Time echoes | Oh, fishy town

After nearly two years of "re-education" in the vast world, I was recruited. The factory that recruited me was small, located in a relatively remote town near the mouth of the Xiaoqing River. This town is called Yangkou, also called Giethoorn.

Although it was far from my expectations of returning to the big city for employment, I did not hesitate to seize this opportunity to escape the vast world, and immediately packed up my package and went to report to work. If persistence is a character, then escape is a nature. Like most people, I am not so noble, and most of the time it is difficult to do things out of the shackles of nature, especially in adolescence.

When I went to the factory to report, it was early winter. After twenty kilometers of traveling north by coach from where I had joined the queue, a great sense of desolation came upon me. It was a complete wasteland, full of desolate dusk. In the vast wilderness, there is hardly a single tree in sight, not even a few bushes of gray weeds. Occasionally, there are some salt ponds with water waves and silvery salt mountains, which quickly pass by the car window. These eye-catching highlights not only did not make a dead and lonely original wild move, but also set off its loneliness and desolation.

After more than twenty kilometers of this view, the car reached its final station—a row of bungalows standing in the wilderness, surrounded by not a single tree or a bush of grass. After getting off the train, the station staff told me to continue along the road outside the station for about a kilometer to enter the town. It was a little overcast that day, and the clouds in the wilderness looked low, as if they were within reach. There was a sharp, hard wind blowing from the wasteland, both sensory and audible. On the way, occasionally one or two women wrapped in scarves hurried past. What is a little strange is that their scarves are not like women in other places, which are casually tied and finished, but are wrapped squarely and tightly, like a rice dumpling. Their mouths and noses are wrapped in scarves, revealing only a pair of eyes and a small piece of black and red skin, which gives people some mystery. Later I learned that this was because of the local winter and spring when the Nazar people's wind.

I walked into the town against the wind, and a strong smell of fish and shrimp came to my face, and the town was also a fishing port. I still can't realize that those fish, clams, shrimps and crabs that emit a pungent smell can make me enjoy so many blessings in that era of material poverty. The town is small, with only a narrow main street lined with few buildings. Looking at the cold and clear side street, I couldn't help but be a little confused. How much better could this be than the countryside I was trying to escape? Will I spend the long days ahead here? Can my foreign seed take root and grow in this place where there is no grass?

Our factory is on the main street in the town. It was a very small shipyard with fewer than two hundred regular employees. This small factory used to build wooden-hulled fishing boats, and later cement fishing boats. When I came in, I started building steel-hulled fishing boats. When I was assigned a type of work, I went to the hull workshop to work as a teppanyaki worker. Later, someone told me that the scientific name of this type of work should be called sheet metal worker. After determining the type of work, some enthusiastic people said to me, why don't you want to find someone and share a better type of work? Haven't you heard the saying that "tight lathes, slow fitters, and hanging erlang are dry electricians"? If you can't do a welder, carpenter, painter, sand turner, or whatever, you are better than a dry iron plate worker. Listen to him, my kind of work belongs to the worst in the factory.

After officially going to work, I found that the enthusiastic person's statement was not unreasonable. Among our new recruits, I was the only one who was assigned to the post of iron plate worker. Twenty or so other people, electricians, fitters, lathes, etc., do everything, and some are assigned to learn to drive a car. Listening to the old workers, the grain ration of the iron plate workers is forty-six catties per month, which is the highest supply standard, just like the porters carrying large bags on the docks. That is to say, this type of work has high physical requirements. But according to my observation, among our new workers, apart from the lesbians, there are people who are bigger than me. This shows that when assigning jobs, our physique is not the main reference factor. Therefore, another kind person said to me, seeing that you are as thin as a pole, you will definitely not be able to eat this work, or reflect with the leadership, it is best to adjust a type of work, not just cheap those who "go through the back door". The matter of entrusting relationships and walking through the door is not something that only exists today. At that time, "going through the back door" was a popular word that was used very frequently.

My personality is somewhat at ease, unless I have to, too lazy to fight for something for myself. Moreover, my family environment has also made me indoctrinated from an early age by the concept of "cannot confront the organization". Therefore, since the decision to let me work as a tepper was made in the name of the organization, I could not resist this decision, nor did I question whether someone had taken the bootleg in the name of the organization.

The main job of the iron plate worker is to select steel plates of different thicknesses according to the needs of building the hull, and after the sample is unloaded, he holds an eighteen-pound hammer and smashes it out of different arcs. Our small factory, there was no large plate bending machine at that time. While working, a team leader held a long-rod anvil and pointed at the steel plate, and six or seven of us formed a circle and took turns to swing the hammer and smash it into the anvil until it hit the prescribed arc. Except for me, who was a regular worker, the few buddies who worked with me on the hammer were all rural contract workers. This also shows that my type of work is really not very popular.

