Chief Writer: Xi Daoxian, Qilu Evening News reporter, senior media person, chief editor.
Consultant: Su Bin, worked in the Propaganda Department of Shandong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, editor of the hospital newspaper, and member of the Provincial Book Association.
Playing with the past of Jinan
Crickets, also known as crickets. Playing with clams has a long history in Jinan. The older generation of Jinan players who are still alive must start after liberation. After the founding of New China, the long-term war and chaos ended, people's lives were stable, and playing with clams as a folk entertainment activity flourished in Jinan.
At that time, there were many celebrities in Jinan, who were masters of playing with clams. For example, Hei Bolong, a master of Chinese painting, Zhang Liwu, a famous artist of the Xihe Drum, and Liu Guansan, a big industrialist who is well-known in the cricket world. They are all ancient. The old Mr. Yang Dalin introduced by the author today is a playmate who is the same as the above famous artists, the youngest and the oldest "playing age" old player.
Mr. Yang Dalin was born in 1944 and originally lived in a large courtyard on Sili Street, located on the south bank of the moat, near the Black Tiger Spring. When he was five or six years old, he liked to play with cockroaches, and when he was a teenager, he fought with his old neighbors Liu Gongjiu (who was in his 80s at the time), Liu Guansan (who was more than 70 years old at the time), and Hei Bolong (born in 1915). Every year in autumn, he went to the north bank of the moat to catch clams. Because of the north bank of the moat, the soil quality is good (old city wall soil), the humidity is suitable, and the sun is rising, which meets the good growth environment required by the moth, and the clams here are large, good and powerful. Another good place in Jinan to catch clams is the East Ditch and West Ditch of Sheep's Head Yu, there is a long flowing water in the ditch, and the two banks are crop fields, which is also a good environment suitable for the growth of clams.
Yang Dalin grew up in a relatively poor family, and at the age of fourteen or fifteen, he made a living by pulling out the ground and transporting cars. In 1958, the government organized the establishment of the Lixia District Transport Company, and he became an employee of the company. Pull a car for a day during the day, and invite his partner Zhao Hongxiang to catch the cockroach after work. In the second half of the night, I went home with more than a dozen clams, but the fatigue of my body had long disappeared. Zhao Hongxiang is 12 years older than him, the two are in the same transportation class, and they are playmates. On weekends, he bit a cockroach at Zhao Hongxiang's home. At that time, the number of people playing with clams was small and the scale was small.
In the mid-to-late 1960s, Jinan began to play more and more. At that time, the player Shu Zhixue played with cockroach to the point of obsession. In order to play with the cockroach, he also quit his job at the Post and Telecommunications Bureau. Often do not sleep all night, in the bed to see the cockroach, the body surface yellow muscle thin. His home became a arena for fighting cockroaches.
As the team of people playing with clams in Jinan grew, three representative teams were established: the Lixia Team, the City Squadron and the Huaiyin Team. The team consisted of Zhao Hongxiang, Yang Dalin, Ren Xianbing, Li Jinhe, and so on; the city squadron included Shu Zhixue, Zhang Liwu, Wang Xuezhong, Bai Liang, and Li Maohua; and the Huaiyin team included Han Yufang (known as Hei Gang), Ma Fuxi, Tang Quansheng, and Wang Ziyou. Every autumn and winter, a cockroach-biting contest is held, sometimes in Han Yufang's home, sometimes in Shuzhi Academy, sometimes in Zhao Hongxiang's courtyard. Later, the Lixia team and the Locust Shadow team merged to play against the city squadron.
At that time, the first thing was to "aim" at the cockroach. The so-called "aiming" is to visually divide different heavyweights and catch the right game. The bite of the right cockroach is of course a large weight dominant. Sometimes the "aim" is not consistent, and there are often disputes after the game. Later, it was changed to weighing to choose the right match. The special tool for weighing is the hammer, and there will be no difference. The largest ones can reach more than 8 percent, the small ones have more than 5 percent, and the small ones have no chance to enter the arena. Yang Dalin is young, has good eyesight, weighs the work to him, and weighs hundreds of pairs a day in the peak season.
