With the story of the Tan family, Foshan writer Hong Yongzheng won the award again. On April 23, World Book Day, the results of the 13th "Zhouzhuang Cup" National Children's Literature Short Story Contest were announced, and Hong Yongzheng's "Homecoming" won the first prize.
"Homecoming" is a short story written by Hong Yongzheng on the theme of the Tan family, about 6,000 words, published in "Juvenile Literature and Art" in September 2023. Under the impact of the tide of the times when the novel was written, after the younger generation of the Shui Tan family went ashore to settle down, Ah Gong, the representative of the older generation, still guarded the riverside and refused to go ashore to live because of nostalgia for the past. In the end, the love between the family and the children's recognition and protection of the Tan family's tradition from the bottom of their hearts dissolved the estrangement between Ah Gong and the children.
Hong Yongzheng.
Hong Yongzheng is an amateur writer who has been writing sporadically since he was in junior high school, and in 2000 he came to Foshan from his hometown of Yangjiang to work, and is now a primary school Chinese teacher in Foshan. Growing up on the Moyang River, he has been in contact with the Tan family since he was a child, and the Tan family has become his best literary theme, and has created 7 works with the theme of the Tan family, among them, he has published children's novels "Shake, Shake, Tan Family Boat", "Floating Family", "Boat Returns" and non-fiction literature "Between the Waterfront", as well as 2 children's novels and 1 adult novel that have not yet been published. The details of these works are real and vivid, with a solid texture of life, and the depiction of emotions is also meticulous and moving.
It is understood that the 13th "Zhouzhuang Cup" National Children's Literature Short Story Contest was jointly initiated by the Children's Literature Professional Committee of the Shanghai Writers Association, the Children's Literature Working Committee of the Jiangsu Writers Association, the Children's Publishing House, the Literary Newspaper and other units, and since its launch in May 2023, a total of more than 3,000 entries have been received, and 25 excellent works have stood out after the preliminary evaluation, re-evaluation and final evaluation. These award-winning works will be published in Juvenile Literature and Art, and will be published by Juvenile and Children's Publishing House.
Text/Li Hongling, reporter of Foshan News and Media Center
Homecoming (excerpt)
Text/Hong Yongzheng
On weekends or holidays, as long as it doesn't rain, or there is nothing else to do, Yang Xiaohao will go to the river to find his grandfather.
Ah Gong is still guarding the Moyang River, guarding his boat, and like the few old people of the Tan family, he begs for food from the Moyang River every day. For as long as Yang Xiaohao can remember, there have been young Tan family members who washed their feet and went ashore one after another, either doing business, entering factories, or doing other jobs, settling down on the shore and never returning to the river. Now, there are fewer and fewer boats on the river, and the only five or six boatmen left are swaying on the river, like abandoned clogs.
But this does not prevent Yang Xiaohao from coming to the riverside, here, he can play in the water wantonly, Ah Gong will never scold him, he always smiles at him, as long as he comes, there is always something delicious waiting for him. As a result, he became even more clingy to his grandfather. During the holidays, as soon as he finished his homework, he walked from his home to the river and stayed with his grandfather.
Ah Gong's boat is very small, and he can't get off the boat from the shore, and he can't step on the gangplank directly, so he can only go barefoot into the shallow water, and sit on it little by little with his butt next to the edge of the boat. It wasn't until my ankles were out of the water that I moved my feet to the boat, and then I got up little by little. At lunchtime, the two of them sat in the bow of the boat, and there could not be too much movement, otherwise the boat boy would shake very much. rested, as long as Yang Xiaohao was lying in the canopy, Ah Gong could only lie on the bow of the boat with his eyes fascinating.
The boat boy is so small, but it is all that Ah Gong has. Ah Gong lives here every day, catching fish, selling fish, eating and drinking, and never leaves his beloved boat boy several times in his life, even when he is free.
Now, the fish buyers have dispersed, and Ah Gong is sitting on the bow of the boat and smoking.
The Moyang River quieted down, Yang Xiaohao gulped the snow strips that were about to melt, and his bare feet kept stepping on the soft river sand, making a sound of "chirp, chirp", and the sand splashed his legs with the river water, like eucalyptus bark.
"Don't get your pants dirty. Ah Gong looked at him with a smile.
Yang Xiaohao took the last bite of the snow stick, put the stick still on the ground, and turned his feet in place several times until the sand nest was the size of a rice cooker, and then he smiled and said to Ah Gong: "Ah Gong, look, you can raise a few fish here." ”
The smile on Ah Gong's face became even thicker, and the cloud of smoke spit out from his mouth dissipated above his head.
Yang Xiaohao stopped the movement of his feet and said, "Grandpa, it's free, why don't you go around the town?"
"What's better in town. Ah Gong said with a smile.
"It's lively, you can buy ice cream and eat it. ”
"You're hungry all day long. ”
"It's delicious, you can taste it too, it's really delicious. ”
"That thing Ah Gong is not blessed, and Ah Gong is the most afraid of it in places where there are many people. ”
"Then you can come home with me. ”