Hometown
Text/Chen Xin'an
People can't walk out of their hometown in a lifetime, and their hometown is the "root" of the eternal soul.
When people are young, in order to pursue the dreams in their hearts, they always long to go far away, but once they go out of their hometown, or go to school and study, or work elsewhere, or fight for the country...
The longing for my hometown is always haunted.
I have worked in the army for a long time, and after changing careers, I have been working and living in Xi'an City, although I have been away from my hometown for more than fifty years, the appearance of my hometown has always been in my heart, and in my thoughts of nostalgia, it always lingers. Every time I go home, there is always an inexplicable feeling that hits my heart and makes me understand that hometown is a kind of warmth, a kind of happiness, and a kind of hope.
Recently, I returned to my hometown. Thorn roses bloom freely in front of the house, and the vegetables in front of the house grow lushly. In the morning, I was doing a fitness exercise on the second-floor balcony, and I saw the sun rising from the east, and the morning light blowing through the rolling fields and sprinkling into the vast fields. I looked at the green and lush crops, the air was filled with the aroma of rich earth, which was the unique smell of my hometown, and I took a deep breath and felt particularly comfortable. Above the village in the wilderness, a faint smoke of cooking was wafting...
In the afternoon, I walked into the wilderness of spring, like breaking into a colorful world, the sky was high and cloudy, and the air was clear. In the distance, on the slopes, between the low fields, there are green wheat fields, lush flowers and grasses, and some unknown flowers, colorful and colorful, and the wilderness is full of vitality. The fields, villages and slopes reflect each other in a picture, forming a natural harmony, spectacular and magnificent beauty, and the wilderness is vast and splendid.
My hometown is the place that has nourished my soul and witnessed my growth. The feeling of hometown comes from the depths of the soul, whether it is thick or light, bitter or sweet, and the five tastes of life are contained in the passing years. The grass and trees, bricks and tiles here are my warmest memories. The farther and longer you leave your hometown, the stronger the nostalgia that haunts your heart. What I miss and remember most is the people in my hometown, who are simple, kind, kind and easy-going, and have lived in this ancient land for generations, working at sunrise and resting at sunset.
In the hometown of memory, the families in the village are earthen courtyards, earthen houses, earth stoves, earthen kangs, and the zhuangji is wide and narrow... My house is in a deep alley, and the warm sun shines on the window frames of the white paper. The sheep raised by the parents graze in the yard and the chickens forage in the yard. My father came back from working in the fields, sitting on a bench in front of my house smoking a dry cigarette, my mother busy cooking in the kitchen...
Although life in the countryside was hard in those days, we were still very happy, during the day the adults went to work in the fields, and I went to school with my playmates.
When I came back from school, there were old people in the village sitting together and chatting leisurely. A group of our little playmates shouted and shouted, you chased after me, and the laughter continued. One moment of hide-and-seek, one will shoot "stones, scissors, cloth", and the next moment of playing "cockfighting" - "cockfighting" means that two people touch each other with the root of their knees, like two roosters pecking at each other. Two people playing "cockfighting", each standing on the ground with one foot, the other foot grasping the ankle or trouser leg with the other hand to lift up, pulling away the posture, jumping and jumping on one leg, using their knees as a weapon, advancing and retreating, moving left and right, colliding and dodging, arching and provoking, and high-pressure entanglement, until the other party is exhausted and the legs fall down. This is a physical confrontation game that is conducive to exercising people's limb coordination ability and brain response ability. At that time, playing "cockfighting" games was mostly in the winter and spring, in order to move the body to keep warm and cold... That scene will never be forgotten, and we grow up happily in the arms of our hometown.
I remember that when I came home from school, as soon as I put down my school bag, I went to do farm work, either to put on the cage and cut the grass to feed the sheep and pigs, or to help the adults in the field to do some work within their reach... After dinner in summer and autumn, my parents were still busy with farm work and asked me to go to see my writing homework. It was a good time for me to read, I sat in the courtyard and read a book borrowed from a classmate, or a comic strip, or a novel, or a collection of essays... That joy, that satisfaction, is a unique memory of my youth that is comfortable and fulfilling. Tired of reading, he stood up and rubbed his eyes, stretched his waist, and walked out of the yard, the air wafting with the fragrance of ripe crops.