For the fun of fighting clams, Yang Dalin, who has enjoyed it all his life, naturally feels very deeply, but it is difficult to express, a feeling of "not enough for outsiders". The interview is in the depths of winter, autumn insects and cockroaches are "hundred day insects", the old man's cockroaches raised this year no longer exist, only a few grasshoppers in the house from time to time to make "squeak" and "squeak" sounds.
After returning from the interview, I searched for videos of fighting crickets from the Internet and intuitively felt the intense scene of cricket fighting. The two cockroaches are placed in the grille, the referee removes the net, and the two insects are flapping their wings, bulging their bellies, squeaking, and the tiger is powerful, and pounces on the opponent to bite. If two cockroaches are evenly matched, they will often bite together, sometimes the four teeth are intertwined, and the two bodies are arched; sometimes the bodies are overlapped, churning up and down, and the bite is inseparable. In the face of a disparity in strength, the strong hand strikes violently, and the giant teeth stretch out and close, and throw the opponent out of a four-legged eight fork.
The gripping fight scenes make the viewer exclaim from time to time. If the owner of the participating clams cheers for the love worm and squeezes a handful of sweat at all times, the thrilling degree can be imagined. Two crickets fight, the most vulnerable to injury is the tooth and whisker, must often be bitten off, the damage to the tooth is generally hidden, after a certain period of recovery, you can also put into the next fight. After a season of fighting crickets, some of them lost a fight, there was no chance to participate, and some won consecutive games, and finally rose to the throne of "general" or ascended to the "king" position. A cockroach that bravely champions the three armies will touch the hearts of many cricket lovers!
According to the old man Yang Dalin, in those years, the Jinan Douqiu was a friendly match, and there was no gambling phenomenon, that is, to have fun. A little irritating is to win the moon cake during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and then to "catch the prisoners". "Capture the prisoner" means that the winning side catches the losing side and becomes its own trophy. When encountering a good quality cockroach, there is a chance to win the next time after a defeat, and it is reluctant to be captured. Once, because of "catching prisoners", he made a full-scale martial act of "robbing the law field with black lights".
That time was the lixia team against the city squadron, the captain of the lixia team was Zhao Hongxiang, and the captain of the city squadron was Bai Liang. Bai Liang had a yellow cockroach of more than 8 centimeters who was very aggressive, and he had successively bitten and defeated three or four cockroaches of the lixia team, and naturally these three or four cockroaches were also captured and "captured", and the yellow cockroaches of the city squadron were about to be "crowned king". After the team was anxious to seek foreign assistance, I heard that Zhao Zhengxiang, the principal of Jinan Fourteenth Middle School at that time, had no choice but to be a cockroach, and the captain Zhao Hongxiang and Yang Dalin looked for Zhao Zhengxiang to borrow a cockroach, and people generously lent it. The two found that this cockroach was green and healthy, and sure enough, they had to be slug, and there were more than 8 centimeters, and the two of them immediately had a few chances of winning.
The rescuers arrived and immediately went into battle. It was snowing lightly at the time of the season, and it was the last race of the year. Placing the two cockroaches in the cylinder, the yellow cockroaches, who have won several consecutive games, are full of morale and take the initiative. But this green cockroach was lying in the same place, just fangs against the enemy, full of strength, as if it was shivering. The yellow cockroach swooped over and snapped on the ground, only to see the green cockroach meet the enemy, only to lick the tip of the tooth, and the yellow cockroach pounced, and it had been thrown to the edge of the cylinder. No matter how it was introduced, The Yellow Cockroach no longer dared to respond to the enemy, and was willing to bow to the wind. This time, it was the turn of the lixia team to "catch the prisoners", and just as Yang Dalin reached out to catch the yellow cockroach, suddenly someone broke the light bulb, and the room was suddenly dark. The two sides scrambled and fought in a scuffle. When the light bulb was replaced, it was found that the defeated yellow clam was still caught by the lixia team. After all, it is a cricket for fun, this small episode is to increase the hilarity, everyone will not be hurt and angry.
