Distant mountains listen to the rain and send homesickness
——Read Mr. Guanqiao's new book "Listening to the Rain"
Du Changming
Mr. Guanqiao's new book "Listening to the Rain" was published, exactly four years after the publication of his last book, "Distant Mountains". Reading "Listening to the Rain", just as I sincerely love the first series of "The Sound of the Old Garden" in his "Distant Mountains", I still like the first series of "The Native Sound Has Not Changed". It is very clear that these words are all vernacular prose, written about hometown, written about Fengxian, reminiscing about childhood, and the words are filled with the atmosphere of hometown. Guanqiao's hometown is in the west of Fengxian County, and my hometown is in the south of Fengxian County, the distance is twenty or thirty miles, and the township rules and folk customs are almost the same. Although I am a few years older than him, after all, I am from the same generation, and I have similar memories of the countryside in the sixties and seventies of the last century, so I am familiar with the scenes, people, objects, and sounds described in his writings, and I am very cordial.
Feng County is located in the northwest of Jiangsu, the border of Sulu, Henan and Anhui provinces, and the northwest of Shouxian, Zhaozhuang, Shanlou, Wanggou...... There are Liu Bang's hometown Jin Liu Village, there are wonderful "Three Province Wells", there are many legendary ancient villages, and it is also an old revolutionary area. Guan Qiao spent his childhood and youth here, and was influenced by rural culture and baptized by history and culture, which laid a solid foundation for his creation of rural literature. He wrote Zhao Zhuangji, Cui Laojia, Jiang Danlou, Wang Shuanglou and so on, so there are "Car Passing Zhao Zhuang Collection", "The Legend of Cui's Old Family", "The Sound of Wild Geese to Jiang's Family", "Fierce Battle Wang Shuanglou", "This Village is Called the Imperial Sacrifice Temple", "River Decisive Panlong Collection" and other beautiful texts, history, legend and reality are blended, and they are durable to read.
"The dawn of the countryside is opened by the platform of the old well. "'Old Well' is the best of this collection of vernacular prose. Most of the villages are built on water, either rivers or wells. With water sources, human beings can survive and reproduce, animals can flourish, and crops can grow. Living around the well, a village appeared, and the fireworks in the world flourished. Every village has one or two wells, which are the source of life. Our village is the same as Guanqiao's village, there are two wells, one for each production team, both located on one side of the village road. There is a derrick on the side of the well of our western team, and there is a pole on it, and a stone is fixed at the bottom of the pole with an iron bar, and the water can be easily "crossed" up by using the principle of leverage. Many of my childhood dreams were woken up in the early morning by the crisp sound of buckets crashing against the walls of wells. Guan Qiao described in more detail: on the well platform, people use the well rope to alternately continue the bucket into the well, swing the well rope, left swing, right swing, left swing, right swing, the amplitude is getting bigger and bigger, the bucket is tilted, the bucket is tilted, the water is filled with water, and it is gently lifted. The flat pole picked up two buckets of water, and the dog happily wagged its tail and followed. Women are careful, and in order to prevent water from rippling out, they will spread one or two leaves or vegetable leaves on the surface of the water, swing their arms slightly, and dance like a rural ink. Beautiful. In the scorching summer, the well became a refrigerator for the villagers. People take a dip beside the well platform, put watermelons, melons, and vegetable melons in bamboo baskets, hang them into the well water to ice, and wake up to quench their thirst. And eating cold noodles and cold noodles and fish is inseparable from the cool "well pulling water". In the drought season or after three or two years, the siltation at the bottom of the well blocks the wellbore, and the well must be dignified. Taojing is the whole village strict, sacred event, there are gods three feet above the head, the old well raised the villagers, the villagers are in awe of the old well, like worshiping the god of the stove, the lord of the land, but also worship the king of the well. Before the well, the men knelt in front of the old well, kowtowed, and prayed for the blessing of the king of the well. Wearing wicker hats and rubber boots, the strong laborers went down to the bottom of the well with ropes, and loaded the silt into buckets, and the people on top lifted it up, bucket after bucket, until the silt was cleared and the spring was exposed, and the well water bubbled out. When the villagers of Taojing came up, they all looked like mud monkeys, and people were busy serving tea and cigarettes...... I can't remember when the old wells were replaced step by step by machine wells, pressurized water wells, and tap water, and the old wells in the countryside were buried in the ground, which became the memory of a generation. Not long ago, I went to Zhoubu in the north of the city, and saw that an old well in the village still exists, and several villagers gathered around the well platform to carry water for laundry, and felt particularly cordial, I also tried to carry a bucket and drank a sip, which was full of sweet childhood taste.
