A Quiet Summer

Honestly, when I first saw the title “Ningxia,” it was hard not to associate it with Ningxia Province. But this song is not regionally distinctive in the way “Chengdu” or “Kill That Shijiazhuang Man” is. Still, it does have a connection to Ningxia.

Li Zhengfan, the song’s lyricist and composer, wrote the lyrics while on his way to teach at Wangmin Middle School in Xihaigu, Ningxia. The children’s temperament also shaped the lyrics: plain and resilient.

“A quiet summer” happens to echo Ningxia too—a stroke of brilliance. Perhaps when the song was written, this approachHere I mean translating a province name by meaning—for example, rendering Jilin as “the auspicious forest” and Heilongjiang as “the river guarded by a black dragon.” It has a bit of a Lord of the Rings feel, doesn’t it? would have astonished many foreign friends twenty years later.

Listening to this song always reminds me of childhoodHere I mainly mean the way the arrangement and songwriting are handled; perhaps you could say it carries the spirit of that era.. When was childhood? The turn of the millennium. The clothes on album covers, buildings now fallen into disrepair, shamate, and a city where the high-rises had not yet grown very tall.

Back when high-rises were not high, summers seemed unusually long, and I often miss summers like those.