[I heard that he was of the Buyi ethnic group, so I wanted to go to his hometown to have a look. On a large lush hillside, several tree-shaded houses were faintly found. Even though I couldn't understand a word of what he sang. A breeze blows, and the water surface sparkles, allowing people to hear the subtle flow of water——]
Follow Lao Wei and go to his Buyi village
Li Zhanjun
In September last year, the comrades-in-arms of the 2nd Company of the 33rd Iron Regiment gathered in Anshun, and I met Wei Zhengxing.
Wei Zhengxing is a 75-year soldier of the 33rd Automobile Company of the 1st Regiment of the former Railway Corps, and he is 1 year older than me.
It turned out that I had read the poems he wrote in the 33rd Regiment veterans, the sentences were not long, but they were very down-to-earth, easy to understand, catchy, and very touching.
Because we are all in a group, there is a potential feeling, so as soon as we meet, we don't need to be introduced, our hands are tightly clasped together.
Wei Zhengxing's first impression is very simple, with short gray hair, a black and red forehead, a thick mouth, and a simple and honest face. He was not tall, but he was stocky, and his legs and feet were so sharp that it was impossible to tell his actual age.
In particular, he is very warm to people, and he always smiles when he speaks.
When I heard that he was of the Buyi ethnic group, I wanted to visit his hometown.
Wei Zhengxing's home is in a place called Xiaoba in Yanxia Village, Benzhai Town, Zhenning Buyi and Miao Autonomous County, which is located in the watershed of the Pearl River and Yangtze River systems in the southwest of Guizhou Province, and is under the jurisdiction of Anshun City.
From Anshun to Guihuang Expressway, it is more than 30 kilometers away from Zhenning County. However, there are more than 60 kilometers of road from Zhenning to Benzhai Zhenyanxia, although it is also a very good county and township asphalt road, but the road turns left and right, either uphill or downhill, and the bend is very urgent, often makes people unexpectedly worried.
Fortunately, Lao Wei's driving skills are very skilled, I heard that driving in the army was well received by people, and after retiring from the army, he also drove a car for decades in the education department of Anshun City, so he drove a very stable car and felt quite safe.
Along the way, from his words, I have a general understanding of the Buyi people.
The Buyi people are a large ethnic minority in southwestern China, and some people believe that the Yelang Kingdom in the Western Han Dynasty has a relationship with the present-day Buyi people. But the most convincing thing is that it has a homologous relationship with the Zhuang people, and it is a branch of the ancient Baiyue. Nowadays, the Buyi people still retain some ancient Yue customs and habits, such as living in dry column houses and beating copper drums.
The Buyi people are mainly agricultural, and mainly cultivate rice. Men like to wear short shirts, trousers, and headscarves, while women mostly wear the cloth woven by the peasants themselves, wear batik cardigans, trousers or pleated skirts, and wear silver bracelets, earrings, collars, and other soft cloths. The Buyi people are hospitable, warm, generous, and sincere, and those who come to the cottage, relatives and friends, and those who have never known each other, will be treated with wine.
Halfway, Lao Wei also found a Miao friend Mr. Yang, we stopped in Miao Village for a while, Mr. Yang also found a few local Miao old artists, danced a local dance for us, sang local songs, and at noon Miao Village friends also stewed a big pot of fresh chicken and chicken soup, and drank local Baogu wine. I said, I must write some articles about Miao Village when I go back, this place is very literary.
Just after lunch, the weather is still a little hot, Lao Wei said that it is not far from their home. I said, then go to your house first, and it's better to find something primitive to open your eyes.
So, we got into the car, rolled down the window glass, and the mountain wind blew slowly, making people feel cold and very comfortable.
The terrain in Zhenning Buyi and Miao Autonomous County is high in the north and low in the south, and the slope changes greatly. Our car soon went up to the main peak of the thatched slope mountain in the northeast of the county, and Lao Wei said that this is the highest point in the county, with an altitude of more than 1,600 meters. It seems that Zhenning is a typical mountainous county, no wonder there are mountains and hills all the way.
Suddenly, I found that there is a clear water river at the foot of our winding mountain, the water flow is crystal clear, there is a graceful and graceful dance, under the sunlight, the rainbow looms, ethereal, seems to be real and virtual, magical and wonderful.
