In film and television dramas, we often see that some elderly imperial court officials will tell the emperor to return to their hometown, and then return to their hometown with a pension of 1,000 taels of silver to start the hermit life of the last living.
In ancient times, there was no such thing as retirement, as long as the official was willing to continue to work in this position, if it was not a crime or the emperor wanted to depose you, the official could always die. Therefore, returning to the hometown can be said to be an unwritten retirement system for officials.
So the question is, why do officials have to "return to their hometowns"? After all these years of work, according to the reason, all the personal relationship networks and available resources should be gathered in the local area, and then go back to the hometown is not everything has to start again? Moreover, if something happens in the hometown, and people have to toss and turn to run to the workplace, why is this bitter?
In fact, all this must be attributed to the traditional local complex in the bones of Chinese, to put it bluntly, the idea of returning to the roots of the fallen leaves is at work. Just as Western civilization emphasizes "where to go", Eastern civilization is more about "where to go". Therefore, the West has more explorers, and the East is rich in thinkers.
The local complexes of Chinese can actually be divided into three categories, and each category corresponds to the retirement of different types of officials. The first type is called the retreat complex, which is a kind of official who generally sees through the darkness of the world and the officialdom and turns to his hometown to seek a pure land of the soul. The reason why they return to their hometowns is that they disdain to join the current dynasty. This representative is Tao Yuanming, and the verses in his famous work "Returning to the Garden and Rural Residence" are very good at confirming this.
The second category is simply missing home, because the childhood experience is too profound. After such officials leave their hometowns, they are homesick all their lives. In later years, this mood is even worse. So they resigned only to relive the innocence of that year. This kind of representative figure is He Zhizhang, who wrote the "Book of Returning to the Hometown", which said that "the little boy left home and returned to the old mane, and the township tone did not change the sideburns" and "only the mirror lake in front of the door, the spring wind does not change the old shibo" all express his nostalgia for his hometown. At the age of 86, he also retired from Chang'an normally and returned to his hometown.
The third type is the local complex of returning to the hometown, which is said to be a local complex, and it is more of a manifestation of the expansion of people's desires. Generally speaking, this kind of resignation and return to the hometown is only to show off their success to the people of their hometown, because in the eyes of the Chinese, only the achievements recognized and seen by the people in their hometown are called real success.
Xiang Yu is a typical example, and it is recorded in the "History of Xiang Yu Benji" that after Xiang Yu destroyed the Qin Dynasty, he set fire to the Qin Imperial Palace and killed the Qin Prince's baby. At this time, one of the things he wanted to do most was to return to his hometown in Jiangdong to show off his military achievements to his father and fellow villagers, and also said such a sentence: "The rich and noble do not return to their hometown, such as the night of the clothes, who knows!" "It means that if you don't return to your hometown when you are rich, it's like walking at night wearing a splendid embroidery, and no one can see it."
After Xiang Yu's army was defeated, he saw Jiangdong's father and elder without face, and killed himself on the edge of the Wu River. It also confirms Xiang Yu's hometown complex in his heart.
These three types of local complexes basically include the impression of ancient officials on their hometowns, which is why they must return to their hometowns after retirement.
So why don't modern people have this concept? More and more officials choose to settle in Beijing and retire, and then they rarely set foot in their homeland, and some occasionally return home to their relatives. Is it the local complex of modern people who are indifferent?
In fact, homesickness will be Chinese in every era. It's just that now the transportation network is so developed, if you want to go home, you can go back by high-speed train, and there is not much difference between being rooted in Beijing and your hometown. In addition, it is true that Beijing enjoys much larger resources and advantages than its hometown.
In addition, the personal network and colleagues and friends of the previous official were in Beijing, and after retirement, it was also lively, and it was relatively convenient to deal with things. And the hometown has not been returned for many years, it has long been a thing of human wrong, perhaps the companions who grew up together have now gone to the big city to settle down, even if they go back, they may not be able to find the feeling of that year.
Therefore, some people say that the place of employment is a person's "second home", and there is nothing wrong with this. For those officials, this "second hometown" is Beijing.