Birthday changes

If you don't leave your hometown, your birthday will definitely be based on the lunar calendar for the rest of your life. Because in their hometown in Shandong, the elders' way of observing the year is mainly the lunar calendar, and they strictly follow the lunar calendar to arrange various daily lives such as farming and harvesting, adding or subtracting clothes, including everyone's birth anniversary.

In the first half of the 20th century, the living conditions of the people were generally poor, and the childlike years were not only looking forward to the New Year, but also looking forward to life. At that time, there was no cake on the birthday of the festival, there was no big fish and meat, and the annual birthday in the memory was the grandmother herself, rolling out a bowl of fine white noodles, lying on two eggs, and ordering a few drops of sesame oil that you were usually reluctant to eat, immediately teasing you with salivation, impatient, not waiting for the cold to drink, the heart is full of joy. To this day, the lingering aroma of birthday noodles is still clearly audible.

Such a birthday is 20 years, and it is not until I go to college.

Courtesy of Visual China

Fill in the resume for college admission, and the counselor tells everyone that it is best to fill in the solar calendar in the column of birth year, month and day. Hearing the news was like falling into the fog, because I had never asked or thought about such a question, I had to fill in truthfully according to the date of the household registration book. This made students from Shanghai feel incredible, human beings have used the Gregorian calendar for more than 1970 years, and it is impossible to imagine why northerners still use the lunar calendar, which inevitably gives people the feeling of old soil. Although the merits of this discussion can be discussed, as a modern person who does not know his solar calendar birthday, it seems a bit unreasonable. So, with some embarrassment, I quietly went to the library to find the newspaper of that year and accurately verified the solar calendar birthday corresponding to my lunar date. At this point, two different birth diaries have been formed. In the end, it evolved into the lunar calendar when there are old people at home, and the solar calendar when there are no old people at home.

Despite the two chronological methods, the passionate green season seems to have no time to examine the past years, and naturally does not care about the birthday geometry. Maybe it was unconditional, or it was forgotten, so it seemed that I didn't celebrate my birthday alone in my memory.

After entering the workplace, I often fill out various forms, and the solar calendar birthday begins to be mentioned repeatedly. Especially when living in a dormitory, it happens to be the same day as a colleague in the same room, so the birthday has become a common memory of both of them. Often on the birthday day, invariably from the canteen to play two good dishes, in the street side of the food store to buy peanuts, brine meat and the like, coupled with a bottle of liquor, a few of the same house lively, is a formal and independent birthday for themselves.

Later, from love to marriage, birthdays have become a special medium for expressing feelings for each other, often agreeing on a plan in advance, or visiting the park, watching movies, rolling roads, making some delicious food, sending a souvenir, etc., although the form is greater than the content, but the simple process is particularly relaxed and pleasant, and then make the form of the birthday become romantic.

Unfortunately, such a relaxed and romantic day did not take long to end, and the arrival of her daughter changed the existing state of life in an instant. In large cities with traffic congestion, fast pace and great work pressure, it is not easy for dual workers to bring their children. After the wife took the late marriage and maternity leave, she could not afford a nanny, the child was unattended, and she had to send her to the kindergarten when she reached the age of one. On Saturdays and Sundays, rain or shine, every day to and from work. It was already very tiring after a day of work, and it took an hour to get home on a bicycle, and then buy vegetables and cook and do housework, and when everything was finished, it was almost ninety o'clock. After a few years, the full load of full enrichment has also made the days burn out, and if you think about it today, you can't help but feel a little self-admiring. If you weren't young and powerful, God knows how you could survive it?! So, at that stage, there was no longer any romantic mood, and the way to celebrate each other's birthdays was basically to buy something delicious to treat each other.

The deepest impression was the wife night shift, the child full care, their own home from work to stay up a pot of eight treasure porridge, after eating back to the desk to prepare for the night shift, open the computer to see, suddenly found that the computer is prompting that the day is their birthday, can't help but laugh. I thought to myself, the birthday is just that, drinking porridge is creative. Later, whenever I was not sure of the tasks assigned by the leader, I always laughed at myself: I drank a day's thin porridge on my birthday this year, and my brain was full of paste, and I pressed this kind of thing beyond the carrying capacity to me, and don't blame me if I don't do well. Leaders and colleagues will also continue to ridicule: if you are confused once, do you still want to continue to continue this confusion to work as a shield to shirk responsibility? The crime of not doing well is added to the first class. So it made everyone laugh.

