I see people lining up at the post office to order a newspaper for next year, and my heart will be good.
Photo by Yang Jianzheng
Sitting in a hotel in Guangdong drinking morning tea, I don't just look at the snacks on my own table, but always glance at the newspaper readers at other tables. Those Cantonese people with age, a newspaper for morning tea, read it before eating, stood up and slowly left. It is a beautiful scene that can only be seen in Guangdong, the newspaper is the most special "dim sum" on the morning tea table of Cantonese people, so that a morning is safe and stable, people who read newspapers never speak loudly, drink and eat quietly, it is a real and leisurely Chinese tea, and the tradition is also quiet here.
In the park now, fortunately, there is always a newspaper column, some people standing there reading the newspaper, the newspaper is their "square", there are also songs and dances in the text, and there are always singing and dancing in other places in the park, it is another kind of "friendship", there are also footsteps and rhythms, breathing is calm, the same life is interesting and joyful, but this is to go to other regions, the world, international affairs, national affairs, wars, the sky is high, all cut and pasted on another "book" of their daily memory, added as knowledge, Weave your thoughts, and then slowly walk home for lunch, dinner, the smell of the table, the smell of the spirit, filled with untitled connections, will scatter some of the wine glasses in your hands, and also everywhere in life?
For many years, I got on the plane, sat down, fastened my seat belt, took out the newspaper in my front pocket, and started reading on flights, reading in the sky. A well-run daily newspaper and evening newspaper, really suitable for reading in the air, through the clouds, seeing the earth clearly, and then landing and arriving. What is the taste of the dining just now, the unopened door may actually be blurred, but the very newsy words in the newspaper, the handsome analysis, and the literary news are all with me stepping into another city and country. I also always like to read in the air to return to my country and city, meditate on the order of the heart, hands and feet are not hurried, and the smile on my face seems to be a little deeper.
Reading Xinmin Evening News with my daughter Xu Kunde in 1995
Starting from the first grade of junior high school at the age of thirteen, every evening when I came home, I walked to the small post office across the road, and I would spend four cents to buy a copy of the Xinmin Evening News, read the news and sports news on it as I walked, and read the essays every day. It was a good evening newspaper with a level. I always write on it now that I have this essay called "Night Talk", which lasted for almost ten years, of course, it could not have been expected at that time, a teenager, what is expected, not to mention that it is such a high-level newspaper, a place, I never thought of going to the "temple" when I was a child, but some of my own feelings, natural likes, became habits, just like that, and so on.
When I went to the countryside to be a young man with little knowledge on the farm, the initial salary was eighteen yuan and six corners a month, and what I was given was ten yuan of meal tickets, and eight yuan and six corners, but I had to order two newspapers: "Liberation Daily" and "Wen Wei Po", each newspaper was one yuan a month, and I only had six yuan and six corners in my hand.
I also read the literary works of that era in the supplements of these two newspapers, and began to write my own sincere and childish short works, and I embarked on the literary road with ignorance and joy. The supplements of the newspaper are my literary openers and virgins, and they are really friendly and warm, fragrant like fields. Newspapers are also textbooks that allow us to add knowledge day by day in the era when there were no classrooms, otherwise there would be a new youth and a new middle-aged era that would suddenly change so much as a young collective, keep up with the speed of the country, and use all their strength to advance the country.
Still some years ago, my middle school classmate named Jianren always said to me and read my prose again. He said it was what his mother read in the Xinmin Evening News, told him, and then he read it and told me. At the time, his mother was in her eighties. It was a mother with glasses, and there was a lot of gentleness and kindness between the delicate eyes, she was a retired worker in a small factory on the street, and for many years she stepped on the sewing machine every day to repair and repair, but she also liked to read newspapers, read books, repair herself, and become a habit for many years.
My farm classmate named Caizhi always said that her father read the prose I wrote, and she also took a photo of her father reading the newspaper every day to show me, eighty or ninety years old, wearing straight clothes, the tea cup on the coffee table next to the sofa steaming, the light and shadow in the photo, the light and light scenic area can not distinguish between morning and afternoon, there is no clock on the wall, and there is no sunrise or sunset outside the window, but imagine the quiet time tick, ordinary is very old-fashioned, the taste is exquisite.
Tang Jia'ou was photographed at the Tilanqiao Post Office on January 1, 1982, and the public scrambled to see the newly resumed Xinmin Evening News.
This old school does not mean old. The English poem reads: "When you are old, your hair is white, and you are drowsy..." But they did not just snooze next to the fire, but continued the habit of many years more leisurely and gracefully, very young, well-proportioned, did not stumble, why do you have to listen to the young, the youth singing to you, the evening song has begun to practice from the early morning, the English poem was written by Chinese musicians as an emotional song, and finally sang: "When you are old, your eyebrows are low, and the lights are dim." The wind is blowing, your message, this is the song in my heart, this song I sang to you. ”
Dusk can also be sung to the early morning, the hair is white and singing to the young and young, because they are still singing, and the young are more awe-inspiring!
What is vigorous is not only the morning sun, and the bright red is not just the sunset, but a decent life.
When a person reaches the age of eighty, at the age of ninety, he still waits for the newspaper every day, reads peacefully and carefully, especially the prose of the supplement... This habit and fun is not really advanced, very decent, very stylish!
My parents were alive like this, and my father had walked away.
Jianren's mother also walked away, and my words were dedicated to them.
Dedicated to the father of Caizhi, who is dressed in a straight dress.
Dedicated to the newspaper column of the park that still stands there and to the people who stand in front of it and read the newspaper.
The best color of the newspaper column is painted green. (Mei Zihan)