On the Road to Visiting The Year (Essay)
Text/Wang Yishang (Shandong)
Life is like a long-distance train, you need to pass through many platforms, the road is also full of scenery, there are people who can meet on the way, it is also a beautiful scenery.
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The train of time is like a white colt that passes through the gap, fleeting; the sky in memory sometimes hides mysteries and stars twinkle; the troughs of life are always ups and downs, and waves and flowers are swelling. Standing on the timeline of the early spring of the 2022 Tiger, a wisp of thought once again pulled my eyes to the beginning of 1981, 41 years ago. This year was the sixth year after I joined the army from the northern countryside, and the third year after I was transferred from Yantai Changdao in Shandong Province to the border defense front in Yunnan, and the troops approved me to go home to visit my relatives for the second time.
On the day I received the notice, I was so happy that I didn't close my eyes almost all night. In the military camp on the southwestern border of the motherland, Xin'er has already flown back to his hometown in southwest Lu. Early in the morning of January 24 (the nineteenth day of the 19th lunar month), I said goodbye to the company with my bags on my back, and took a passenger bus from Pu'er (formerly a county in Simao District, which has been renamed Pu'er City in recent years) to Kunming and hurriedly embarked on a journey to visit my relatives. Sitting on the bus heading north, while admiring the exotic beauty of the flowers and grasses in the south outside the window, I wondered in my heart whether the poor and backward appearance of the countryside on the ancient pottery land had changed. Looking forward to my hometown and my future. Because of the slow speed at that time (no highway), after three days and three nights of bumps on the winding road, we arrived at the prestigious "Spring City" - Kunming Railway Station.
Due to the fault of the Beijing-Kunming line being repaired, the T62 express train from Kunming to Beijing was suspended and had to wait two days before it could open. At this time, near the Spring Festival of xin you, my family was arranging marriage affairs for me (in 1979, the first visit to my family had been two years old), and I was so anxious that I did not want to delay on the road, so I decided to take the 79 direct express train from Kunming to Shanghai instead. When I had bought my ticket and was hurrying to the waiting room to wait for the bus, a woman's cry came from outside the door of the ticket hall, and I glanced out the door with my eyes and saw that there were many people around. Out of a sense of duty and sensitivity as a soldier, I subconsciously walked over to the cry and saw a young woman in her 20s with a two-year-old baby in her arms. Listening to her tell that her home is Guizhou Kaili, came to Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan Province, to visit her relatives, on the way back from Kaiyuan to Kunming by train, the only 200 yuan on the train was stolen by thieves, there was no way to go home, she was desperate, she was anxious and angry and had to ask people for help.
I looked down at the people around me, and there was some discussion that the young woman might be deceiving people, right? It is also said that mother and son are weird. But I don't look at her like a liar. It seemed as if the crowd was staring for help at my bright red collar badge and gleaming hat badge. I thought to myself: Whether it is a thief or a deliberate deception, I can make my soul and spirit get that full and comfort, and I am worthy of the title of "people's children and soldiers", so I did not hesitate to pay 50 yuan (my monthly allowance fee at that time was only 21 yuan, and the family economy was also very difficult), handed it to the woman holding the child, and asked her to buy a ticket quickly. In addition to thanking me for taking the money, she asked me more than once what my name was. I told her, "Name doesn't matter, it's what you should do as a soldier." The people around them also said in unison: "The people who are soldiers are just different, learn from the People's Liberation Army!" "They all waved to me frequently, and I also gave them a real military salute."
On the K79 express train from Kunming to Shanghai, you are immersed in the warm dream of reuniting with your family. On the afternoon of January 28, the train slowly entered the Zhuzhou Railway Station in Hunan Province, which is the intersection of Beijing-Guangzhou, Beijing-Kunming, Kunming-Shanghai Cross, and there are many passengers getting on and off. Within a few minutes, the vacated seats in the trunk were quickly filled with passengers pouring in. At this time, two girls of about 20 years old who had just boarded the bus hurriedly walked towards the seat opposite me, one sat down next to me, and the other just wanted to take a seat opposite, but the young man clearly wanted to occupy the seat of two people but said that there was already someone, I immediately got up and sat on the seat of the young man on the opposite side, let the two of them sit together, and the girl smiled and thanked me slightly.
