Build snowmen
Snow
Sprinkle snow melting agent
Wang Duo's memoirs "A Cloud of Smoke and Rain" 99:
"A Rain of Smoke"
Written by Wang Duo
7. Context: The Story of Building a Snowman
Officials, some games, are ten years consistent, or decades consistent. For example, flying kites, playing four corners, jumping rope, playing sand cloth bags and bouncing eggs. Some games are over time, there is innovation, there is a new way of jumping, and the songs are also renovated, like jumping monkey bands. For example, there is an old song called "Little Lazy Cat", which is very educational, very suitable for the learning of young children. I say, you listen, and see if that's the case:
Little lazy cat,
Going to school,
The teacher goes to class and sleeps.
The left ear listens,
Ears bulging again.
You say ridiculous?
You say ridiculous no —but laugh!
In this game, the emphasis is on children to learn to concentrate on listening to lectures in class and to learn to memorize. Girls jump while learning the appearance of a little lazy cat. For example, cross your arms, squint your eyes, and make a sleeping appearance. Then when it comes to saying "the left ear listens, the right ear rises", you have to pretend to shake your head, point to the left ear and the right ear, make the appearance of not paying attention to the class, and each child's performance is different, and the children who look at the eyes next to them feel happy.
I still remember that there was a girl in our grade department who scratched her head all day, her clothes were not neat, and she often had a nose, and she was nicknamed "Lada Stink". It was she, one day, who also went up to the leather band with a childlike heart.
When she jumped to the last three words of "you say ridiculous and ridiculous", according to the convention, she had to stomp her feet three times and step on the leather band three times to show the end. But you look at her image —
Originally, the cotton pants she was wearing were the ones that her sister had fallen down, grown, dragged on the ground, and the heels were hairy. But she was jumping on xing's head, and her belt was loosened, and she was really energetic—in the three words of "no—but—laugh—" and stomped on the ground.
Oh, you see her stomp the last foot, only to hear the word "laugh" out, the dirty and twitchy cotton pants legs, all at once wrapped her right foot. Immediately after that, a pair of cloth pants belts fell to the ground, and even the torn cotton pants were loosened, revealing half of his ass...
When the children in the audience saw it, they all laughed!
Although everyone shouted "no-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tell me to say that this "la da stinks", and it is too foreign, so I make her laugh to death.
When it comes to children's songs, they are closely related to their lives and are a reflection of social conditions. For example, in 1996, when I went to Jiangsu Road Primary School to pick up my daughter, I heard such a song coming out of the school. As it stands now, these are unhealthy ballads called "1991." In that ballad it is sung:
In 1991,
I learned to drive a car.
Up-down,Down-Down,
It's a hundred slopes.
The police came to arrest me,
I ran to the barbershop.
The lady of the barber shop,
It's really good looking.
Full of hemp,
It's a stack of one.
Look, you see, what kind of ballads are these! As for whether the children are clapping their hands at each other when they are singing, or jumping on leather bands and shaking ropes, I don't know. Anyway, when I was a child, there was no such unhealthy thing.
In the past, Qingdao, each season, there were different games. Some games are to improve children's intelligence and enhance imagination, such as breaking the stuffy child (Qingdao dialect: that is, guessing riddles), playing riddles, answering poems, speaking banters, saying jokes, saying after the break, guessing hand shadows, swinging matchsticks, untying wooden locks, playing tangrams, spreading baskets, turning over sheets, fighting earthhoppers, playing chess, etc.; there are also strong bodies, such as playing four corners, hitting wood, rolling iron rings, jumping leather bands, smoking lazy wives, throwing whips, and jumping rope; also exercising brave and bloody, that is, jumping dams, catching frozen vegetables, catching crabs, buckling bats, playing slingshots, digging bird nests, etc.; also exercising brave and bloody, that is, jumping dams, catching frozen vegetables, catching crabs, buckling bats, playing slingshots, digging bird nests, etc.; also exercising brave and bloody, that is, jumping dams, catching frozen vegetables, catching crabs, buckling bats, playing slingshots, digging bird nests, etc., Anti-abduction, horseback fighting, firecrackers, skiing and snowball fights, building snowmen, etc.
In the winter, it was three-nine-four-nine, and it was snowing heavily overnight, and the sky was white. This is the best time for kids to ski.
Watching the officials, the skiing in Xizhen is no better than other places, they are all in groups, one family, wives and children are on the same page. The size of the scene, the large number of participants, and the lively chaos of the scene are rare in other places.
Let's just say it snowed in the middle of the night. Snow this guy, is not an uncle. Every time it comes, it doesn't even say hello or say a word, and it comes when it comes.
Just wait until you seem to be asleep, sleep hazy, as soon as you open your eyes, how is it bright outside, have you slept a little? Forgot to go to school? Wait to take a look at the horseshoe watch, hey - how come it's more than four o'clock in the morning? Is it bright this day? Pull back the curtains and look at it, well- it turns out that the window is bright, a white!