"The young man left home and returned to the eldest child, and the hometown accent has not changed and his sideburns have declined. No matter how far away from home and how long the time is long, the longing for his hometown is always entangled in his heart, because he grew up drinking the water of his hometown and blowing the wind of his hometown, and the hometown sound is like a stone carved on the back, deeply imprinted on his brain gyrus. Although Guan Qiao has been in the workplace for many years and can say "Jingpu" and "Xu Pu", he has never forgotten "Fengpu", which can be reflected in his "Native Accent Has Not Changed". "Drink soup", "catch (zhua) go", "recognize the surname", "make a bun", "invincible", "joke", "half-headed child", "jumping"...... These dirty words cannot be fully understood by people who have not lived in Feng County for a long time. Let's just talk about "recognizing the surname". "Recognizing the surname" means that children go to eat a big banquet when they get married, and many places call it a gift. As for why the older generation is called "recognizing the surname", there is really no exact explanation. The women who "recognize their surnames" greet each other, and that is called a cordial. The two old ladies walked quickly with their little feet, and then clasped their hands. "Is it strange for Sister Guo?" "It's weird, Sister Li is also weird?" was very affectionate for a while, and then remembered the grandson and girl beside him, and immediately instructed: "Call Grandma quickly!" Before she could call out, her aunt over there was already surprised: "Hey, my good boy is here, but he is invincible, how does he look good?" ...... I remember when I was a child, I followed adults to "recognize the surname", and saw some old ladies pulling two children to introduce them: "This little one belongs to the big family, and this Nier belongs to the two families." "Oita is the eldest son and the second son. Now, when it comes to outsiders, even the young people of Feng County will be confused.
Speaking of "recognizing the surname" back then, that is, getting married, the two details described by Guan Qiao in "Those Things About Eating a Big Banquet" are also quite interesting - sending a plaque and carrying a dowry. Suddenly, I heard three gongs outside, and the trumpet, sheng flute and pipa were played together, and everyone's attention was suddenly attracted to the past, and it turned out to be several classmates and friends of the groom who came to present the plaque. "In those days, it was a very decent thing to get married and send a plaque to hang in the new house, and most of the young people who sent the plaque had not seen the world yet, and they were a little young. You see, "several half-headed children dressed in fashionable and bold manners, each with a pen and a scarf around their necks, and two wearing black-rimmed glasses and peaked caps." "It's really both "single" and trendy. The eldest brother in front of him held a gold plaque, and the few who followed behind put their hands in their pockets for a while, and then pulled them out and didn't know where to put them. Hearing the whispers and comments of the onlookers, the red-faced and bowed heads became more and more embarrassed, and one by one they drowned ants on one foot, and then pretended to take two puffs of cigarettes and coughed excessively exaggeratedly. "Haha, isn't it very picturesque? Look, the dowry is coming!" Under the blue sky and white clouds, on the yellow earth, a team of people and horses carrying a big red dowry came from the end of the path, quite a bit of poetic meaning. "This is the woman's dowry, there are cupboards, cabinets, strips, tables of eight immortals, piano tables, basin stands, benches, dressers, basins, water bottles, cover lamps, strip boxes, and so on. The dowry was made of solid wood by a carpenter, which was relatively heavy, and the large ones had to be carried on a flat shoulder. It's okay to say that the shortest road is good, but if it's dozens of miles away, you have to take several breaks on the road. Most of the marriages are chosen in the winter leisure season, I also carried the dowry in the winter vacation, the child can only carry a bench to carry a water bottle basin, lighter, there is food and drink, the groom's family also sent two packs of cigarettes, there are two yuan of reward, I feel that it is a very comfortable beauty.
