Although my ancestors were farmers and I had been in the countryside, I had never been so concerned about the fate of a village as I am today, because the village was inhabited by my landlord's family.
That year, after leaving my hometown for many years, I returned to my hometown to settle down and rented a house in a place called Yudi in the urban-rural junction, so I got to know my landlord, Big Brother Gao and Sister-in-law Feng.
Although I spent the first half of my life in my hometown, after all, I have been away for too long, and the city of my hometown has undergone rapid changes, which is strange to my eyes. The village called Yudi was so far from the city that I had never heard of it, even before I left my hometown.
Now, I'm going to start my new life here.
Yu Diren spoke, speaking a thick native dialect like the Luquan people. It is no wonder that even Shijiazhuang originally belonged to the jurisdiction of Luquan (formerly known as Lulu) in ancient times.
Once, all I was around was the melodious and pleasant Beijing rhyme, but now I am surrounded by the rustic sounds of the soil.
Very unaccustomed.
However, the landlord family impressed me little by little with their simplicity and warmth.
On the first day of my move, my eldest brother and sister-in-law came out together, not only bringing my daughter to help, but also bringing a bunch of sweet potatoes and scallions and white radish.
The eldest sister-in-law said quickly: "They are all planted in their own fields, don't be polite." ”
She neatly stacked a bundle of green onions outside the balcony, saying that this way there would be no smell of green onions in the house.
I later wrote this detail in an article called "Landlord".
It should be said that I became familiar with a village through my interaction with the landlord's family, and slowly approached my long-lost hometown through a village.
Four years later, I left Yudi and moved into the city. From the west of the provincial capital, it moved to the east.
But the contact with the landlord's family has never been broken.
I would occasionally call to greet big brother and sister-in-law. And every time in the winter, the eldest brother and sister-in-law will also ride on a tricycle and bring me the turnip cabbage grown in my own field, as well as the rice cakes steamed by the sister-in-law.
I will also miss my neighbors.
Wen Li, who has been helping me cut my hair, Fu Lan, who helped me rent this house in the first place, and my aunt who lives downstairs, their kind faces will often come to my mind.
I worry about the landlord, the neighbor, and even the village because the village is about to disappear.
In fact, when I was still living at the bottom, the village was already facing demolition and transformation. The landlord's neighborhood where I live is the first phase of the project.
But at that time, the old village was still there, and the streets crisscrossed the vast village.
Many mornings and dusks, I wandered around, listening to chickens and dogs, watching cooking smoke. As if this is what the countryside should look like in memory.
I walked through the 400-year-old Yong'an Bridge in the village, which is left over from the Ming Dynasty, and touched the water-swallowing lion at the head of the bridge.
I have visited the temple, which has a history of more than 1,000 years, visited the abbot of the temple, and eaten a hundred tables in the temple during the Obon Festival.
Every year on February 2nd, I go to the famous temple fair in the eight townships of Ten Miles, and I have seen the city theater troupe stage a big drama on the village stage.
The tinkling gongs and drums attracted villagers from all directions, and the square in front of the stage was crowded with people watching the play with relish.
At that time, the village was surrounded by large fields. Under the blue sky and white clouds, the scenery of the four seasons changes in the fields.
Young people in the village work outside the village, and the farmers are the elders of the family.
The landlord also has a plot of land. The eldest brother is a cultural person, resting in ancient times, that is, a rural showman, so his energy is focused on reading books. Farming has become a matter for the eldest sister-in-law. The eldest sister-in-law had no complaints, saying that she liked to go to the field the most, no matter what worries she had, as long as she arrived in the field, there would be no more. Watching the vegetables sprout today and grow leaves tomorrow, my heart is very happy.
When the eldest brother and sister-in-law took me to see the ground for the first time, the eldest sister-in-law pointed to the vegetable field and showed it to me and said, "This year, there are more people in the family, and I have given you two kinds of cucumbers." ”
Sure enough, the cucumber stalks were already crawling all over the shelves.
The eldest brother also said on the side, "You don't have to buy mung beans this year, we will also give you a variety of them." ”
The eldest sister-in-law swore, "As long as I can eat the dishes in my mouth, I will ask you to eat them." ”
I was so moved that tears were coming down.
They did what they said, and in those years, I hardly bought any vegetables, and I ate every dish that grew in the field.
The year I was going to move away, the transformation of the village was imminent, and my sister-in-law often said to me sadly: "If you don't have land in the future, you won't be able to eat the vegetables that my sister-in-law grows." ”
I said, "You happen to be older, and you don't have to work in the wind and sun every day in the ground." ”
The eldest sister-in-law would sigh, "The crops have no land, why are they going?" ”
I also followed the emptiness in my heart. Yes, there is no land, why did the sister-in-law go?
Then came the news that the demolition of the village began.