Look at the roof again, the snow is as white as freshly steamed steamed buns, simmering, dangling in the light of the sky. The windows of other people's homes, there are ice flowers, there are ice flowers, there are long-term transformations, all are cloudy, black hole holes, everything is like losing memory, everything has become strange.
Also, there was not a single person on the street, not a single line of footprints, all quilt-like snow, and no wind at all. At this time, the tree was also wrapped up in snow, put on the coat of snow, all invisible, not looking carefully can not see clearly, can not understand, all the green is gone.
Listen carefully, only the sparrows rise first. Occasionally, you'll hear them chirp a few times, but don't know where they're hiding. Sometimes, suddenly, they flew and chased in succession, scrambling to flapp and glide, like a string of small pebbles thrown out. Seeing that they were about to hit the wall, the wings were about to scrape the eaves, the old sparrow with the lead shook its wings, whizzed and flew into the sky, and this string of black dots suddenly disappeared.
Lookout, it didn't take long for someone to move around outside. Take a closer look, it's broken, and a few children are standing in the snow, all stepping on the snow! No, we have to go out. Just wait to get dressed, eat a few bites of hot rice, put on an Air Force fur hat and white-threaded gloves, and go out, hey! Many children are out! Everyone was like a bunch of red apples that had just been poured out of the basket, grunting and rolling around the street...
After heavy snow, there is no wind or cold, which is common knowledge of children. The first thing everyone has to do is to build snowmen, compete with each other, see who piles well, piles fast, piles like, piles funny...
Well, now the children will come to buy and sell, and everyone will have to go to find the materials separately.
Dongsheng is the funniest one in the pile of children, he moved a large wooden basin from home, and suddenly buckled it at the T-shaped intersection of Wenshang Road, and then found a trash can and buckled it upside down on the wooden basin. Watching him do this, the children understood that it was time to build a snowman. So everyone piled snow on the iron bucket together. There are those held by hand, those with small coal shovels, and those that are removed with large shovels. In a few moments, a large snowman nearly two meters high was piled up.
The inspectors, the snowmen in the old west town in the past, were all influenced by Europeans, especially by Germans and Belarusians. The snowman must not only be piled up, but also exquisitely piled up, and must be piled up with fun and stories.
Once the snowman is piled up, the eyes are installed. The eyes of the snowman cannot be messed with. At that time, the most professional was to use two briquettes as eyes. Why use briquettes for eyes? The reason may be this: the snow is light, the briquettes are heavy. After loading the eyes of the briquette, when the snow is melted, the snow shrinks step by step, and the briquettes also follow the snow due to gravity, freezing with the snow and not falling out easily. If you put something else in your eyes and don't melt with the snow, it won't last long, and you may make jokes. For example, as soon as both eyes fall off, they become blind! There is also a missing eye, also into a one-eyed dragon, hehe, not lucky!
Winter's taller than us, when building snowmen with iron dustpans, contributed the most. At this time, he said, "Find a briquette—"
As soon as the children heard this, they went around looking for briquettes. After a while, some children found two briquettes from whose coal pool they had found. Dongsheng took it in his hand and looked at it, there was nothing wrong with it, so he used a bamboo pole on the snowman's head, rotated and drilled two eyes, and then set two black briquettes on it. His eyes were fixed, and his task seemed to be complete, and he stood aside and smoked.
I did most of the rest. I first went to the courtyard to find a large broom sweeping the street, and asked my friends to sweep three roads around the snowman, radial. Then start carving the snowman with a bamboo piece.
First of all, I want to portray the face of the snowman, to portray its ears, mouth, coat, collar, sleeves, etc., the more realistic the better. Next, there are the other inlays.
I first put a carrot into the snowman's face to represent its red nose. Then forcefully, he inserted the broom into the snowman's right arm wrist, indicating that he was also a labor-loving child. Finally, find a few more Tsingtao beer bottle lids and set them on the snowman's cotton coat, when it's buttoned.
After everything is inlaid, there is still a hat left. Putting a hat on the snowman is the most important thing. It can give the snowman a spirit and make the snowman look more personality and affinity. When I look back, hey, this hat is really coming. A small friend had already found a torn straw hat from the yard. The straw hat was torn, and the sky was exposed above his head. Great, crisply, I tore the top of the straw hat completely, and finally there was only a big wide brim left.
So, next to the snowman, several children carried me in the air and carried me up. As soon as I reached out, I put a torn straw hat on the snowman.
Lookout, it doesn't matter if this snowman wears a straw hat, but when he returns to God, the snowman will come alive. There is life, there is feelings, and it is time to talk to the person standing in front of you.
To be honest, when we built snowmen at that time, we had to pile them meaningfully. Definitely not like today's children, just pile up a silly human form. Culturally speaking, the snowman is the primitive culture of mankind millions of years ago, and it is also a primitive sculpture. How to build a snowman and what kind of snowman to build has always been exquisite.
