The Lost Bag

By Mo Xiaomi

The Lost Bag

By Mo Xiaomi

In my neighborhood, there is a street lined with small shops, where, almost on a daily basis, you can see all kinds of notices, such as new shop opening, job recruitment, clearance sales, and property transfers. Very few shops remain open for over two years. However, in Tokyo, there is a shop called Uchiyama Candy Shop that has been operating for five decades, and the shop owner Mr. Uchiyama has reached an advanced age of 90 and still runs the business.

Due to his age, Mr. Uchiyama considered closing this candy shop two years back. However, he claims that just because of a bag left behind by a customer yet to be claimed, the shop is still open.

In all likelihood, the owner of the bag was just a passerby, who has gone somewhere far away, and will never be back. Moreover, it is likely that there is nothing valuable inside the bag, and it would hardly matter even if it was lost. Yet Mr. Uchiyama holds a different view. He thinks, since the owner was a guest to his shop, he should be fully accountable for it.

Recently, a Japanese news website posted photos of Mr. Uchiyama and the shop online, hoping to find the owner of the bag; thus, we got to learn about the shop, even if it doesn’t sell candies any more.

If you have left something in some corner of the world, it could still be there, waiting for you. In a middle school located in a southern county of China, the school principal had taken care of a briefcase with a combination lock that was left behind by a job applicant over 20 years ago.

Back then, mobile phones were not yet common, and the only clue was the name of the owner. After many fruitless attempts to reach the applicant, the principal thought of handing the briefcase over to the police station, but later he changed his mind, as he felt the police wouldn’t accept such a trivial matter, so he decided to safeguard the briefcase himself, just in case the owner came back to look for it someday.

Over the past 20 years, the school changed its name and split and merged three times, and the school dormitory was also relocated three times, but the briefcase was always kept in the school’s archives. Whenever the school needed to be relocated and was faced with a heavy workload, someonewould always suggest, “This briefcase has been here for so long, yet no one ever showed up to claim it, so it must be valueless. Why don’t we just throw it away?”

The principal replied, “No. I don’t know whether it is of value or not, but when he came to attend the interview, he took out his certificates of honor from the briefcase, so I believe it should be meaningful to him.”

At the occasional gathering, where the attendees were not familiar with each other, the principal would chat with the person next to him out of courtesy.

“I have a senior schoolmate who once applied for a position of your school many years ago.” said that person.

Over the years, countless candidates had applied for jobs at the school, yet unexpectedly, the principal blurted out, “Is his name XXX?”

“Do you know him?” said that person, feeling surprised.

The principal told the whole story, and, finally, the mystery was solved.

A few days later, in the principal’s office, the owner unlocked his briefcase, and it turned out that the password of the lock wasn’t set.

In fact, seemingly hopeless waiting has its own significance. At every moment, it may remind you of the days of the past, as if experiencing the return of an old friend.

(From Tonight News paper, November 28th, 2016. Translated: Zhu Yaguang)

我家附近一條街，一溜的小店鋪，幾乎天天都能看到開張、招工、清倉、轉讓的大小告示，很少有開到兩年以上的。但在日本東京都，有家內山糖果店，開了50年之久，店長內山先生業已九十高齡。

店長年事已高，兩年前也想關掉糖果店，只因有個顧客將一個包遺留在店里，小店便一直開著，等待那人前來認領。

那個失主可能只是匆匆路過，可能已經去往天涯海角，再不回頭。更可能，那包里根本沒啥重要東西，丟了也就丟了。但店長不這么認為，既然是他店里的主顧，他便要負責到底。

日本網絡媒體將小店連同店長的照片傳上網，幫忙尋找包的失主。這樣，我們才知道這家糖果店，雖然它已經不賣糖果了。

你在這世界上某個角落遺留的東西，有可能一直在那兒等著你。南方縣城的一個中學，有位校長保管著前來求職的人遺留的密碼箱，長達20年。

當年，大多數人還沒有手機，留下的線索唯有失主的一個名字。校長多方查詢無果，也想過將密碼箱交派出所。但覺得這點小物件，派出所未必受理，還不如先代為保存，哪天失主來找，也有個交代。

20年里，學校改名、拆并三次，校舍也搬了三次。校長把密碼箱存放在學校檔案室，每次學校搬遷，工作量很大，總有人說：“這密碼箱長時間沒人來找，肯定不值錢，扔了算了。”

校長說，不能扔，值錢不值錢不知道，但他來求職時，曾從箱子里拿出過榮譽證書，應該很珍貴吧。

在一個非常偶然的場合，同桌吃飯的人也都不熟，校長跟邊上的人禮節性地交談。

對方說：“我有個師兄，很多年前，去你們學校應聘過。”

這些年有多少前來應聘的人啊，校長竟脫口而出：“是不是叫XXX？”

對方奇怪：“你認識他？”

校長說出原委，果然對上了號。

幾天后，在校長室里，失主直接打開密碼箱，原來根本沒設密碼。

看似無望的等待，有它的特殊意味。每時每刻，都可能重逢當年，似有故人來。

（摘自《今晚報》2016年11月28日）

似有故人來

文|莫小米