Lao Wei said that this is their mother river, and they grew up eating the water in this river. He pointed to a row of mountains opposite and said that it was his lovely home, saying that it was still very difficult to get water on the dam, but that the party's targeted poverty alleviation policy had been good in recent years, and the village where they were located could eat tap water.
I looked up at the other side of the river, and on a large lush hillside, I vaguely found a few houses shaded by green trees, the surrounding mountains were quiet, and in the rain-washed sky, there were a few white clouds, and the golden sunlight paved the rolling mountains in the distance with a layer of golden glow, which looked very poetic.
Lao Wei said that the proven mineral resources around his village, including antimony, lead and zinc, iron, manganese earth and clay, are waiting to be mined. There are also unique karst landforms such as Yelang Cave, Shihua Cave, Xiangshui Cave, Tiankeng, Yanfeng Cliff and so on, which let me stop here for a few days and take me to see.
I said, next year, let's go to the small dam that gave birth to you and raised you today.
After walking for about half an hour, we came to Xiaoba Village, where Wei Zhengxing lived as a child.
The dam is not large, with dozens of households, and the houses include "ganlan" buildings, bungalows and slate houses. The most distinctive thing is the slate house, because Zhenning grows natural barite, marble, calcite, carboniferous stone and other different stones, the local Buyi residents will adapt to local conditions, take local materials, and use stones to build a slate house with national characteristics.
Most of the Buyi people's dwellings are dry-column buildings or half-side buildings, that is, the front half of the front is a building, and the back half of the back is a flat slate house. Slate houses are made of stone strips or blocks of stone, and the walls can be built up to 5 to 6 meters high. Except for the purlins and rafters, which are made of wood, the rest are all made of stone, and even the tables, stools, stoves, and bowls used in the household are all hewn from stone. The most important thing is to cover the top with stone slabs, which is impervious to wind and rain, warm in winter and cool in summer, moisture-proof and fireproof.
Everything seems simple, everything is unpretentious, but it is solid. The stone buildings in the village are said to be hundreds of years old, so the locals call it both a frozen piece of music and an immortal epic.
But this kind of house lighting is poor, with the development of society and the improvement of living standards, many people have carried out house renovation, most of them use cement and steel to build houses, and the structure is also very novel.
Lao Wei's new house was also built more than 10 years ago, and his three brothers pooled money to build it together. However, when the house was built, he lived less, because he bought a house in Anshun.
With that, we came to his house. It is said that the Buyi people have a lot of attention to building houses, first of all, please ask people to see the feng shui, the best backing is the "lying lion arch guard", "green dragon protection", "noble mount" and other mountain features, so most of the residents here choose to be by the mountain and water as the foundation of the house, not only to the back of the green mountain, but also to face the blue peak.
Wei Zhengxing's house was built on a half-slope, which was very steep, and he made several sharp turns, and he hit the steering wheel several times before stopping the car.
This is the layout of the ordinary farmhouse, behind is the green mountain range, in front of the house is a village road, there is a ravine next to the village road leading directly to the Qingshui River under the mountain, it can be said that it is by the mountain and the water, surrounded by mountains on three sides, the south is open, the house is hidden in the ten thousand trees, the master and slave are orderly, rigorous and symmetrical. And there are verdant bamboo trees behind the house, and there are deep-rooted eucommia trees in front of the house.
Lao Wei's house is a two-story house, and now only his aunt lives at home, and his two younger brothers work in other places and rarely come back. Because his aunt did not know that we were coming, she went to work in the field nearby, and the door was still locked.
In order not to disturb his aunt, we stood in this courtyard for a while, and I deliberately opened the tap water pipe that they had already connected to wash my face, and by the way, I also tasted the water in the pipe, and felt that the water had a fragrance of osmanthus flowers, which was quite sweet.
Looking at it, I only feel that the mountains and rivers here are beautiful, the scenery is beautiful, the environment is fresh, and the rice fields at the foot of the mountain are half light green, half golden, and shining.
I said, let's sing a mountain song! Lao Wei, such a beautiful scenery!
Lao Wei opened his voice: What's the matter, hey-
Although I couldn't understand a word of what he sang, Lao Wei was very passionate and focused, which made me admire him very much.
Lao Wei raps mountain songs is a tradition left by their ancestors, and now young people will sing them when it comes to festivals, because they can harvest love.
It is said that in addition to the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, the Buyi tradition also has "February 2", "March 3", "April 8", "Ox King Festival", etc., and the most solemn festival is the lunar calendar "June 6".