A love affair with Black Bolong
Among the companions who played the cockroach, both the own team and the foreign team, they all established deep friendships because of their similar interests. Yang Dalin never forgot a deep friendship with the great painter Hei Bolong. Born in 1915, Mr. Hei Bolong is a well-known Chinese painting master, good at painting landscapes, creating the "Qilu painting style", and was a former professor of Shandong Art College, a member of the China Artists Association, and the vice chairman of the Shandong Artists Association. His family lived in Nanxin Street outside the south gate of Baotu Spring, a small courtyard of Qingtang Washe. Familiar people know that in addition to dancing with pen and ink landscapes, Mr. Black's lifelong hobby is to play with clams and like to collect moth jars of various ages. He once said: "Listening to the clams is like listening to a symphony orchestra, and I feel refreshed and bring inspiration to the painting." Yang Dalin is thirty years younger than Mr. Black Bolong, but the two are a pair of fun friends who play with clams.
Although Yang Dalin is young, he started early and played with clams for a long time, and he was good at catching clams, and his family's clams were the most in Jinan at that time. Mr. Hei Bolong often went to Yang Dalin's house to see the clams, and the two of them made a pot of tea, often playing from day to night. Yang Dalin also often went to Mr. Hei's house, because of the difficulties in his family at that time, he had to paste matchboxes at home during the day and could only go to Mr. Black's house at night. Yang Dalin selected a few good cockroaches that had been bitten and gave them all to Mr. Black Bolong. Mr. Black covers the moths with quilts and heats them with tin pots, which can often be raised after the Spring Festival.
Mr. Hei repeatedly offered to paint several paintings for Yang Dalin, but Yang Dalin refused, and at that time, his family of four lived in a 7-square-meter house, and there was really no place to hang paintings. (It was the 1980s, and it wasn't until 1996, when the Yang family was demolished and resettled, that the Yang family moved to a house of more than 40 square meters on Qipan Street where they live.) Mr. Hei Bolong still insisted on painting a picture of Yang Dalin, saying that he must keep a memorial. This painting Yang Dalin has always treasured, and it is taken out and hung every year.
Mr. Hei Bolong is the largest collection of clam pots in Jinan, there are many precious old jars, during the Cultural Revolution was raided, some were damaged, some of the old cans were copied, and only after the Cultural Revolution were partially returned. Yang Dalin likes to admire the cockroach jars at Hei Bolong's house and listen to Mr. Hei introduce various old jars. Later, Mr. Hei went to Japan to participate in cultural exchanges, and specially bought a pair of fiberglass fishing rods and gave them to Yang Dalin. In 1989, Mr. Hei Bolong said that he wanted to draw four screens of "flowers, birds, fish, and insects", which was the way to play all year round, and wrote a couplet, which was specially given to Yang Dalin. Who knew that a group of works had not yet been painted, and Mr. Hei Bolong suddenly passed away, leaving Yang Dalin with lifelong regrets.
Those who play well will have a unique skill
The interaction with Mr. Hei Bolong also allowed Yang Dalin to practice a unique skill, that is, to pound the bottom of the cockroach can. Raising clams with clams in tanks requires pounding the bottom of the tank with mud, which is a technical job. Yang Dalin saw more cockroach tanks in Hei Bolong's home, repeatedly studied how to pound the bottom of the tank, and finally studied his unique skills. The bottom of the jar that he pounded is most suitable for raising clams, "and it will not be bad after a lifetime.". The key to pounding the bottom of the tank lies in special ingredients, Yang Dalin uses the bricks of the old city wall, the wall of the Thousand Buddha Mountain Temple to sew lime, and then matched with changqing loess, glued together with river rice juice, beaten with a small hammer after more than half an hour of pounding, the bottom of the pound should be breathable, slowly seeping water, can not be pounded out of the dumb bottom and dead bottom. At that time, many players in Jinan looked for Yang Dalin to pound the bottom.
