Original author: Shang Zonghan | Inner Mongolia Alxa League
My Father and I'm Winter Moon (Essay)
Every year it is the waxing moon, and I can't help but think of some of the past events with my father in the winter waxing moon when I was a child.
As far as I can remember, my father was a breeder in the production team. The nursery was the home of our father and son.
It was already winter, and when I went to bed late and woke up in the morning, I was first in the bed, breaking my fingers and counting that the day was "Lapa Bajie". When the first rays of light of the morning slipped in through the cracks in the corn stalks blocking the high windows in the breeding room, my father woke me up and said it was time for the baby to go to school. When I woke up, I sat on the hot earth kang fine mat wrapped in a quilt, looking at the bright light on the top of the cave, the cow that was stretching its neck and chewing grass on the edge of the trough; looking at the father who stood on the edge of the kang, hunched over, blowing the steamed buns and potatoes baked in the kang cave from the night sleep. The black ash that blew up fell on the back of his hand like dead bark, in the crepe of his walnut-like face, on his white hair like snowflakes... My father broke open a steaming potato, and the smell of roasted potatoes and cow dung urine came to my nose at the same time...
I reached for a roasted steamed bun and half a hot potato handed to me by my father, took a bite of the steamed bun and ate it with relish, and this was my breakfast with my father. After eating the steamed buns and potatoes, my father said, "Baby, it's easy to talk about, the hunger is unbearable!" Pick up the residue that fell on the kang and eat it. On the other hand, from the pile of broken wheat grass fed by the cattle, he took out two stored yellow and brilliant winter pears and ate them to quench his thirst. Winter pears were picked by my father in the autumn twilight, when he went down the ditch to cut grass for the cattle. At that time, the winter pear was still a green and astringent fruit. After picking it, it is buried under the crushed wheat grass, and after a day or two, it is like a ripe pear. It tastes very sweet and crispy.
When the season came to the waxing moon, the night outside the breeding room, the north wind called, the snow flew tightly, and in the breeding room, my father was leaning against the railing sill, his mouth was "bar" with a dry smoke pot, his hands were holding the old calluses of his heels, and his shadow illuminated by the dim kerosene lamp was on the wall of the kiln in the kang, like a cowhide play; and I crawled under the lamp and read the villain's book. Such as "Tunnel Warfare", "Mine Warfare", "Southern Expedition and Northern Warfare"...
When it comes to the Eighth Festival, the school is closed a day or two before. In that era, we did not have winter vacation homework. After the winter vacation, it is crazy to play. Cockfighting, brick fighting; under the wheatgrass stack, throwing flowers and hide-and-seek; snowballing, snowball fights, pigeon sets...
On the first night of the eighth festival, I followed my father back to my home in the pit cave. I held the firewood and burned the kang, and my father turned out the soybeans, soy sauce beans, corn kernels, yellow millet, grain rice, etc. of the boiled porridge, and soaked it in a large ocean porcelain basin. After I heated the kang, I began to freeze the eight lumps. First find a dinner bowl, put five or six grains of saccharin in the bowl, pour boiling water in the bamboo skin pot, rinse, use a rope to tie a copper coin, one end tied to the middle of a chopstick, put the copper coin into the sugar water bowl, put the chopsticks horizontally in the middle of the bowl rim, and then, pick up the bowl and put it in front of the outside of the cave window, 0K!
The next day, in the middle of the night, the chickens crowed, and the father got up and mixed the hay for the cattle. At this time, I had already woken up because I was worried about the cold last night. When my father mixed the cattle with hay, I got dressed. With his father, one foot high and one foot low, walking in the cold and windy night. On the road, the windows of every household were lit up with the sound of chickens and dogs barking...
When I got home, I held firewood and burned the kang, and my father washed his hands and began to make noodles, preparing the lapa noodles to eat in the morning. After the kang was hot, I took back the frozen lapa lump outside the window and put it on the hot kang. Start, crouch in the stove fire, light a fire and pull the bellows to boil water...
I remember the Lapa Festival in 1976, in the morning to eat the Lapa Bajie noodles, I and three or five friends, carrying the Lapa Batu, went to the courtyard of the brigade headquarters to play. In the courtyard of the brigade headquarters, it is both spacious and sunny. A few of us, as soon as we arrived at the courtyard of the brigade headquarters, the branch secretary of the brigade rode his bicycle and came. In a few moments, the big tick on the high pole at the head of the cliff of the brigade headquarters sounded, and the sad obituary of the announcer was heard: Our beloved Premier Zhou Enlai has passed away...
When I heard this unfortunate news, it was like hearing that a relative I had always admired had died, and the tears were like water droplets on the sunburned Lapa Lump in the warm sun...
Our beloved Premier Zhou Enlai was learned when I was in the third grade from a book written by a foreign journalist, "Journey to the West." In the book, he described: thin, medium-sized, with a dark and long beard. At that time, I suddenly remembered that I had read the villain book "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin" in Guan Gong and Zhu Tong. Later, I watched the open-air movie "Xi'an Incident" and appreciated his gentle and elegant, resourceful personality charm.
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Shang Zonghan, post-60s, literature lover. A native of Liangping Township, Ning County, Qingyang City, Gansu Province, he now lives in Alxa Left Banner, Inner Mongolia. There are nearly 200 essays, including novels, prose and poems, scattered in provincial newspapers and magazines and online literary platforms.