"There is the hardest armor, and there is also the warmest heart."
My uncle was very much like Lei Dongbao in "Big Rivers", with a fierce appearance, a loud voice, and a fierce way to do things, so that I did not dare to answer his phone until I went to college, because even across the phone line, the voice from the other end would still make people involuntarily sit on the front.
But such a person who is "fierce" on the outside also has the softest heart. He is filial to his parents, attaches importance to the family, cares for the younger generation, although he is the youngest child in the family, he has shouldered the burden of supporting the family since he was a child, just like a big ship in the storm, always a safe and warm place.
Although I am nearly thirty years old, I still can't get rid of his "blood suppression" and still habitually snort when he speaks, but some things are different from when I was a child, and I see his soft side.
01
The children of the poor are in charge of the house early. When I was a child, my grandmother's family was very poor, so my uncle came out as a teenager to work to earn money, burned bricks, did business, and went to Hainan to work.
In the 80s and 90s, when everywhere was full of gold, hope and opportunity, countless young people with dreams went out of their hometowns and went south to find opportunities to change their destiny.
Just like the self-employed Yang Tour played by Dong Zijian in "Big Rivers and Great Rivers", also like Chen Jianghe played by Zhang Yi in "Chicken Feathers Fly to the Sky", and like Ma Debao played by Bai Yufan in "Mountains and Seas", their common point is that they always have a tenacity that is not afraid of suffering and does not accept defeat.
But it is these flesh-and-blood little people who make up a magnificent picture of the times, and at the same time the times have also achieved them.
In the late 1990s, my uncle, who had some savings, returned to Chengdu and began to prepare for a business.
"At that time, Yulin and Xingguang Road were still full of Tianba, and today's punch card resort taverns did not even have shadows, and the most lively and prosperous place was Yanshikou, where everyone went to the skydiving tower mall to buy things."
Not to mention further south, the bustling Tianfu Third Street is still deserted, and the construction of jinchenghu Wetland Park, a leisure resort near the Global Center, will not begin until more than a decade later.
At that time, renting a single room near Yulin was only 200 yuan a month, and the new house price in Tongzilin, the earliest rich area in Chengdu, was only about 2,000 flat, and now it has increased by more than ten times.
There are two-thirds fewer cars on the street than they are now, and the most seen cars are the Volkswagen Santana, Citroën Fukang, and Changan vans. In addition, there are also some luxury cars, such as Toyota Crown, Audi A6 and so on.
However, the craze for learning to drive has quietly risen in Chengdu, after all, in addition to taking a taxi, driving school is the only channel through which many ordinary people can contact cars.
In the last year before the arrival of the new century, my uncle also went to get a driver's license, and then bought a van to deliver food to the hotel.
At that time, people who could afford to buy a private car were either rich or expensive, but many people bought cars to make money. For ordinary people, the car is both a means of transportation and a productivity tool.
My uncle's business caught up with the good times. Since about 2000, Chengdu has begun to develop rapidly, the Tianba has disappeared, and it has been replaced by high-rise buildings rising from the ground, and the true color of the "infrastructure madness" is vividly reflected in the land of the country of Tianfu.
The great wheel of history rolls forward, and every individual who is wrapped up in the future is also trying to find his own position in the new century.
02
Fast forward to 2010. After 10 years of struggle, my uncle finally bought a house in this year.
At this time, the house price in Chengdu has risen a lot compared with when he first arrived, and the price of the newly opened disk in the South Third Ring Road has reached more than 9,000 flat.
The superstitious grandmother said that the new house would bring good luck, although this is only the good expectation of the old man, but coincidentally, the uncle's business has really gone up from then on.
Just two years later, my uncle decided to change to a high-grade family car, and after turning around the 4S shop on West Road of South Railway Station, he took a fancy to the crown at a glance, on the grounds that others said that Toyota's car was comfortable, reliable, and had face.
As one of the earliest cars to enter the Chinese market, for Chinese, the crown is an automotive product full of the imprint and memory of the times.
The origin of the crown and the Chinese market began in 1964, when the Canton Fair, the second generation of crown entered China as an original import, which is also the earliest Toyota high-end car that the Chinese people came into contact with.
In the hearts of Guangzhou people, the crown has a more special meaning. In 1976, after negotiations with Japan, China specially imported 200 fourth-generation Crown cars as reception cars for the Canton Fair. This move established its status as a "luxury car", and since then the crown has become a symbol of the affluent class, and many people have a crown dream in their hearts.
During the boom period in 1985, the annual sales of the Crown in the Chinese market were 17,250 vehicles, and by the early 1990s, China imported an average of 6,800 Japanese cars per month, and the Toyota brand accounted for 37%, of which the Crown accounted for 24%.
In 2005, it entered the twelfth generation of China's domestic crown, but also reached its peak in the Chinese auto market, the popularity far exceeded Mercedes-Benz, BMW and other luxury brands, the limelight even overshadowed the Audi A6, in 2006 the cumulative sales have exceeded 60,000 vehicles, can be called the classic of the classic, and even have the slogan of "no crown after the twelfth generation".
Perhaps in the years of going south, the crown planted a seed in his uncle's heart, and after more than a decade, he finally had the ability to realize his former dream.
However, at this time, China's luxury car market has been firmly occupied by German brands, as the former king, the crown has long ceased to be the glory of its peak, and gradually slid to the edge of the market.
My uncle bought a black thirteenth-generation crown, the price of the naked car is nearly 380,000, and I had no concept of the haobuhao car at that time, but I thought the rear was very spacious and the seats were very comfortable.
03
At the beginning of 2020, a sudden new crown epidemic disrupted people's normal lives, and at first everyone did not realize that the impact would continue to this day, thinking that it would end quickly like SARS.
In August of that year, someone asked: "When will the new crown be completely over?" ”
The first answer was, "Vaccines come out." ”
But today we know that the highly anticipated vaccine did not end the outbreak, and the new crown virus has undergone five mutations, from Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, to the most recent new variant in South Africa, Ami kerong, and the vaccine has also begun to give a third booster shot.
Time flies, it has been 10 years since my uncle bought a car, and nearly 30 years since he returned to Chengdu.
However, unlike the previous two 10 years of struggle, from the time he bought back the crown, his uncle began to live a "retired" life.
To say that the crown is definitely the best retirement partner, because it is comfortable, worry-free, calm, in 10 years, except for daily maintenance, there has been almost no problem.
This car has also become the most familiar "old friend" of my uncle's family, witnessing the progress of my aunt's driving skills, witnessing my brother from junior high school to high school to graduating from college this year, and after taking a driver's license, he also used this car to practice. Every family member created unforgettable memories with this car.
However, the fate of the crown in China is not so lucky, with sales falling all the way since the twelfth generation of the crown, and the fascinating V6 self-absorbing crown legend came to an end with FAW Toyota's regrettable announcement of the suspension of the crown in China in April 2020.
But sometimes the goodbye is for the end, and sometimes the goodbye is for a new beginning.
Just a year later, on July 16, 2021, FAW Toyota announced that the crown will return to the Chinese market as a high-end sub-brand, no longer just a high-end C-class sedan, but also an MPV and SUVs.
Just one month later, the first car of the Crown brand was officially launched, launching a total of 6 models in the two-wheel drive version and four-wheel drive version, with a price range of 275,800-350,800 yuan. Prior to this, Wilfa also changed the crown mark.
Not long ago, my uncle mentioned the return of the crown, saying that he did not expect to see a car with a crown logo in addition to a car one day, although it is not very acceptable at present, but there is time to see.