Elephant News reporter Li Chang Contributing writer Hao Xiao/text Wu Ziyi/video Courtesy of the interviewee
A village courtyard, full of red bricks and black letters, bricks, tiles and windows, records Zhang Fuqing's life.
Recently, a courtyard full of words has become popular on the Internet. On April 8, independent photographer Cai Shanhai drove around a small village in Xinzhou, Shanxi Province, and saw a family doing white things.
"On April 23, 2005, Fuqing only used 24 days to renovate the house, spending 8,000 yuan, and the housing people should have fire prevention, water, and insect pest laws, and maintain the house wall" "On the twelfth day of the first month of 2017, 71-year-old Fuqing and Maochuan went to Fanzhi Xinglong Hotel to take a bath, and found a gold necklace worth 5,800 yuan, and the owner was found the next day" "On September 27, 2018, I bought two life materials from the gate, and the branch was 4,600 yuan, which is the cedar wood produced in Huguan County, southeast of Shanxi" "How big is the universe? The surface temperature of the sun is 6,000 degrees, the center is 15 million degrees, the volume is 1.3 million times that of the earth, and the weight is 330,000 times that of the earth. The plane flies to the sun for 20 years to get to ......"
Agricultural planting, building houses, blessings for the country, contemplation of nature, and fantasies about the universe...... The 78-year-old deceased Zhang Fuqing wrote his life and thoughts all over the courtyard. The old man's eldest son, Zhang Honggang, said that his father was an ordinary farmer who had worked in the fields all his life, and that he had started his own writing journey after learning those characters in private school since he was a child.
In the past, when I wrote couplets, weddings and funerals, lawsuits from the villagers, or propaganda newspapers posted on the wall, I would always ask Zhang Fuqing to ghostwrite. In Zhang Honggang's impression, sometimes his father will also record his own affairs. Twenty-four years ago, Zhang Fuqing began to take notes in the courtyard. In 2007, Zhang Honggang's mother-in-law died, or this incident reminded his father, and he will soon wait for the afterlife, Zhang Fuqing successively explained his aftermath on the wall.
The clock hanging on the wall passed by minute by minute, and the handwriting in the courtyard became denser and denser. The walls that would not be exposed to the wind and rain were all written, so my father had to move elsewhere, and on the walls and door frames, he painted a layer of transparent varnish after writing. Twenty-four years later, "the courtyard was now transformed into a brick book. ”
The courtyard wall that filled the rest of his life
"On April 23, 2005, Fuqing only took 24 days to renovate the house, spending 8,000 yuan. At the beginning of the 20th century, when the two children gradually left their hometown and began to fend for themselves, Zhang Fuqing still guarded a few acres of land and lived in the village with his wife. With the money sent back by his two children, Fuqing began to renovate the courtyard that he had inherited from his father.
Two years later, his wife was diagnosed with mental illness and diabetes, and was sustained by drugs prescribed by the local hospital. Zhang Fuqing often has to lead his wife to take insulin, and the scope of his life is even narrowed down to this courtyard. Every flower and grass in the courtyard is paid special attention to by him, "Every year, the apricot blossoms fall and the insect medicine is sprayed again, and the bigger the fruit, the sweeter it is." Cut the branches once a year. "After the apricot blossoms fall into the fruit, the fruit is cut at a distance of four to five inches, and the fruit is far away. ”
Zhang Fuqing renovates the courtyard wall while taking notes on it. During the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, Zhang Fuqing suffered from coronary heart disease and had a stent on his heart. When the hospital was completely built, two stents were put on the heart, and I had to take medicine every day.
Despite his declining health, Zhang Fuqing still wrote more and more words, picking up money when he went to the big hotel to take a bath, the wall of the landlord in the courtyard was damaged by dampness, paying electricity bills, and drinking milk...... When he had finished writing at the lower place, he climbed up to the higher place with the help of a ladder to write. In order to prevent the rain from washing away the handwriting, Zhang Fuqing also brushed a layer of transparent paint on the surface.
Zhang Fuqing, who is comfortable in the courtyard, sometimes yearns for the outside world. On June 23, 2023, he wrote on the wall, "After 2026, Kashgar City, Xinjiang, will become the world's largest logistics market of 3 billion people in Asia, Europe and Africa. ”
Traces of three generations of growth
On the walls of the courtyard are the thoughts and thoughts of my father for 24 years, and there are traces of three generations living here.