My sincere feelings for my hometown, for the land, and for my loved ones stem from the words and deeds of my fathers. At that time, I often followed my father to learn the skills of ploughing, sowing, and farming, learning to do farm work, and learning some things about spring planting and autumn harvest, summer and winter hiding. I have grown crops, plucked cotton, cut wild vegetables, cut grass, fed sheep, harvested wheat, broken corn, dug up medicinal herbs, shaved sweet potatoes... At that time, my father was very serious about farming, the land was very smooth, and when ploughing and sowing seeds, he was careful to cultivate to avoid affecting the seedling rate. My mother was a thrifty housekeeper, spinning thread, weaving fabrics, making shoes, raising chickens, cooking rice, and working in the fields whenever she had time. In the spring, the fresh and tender wild vegetables that have just grown in the field, and the cold mixed vegetables and vegetable knots made by my mother have become unforgettable dishes on the family table. When I think about it to this day, I still have a fragrance on my lips and teeth.
From the land where I grew up when I joined the army that year, no matter how far I went, everything in my hometown is an unforgettable memory in my life course. My feelings of missing my hometown and my loved ones have never stopped. Hometown is the "root" of my life, the home of my soul, and she has given me warmth and hope. Usually, when I think of my hometown, I seem to see the affectionate gaze of my father and mother, so kind and kind!
Human life always has a day when it disappears. Can't bear to leave, this is the common sentiment of people, the death of my parents, I once could not walk out of the grief of losing my relatives, often think of an urge to cry... Later, whenever I came home, I would kneel at the grave of my parents, offer tribute fruits, burn a stack of paper money, and pray for my parents.
"Floating clouds and wandering, sunset hometown feelings." Hometown is the place where I enlightened and grew up, it is the place that determines my words, tastes, habits and original intentions, so that my lifelong behavior is inevitably marked with this "provenance", and my hometown will accompany me all my life. A few years ago, I built a new house on the old house in my hometown, and when there was nothing to do in the city, I would go back to my hometown to live for a few days.
Over the years, under the influence of modern civilization and the process of urbanization, the appearance of the hometown has undergone great changes, and even so, the "root" of the soul has always been there, which is the spiritual home of infinite attachment.
The hometown is still popular in the traditional culture of passing, where the elderly live a birthday, a child has a full moon, an engagement marriage, the death of the elderly, and a new housewarming, etc., generally have to go through. The most important thing about the so-called past is to invite relatives and friends to eat and drink, and some of the events also include opera, acrobatics, song and dance performances. This is a custom formed by the folk in the hometown for a long time. Nowadays, with the development of economy and society, mobile food trucks have replaced those who helped cook in the past, but the strong nostalgia of the culture of the past has not changed. When I went home, I met people who had been involved in everything, and I didn't forget the deep friendship of the neighborhood.
With the spring breeze of reform and opening up, the hometown has long changed its appearance, and the "appearance" of the village is beautiful: the streets are wide and have become cement pavement; the earthen tile houses have become bungalows and buildings; every household has running water; and many families have cars parked in front of their doors. The "temperament" of the village is fresh and elegant, the farm yard is quiet and leisurely; the land in the hometown is fertile, and what is planted is long. Nowadays, many agricultural tasks have been replaced by machinery, and harvesters are used for the most bitter and tiring summer harvests in the past. Once a toiling, hard-working agricultural work, agricultural work, and rural areas, it has now become a new countryside full of vitality and idyllic scenery.
The years have carved an ancient mark on my life path. But homesickness has always been a landscape in my heart.
About the Author:
About the author: Chen Xin'an, a native of Fuping, Shaanxi, joined the army in March 1968 and served as deputy director, director and political commissar of the propaganda department of the military and military academies. In October 1994, he transferred to work in the Xi'an Municipal Government and retired in August 2009. He has published a collection of works such as "Autumn Moon Shadow" and "Practice and Thinking of Administration According to Law", edited and published "Yan'an Spiritual Speech" and "Xi'an Government Legal System", and participated in the editing and publication of "Xi'an Emergency Management Practice and Innovation" and "100 Cases of Emergency Handling of Emergencies in Xi'an City".