Contemporary prose | distant earth kang

Text/Li Zongrong

The elimination of old things is the inevitable development of society. The earth kang on which people have lived for generations, who have been born, old, sick and dead, and who rely on for their survival is gradually disappearing.

The earth kang is supported by loess mixed with wheat bran and mud, and the adobe formed by the scraper in the mold.

The earth kang is connected to the pot table, and the kang is heated when cooking on the fire. When it is cold, you can also scoop water into the pot, fill the bottom of the pot with firewood, and the kang will be burned to the bone. The roasting of the fire under the pot and the boiling steam of the water will make the whole house warm and hot. On a cold day, before going to bed, fill the bottom of the pot with a solid piece of firewood, until dawn the kang is still hot.

Branch soil kang, pot stove is a technical work, good mason, can make the pot, kang fire channel smooth, smoke smooth, a little fire, kang will be hot, both save grass and firewood, open the pot and fast.

The edges of the kang are different, some are used adobe, some are yards of square bricks, and most of them are straight and slippery wood.

On the kang surface of the earthen kang, there are wheat straw laying and grain straw, and on top of it are one or two reed mats.

The family pays attention to the day, fold the bedding and put it on the kang cabinet during the day; a little more exquisite, stack long strips or squares to put on the end of the kang; not exquisite, random roll, casually push.

In that era, there was a shortage of materials, there were many children, and on winter nights, in order to keep warm, a large family was crowded on a kang, some children had their heads facing inwards, some heads were facing outwards, and a bed of quilts was covered, and the children on both sides pulled the quilts around, often pulling the quilts open their mouths and exposing cotton.

If there is a Sunday, the children do not have to go to school, even if they wake up early, they will not be able to afford it. They have a rare life in the bed, you touch me, I tease you, and they are full of kang squeaking and crying. The broomsticks of the women were all under the kang.

Winter nights are cold and long.

The woman sat cross-legged on the kang, taking the soles of her shoes, making needlework, and mending clothes. When the soles of the shoes are attached, the slight collision of the needle cone and the thimble is like a delicate light music, rhythmically swirling over the house.

When the farmer is idle, the window heel of the earth kang is often placed with a spinning wheel. The women got up early and went dark, humming and shaking with one hand, and pulling the barren days long with the other. I don't know how many nights, the unchanging melody of the spinning wheel, like a lullaby, accompanied the family to sleep.

Tu Kang can also produce different days. Women open steamed buns, raw bean sprouts, and hatched chicks in Kangtou, regardless of spring, summer, autumn and winter. However, hatching chicks is generally in the spring, and spring is the season of gestation. How to lay eggs, how to cover the quilt, how much firewood is burned, how many times a day to burn kang, when the chicken breaks the shell, these all have laws.

The soil kang burned for a long time, the kang road was full of firewood and grass ash, and the adobe was hung with ash slips, and the kang was not good to burn, and it was time to dismantle the old and replace the new.

The demolished adobe and the gray farmers who pulled out will not throw it away. Bubble puff pastry is a good fertilizer for planting, both medicinal insects and willing to grow.

Tukang is a unique symbol of rural people, a hotbed of rural people's life, where they multiply and live from generation to generation. There are their laughter, there are their bitterness, there are the warm days of their childhood, and their dreams are flying.

Even when they grow up and leave the soil kang, their bodies are still stained with the mud fragrance of the homeland.

Ah, the distant earth kang -

(Image from the Internet)

Sponsored by the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Society, Contemporary Prose is a bimonthly prose journal, which mainly publishes the works of members of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association, and welcomes Shandong prose writers to apply to join the Shandong Provincial Prose Association. The Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association holds various prose activities throughout the year to provide book publishing services for writers. Submission email: [email protected], [email protected]

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