Self-prologue
1980, little sister in the alley
Now, a factory canteen like an early shop, a big locust tree under the sunset, a bungalow primary school in an alley, a little sister who lives in the army compound and goes to school in the alley, the three-dimensional space they composed of is crushed and stretched into a number axis.
It was an early autumn morning, the sky was high, wearing short sleeves was already a little cool, just in elementary school, I followed my mother to the breakfast shop to eat breakfast. The shop is crowded with people, sitting on old-fashioned round stools, the table is welded into the legs of the table by a few curved iron pipes, a thin particle board is made into a table surface, and then painted with a color between light blue and white, like a factory canteen in the 70s. Two tables apart, I saw a young lady in about fifth grade, with short hair and a white shirt.
The little sister's eyebrows were as thick as her hair, her skin as white as her shirt, the bridge of her nose was very straight, her lips were thin, her face was serious, and she was drinking purple rice porridge spoon by spoon. Scooping porridge with a spoon is exactly the same every time, with equal intervals and no difference.
My mother asked me, "Is the little girl good-looking?" I wiped my nose and said, "Uh-uh, good looking, good looking!" ”
Since then, I have often seen my little sister at the early shop. Occasionally, we met and saw each other; on a few occasions, I went out early after eating and caught up with her in front. Instead of living in the same alley as me, she walked toward the army compound not far away. The compound is surrounded by trees in the alley, as if hidden among the dense forests. It was full of old-fashioned buildings, leaving me with a misty shadow.
Another time, she didn't wear the iconic white shirt, but actually wore our elementary school uniform, blue pants, blue top, and the upper body had a yellow and white road, ugly school uniform!
The school is a north-facing bungalow, the whole is rectangular, the entrance is a square-shaped playground, behind which is a row of houses, each row of two large rooms, each grade two classes, just filled with one grade, the lower grade is in front, the upper grade is in the back. There is an aisle on the west side of the row house to string them together. The only toilet in the school was near the senior grade, and in our first grade "little bean bag", someone wore a briefs with a small hole in it. And those sixth-grade elementary school students, like giants, learn to roll and play on the ground with the characters in the game console and comics, and even the hanging ghosts (inchworms) in the trees run away and ignore them. We finished going to the bathroom as soon as possible and ran back to our classrooms so as not to be injured by mistake.
There is a huge old locust tree on campus, and its branches cover most of the playground. Around the trunk, surrounded by a circle of iron fences painted green, I would roll over and sit on the fence, pretending to watch the schoolgirls under the tree kick the shuttlecocks. There was a male teacher who was a Young Pioneer counselor, and he kicked the shuttlecock with a few beautiful girls in the class, and I sat on the fence and laughed, and I wouldn't be blown down by the teacher. Sometimes their shuttlecocks kick up the tree and I'll roll over and help them get down. Every afternoon at the time of extracurricular activities, the sunset passed through the umbrella cover of the big tree, and I sat on the iron fence to look in the direction of the fifth and sixth grade classrooms behind the school, staring at when they would finish school. The school has only one road and one school gate, and it is easier to rob the little sister here than in the early shop.
In order to rob her, I would take advantage of the recess to go to the toilet twice, and I would also be scolded by the school's director of education to ask me to come down, so I would wait for her to get off work and climb the tree.
I especially wanted to see her again. Because one day, I was playing with sand in the alley with my little sister, which was the age when I was finally able to pile up sand and sieves when I was able to repair the house in the alley. Boys play with sand by using ice cream boxes to buckle small crops on the sand, digging a hole in the sand hill and reaching over, as if drilling a hole for the train. When it was necessary to reclaim the "river" on the sand, he ran to the faucet in the yard to "pluck the tail pipe" and took the water out with his mouth. However, if you meet girls while playing with sand, then the sand will definitely play on your head, and they will take advantage of your lack of attention to plug your neck and cause you to go home and be nagged by your parents. They would also be pushed down and ridden under them, beaten like drums. When I was knocked on by a girl riding under me, I saw the little sister in a white shirt who was walking with her mother in the distance. I buried my face in the sand, not wanting to be seen by her.
