Yu Dafu: The Four Seasons of Peking

Follow the grass and read more classic poems

For a deceased person who has become a foreign body, when remembering him, he or she must first think of his or her benefits; then think slowly, and feel that all the harm felt at that time will also become a very interesting commemoration and blossom in the memory. Regarding an old place where I once lived, I felt that I would never live for a second time in this life, and I was in a corner far away, looking at the clouds in this direction, and looking back, nature was also just its benefit.

The metropolis of China, the place where I lived in the first half of my life, was not a minority. However, when a person calms down and recalls the past, the bustle of Shanghai, the vastness of Nanjing, the miasma of smoke in Guangzhou, the chaos of Wuchang in Hankou, and even the tranquility of Qingdao, the beauty of Fuzhou, and the composure of Hangzhou, in the end, they are not as grand and quiet as Beiping, when I lived there, of course, Beiping.

First of all, the elements of the people, at that time in Peiping - around the eleventh and twelfth years of the Republic of China - from the military chaebol politicians, the famous scholars and celebrities, the scribes and beautiful educators, and the people who were negative sellers and cart shop stalls, they could all talk about it, all of them had a long art, and there was no hatred of people; that is, the old mother recommended by the recommended shop, in addition to the Kang of course, was always dressed well- and did not look annoying.

Secondly, when it comes to the supply of materials in Beiping, it is also the mountains and treasures and sea mistakes, foreign and Guangzhou miscellaneous goods, and local products such as radish cabbage, all of which are prepared and all bad. Therefore, people who have lived in Beiping for two or three years always feel that the air in Beiping is too dull, the gray sand is too dim, and the life is too unchanged; as soon as they leave the front door, they feel comfortable, and when they go out of the front door, they feel comfortable, and when they go through Lugou Fang, they know the heavens, as if as soon as they leave the capital gate, they will go on the tandem road where a new life begins; but for a year and a half, in places other than Beiping, except for their hometown in their childhood, who will have to think of Beiping again, and then hope to go back, and vaguely cause a fierce nostalgia disease to Beiping. This kind of experience was originally felt by everyone who had lived in Beiping, but in myself, I felt extra thick and extra cut. Perhaps the biggest reason is that the bones of my eldest son are still buried on the grave hill of Guangyi Garden on the outskirts of the city, and several very good confidants are a group of victims who died there at the same time.

The personnel and materials of Beiping were originally all lovely, that is, the weather in Beiping, which everyone felt was the most important, was united with geography, and I also felt that there were few good places in China's major metropolises. For the sake of narrative convenience, I would like to divide into four seasons to briefly talk about it.

Since October of the old calendar, Beiping has been the season of gray sand and cold wind, so the winter in Beiping is the day that ordinary people are most afraid of. However, if I want to know the peculiarities of a place, I think it is best to appreciate it when the peculiarities are most fully expressed; so going to the tropics in the summer and the Arctic in the cold days is the philosophy I have always held. In the winter of Beiping, although the cold is much colder than in the south, the great leisure of life in the north is only felt most thoroughly in winter.

First of all, the cold protection device of the house, the house in the north, and unlike the modern city in the south, the use of steel bone cement, cold and hot gas pipes: the general northern people's home, always just a short four-in-one house, the four sides are very thick mud walls! Above the flower hall there is a warm kang, a cloister; on the porch is a open window, the window is pasted with tissue paper, the thin paper is installed with a damper, and there is nothing else. In such a simple house, you only teach to put the stove for a lifetime, a little electric light, a cotton curtain hanging, living in the house, but the whole life is always warm and stewed like the spring in March and April. In particular, it will make you feel the warmth of the house, and the northwest wind is whistling outside the window. The sky is always gray, the road is always gray barriers, and get off the car from the wind and dust, as soon as you step into the house, you feel a cloud of spring, surrounded by your left and right, so that you immediately forget all the pain of winter outside the house. If you like to eat wine and roast lamb pots, then the northern life in winter is even more difficult to give up; wine is already a magic medicine to resist the cold, coupled with the aroma of garlic and mutton soy sauce, it can simply make a room full of white steam. Inside the glass window, the first half of the night will shed a strip of sweat, and in the second half of the night, it will become a strange ice pattern.

When it snows, of course, the scene will change again. Open your eyes in the morning from the thick quilt, and the clear light of the room will make your eyes dizzy. Under the sun, the snow also shines one by one, and the birds that have been dormant for a long time will fly out at this time to feed and squeak endlessly. The gray sky for several days, the clouds of sorrow, suddenly became clear, the obstacles were all gone; so that the young northern residents could live outside the camp houses - skating, being a snowman, catching an ice car and snowmobile... It's the kind of day that's the most exciting.

On this snowy evening, I stepped on a lame donkey with a few friends and went out to Xizhimen to go to the camel village for the night. A large snowy land on the outskirts of Beiping, countless dry woods, and many white peaks looming in the west mountains, and several gusts of snow-like northwest wind blowing from time to time, the impression given to people is really profound, great, and mysterious enough to be described in words. Until now, more than ten years later, when I think of the scene at that time, I will shiver and breathe a breath, just like a moment standing next to the Diaoyutai Creek.

The winter supper in the northern country is a wonderful time for reading, writing letters, reminiscing about the past, writing gossip, and talking nonsense. I remember that at that time, the three of us brothers were living in Beijing, and every winter evening, we always walked thousands of miles together to talk about the things we encountered in our hometown when we were teenagers. The children went to bed, the servants went to bed, and the three of us brothers would have to talk about coal again and coal again. A few nights, because of the tight wind outside the house, when it was one or two o'clock in the middle of the night, they invariably said the words of simply sitting until dawn. Such a precious memory, like this deepest mood, is originally a short-lived situation that cannot be enjoyed more than a few times in a lifetime, but if it is not in the winter night in Beiping, the fun will certainly not be so long.