I went around the village and several houses had been ripped off and covered in bricks and rubble.
Imagine that this place will be a high-rise building in the future, which should also be a good city scene.
Then I moved away.
A parting is five years.
When I heard the eldest brother say that the village had been demolished, my first reaction was, "Do you still have the land in your family?" ”
I know that my sister-in-law's joys and sorrows have been poured out to the land, and if there is no land, who will she confide in?
Finally, I couldn't hold back, and I visited Yudi again after five years of absence.
The eldest brother and sister-in-law got the letter and waited for me at the door of the community.
We haven't seen each other for more than a year, the eldest brother's hair is white, and the sister-in-law's face is wrinkled again.
The eldest sister-in-law said that she would go to the field to pick vegetables for me, and the eldest brother knew my thoughts and led the way for me to the village.
The so-called going to the village is only a circle on the edge of the old village, because the whole village is completely fenced off, some of which have been built with high-rise buildings, and the other part, which is under construction in full swing.
The door number of this thousand-year-old town was tightly blocked by metal plates, and there was not even a gap for snooping, so I could only stand in front of the baffle and think about the style of the ancient town.
In part of the village, a new community was built, and the newly built 24-storey building had a landlord's family. The eldest brother took me directly to the balcony and said that from here you can see the old village.
Opening the window and looking down, I finally saw the whole picture of the village. In the past, the tile houses were continuous, and the place where the cooking smoke was thick had become a large construction site, and the high scaffolding divided the village into a grid piece by piece, without a trace of the past.
I asked my eldest brother, do farmers welcome or not welcome the urbanization process in the countryside?
I think, the heart of the big brother must be very contradictory, urbanization is of course good, in the past said upstairs and downstairs electric lights and telephones, is this not a communist day? But without the ground, it is as if there is no foundation.
Stepping out of the tall buildings, the eldest brother took me to the field. The landlord's land is still reserved for the time being.
The field is still a field that I am familiar with, and I have walked through the field and crossed the canal countless times. Coming here again today is more cordial than I thought—though it wasn't my field.
When I think about those years, this field is like my runway, and the scenery of the four seasons is my background. The sunflowers sprouted, the cucumbers climbed the seedlings, and I was very rare, so I photographed them with surprise and sent MMS messages to my family and friends.
And when it came to the harvest season, the eldest brother and sister-in-law always let me pick the first one.
It seems that this is the sense of ceremony.
With this honor, I picked the first cucumber, the first carob, the first corn, the first eggplant. I dug up the first sweet potato, the first carrot, and the first bunch of peanuts.
My friends envied me and said that I was living the life that gold-collar workers longed for.
At this time, in the spring, several plots of land were still empty and unplanned.
My sister-in-law picked fresh green onions for me, and while picking them, she chanted, "Alas! You live too far away! I will nag you about what kind of dish, if Xiang Nan is in good. ”
The sister-in-law said that the pumpkin was also left for me, and the radish was also left for me, and it was left to stay, and finally it was broken.
I was touched and ashamed to hear it, for five years, because my waist and legs were not good, I always had three wheels and brought a lot of dishes to see me, but I never came once.
That night, I slept in the house where I used to live, with my sister-in-law lying next to me.
I was once again close to the countryside, but the countryside was no longer pure. The direction my head was facing was in the direction of the old village, and the scaffolding had emptied my memory, and time and space were confused and unreal.
The heart is empty.
The eldest sister-in-law said that when she demolished her old house, she did not dare to look at it, for fear that she would cry.
But she saw the demolition of someone else's house, and when the house rumbled and fell, she felt terrible.
Everyone has a hometown. Hometown is not an abstract and empty concept, it is attached to a figurative thing, a few old houses where parents live, a tree at the intersection of the street, a small river, and even a bird's nest under the eaves.
And when all of this is gone, how will we define our homeland?
On the sixteenth day of the first month of this year, I remembered that I followed the landlord's family to the old house to roast the Berlin fire, so I wrote an article and posted it on the Internet.
A netizen left a message, saying that his hometown is in the village next door to Yudi, he has been working outside for many years, I don't know if there is a temple fair on February 2 after the village is demolished? Would love to come back and have a look.
I immediately replied to him, and the temple fair was still there.
The wanderer who has been away from home for many years still misses the temple fair in his hometown, which is the memory of his hometown that cannot be erased.
Maybe one day, all the villages will disappear in the process of urbanization, but the feeling of homeland will be forever preserved in the memory.
I suddenly remembered forgetting to ask my sister-in-law where the dog in the old house had gone when the old house had been demolished.
Once the archway of the village
The ancient bridge that was once walked
The water-swallowing lion at the head of the bridge is majestic
Set on to see the big drama
The Thousand Year Ancient Temple Void Cloud Zen Forest
Modern homes have sprung up