Despite being unpopular, I still learned to sledgehammer with great taste. In less than a month, my efforts were approved by the workers - don't look at this boy so thin, the sledgehammer is so much like that! Although I am not averse to sledgehammering, one thing that makes me a little confused is that the organization did not appoint a master for my apprenticeship. Those who came into the factory with me had their own fixed masters, and when they chatted, my master and my master shouted, and they were kind and proud. Although everyone who entered the factory earlier than me, I can call him a master, but doing an apprenticeship, but there is no fixed master, which is something I regret. This incident also seems to show that the organization thinks that my type of work really does not have much technical content.

In my first year as an apprentice, my salary was eighteen dollars and five cents. The next year, it rose to twenty dollars and five cents. I had to work as an apprentice for three years before I could get an apprentice, but before I could get out, I was admitted to college and didn't enjoy the treatment after I was apprenticed. When paying the monthly salary, the financial self-assertion deducts ten yuan per person and directly pays the meal ticket. Of the money spent on filling the stomach, meal tickets accounted for nearly seventy percent, and meal tickets were only about three dollars. Therefore, of the eight and five cents that were sent to me, I had to take out a few more dollars to buy food tickets. Otherwise, an average of one dime a day is not enough in any case. The canteen of our factory has a good idea of the spending power of the workers, and every day they just make a meal at lunch, and get some pickles, shrimp paste, salted fish and the like to deal with the past for breakfast and dinner. No one expressed any objection or dissatisfaction with these practices of finance and canteens, let alone protested against rights protection.

For my labor, the food ration is not satisfactory, and the protein intake should be seriously insufficient, if it is only maintained by the order of food tickets. Rely on the mountains to eat the mountains, rely on the water to draft. Workers said that the small fishing port of Yangkou may lack everything, but there is no shortage of stinky fish and rotten shrimp. I think it was these stinky fish and rotten shrimp that greatly supplemented my protein intake. In addition to fish, shrimp and crabs, this area is rich in oysters and red shellfish, that is, hair clams. Local fishermen say that under the water at the mouth of the Xiaoqing River, there is an oyster mountain, which must be cleaned up every year, otherwise it will block the river. But every year is old, and it is always clear. Yangkou Town is about ten kilometers away from the mouth of the Xiaoqing River, and I have always wanted to take a boat to see it, but I have not been able to do so. When I was working there, I always felt that I was close at hand, and I had time to see, so I was not in a hurry. But once you're gone, it's not so easy to think about it.

When the oysters are harvested, the docks are piled up like hills, and a dime can buy a large washbasin. And the Bohai sea large pike crab, only a few cents a pound. At that time, the local fishermen did not recognize this thing, believing that it was cold and easy to hurt the stomach. But we, who seriously lack meat and fishy, do not care about this set, it is better than pickles! After getting acquainted with us, those simple fishermen sometimes don't even bother to collect money, saying that it is not a good thing, and if they are willing to eat, they can take some back to eat it! Taking these things to the rest room of the workshop, several co-workers got together, replaced the pot with a pot, cooked a meal, and ate it with a full stomach. If there is a little bit of loose liquor to match, it is even better. In the years that followed, I used to eat seafood, but I didn't think it tasted as good as it did at the time.

Once, a fishing boat was repaired at our factory. After repairing it, I went to sea to sea for sea trials and caught a lot of baraeus. When the ship was returned to the factory, the shrimp were sent to the canteen of the factory free of charge. Most of these shrimp have a long stretch, put in today's day, how much is it worth! I have always thought that if we talk about the increase in prices, shrimp and crab are definitely among the best in the seafood. For example, the big pike crabs that cost a few cents and a pound at that time are at least hundreds now. The masters of the canteen took the shrimp and cooked them overnight. When the meal started early the next morning, pots of bright red prawns had already been placed in the canteen. So, everyone let go of their bellies and ate for free. The fly in the ointment is that more than thirty people ran to the hospital afterwards to start a drip. Fortunately, no one is accountable for the safety of eating in the canteen.

At the mouth of the Xiaoqing River, a unique silver fish is produced, which is commonly known as noodle fish by local fishermen. This fish can grow up to a dozen centimeters long, the body is crystal clear, and the spine in the body is clearly visible. I tasted this fish at a local worker's house, and it was delicate and tender in my mouth. What is even more valuable is that this silver fish is not only delicious, but also faintly has a hint of fat pork-like mellow aroma. Later, I tasted the silver fish produced in many places, such as Taihu Lake silverfish, Weishan Lake silverfish, Yellow River silverfish, Yangtze River silverfish, etc., but I felt that the taste was far inferior to the Xiaoqinghe silverfish. It is a pity to hear from the locals that this silverfish has been extinct for many years.

There were no weekends at that time. In order to facilitate the workers to go home to visit their relatives, the factory very humanely arranged a two-week break, a break of two days. My home is hundreds of kilometers away, not to mention that there were no high-speed kilometers, high-speed rail and other traffic conditions at that time, even if there were, I could not afford to buy tickets. Therefore, rest days can only be consumed in the factory. Some local workers often pull me to their homes to rub rice. In their humble home, a few glasses of shochu, a few plates of seafood, and a short conversation from a parent made me feel a strong warmth. I miss that warmth. Nowadays, people who are alone in a foreign land, I don't know if anyone else can enjoy this warmth?

