女儿这次回家，一日突然问及家中的老古董相机。那是我们九十年代结婚前后买的一部国产海鸥牌相机，记得当时好像是一千块人民币左右。就是用这台手动的相机，我给女儿拍了许多珍贵的照片，也给自己的青春留下了一些永恒的念想。记得那时住在园西区，常常为洗照片骑车穿过校园，跑去东门洗，洗完了再在店里过塑，以防潮湿的天气对照片造成的损坏。这些照片最后都随着这部相机一起漂洋过了海。怀旧时，自己会拿出旧照片翻翻，也常常给女儿看她小时候的模样，还告诉她，小时候每次拍照，妈妈都要她竖起小指头为了更好的聚焦，所以大多数照片都拍得很清楚。
女儿说，现在有那么一小部分人喜欢用手动相机，因为它的颜色和拍出来的层次感。于我，旧相机还能派上用场，能重见天日，能让女儿感兴趣，自然是好。遂花了大半天找出来那个早已被时代和我们遗忘的相机。
找到的那一刻，发现完好无损的相机和它外面的套子，还是感慨以前东西的质量是如此之好。但是，东摸摸西摸摸却不知道怎么打开装胶卷的那一侧，就拿着老相机请某人帮忙。某人不屑一顾地瞧了一眼，说，不知道。他其实是不支持女儿玩这些落伍的东西，说现代科技、照相技术如此发达，不去追求新技术，去玩这老古董就是倒退，就是在浪费时间。
相机放胶卷那侧最后是打开来了，胶卷也从网上买了寄过来，三卷三十多块，一卷36张，女儿自己买的，她自己又上网查了光圈和速度。不过，最后的成品却没有想象中的好，不是曝光了，模糊了，就是色彩不对，远不能跟我当年拍的照片质量相比。我不知道是她没调好，还是现在的胶卷质量、冲洗的液体调的就有问题，毕竟这就是小众的东西，没有市场，价格贵(洗一下底片变成digital要$14，加上底片十多块，拍三十六张要近$30块)，不方便(要跑去一家专门店)，而且还效果差。
那相机最终是被女儿带走，也装上了第二卷胶卷。不过，她的三分热度能持续多久就不得而知了。毕竟，时代的发展，推陈出新，已经让这些老东西无用武之地。大浪淘沙，被时代浪潮卷走的手动相机，它的位置或许就是在陈列馆，在箱底，在人们怀旧的情结中。抑或，它依然还有它今天的位置?
During the time she was home this winter, one day J asked about the old camera that I brought from China, which was mothballed and forgotten for decades. As I rummaged through the boxes in the garage and on the shelves searching for it, old memories flooded in.
It was a day in the spring of 1990s. A wobbly train uprooted me from Nanjing to Canton, a frontier city in the south that thronged with people hungry to strike rich overnight. On the day I arrived for my new job, the first thing I was shown to was a dormitory I was going to live in. It was on the west campus, a room on the first floor of an old red-brick building. What greeted me however, as I was led in by an office lady, was a dimly lit corridor. When the room was open, it was dark and dank inside, with a strong odor of staleness. In the middle of the room stood two tall bookshelves, dividing the room into two and blocking the light from the window. Next to the shelves were a stack of boxes and furniture covered with thick dust. Obviously the room was left uninhabited for a long time.
"These stuffs belong to a colleague whom you are going to share the room with”, said the office lady. It turned out that the colleague was married, and lived with her husband in the city. “The good thing is you basically have the room to yourself.” said the lady emphatically, as if to assuage my disappointment, as I turned my eyes to the other half. In contrast to the half-roomful furniture, my other half was empty. Except for the half walls and a half window, there’s no table, no chair, nothing. Straining through the half window on my side was a pitiful afternoon light shedding in between a big tree outside. Putting down my luggage, my husband, then the boyfriend, scrambled to the street for a bed for the night. Before the night fell, a twin-sized bed with iron frames and a piece of wooden plank were hurried in.
Seven months later, it was in this room, devoid of any furniture or a TV set that we got married. We huddled and squeezed on the small bed, reading, talking and dreaming. And it was until I was four or five months into pregnancy did I finally get a long-awaited single room, upstairs. The joy of moving in was ensued by a spending spree on new set of furniture, a TCL TV, a refrigerator, a washing machine, a window air-conditioner and anything affordable. A year or so later, when our baby started toddling, we amassed more of her stuff, a baby cart (more than 400 yuan) for instance, into the room. Then we had a phone, and a PC, which he installed parts by parts from his multiple trips to a popular tech street in the city. That alone cost us about 9,000 yuan. When life looked pretty much settled down, with him jumping ship to a privately owned computer company, the news came one day that he had an opportunity to work in the states.
He was gone for a year or so. Then my visa and J's were granted. Next, all the hard-earned stuffs in the room had to let go.
In the month that followed, added to the already hectic life of working and raising the baby was the task of depleting the room. I put up ads across the campus. Things were sold at a big discount, though they were like new. Small items were given away. The washing machine was shipped to my parents’ home, and the refrigerator to his parents’. My body was exhausted, and my heart ached to part with them, one by one. Among tears and anticipations, the day for departure duly came.
All our belongings were whittled down to only two or three big luggage. But one thing that was kept intact inside was a camera, a national brand manual camera that was bought around 1000 yuan upon our marriage. Along with it were boxes of pictures taken that witnessed our four-year-stay there, the growing up of my daughter, as well as the building we lived in that was later demolished and replaced by new high-rise apartments.
Many a time I took out the old photos, laminated by plastic for moisture protection, and showed to J, I accompanied the stories with an anecdote of how Mom having to ask her to raise a little finger for better focus. Those pictures are like time capsules, unfolding our memories without losing the colors. More than twenty years later, as I pass down this antique camera onto her hands, there is a hope within me that through the same lens, she can see what I didn’t see, capture what I didn’t capture, a newer and more colorful world beyond.