All in all, the winter in Peiping is the only opportunity to appreciate the northern peculiar smellers; the benefits of this season, the trivia and miscellaneous memories in this season, if you want to write in detail, there is always a book as big as the "Imperial Scenery Strategy"; I only wrote down a little bit of my own experience, I think it is too long, and I can only write a little bit of spring and summer and autumn nostalgic dreams, and talk about my lament for the homeland that fell on this day.

Spring and autumn are originally lovely seasons everywhere, but in Beiping, they are a little different from other places. Spring in the north came later, so the time was relatively short. After the northwest wind stopped, the snow gradually disappeared, and when the driver who drove the cattle could not see the coat of the old sheepskin, you had to prepare the clothes and money for the spring; because there was no faith in the spring, and there was no trace of the spring, and the eyes blinked, and in beiping city, the spring light would slip by like a flying horse. The stove in the house has just been dismantled, and you may have to call for a pergola right away.

The most memorable trace of spring in the north is the new green inside and outside the city, the new green like the flood. Beiping City, originally a green metropolis that only saw trees and did not see the roof, once stepping out of the portal of the Nine Cities, the loess slopes on all sides were even more wooded with trees; the tender green waves that trembled in the daylight, the oil light, the shining crystals, if the nervous system is not very sound, suddenly into this pale green ocean wave to take a look, the package you have to open your eyes, can not stand, and fainted.

The new green inside and outside Beiping City, the spring yin of Qiongdao Island, and the new green in the scenery of Xishan Rucui are really a wonderful painting of what a marvelous outer light school! But the frame of this painting, or simply the canvas of this painting, is now completely in the hands of a troll with black hair! Looking north to the Central Plains, on what day will it be possible to see the sky again?

In terms of terrain latitude, the summer in the north is of course cooler than the summer in the south. Spending the summer in Beiping City, there is really no need to go to Beidaihe or Xishan to escape the summer. All day long, the hottest time, only a few hours from noon to three or four o'clock in the afternoon, when the sun goes down at night, there is always no place that is not cool and shady to wear a single shirt to pass; after midnight, it is even more necessary to cover a thin quilt. The cheap durability of Beiping's natural ice is a favor that people who have lived in Beiping in the summer cannot forget.

I was in Beiping, and I had three summers; places like Shichahai, Lingjiaogou, Erzha and other places where I had been to the summer, of course, I had all been there; but in the three volts, regardless of whether it was day or night, you only taught a vine bed, moved to the grapevine in the courtyard or the shade of the vine flowers to lie down, eat iced tea and snow lotus, listen to the blind people's drums and the cicadas on the trees, as if you didn't feel the heat and fumigation at all. And when the summer is the hottest, it is not more than thirty-four or five degrees at most in Beiping, and this kind of hot weather is at most ten days in the whole summer.

In Beiping, the three seasons of spring, summer and autumn are connected; in a year, it seems that there is only one period of cold, which is opposed to a relatively warm period. From spring to summer, it is a short moment, from summer to autumn, I only feel that after a nap, it is a little cold. Therefore, autumn in the north is also particularly long, and the aftertaste of autumn is also felt thicker than other places. Two years ago, because I came back from Beidaihe, I had spent an autumn in Beiping, and at that time, I had already written an article "Autumn in the Old Capital", and I praised the autumn of this Beiping, so I did not want to repeat it here; but the autumn colors in the suburbs of Beiping are really like a strange book that cannot be tired of reading, so that you will feel more and more interested in the more you turn it.

In the morning when the autumn is high and the wind is clear, you ride a donkey up the Bada place of the West Mountain or the Biyun Temple of Yuquan Mountain to take a walk and see; the tomatoes on the mountain, the smoke trees in the distance, the reeds in the countryside, and the peasant tenants who come to the city with raw fruits on the back of the donkey to sell, even if you look at it for a month, you will not get tired of it. In the spring and autumn, it was supposed to be fine everywhere, but the autumn sky in the north seemed to be a little higher, and the air in the north seemed to be drier and more sound. And that sense of shaking grass and trees and the golden wind killing seems to feel much more serious, desolate, and calm in the north. If you do not believe me, go to the foot of the Western Mountain, in front of the peasant's house or the temple of an ancient temple, and live in it for three months from August to late October in the lunar calendar. The ancients' sense of "sadness in autumn" and "hudi interaction, herding horses and sorrows" is not very felt in the south, but in Beiping, especially in the suburbs, you will really feel extremely wet and zero, thinking about driving for thousands of miles. That's why I say that autumn in Peking is the real autumn; autumn in the south is nothing more than the English word indian summer or called small spring weather.

Looking at the four seasons of Beiping, each season and each festival has its special benefits; winter is the period of indoor food and drink, autumn is the day of the suburban horse and eagle, spring is beautiful and new green, and summer is full of coolness. As for the festivals and seasons, the period of time in the middle of the shift is another kind of interest, a kind of intermediate flavor that is not connected and the two are compatible, such as the ghost fighting in the Lama Temple, the lantern in the Jingye Nunnery, the peony medicine in Fengtai, and the plum blossom hunting in the Garden of Ten Thousand Animals.

Beiping, where culture has gathered for five or six hundred years, and Beiping, where there is no bad month in all year rounds, I am recalling it in the distance, and I am also deeply wishing her peace and progress, and forever the old capital city blessed by our descendants of the Yellow Emperor!