Listen, the sound of "shouting in the countryside" has begun! The elder Zhao who sells mutton is here, the eldest fan who sells twist flowers is here, and the old lady who sells steamed buns is led by her fat grandson who is mentally retarded and carries a basket...... In the midst of one roar after another, the day's liveliness of the countryside began. Among the many shouts, the shouting of "chicks - selling chickens" was the warmest, "the chicken seller used bamboo folds to surround the chickens into a big circle, yellow, black, flowery, fluffy like hundreds of balls rolling, chirping and chirping non-stop." The women took out the chick and put it in the palm of their hand, looked at the chicken's buttocks, touched the chicken's neck, and made sure that it was a hen, and then put the chick in their baskets. "The chickens are all on credit, the kang chicks are in the early spring, the winter grain is exhausted, the summer grain is not helped, it is the spring famine season of the year, it doesn't matter if there is no money, and the harvest will be repaid after the autumn. The most indebted is the foreigner who shouted "shave his head - cut pig eggs", and it is not good if he is not pressing, so he still does it dedicatedly. The most distinctive thing is the "old and stupid" shouting, "bean sprouts - tickling——, soybean sprouts, mung bean sprouts!" He spoke and bit the dish with indistinct words, and said "two" as "itching", which brought a lot of fun to the villagers, and made people more and more nostalgic for the distant countryside and shouted.
Let's take a look at this article "Let's Eat Sugar". The author talked about the sweets of the past, from white sugar to brown sugar, from sugar cubes to "sugar children", and then to the "sugar man" who blew the syrup, and the bitter childhood was dotted with the sweetness of faint memories. In those days when supplies were scarce and filling one's stomach was a luxury, candy was really a luxury! It was a great reward to go to the consignment store to help the family weigh salt and oil, and to be able to buy a few pieces of candy with the remaining pennies. If a generous relative or friend can bring a bag of colorful candy, the child will be happy for the New Year, and he will put it in his pocket and go to the east and west, and he will be on the tip of his head. Look at Guan Qiao, "Occasionally you can get a candy cube, you can't stop playing, carefully unscrew the candy paper, carefully peel off the coat, or round, square, or cylindrical small things in the palm of your hand, carefully look at it for a long time, and then gently put it to your mouth, stick out your tongue Lick the thin glutinous rice paper like a cicada's wings until it melts clean, and then you will take the whole sugar cube into your mouth, roll it back and forth with your tongue and push it back and forth a few times, and the sweetness spreads from the tip of your tongue to the whole body...... "It's so sweet!"
Finally, let's take a look at Guan Qiao's two short essays - "Under the Apricot Tree" and "Grandma", there is no great sorrow and mourning, everything is implied in the text. "Under the Apricot Tree" was written for the second aunt. The second aunt is ingenious, there is an apricot tree in her yard, and the children like to play under the apricot tree. My second aunt was partial to me, and whenever the apricots were ripe, she would leave a few big, ripe wheat apricots to secretly stuff into my school bag, and told me that the eldest nephew was the hope of our family, and he would be a useful person in the future. I may promise to be admitted to university in the future to pick up my second aunt and enjoy a few days of happiness. But then I didn't keep that promise. My second aunt had cancer, and I went to the hospital to visit her, but my second aunt was full of smiles and said that she was not seriously ill and would be fine in a few days. This is the understanding of the second aunt. "The image of a traditional rural woman who is kind, righteous, hard-working and hard-working jumps on the page. "Grandma" is written for grandma. Nan Nan is the author, I grew up listening to my grandmother's ballad of "Little Bus Dog, Go to Nanshan" at my grandmother's house. When I was seven or eight years old, I took my younger brother to my grandmother's house to play, and before leaving, my grandmother sent them to a small wooden bridge under the old locust tree at the entrance of the village, and bought a large handful of peanuts to fill the pockets of Nan Nan and my younger brother. Nan Nan reluctantly walked across the small wooden bridge, and when she turned her head, she would see her grandmother standing under the old locust tree at the end of the small wooden bridge. Nan Nan went to school, and later, Nan Nan worked and went to other places, so busy that she didn't have time to see her grandmother, and later, her grandmother died...... All the guilt and nostalgia are condensed in this sentence "Grandma hurts Nan Nan, Nan Nan doesn't hurt Grandma." "Li.