I wanted to explain to my sister that I could beat the girl, and I let her.
Why is it that the little sisters playing with sand in our hutongs are fierce like tiger girls, while the little sisters in the people's army compound are as quiet as a painting? Ahem, by what!
She always flashed at the door of the class and disappeared into the crowds of the classroom.
I finally saw her, ten meters away from the door of her class, and saw her standing in the class in the distance. Her class has been mixed up, pencil cases and books are flying together, the school uniform is inked in one color, the teaching wall chart on the blackboard has been drawn into a big goblin, and the chalk has long been used as a dark weapon... She still had short hair, and sat so quietly, everything in front of her had nothing to do with her, like a dummy, and like a mute. I wiped my nose to find her classmates, and I pointed to her and told them who I was looking for.
She came out, and when she saw me, she opened her eyes a little, but soon her eyes returned to their original shape, as if the ephemeral flowers had opened and thanked each other. She stared at me, she didn't know me, I didn't know her, we only knew the early shop and the school uniform.
We only saw each other with our eyes, and I didn't greet her or grin at her as she was changing her teeth. Soon, the class bell rang and I had to go back to the classroom.
That was the first and last time I saw her on campus, in the early shop. If there is a next time, I will definitely give her a crosstalk and make her laugh.
I originally wanted to write about the courtyard in the 1980s, but I wrote about the little sister of the 1980s. I wanted to go back and say hello to my little sister and to myself at that time.
Childhood - 1980s, hometown - Beijing. Maybe not everyone is reminiscing about childhood and attachment to their hometown, but people are always looking for a place where they come from. On the way from there, we stumbled and thorned along the way, some stinging us, some stopping us. Those places that are stinging, you have to spend your life to smooth it out. Smooth out what? That kind of twists and turns in the gentle wind and drizzle, with warmth, love, humor... A place to coexist.
Quietly telling you a way to cross, you stare with your eyes together on the nearest place on your face, the tip of your nose. You are just looking at yourself, and you will soon calm down.
Would you like to go back with me?
April 2021
Related books
《Beijing Tobacco Tree》
Hou Lei
Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House
Published in January 2022
There is a scene of "Jimen Smoke Tree" in the "Eight Views of Yanjing", which means that the walls of the ancient city of Jicheng, the predecessor of Beijing, are lush with trees and fog like smoke. The author Hou Lei took this opportunity to transform the title of the book "Beijing Tobacco Tree", hoping to be in the willow smoke, recounting the changes in the world, tasting people's feelings cold and warm, and thinking of the ancients. This book is a collection of essays with strong regional colors, and it is also a book about daily life in Beijing. Hou Lei is a descendant of old Beijing, and in a series of memories, he recounts the life of hutongs, the streets of the rivers and lakes, and the imperial city, and tells the story of the rise and fall of his own photo studio, the changes of the Dong'an market, and the present and past of the central axis; the afterglow of the hutong shouting, the old shadow of the Dejong negative, the Beiping bathhouse, and the taste of the Guijie restaurant, these hundred years of color and sound and fragrance are described one by one, showing the fireworks in the eyes of a young writer after the 80s. Along with the text are the thirty-one exquisite illustrations tailored by two Beijing painters for the book, which retain many of the styles before the demolition of the hutongs, and blend the elegant nostalgia into the beauty of the memory of color ink.
About the Author
Hou Lei, a native of Beijing, is a young writer, poet, Kunqu opera friend, and cultural scholar; graduated from the College of Literature of Chinese Min University, with a master's degree in literature, and is passionate about the study of Beijing's historical places, folklore, opera, and palm history. He is the author of the novel "Huan Yang", the short story collection "Man Under the Ice", "Jue'an", the Beijing non-fiction trilogy "Sound and Color Wild Record", "Beijing Smoke Tree", "Yandu Strange Talk", the literary and historical essay collection "The Great Tang in Tang Poetry", "The Great Song in Song Ci" and so on. Some of his works have been adapted into films and TELEVISION series, translated and published in foreign languages.
Editor: Wang Hao