Whenever the "June Sixth" festival comes, each village will kill chickens and pigs, make a triangular flag with white paper, stain it with chicken blood or pig blood, and insert it in the crop field, legend has it that if this is done, the locusts will not come to eat the crops.
The Buyi people attach great importance to this festival and have been called "Little Year". On the morning of the festival, several respected old people in the village led the young and middle-aged people to hold a traditional festival to sweep the village. Then, some people bring glutinous rice, chicken, duck, fish and water and wine, to the slope outside the village to "hide the mountain", also called to rush to the field and catch the market, outside the village to talk about the past and the present, and have a variety of entertainment activities. When the sun sets, the people who "hide in the mountains" will sit on the ground one by one, uncover the rice baskets, take out fragrant wine and food, and invite each other as guests.
When night falls, the girls from the five villages and eight villages are wearing gorgeous lace clothes, locking the excellent flower buttons, and the young men are wearing cardigans, tying bearded belts, blowing wooden leaves, and one by one they start to sing and "throw flower bags" activities with spring breezes, which is the best time for men and women to fall in love.
At this time, people will find a flat meadow, and some people will thunder the cowhide drum, and the drum will be fast and slow, sometimes suppressed and sometimes raised, plus the sound of cymbals, people everywhere shouting horses neighing, laughter and noisy. Young men and women were in a group at this time, and there were a bunch there, and some of them were dancing. Some play the moon harp, blow wooden leaves, sing ancient mountain songs, and express their passionate love to each other.
In addition to singing, there are also those who lose flower bags. Flower bags are made of various colored floral cloths shaped like pillows, filled with rice bran, adzuki beans or cotton seeds, and the edges of the flower bags are decorated with lace and "whiskers". When throwing, young men and women stand on one side, several meters apart, and throw at each other. There are right-hand, left-hand, and over-the-top throws, but horizontal throws are not allowed. It is required to throw far, throw fast, and catch firmly. If the young man throws the flower bag at his beloved, and the bag falls to the ground without going over the shoulder, he should give the other person a gift, such as a collar, ring, bracelet, etc., and the gift is regarded as a token of love.
I don't know if Lao Wei's lover is right to the mountain song, I didn't ask.
Coming down the mountain, we came to the village department of Yanxia Village, to which Wei Zhengxing belonged, and met a very young Chen branch secretary.
The village is located in a very flat depression at the bottom of the mountain, it is a two-story building with more than ten rooms in a row, there is a newly built basketball court in the courtyard, the whole courtyard is cleaned very clean, and it is completely the new rural image of the new era.
As soon as I arrived in the courtyard, I smelled the fragrance of rice flowers. It turned out that across the wall of the village committee was a golden rice field, which was swaying in the wind and waiting for people to harvest. Below the rice paddies is the babbling and flowing Qingshui River, where a gentle breeze blows, sparkling on the surface of the water, and the subtle sound of running water can be heard.
Xiao Chen, the branch secretary, told me that in the past few years, relying on the party's and the state's policy of strengthening agriculture and benefiting farmers, every household has been thriving. Villages have been connected to roads, families have access to running water, crops are thriving, mountain goods have been bought, villagers have become rich, and many families have built buildings in various forms. As the leader of the village, they have greatly increased their confidence and are guiding everyone to form a consensus on building a prosperous, prosperous and beautiful village, to strengthen scientific leapfrogging, and to contribute to the promotion of leapfrog development and long-term peace and stability in the village!
Lao Wei also said that in the past, when he was studying in the county middle school, he would walk from his small dam before dawn, and often walk to school at night when the lights were almost out. On the way, I nibbled on a little dry food and potatoes I brought, drank some spring water, and sometimes my legs were red and swollen. He said that the old era was never returned.
Seeing that the sun was gradually sinking in the west, Xiao Chen was kind enough to keep us for one night. He is also a Buyi ethnic group, and said that the Buyi people are very hospitable, and they are famous for their "moss frozen meat", "mixed pea jelly", blood tofu, dog enema, fresh bamboo shoots and various insects.
I said wait a minute, when I come back one day, I must stay at Lao Wei's house for a few days, come to taste the rural snacks here, and dig out the Buyi culture here. I really hope that the green waters and green mountains here will not be artificially destroyed, and I hope that the villagers here will live more and more flavorfully year by year.
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