, it's really strange. Without outsiders to prove you, you often can't see your own value.

Soul Collection

* I also know that even at the end of this world, there are women who love beauty and children who love food.

* Once upon a time, there was a thing that, if you shone it on people, they would be clearly taken away, which was even more powerful than your box.

* Material civilization is not necessary for human beings, but there are people on the earth where we also live who have never even seen the mirror. Such ignorance is only the limitation of geographical environment or human factors, and I can't find the answer for a long time.

* It's a pity that I didn't photograph the flamingo, but the beauty of that moment will never be forgotten in my heart.

Sabah sergeant

* A man who has been bitten by hatred for 16 years, but at the most critical moment, he threw his life at death, but in exchange for the lives of these Sahrawi children who he always regarded as enemies. Why? Never thought that he would die like this.

hitchhiker

* Water and love are very important things in desert life.

* Being closed in this small town with only one street for a long time is as lonely as a man with a broken leg living in an alley with no exit. There is no excessive joy or sadness in the same day. Life without change, like the warp and weft on the loom, has been woven one by one, but the colors are monotonous.

* Now that we have our own car, do you remember the miserable days when we hitchhiked on the highway and waited for someone to stop and pick us up?

* you weren't with me then.

* This is different. In a civilized society, because it is too complicated, I don't think other people and things have anything to do with me, but in this barren land where the wind blows all year round, I can see a grass and a drop of dew in the morning, and they will touch my heart.

* here, the endless undulating sand grains are the real masters of the earth, while people, living here, are just pebbles mixed in the sand.

* The only asphalt road in this wilderness is still being driven back and forth by me day after day. At first glance, it seems to be dead, lifeless, and there is no sorrow. In fact, it is like a street, a narrow lane and a winding stream anywhere in the world, carrying its passers-by and stories, coming and going through the slow-moving months and months.

* I still know how to cherish every pebble in the sand. I can't forget every sunrise and sunset. What's more, how can I erase these living faces from my memory?

dumb slave

* Although my body is not free, my heart is free.

* At least, the dumb slave has a happy family. He is not too poor.

* Home is a source of joy for everyone! No matter how bitter it is, it is warm. Even if a slave has a home, he doesn't feel too pitiful.

crying camel

* I am awake. What happened yesterday is not just a nightmare after all.

* Yes, it's always dead. It's really dead. Whether it's just a few days or a long life, crying, laughing, loving, hating, dreaming and upside down, it will disappear one day. There are no dead figures in the white sand, and even the wind at night has not brought them a sigh.

* I leaned against the door and window and looked at them. Shaida's white and elegant shadow, as beautiful as spring flowers, suddenly flashed before my eyes. It is hard to explain why that lovely desert woman with a high degree of civilization was so despised by people under her own customs.

* This nation needs a lot of patience and time to civilize them.

* The sand is the same sand, the sky is the same sky, and the tornado is the same tornado. At the end of the isolated world, in a place as primitive as heaven and earth, strange terms such as the United Nations, The Hague International Court of Justice, and national self-determination are only as faint as smoke to many people who really live here.

* What attracts me here? The sky is vast, the scorching sun and the storm, and there are joys and sorrows in the lonely life. Even these ignorant people, I have the same love and hate for them, and I am confused, alas! I don't know myself.

* There is no second Sahara in the world, and only to those who love it can it show you its beauty and gentleness, return your love to you silently with its eternal earth and sky, and quietly promise your guarantee. I hope your children and grandchildren will be born in its arms.

appendix

notes for returning home

* Unfortunately, I can only catch them for 24 hours a day.

Life is suddenly busy and lively, but inner peace has caused great waves because of these touching feelings.

Although I am trying to tell myself, I want to fully enjoy my holiday in my motherland, travel around and chat with my parents. In fact, my daily life has become a slave to time, and I chase it day and night, as if I can never be released from it.

* I really want to take care of my friends. Please don't think that I know my present situation.