Changsha Duzheng Street, restoring the statue of the scene of the cooling off. Photos/Liu Zhixin
The only section of Loom Street remains.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the summer in Changsha was as hot as it is now. Together with Nanjing, Wuhan and Chongqing, Changsha is known as the "four major furnaces" in the country. At that time, people had never heard of air conditioners, and even electric fans had not entered ordinary people's homes. Some barbershops, in order to cool down, install a rectangular canvas on the roof, a rope is fixed in the middle of the lower edge of the canvas, the rope is pulled to the wall, and then hangs down the wall through pulleys, and an apprentice pulls the rope up and down, driving the canvas to sway, thus creating wind. It is really a painful thing for Changsha people to spend the summer.
Text/Liu Zhixin
At four or five o'clock in the afternoon, the tables, stools, and bunks were moved out to seize the cooling ground
In the evening, people living in the streets and alleys are resting outside, waiting until 10 to 11 o'clock, when the fire in the house fades, and then return to sleep in the house.
There is a large ping at No. 133 Loom Street, and there are several trees in the ping, especially two towering locust trees, which are like two large umbrellas during the day, covering the ping relatively shady, so the people in our yard are very lucky, and everyone has a good place to cool off.
At four or five o'clock in the afternoon, each family began to look for their own cooling place, sprinkled cold water on that place to cool down, and then put a bamboo bunk, a table for eating, and a stool, so that even if it occupied a place.
Zhao Manjiao always occupied the best place in the middle of the ping to cool off. Because she earns some pocket money by hanging children's shoes, during the day, she has long sat in the shade of the ping, twisting the soles of the shoes one by one on the upper, twisting a pair, and making 3 cents. At four or five o'clock in the afternoon, she moved out of the bamboo shop to prepare for the evening cooling.
The heat affects people's appetite, so people in the courtyard like to eat porridge at night. If the conditions at home are better, add sugar to the porridge; if the conditions are worse, use cat fish (curd) or stir-fry a sauce radish, sauerkraut and the like. Both of Aunt He's sons worked in the factory, and each person was paid more than 60 yuan, which was a high salary at the time, so when their family ate out, there was always a large glass bottle on the table, which contained white sugar, which was very conspicuous. Our favorite thing is eating stinky cat fish. Stinky cat fish, like stinky tofu, smells bad and tastes good. If there is a stinky cat fish in the ping, the air in the whole yard will be very smelly. If Aunt Peng knew that the Mawang Street sauce had been spread with stinky cat fish, she would shout at my house in the pingli: "Uncle Liu, Mawang Street has arrived at the stinky cat fish, hurry up and buy it!" ”
The fan is written smoothly: "The weather is hot in July, and the fan cannot be borrowed"
After eating, adults and children either lie down or sit on bamboo bunks and stools, chatting in the north and south of the world. Adults gently fanned it to themselves and children, enjoying the cooling night breeze and lowering the heat on their bodies. At that time, fans had to be supplied with tickets, and fans became the treasures of the family. For newly purchased fans, mothers generally use cloth strips to twist the edges of the fans to make the fans durable. The words "Liu Ji" and "Zeng Ji" should also be written on it, so as to avoid making mistakes among neighbors. Some also wrote on the fan: "The weather is hot in July, and the fan cannot be borrowed." Although I am a friend, you are hot and I am hot. "This slip of the tongue is very popular in Changsha.
The "program" that makes our children happiest during the break is eating watermelon. At that time, the family was generally not rich, and the family bought a watermelon, as if it was a festival. If my dad bought the watermelon back during the day, my sister and I would happily go to the peach blossom well to pick up a load of well water and put the watermelon in the well water to cool it. When it was time to eat at night, the watermelon was cold and felt even sweeter. The watermelons Dad bought were always red and sweet. I asked him what the trick was for picking, and he said, "Shoot, look, pinch." Pat, is to pat the watermelon with the palm of the hand, the sound should be like patting the chest, if it is like patting the head and patting the stomach, it is not OK. Look, is to see whether the tip is thin, the vine is not fresh. Pinching, that is, pinching the watermelon with the thumb nails, it is difficult to pinch it. "Until now, I still use the three words he taught to pick watermelons."
In the cool area, the leaves sway, bats fly out, and ghost stories are told
Counting the stars, guessing riddles and telling stories are games that our children often play during breaks. Everyone often pointed to the sky and quarreled over which was the Big Dipper, which was the Cowherd, and which was the Vega. I often ask people to teach me to know the Big Dipper, and I may not be born with the talent in this area, and I still can't recognize the Big Dipper.
Mind game questions are the easiest to pass the time off. Remember that the most proud puzzleSureSures I ever gave you were two. One is: a man drives a flock of sheep through 10 passes, and at each pass, half of the total number of sheep is deducted and then returned to one. After passing through 10 passes, this person only has 2 sheep left. Q, how many sheep did this man have at the beginning? There is also a: two blind people go to the store to buy socks, each to buy 2 pairs of white, 2 pairs of black. The salesman was careless and wrapped 8 pairs of socks together. The two blind men went home to break up when they realized that the socks were not colored apart. There was no one to help. A blind man thought of a way to divide the socks without borrowing the help of outsiders, each with 2 pairs of white and 2 pairs of black. Q, what did the blind man think of?
The previous puzzle problem was known to my junior high school class teacher Huang Zhifu, and he also took it to the class to guess.
Storytellers are generally older children, or people who like to read. The most exciting thing is to tell the story of ghosts. In the empty plain, night fell, the moon hid in the clouds, and only a yellow street lamp with a low wattage outside the wall glowed slightly. A rare southern wind blows in the summer, and the leaves sway. Suddenly, a bat flew out of the crack in the wall and let out a piercing scream.
Such an atmosphere, not telling ghost stories is already tight. At such a time, the person who loves to tell stories begins his (her) ghost story. I still remember a ghost story told to us by an older sister: Willow Tree, it was a female ghost who changed it. Many years ago, a long-haired woman was wronged in something and committed suicide by jumping into a river. She turned into a female ghost. She stood by the river, threw her head away, and her long hair flew outwards and then fell down, so that her body became a willow trunk, and her hair became a thin leaf that fluttered with the wind. Before she could finish her story, we ran home in fright.
Compared with the summer in the air-conditioned room where people spend the summer in the 40 years ago, although it is less cool, it has more fun of life and the warmth between the neighbors.