Behind our factory, there is xiaoqinghe. At that time, although the middle and upper reaches of the Xiaoqing River were close to stopping, near this estuary, due to the rising and falling tides, the river surface still had a feeling of turbulent flow. On the other side of the river is an endless reed beach. In the spring and summer, the reed buds break through the soil and sprout a new green that is verdant and dripping. In the autumn highs, the reeds are flying, and the boundless silver waves wrapped in golden light rise and fall in the sun. I grew up by the sea and would have been in the water. The beach of reeds, full of temptation, became a great place for me to relieve my loneliness. In my spare time, I and some of my co-workers often swim across the rapids of the river hundreds of meters wide, catch crabs and pick clams in the reed beach, and the mood becomes as clear as the clear sky and as cheerful as the shining reeds.

The overalls we wore, made of canvas, were thick and hard, and it was very difficult to wash. Because of Xiaoqinghe, I learned a trick of washing overalls with a few co-workers. Underwater next to the small dock of our factory, there are some cement piles. We dive underwater, tie the dirty tooling to the cement pile, and take it out in two days. At this point, the currents at the bottom of the water have washed it clean. Although some teachers think that our method is somewhat dangerous and not worth emulating, they cannot but admit that we do have some cleverness.

When I was bored, I would sit alone by the Xiaoqing River, looking at the river rushing toward the sea, and thinking wildly. At the source of the river is a large provincial capital. I'm from there and would love to come back there to work and live. If you take a boat up the river, getting there should be a less difficult thing to do. But just as the river can't flow backwards, the system makes it difficult for me to get back to the big cities. If the flow of water to the sea is a law of nature, then my stay here should be a law of destiny. For this kind of law, no matter how unwilling I am in my heart, I can only accept it helplessly.

When I went to the countryside to join the team, the state's policy of knowing the youth had already been adjusted, and we actually had hope in the countryside. But as a worker in such a remote place, it is difficult to change under the current system. I am well aware of this. Therefore, I can't help my own situation without some sense of loss. Generally speaking, loss comes from contrast. But contrasts can be overcome with adaptation. This adaptation can be either active or passive. I can't tell if it was active or passive, but as the days go by, I've begun to gradually adapt to this environment. Adaptation is actually a kind of happiness. When we can't choose or change the environment, we may wish to discover some of the benefits of feeling it.

Just when I had begun to adapt to the environment, the state made the decision to resume the college entrance examination. Because in the usual interaction, many workers think that I have read some books and am a person with a little culture, they have mobilized me to apply for the examination. They told me very honestly that you are a big city person, and it is really inconvenient for you to live here for a long time, far away from your family. The college entrance examination is a good opportunity to return to the big city, and you must seize it. To be honest, I have no bottom in my heart for my own strength. But I think there is some truth in the workers' statements, the college entrance examination is indeed an opportunity to escape to a big city, and it is a pity not to seize it. So I picked up the middle school textbooks that I had lost for many years. Changing my life situation is the biggest driving force behind my participation in the college entrance examination. I didn't want to, and couldn't, elevate myself, who was not yet twenty years old at the time.

About the cost savings, the dormitory of our factory will have a power outage at 10:30. In order to facilitate the workers who work the night shift, the factory has equipped some candles for everyone. Because I had to read by candle at night, I wouldn't have enough candles. Some enthusiastic workers gave me their candles to use. This thing seems inconspicuous now, but at that time, the workers were very concerned. They usually bring the candles they have carefully accumulated back to their homes in the countryside, because there is not enough kerosene to light the lamps at home. In the college entrance examination in 77 years, I returned home. But no one laughed at me sarcastically, and the enthusiastic workers, as always, sent me candles and encouraged me to pick myself up and regroup. Without their encouragement, I would have had the possibility of giving up halfway.

In addition to the candles, there is another detail that touched me. I'm a bit more playful, and I often play hot games with my co-workers on the poker game. After I picked up the middle school textbook, the poker game of the workers invariably said "no" to me. I'm fun by nature, and sometimes I'm anxious to see it, and I want to participate in playing two unwinding. The workers all smiled back – your task now is to review and take the exam well, not to do it. If you really want to play, when the college entrance examination is over and you wait to get the admission letter, it is not too late to play again, first bitter and then happy.

A co-worker who gave me candles once joked that you will become a college student in the future, but don't forget my candles. "Rich and noble, do not forget", is a kind of realm. This state is not something that everyone can achieve. For example, the creator of this famous saying, like a rag, abandons his promise. It had been more than thirty years since I had left that town, but I had not gone back to see the enthusiastic workers. In this regard, I really failed their warm candles.

Today, the streets, houses, docks, riverbanks, and the sounds and smiles of the workers in that seaside town often appear vividly and clearly in my dreams. After all, my youth was spent here for almost two years. Although this town is remote and isolated, it also gives me a lot of happiness and a lot of warmth. I miss these things because they are closely related to my youth.

Tani ogi

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