It is not difficult to know what to do. Looking back at the 1980s and 1990s, the life of middle-aged intellectuals was really called poverty. Although wages are constantly growing, from tens to hundreds of dollars, prices are growing faster. There are old and small, there are hard indicators of spending money everywhere, no matter how you calculate carefully, the end of the month is always shy. People who came over knew that at that time, most of the families had income and expenditure books, and there was a strict expenditure control procedure, because arrears were the most difficult concepts for our generation to accept. When it is, the biggest fear is uninvited guests, because hosting guests is the biggest uncertainty outside the budget. If there is no balance to cope with the unforeseen needs, if two groups of children visit in a month, there will inevitably be a serious economic crisis in the family. Therefore, a family of three never dares to eat in a restaurant, even if there is occasional delay and it is inconvenient to go home to cook, at most it is to eat a cheap fast food outside.

The only time it changed was Madame's birthday. It was a cold evening after the snow, and we rode from the North City to the South City after work, and then picked up the children and went home, and we were already cold. I opened the refrigerator and looked at it, and there was nothing. The wife said, "The next bowl of noodles is ok." I couldn't bear it, and quickly replied, "Let's go outside and eat." The wife hesitated for a moment and said, "Then keep it simple." I immediately said boldly: "'Manly big tofu', today I will invite you two to eat well." In fact, the "good" is just ordering a few dishes and asking for two bottles of beer at a small restaurant downstairs. The daughter danced happily and ran around the small restaurant. As soon as I entered the house after dinner, I immediately picked up the phone happily and informed my mother-in-law: "Grandma, guess what we are doing?" Today my dad invited my mom to dinner at a restaurant." The speaker has no intention, the listener has a heart. Instantly my eyes were filled with tears, not excitement, but guilt. Dark thoughts: We are also seven-foot boys, how can we mix up with wives and children who can't even afford a good meal? He immediately made up his mind to transfer out of the unit and change to a better-paying job. Unexpectedly, I fought for this simple goal for five or six years, and finally I was so angry that the leader slapped the table before reluctantly agreeing. The price is to stay in a grade position for 20 years. Later, my friends kept making fun of me, saying that if I hadn't stubbornly asked to be transferred, then the seat would have been yours long ago. I laughed and never regretted it. Although I did not make a fortune, I was already satisfied with being able to pursue my favorite profession and slightly improving the family's dilemma of not being able to make ends meet, which was more important than any position.

Now retired at home, no longer have livelihood troubles, but the desire to celebrate birthdays is fading. One is getting older, and every birthday means that it is one step closer to Babaoshan; the other is that the spleen and stomach have developed a fear response to high-fat and high-protein foods. Helpless wife and children do not agree, every time the birthday is approaching, the daughter will book the restaurant and cake in advance, and the two third generations like the ritual of blowing candles together.

Not long ago, the birthday came again. I said, don't go out to eat. The wife did not listen, and asked: How come you are getting older and more ignorant of lifting, people have booked, are you not going to sweep everyone's happiness? I had to be ordered to go with trepidation. As soon as they entered the door, the two little ones shouted "Happy Birthday Grandpa" and threw themselves at them. The granddaughter took a piece of paper and introduced, "This is the birthday present I drew for you." I drew a newspaper that my grandfather liked, and my brother said that my grandfather liked to lie on the couch and look at his phone, and I also drew my phone. These words were written by my brother." I took the picture and looked at it, and there was indeed a girl in a skirt and a pigtail holding a newspaper, a mobile phone and a love heart, and next to the little grandson was a line of crooked writing. Since the little one who has just entered the first grade can't write "Grandma", the text left on the screen is: "Happy Birthday to Mommy's Dad"! After my wife and I saw it, we smiled happily and leaned forward and backward.

A sentence "Happy birthday to my mother's father" suddenly dissolved the hardships of half a life and was full of happiness and harmony. Of course, deep down I would like to wish that "mother's children" are happier and happier than our generation!

Source: China Youth Daily client