I got up at 6:50 in the morning, went out around 7:30, went to work, ate, took a lunch break, went to work, and walked out of the unit at 6:00 p.m. Days are like gears, day after day, year after year in place. I can't say I like or dislike this kind of life, although it is plain, but I am also thankful.
A few days ago, I watched Jia Zhangke's movie "Mountains and Rivers of the Past", and the long years of the small county town were like a lament that was stretched, although it was slightly dark, but it was also wanton and full of vitality. I suddenly thought, if I hadn't left my hometown, what would my life be now? It's just that now the mountains and rivers are still the same, the old people are not there, and the psychological distance between me and my hometown is getting longer and longer.
Cheng Jun | © Written
WUDIAN| © Typography
Beidahu, Yuanshan Market
It encapsulates my memories of my hometown
My hometown is Sui County, Henan, and there are many legends about its origin, but the most recognized is the "Phoenix Three Spreads Its Wings".
Legend has it that after Qin Shi Huang unified China, he went to Taishan to seal Zen, passing through Sui County and staying here overnight. At night, dreaming that a golden phoenix was released from the golden flood here, spreading its wings and flying away three times, he felt that this was a treasure land of feng shui, so he passed down the holy purpose of building a city here, named Xiangyi County, which was later Sui County, also known as Phoenix City.
So now the street is full of Fengcheng this, Fengcheng that, and even dumplings under the hometown, all of which have to fall three times and roll three times, it is said that they come from the phoenix three wings.
My hometown is more specifically in The Town of Chaozhuang in Sui County, at the southernmost tip of Sui County, and a little further afield is the territory of Zhoukou.
In my memory, at that time, the county seat was particularly small, as small as a passenger station can be summarized, the passenger station to the south is Yuanshan Market, to the north is the North Lake.
Speaking of The Great Lake, it is a landmark of Sui County.
At that time, Li Zicheng attacked Kaifeng, replaced the army with water, broke the Yellow River, and the gushing Yellow River water rushed all the way to the south, flooding Suizhou City and forming this lake, counting that it has been four or five hundred years now.
My first memory of Beihu is that one year my father took me to the People's Hospital to see a doctor, thinking that the child was too pitiful, and saw that there was a stall selling clothes by the lake, so he bought me a blue "down jacket".
I remember that day, the snow was particularly heavy, my dad carried me to the bus terminal, I was wearing new clothes, completely forgetting the needle I had just received. In fact, that dress I didn't wear for a few days and then rotted, and it was the worst kind of "silk wool" (the name of the old chemical fiber cotton).
At that time, the North Lake was full of reeds, and there were all kinds of garbage and livestock and poultry carcasses floating everywhere, and it is estimated that it did not think at that time that it was this lake that carried the development of suixian county and the local feelings of Suixian people in the years to come.
Now the Great BeidaHu has been renovated and has become a tourist attraction, holding many provincial and domestic events. But every time I came home, I was in a hurry, and I hardly had time to walk along the lake to see.
After talking about The Great Lake, it is time to say Yuanshan Market. Walking south along the bus terminal, past the department store building, and then past the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, it was the most prosperous commercial area in Suixian at that time.
At that time, this "big, big" market satisfied all my imaginations of the city. So now, when I go to the most prosperous shopping mall in any city and see that there are many people who can't walk, my mind will say: I am about to catch up with the former Yuanshan Market.
Although I was full of yearning for Yuanshan Market, I never bought clothes in it, because it was too expensive, and the clothes there were sold to people in the city.
At that time, there was a clear boundary between the countryside and the city, and it was clear from the clothes I wore that many of my clothes were changed by adults.
Even now, when I remember whether I had any impressive clothes or the joy of buying clothes when I was a child, all I could think of was the blue "down jacket", which I had not bought at the Yuanshan Market.
Three years ago I went to the market again, and it was already dilapidated, and the streets were empty.
The south gate of Yuanshan Market is Yuanshan Road, which should be counted as a snack street. Lamb soup, casserole, peppery soup, bean foam, brine noodles, roast cake with meat, all my favorite food is on this street.
At that time, my favorite food was the egg casserole, and when it was first served, it was steaming with a steaming aroma, and the taste was sour. Even now when I go back to my hometown, I will still ask for a pot.
Thankfully, it seems like all the merchants are following the same standard, and over the years, every house has tasted the same, so delicious that I feel like I've never left here.
From the day he enlisted
The hometown has become a distant place
At that time, there were only two high schools in the county, one in Suizhong and one in Huizhong, and if I couldn't pass the Suizhong, I would go back to Zhongzhong, of course, the reason for which may be the reason why the talk show actor Yang Kasa said why he didn't go to Tsinghua.
Unlike junior high school, which is different from eating and living at home in junior high school, high school has to live in school, and the small friends in the same village who went to school with me in junior high school have all been admitted to Suizhong, and I am still a high-priced student in middle school alone, so I spent my entire high school life in loneliness and inferiority.
At that time, I often thought about our elementary and junior high school life, so much so that in the end, although the distance between the two high schools was no more than two kilometers, I would still write to them.
Three years of high school, two years on the old campus, and one year on the new campus.
At that time, the school did not have a canteen, and it was necessary to build a partner for dinner, some people went to buy vegetables, some people went to buy steamed buns, some people went to make soup, and then they found a vacant lot, squatted on the ground to eat, if it was windy and rainy, they would go back to the dormitory, the old campus squatted on the ground, and the new campus squatted on the cement floor.
At that time, several people who had dinner with me, one went to Hainan, one went to Chengdu, one went to Xiamen, it seemed that they were all mixed well, and I went to Jilin and Xinjiang, and finally stayed in Shaanxi.
Everyone has their own life, everyone is gradually out of touch, even in a group, do not add each other's WeChat, because it is so strange that even the circle of friends likes may become a burden.
It is said that now that there is everything in the school, the students should not squat on the ground to eat like we did back then.
When I was in high school, I especially liked to go out alone, go around the lake, and walk around in the alleys, just like Sun Shaoping in "Ordinary World".
I am full of expectations and longing for this county, and I think I should live here in the future, and I don't have to go home to farm. But I don't know how to fit into this place, I don't know the way people in the city live, without them dressed in a foreign style.
Every time during the New Year's Festival, when my father asked me to deliver something to my relatives in the county, I was always excited and embarrassed, and every time I came out of their house, I felt chagrin, and I always felt that I was not doing well enough.
In the year of the college entrance examination, with my grades, I was not unexpectedly admitted to the military academy, but fortunately, in the first year of the expansion of the college, I got a local admission letter.
I chose to repeat the study for one year. But just like in junior high school and high school, all the familiar people went to school, and I could no longer sink my heart to study.
Finally, after three months, I gave up and chose to become a soldier. My father went to the recruiting cadres with the notice, and in this way, I became the only high-caliber soldier in our group of soldiers with a high school education.
On the day I joined the army, my dad invited me to a lamb soup at the bus terminal and a roast cake full of lamb.
Then, in the gray early morning, I was taken to the armed forces outside the city, and I squeezed into the bus with a bag full of review materials, and by the time I sat down by the window, my dad had begun to wipe his tears outside the car.
That day was December 12, 2001, and from that day on, my association with Suixian was an occasional encounter and endless nostalgia.
(Image from the Internet)
About the Author ////
Cheng Jun
A native of Sui County, Henan
He enlisted in the army at the age of eighteen and changed careers at the age of thirty-two
He is currently an administrative officer of a provincial unit in Shaanxi Province