Zhang Honggang said that when he was a child, his father, who was more than 1.8 meters tall, raised his children in this courtyard. The whole family relied on a few acres of land, it was really difficult to live, Zhang Hong just went to high school, he went out to make a living, for many years in Inner Mongolia business, and later had his own home, and his younger brother worked in Haidian, Beijing all the year round.
The cottage was left behind by my grandfather, who spent his childhood here, then married and had children, and eventually died of old age. In his later years, my father's greatest wish was to renovate the courtyard wall. The two sons sent back money every month to support the two elderly people, and the father gradually took out the money to renovate the house.
Perhaps in order to add some spice to life, my father carefully planted two apricot trees in the courtyard. When the apricot fruit was ripe, Zhang Honggang returned to his hometown with his children, and his father was busy in the yard to pick fruits for his grandchildren to eat. Zhang Honggang sometimes thinks that when he was a child, he and his younger brother also played in the courtyard wall, and his father often wrote couplets, and the two helped pull the paper on the side. At that time, my father would tell them about his anecdotes from the book, and later they could only talk about the news that my father had just read on the phone.
In 2007, Zhang Honggang's mother-in-law died. Seeing that his peers were getting older and older, Zhang Fuqing thought about what was behind him. The two sons were not around, and he wrote down all the words in his heart on the wall. Like a diary, the wall also more intuitively shows the traces of Zhang Fuqing's life, on September 27, 2018, he bought two life materials from the gate, 4,600 yuan, which is a cedar wood produced in Huguan County, southeast of Shanxi.
Zhang Fuqing's whimsical ideas were also recorded on the courtyard wall, "How big is the universe? The surface temperature of the sun is 6,000 degrees, the center is 15 million degrees, the volume is 1.3 million times that of the earth, and the weight is 330,000 times that of the earth." It takes 20 years for the plane to fly to the sun. The moon is one-eighth the size of the earth and has 200 billion stars......"
Leave the courtyard
After Zhang Fuqing's death, the life of the two sons and their mother continued as usual. Mr. Zhang and his wife run a business in Inner Mongolia to send their three young children to school, while his younger brother works in a restaurant in Beijing. Her mother began to live alone in the courtyard, she was old and frail, she needed weekly injections and medical appointments, and her two sons sent home money every month to support her.
The family never imagined that their father, who was accompanied by the soil all day long, would become "popular" on the Internet after his death. These days, Zhang Honggang and his younger brother have decided to leave the courtyard behind, and if anyone wants to visit, they will let people visit it for free, and even provide accommodation. In their eyes, this courtyard full of words is the continuation of their father's life and the preservation of his father's spirit, and they hope that his father can stay in the world for a longer time in this way.
"The eldest son settled in Ordos, the second son worked in Haidian, Beijing, and the two sons went to their own places, both of which were more than 400 kilometers away from us. After the death of his father, the two sons wrote an essay to remember their father and put it on the wall of the main landlord's hall. On the courtyard wall, the father wrote down his wish, and the two sons fulfilled it together.
On the day of the father's 27th festival, the two sons wrote a "remembrance of their father" for their father. At this time, the apricot blossoms in the courtyard have already bloomed, which my father once planted and pruned with his own hands. The night before, when the weather was gloomy and rainy, the two children remembered their father again. On the morning of his father's departure, Zhang Honggang also called his father, hearing that he had a cold and was unwell and wanted to go for an intravenous drip, but he didn't expect the bad news to come in the afternoon. Looking at the apricot blossoms standing on the branches like snow, the two children seemed to see their father's gaze.
Looking at the handwriting in the house, Zhang Honggang felt that every corner of the courtyard was filled with his father's melancholy, and he sometimes felt regretful that he didn't have more time to accompany his father, "The reality is so cruel, you can't carry your old man when you pick up a brick." He also made a note of his promise to his father, and the brothers would remember his father's teachings and continue to fight to take care of their mother and educate the next generation.
What Zhang Honggang said to his father will also remain on the wall of the courtyard: "Father, you are gone, and there will be no father in the world from now on." The world is big, and the kindness of parents is the greatest. You left in such a hurry, without even saying a word, you left the hut and relatives that you loved all your life, leaving us heartbroken and heartbroken. Your voice and smile are like a dream, and in the floating shadows, only the red bricks and green tiles tell your feelings for your home and country. The courtyard is full of your warm handwriting, the beloved son of your parents, for the far-reaching plan, let me cry and drop blood. Broken thoughts, parents are short, and the road is simple. Time is warm, love is thousands. Starlight doesn't ask passers-by, we are destined to go to the mountains and seas, and the small courtyard you take care of, as well as those warm handwriting, will also be endless, accompanying us forward. ”