Yang Dalin was famous for catching clams, first in the Jinan moat, shanshui ditch, and later in Changqing. Changqing "five miles over three mountains" out of the good clams. In the 1970s, Yang Dalin took a truck to Lhasashazi in Changqing, put the bicycle on the car, went to Changqing to catch the clams, and the arrest was a whole night, and the next day the harvest was full, returning to Jinan. Yang Dalin was physically strong, spared no effort, spared no effort, and naturally caught more and better clams than others.
Not only did he catch cockroaches, he also bred his own. At that time, Yang Dalin's family lived in a large courtyard of 11 families, and he poured the mother and child soil (which contained the eggs under the clams) in the cockroach jar into the flower pond by the wall, and the clams hatched in the following autumn. In his own yard, Yang Dalin had caught many good cockroaches, several of which were more than 8 percent large. There was once a large and healthy "golden wing", with both shape and god, and brave and good at war, which attracted Mr. Black Bolong to go to enjoy it many times, and he really loved it.
Because Yang Dalin had experience in raising clams, whoever had a problem with the clams came to him for advice. Once, a playmate found that his cockroach was always screaming, worried that he would eventually die of exhaustion, so he came to Yang Dalin. Yang Dalin carefully inspected the jar of a pair of clams. To raise cockroaches, only male cockroaches can be fought, but they need to be accompanied by three tails (that is, female cockroaches) to stimulate the male and fighting spirit of male cockroaches. However, if the matching three tails are not suitable, the male cockroach may be in poor spirits and may even shout in protest. Sure enough, this male cockroach was not satisfied with the three tails that came with it and kept chirping. Wait for it to change another three-tailed, and sure enough, "medicine to the disease". The cockroach also has this characteristic, which sounds really funny.
Knowing the cockroaches and fighting the clams, Yang Dalin has unique experience. Yang Dalin said: To recognize the cockroach, one looks at the head and neck, two looks at the wing type, three looks at the color, and four looks at the bones. The newly caught cockroach also has a process of growth and change, and it is necessary to let the cockroach come out and bite when it is at its best development to achieve good results. Inexperienced people take out and bite the newly caught clams, and often ruin a good seedling. Yang Dalin has a saying: "The barrel of the former autumn (the loser), the latter autumn becomes the prince", which is his experience. 80% of the slugs that have been on the field and bitten down can no longer play, because they lose courage and often carry a kind of defeat. The cockroaches that have won many games will wear out their teeth after a long time, and their strength will change from prosperity to decline.
After a season, victory or defeat often depends on the last game, so it is important to cultivate reserve strength. Yang Dalin caught a good-looking but relatively tender cockroach, and often raised it for 45 days before letting it play. Especially in the last game of the snow season, the good cockroaches who play for the first time often defeat the veteran in one fell swoop and win the final victory. At the end of each season, Yang Dalin's team has hardly lost.
Yang Dalin caught the cockroaches, from Jinan to Changqing, and from Changqing to Feicheng, and the good cockroaches he caught were called Jinan. Later, with the prosperity of the cockroach market, Ningyang cockroaches became famous throughout the country as a representative of Lu moths, and players in Jinan also went to Ningyang to buy clams, changing the pattern of Jinan's cockroach arena.
In the mid-to-late 1980s, Shanghai flourished as a national cricket fighting center, where players from north and south gathered, behind which was a huge scale of money transactions. Some players in Jinan are no longer willing to play friendly matches, and take the victorious clams south to Shanghai to try their luck. Wang Shaoxiang, Zhang Hongxiang, Hu Xinquan, Sun Qian, Zhao Jingguo, and Guo Futang formed a new city squadron, with Wang Shaoxiang as the captain; the previous teams included Zhao Hongxiang, Liu Yan, Yang Dalin, Cao Huiliang, Jing Zhongzhong, Jiang Qinglong, Wang Daolong, Gao Zhenlong, and Guo Hailong, and the captain was replaced by Liu Yan. The two teams continued to hold friendly matches according to the old rules, and this bite lasted for another decade, until 1995, when the large-scale competition of such civil organizations was declared over.
Today, the elderly Yang Dalin still raises and plays with clams, which is part of his later life.
One point number Xi Talk Jinan