The Magician on the Skywalk
Wu Ming-Yi
Reading Reflection
Searching for childhood in memory's mist—about memory, childhood, and those past events sealed by time
Core Content Overview#
Story Summary#
The book is a collection of multiple short stories, revolving around the demolished 1980s Zhonghua Shopping Mall’s various shops and characters’ stories.
Highlights#
A Passage That Moved You#
“I can’t remember either, sometimes it seems certain that shop was there, sometimes uncertain.” It’s like from the moment the mall was demolished, memory began to disintegrate in a slower but persistent way.
Sometimes what you remember for a lifetime isn’t what your eyes saw.
I always encounter those distant memories when playing the elephant, or those people I want to refuse to enter my life again.
Interesting or Unexpected Parts#
What touched me most was from the chapter “An Elephant on a Sunlit Street.” In the chapter, when wearing the elephant costume, it’s as if no one’s around, no one knows you, in the silence of all things, encountering people and things rarely remembered normally.
As a metaphor, it feels like people tend to recall past events when it’s late at night and quiet, memories of joy, anger, sorrow and happiness.
Key Insights or Values#
As a child, I also often ran around everywhere with friends—by the railroad tracks, under bridges, by small rivers, at friends’ homes. After entering society’s busy life, constantly moving forward every day, rarely having time to stop and recount past events. This book made me recall many childhood small matters.
Personal Reflection & Practice#
Impact on Me#
I’m not good at remembering small things, especially childhood memories. If I don’t deliberately recall, it’s actually hard to remember. In the process of reading this book, childhood fragmented memories often emerged, some even long sealed, fragmentary and broken. Being able to recall them is quite interesting.
Practical Application#
Perhaps when there’s time, I’ll go back to childhood places—where I lived, the elementary school I attended, the riverside and railroad tracks where I played with friends, places like that.
Extended Thinking#
Thought-Provoking Questions#
Do you have childhood memories or old small matters you rarely think of normally, that make you smile knowingly or feel slightly melancholic when recalled?
Recommendations & Summary#
Suitable Readers:
Recommended for readers who like short stories and enjoy following the author to depict memory scenes.
Summary:
The story is very visual, engaging. Piecing together the entire story’s scene through pages of chapters. The combination of bizarre and real memories creates our memory, composing story after story. Different stories and different characters, memories unknown whether real or illusory, making you can’t help but compare with your own childhood memories.
What did the scenes near childhood home look like? Is the candy store across from school still there? How are the friends I used to play with doing now? Are these people and things in memory really like this? Or just how they are in my memory?