It is understood that one of them is 19 years old, the other is 21 years old, a freshman majoring in German at Nanjing Foreign Chinese College, and their family is in the countryside of Huaihua Mountain, Hunan. The two are not tall but very handsome, each with a pair of big eyes shining brightly. Originally the school has been on winter vacation, after returning home to prepare to go to school after the Spring Festival, and feel that their respective Chinese language foundation is weak, want to make up classes for self-study, but the learning conditions at home are too poor, they decided to return to school during the Spring Festival to study in school. When the train started a short time later, they each took out a small card full of Tang poems and Song poems from their satchels, and they read and memorized each other in a depressed manner.
When they were reading and reciting Wang Changling's poem "Out of the Plug": "Qin Shi Mingyue Han Shi Guan, the Long March has not been returned." But when making Dragon City Fly will be, not teaching Humadu Yin Mountain", it will be "but make Dragon City Fly Will" mistakenly written and read as "but make Lu Cheng fly will be". Based on the information I consulted in the library of the Pu'er Cultural Center (at that time, there were nearly a hundred Tang poems and Song poems that could be recited), I told them that according to the compilation records such as the Quan Tang Poems and the Tang Poetry Appreciation Dictionary, it should be Longcheng, not Lucheng. By the way, the historical allusions of "Flying General" Li Guang were repeated. After they revised it, they were very surprised and admired: "Comrades of the People's Liberation Army, your knowledge is so profound, we want to learn from you!" I said somewhat shyly, "Where, it's just more books." Along the way, they talked and laughed, accompanied by the rhythmic book aroma of reading and reciting, and sang all the way. The next afternoon, the train arrived at Hangzhou South Railway Station, they were about to get off, and frequently waved goodbye to me, and the beautiful shadow gradually disappeared into the mid-winter dusk.
With that encounter, their thirst for knowledge and their tireless spirit of learning have also become the motivation for me to strive to practice writing for many years.
Looking back at the nostalgia for fragments of past life, people can see more clearly: an era has a product of an era, and the product of the era can reflect the ideological mainstream of society. Although, in the era of poorer material life, the stronger people's pursuit of spirit, the whole social class is filled with spiritual wealth and sufficient positive energy; on the contrary, the more abundant the material life of social change, the more people are deeply tempted by money and material, and the more indifferent the pursuit of spirit. Just as the famous contemporary scholar Zhou Guoping said: "A nation has universal values, which shows that this is a nation with faith, a nation with faith, and can provide a good spiritual environment for individuals, in which it is easier for individuals to find or adhere to correct values." "In the near future, our society will be more developed and materially richer, and I wonder how long people's greedy desires and worship of money and material things will continue?
(Published in the literary supplement of Heze Daily on November 24, 2020)
【About the author】:Wang Yishang (pen name Cordyceps sinensis), born in 1957, is a government employee and a member of the Communist Party of China. He was once employed as the deputy editor-in-chief of the editorial department of the "Reporter's Cradle" newspaper of Shandong Heze Journalism Institute. Since 1979, he has published works in the army, and has published more than 3,000 works. His works have been published in Heze Daily, Dazhong Daily, Peony Literature, Writers and Readers, Modern Writers Literature, Times Literature, Essence of Writing, World Poetry and Literature, Great Northwest Poets, Northern Lights, Literature, Selected Contemporary Chinese Masters, Selected Contemporary Literature, Ginseng Flowers, and Oriental Collections. Gold List Famous Articles- Selected Works of Cultural and Creative Achievements in the Past Forty Years", "Literature of Great Love in the New Century. There are nearly 100 literary websites such as newspapers and magazines such as "Selected Works of Chinese Rural Poetry" and "Selected Chinese Rural Poems", and have won more than 80 commendations and awards at the provincial and municipal levels. His works have been selected for many times in the "Qilu Literary Works Annual Exhibition", the essay "Spring to crescent bay", and in September 2021, he was selected as a fourth-grade Chinese reading textbook. He is a member of the Shandong Provincial Writers Association, the Shandong Prose Literature Association, the Heze Writers Association, the China Writers Network, the Blue V Poets of the China Poetry Network, the contracted writers of the Jiangshan Literature Network, and the director of the Dingtao District Writers Association.
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