You see— this snowman we built back then is very talkative. First of all, this snowman has a name, and we call him "Snow Doll". This is a very industrious "snow doll", a very understanding "snow doll". It got up early and started sweeping the streets for us before dawn. You see—the three paths under his feet were cleared for us. He wants people to have a way out after a heavy snowfall. At the same time, this move of his is also calling on people to get up early to clear the snow and clear the road, and everyone will work together to contribute to their own cities.
Also, if you look at his big carrot nose, isn't it all frozen red? Haven't you been working for a long time? Only now, he was tired and was resting with his broom!
At that time, in Xizhen, no matter who built the snowman, he had to put a broom on the snowman, which was a sculptural language and a sign of civilization. But now, qingdao rarely snows, and this snowman culture has slowly disappeared. Perhaps, people have long forgotten this snowman culture.
When I was a child, if it wasn't snowing in the dark of night, as long as it was daytime, when it snowed, this was a command from God, and the whole city would come out with brooms to sweep the snow. All units, institutions, factories, streets and compounds came out to "sweep the snow in front of the door", without exception.
As the snow fell, people swept it, the snow fell, and the snow in the streets and alleys was cleared. Everyone piled the snow on the sidewalk, under the holly trees, under the big trees, next to the ditches. Let the snow benefit the street trees, the gardens, and our underground pipe network.
If the snow is falling too much, too hard, and can't be swept away, it doesn't matter. Municipal authorities would drive large trucks and sprinkle sand all over the main roads so that public transport vehicles could operate properly. If not, put chains on the wheels of the bus. You think, the road has been cleared, sprinkled with sand, and then hung with iron chains, qingdao's main road is always smooth.
This is a public management tradition that distinguishes Qingdao from other cities, which has become a common practice and standard since the 1920s of the last century, and is one of the "urban civilization actions" that Qingdao citizens are often proud of.
However, around the beginning of the eighties of the last century, due to the so-called reliance on "modern science" and the sprinkling of "snow melting agent" everywhere, this good tradition of a truly civilized city was abandoned and discarded as a "backward concept".
Official, what is "snow melting agent"? It turned out to be salt. Or its main ingredient is saline. It was when I became the editor-in-chief of the History Office of the Qingdao Municipal Salt Bureau that I really understood the reasoning.
I remember that after a heavy snowfall, the municipal department urgently transferred hundreds of tons of salt from the Salt Bureau to be used as a "snow melting agent" and scattered it everywhere on the main trunk roads of Qingdao City.
An old engineer engaged in salt work sighed to me: "It's over, it's over, it's over!" ”
I said, "Why do you say 'it's over'?" ”
As he spoke, his face turned white with anger and he said, "Just watch." In a few years, the street trees of Qingdao's large trunk roads will either die or become sick. ”
"Why?" I'm still puzzled.
He said: "Now the snow, a sprinkle of salt, is indeed melted, the road is clear, everything is fine." This is all superficial. In fact, many people do not know that as long as it is sprinkled with 'snow melting agent', it can no longer be piled on sidewalk trees or grass. Do you know that the snow will melt in the future, and it will be salt water, and the trees and meadows will be able to withstand it? Can they not die and become sick? Who told the public that as long as it is sprinkled with 'snow melting agent', it cannot be piled into the tree pit? Who says? What is not said, everyone does not understand. It is to let this snow water flow into the sewer, and the sewer cannot withstand the corrosion of salt. ”
Look at the official, ask him to say this, I was really shocked out of a cold sweat. It turns out that science can't just play it, science also has side effects. Talking about only one subscience, and not the science of the second, is pseudoscience.
The old engineer also complained: "Did people not know that salt could melt snow during the Shen Honglie period?" Why don't people use it? People understand why. Now the people are good, try to save trouble. You'll have to wait and see. If this continues, the street trees in Qingdao will have to die completely. ”
Officer, it was the winter of 1985, and I remembered the old gentleman's words and waited and watched. Sure enough, within a few years, Qingdao's street trees did suffer a catastrophe. I don't want to say more about it later, or it is useless to say it.
Look at the officials, to say a bad word, in recent decades, God really has eyes, and the snow in Qingdao is getting less and less. Just imagine, if Qingdao is like Yantai Snow Nest, there are several heavy snows every year, I look at qingdao's soil, it will have long become saline and alkali land! It's horrible!
In fact, many people do not know that the so-called "snow melting agent" not only has a corrosive effect on street trees, gardens, and underground pipe networks, but also has a striking corrosive effect on the cement structure and road surface of highways and expressways, as well as various vehicles driving on all roads. Therefore, no matter how good the "snow melting agent" is, it should be used with caution. After using it, you can't go away, everything is fine, and you have to clean it quickly. Know that salt and soil are bitter enemies! Look, I am definitely not pretending to be shocking. （11）