The year witnessed "others are hell"
Also experience "others are heaven"
Illustration/Sunshine
Six mundane fragments
Text/Wang Xiaoni
Published in China News Weekly on February 8, 2021, No. 984
If you use an image to describe 2020, it will be a person wearing protective clothing who is constantly approaching. He was a big blob of white, even his eyes were hiding behind the goggles, it was impossible to recognize who it was, he couldn't feel his smell and temperature, he just knew that this was a person who was exactly like us.
The year was so close that it made everything very unusual.
Everyone's life is affected, travel is restricted, there are fewer places to go, and fewer people want to see, and the burst of information on the Internet makes us extra sensitive and vulnerable, paying special attention to those big things, and paying extra attention to the inconspicuous small things around us.
In February, the father and son who held the courier
It was raining lightly that day, wet and cold, and they passed in front of my balcony. It is precisely when the epidemic is concentrated, the newly restored express delivery can not enter the community, can only set up points on the street, and taking the express has become a very important thing.
Maybe it was too quiet around, and it seemed that the two people came over very loudly, first treading water. The father was in his thirties, holding a large cardboard box, the child was three or four years old, holding a small cardboard box, the two of them walked in a neat step one after the other, and the father shouted a password in the back. The child in front of him is very short, the cardboard box standing in front of him looks particularly large, it seems that the father and son are playing a game, rushing, and soon turning out of sight.
The rain wasn't heavy, just wetting my hair and shoulders. Originally, this bit of rain is nothing, the weight of the carton is not nothing, but this is an extraordinary period, think about this father and son, suddenly particularly sad, as if the more they seem to be indifferent, the more sad, the Italian film "Beautiful Life" is not also a game on the surface.
In February, three outbreaks occurred within three kilometers of my community, which could be found by opening my phone. The imminent arrival of the epidemic makes people vulnerable, especially unable to withstand events, and no one dares to say that they are safe. In case of infection, whether it is this father or the child, they are still in the mood to shout the password to play the game, the father must throw off the cardboard box, tightly wrap his arms around his child, in the face of flesh and bone separation, the courier is nothing.
Those days spent more time on the balcony than usual, and found the first person in the community to wear a white protective suit, the person appeared on time every day, the speaker broadcast to the "citizens and friends", it was not clear whether it was a man or a woman, he was the first ten days of the human tracks and voices.
In March, meat stall brother
Starting in early February, I go to the supermarket once every three days, usually at 11:00 a.m.
During that time, everyone's mood was depressed, and one or two people who were rarely seen on the road were walking in a hurry, and they might want to fight their insecurity with a hurry. That day, there was a delay in the entrance of the supermarket for twenty minutes, the temperature gun failed, and several people in a row showed fever, and they could not enter at the door. The security guard said that the amount of walking too fast was not accurate, and the cool breeze would be retested later. As a result, there was no one inside the supermarket, and five or six people were outside the door to dissipate heat.
It was hard to get a normal body temperature, and I met a very happy brother in the supermarket fresh meat stall.
It was a big one, and it was tied in a long apron that looked a little stiff.
Ask him if he can twist the filling. He said yes. Through the mask, you can also feel him smiling, and when you see a customer, you want to talk more. I said help wash it. He said no problem, and then said that it was not good to go under the water, it was better not to wash it, it was clean, and it was all new in the morning.
Ask him if he can sell one a day?
He said two ends.
I didn't expect that the supermarket was not big, there was no one empty, and the meat sold a lot.
He reminded me: It's better to come early, and my meat is hot early. Say lift a large piece of meat up, slap hard, clap loudly, especially like a happy fat man showing off his flesh to people who are hungry.
Bought meat out and was in a good mood.
In May, the wet market
Waking up at seven o'clock that day, it was best to go grocery shopping so early, while the sun had not yet risen.
Rarely get up early, I didn't expect the small market to be so lively, as if it was the first to return to normal. In addition to meat dishes, everything that can be placed is laid out, selling kitchen knives and selling cockroach ant medicine, selling sand shrimp and crabs, and selling pumpkin seedlings and pepper seedlings.
The small market is in the village of the city, a damp alley between a dozen floors, and there are not many times when the sun shines every day. In late January, all the entrances and exits of the Noh Wet Market were closed, and I met individuals on the main road and quickly avoided each other. By the end of March, there were vendors swimming around. Don't do business, what they eat, how they raise children, how they pay rent.
The morning sun shines throughout the alley, and everyone is good-looking, and cheerful, just so that they can squeeze together again. The masks selling meat on the chin, smoking cigarettes, fish sellers giving water to the golden warehouse, and selling rice noodles and fish balls and steamed tofu are all familiar faces over the past few years, and they can be recognized wearing masks. The Hunan aunt who often bought her eggs called the boss lady from afar, and all the men who saw her called the boss.
Hubei vegetable shop also opened, and his parsley red cabbage moss was particularly tender. Someone asked: This time I have been in my hometown for a long time. The owner said: Came back early, came back in March, stayed in the rental house for two months. A few months ago, he pulled a large barrier cloth outside the store, and then someone dug a hole in the cloth and hid behind to sell tofu from the mouth of the hole.
My mother-in-law who peeled beans in the evening that I wrote was also there, and she and her wife set up two different stalls under the cart, or greeted me when they saw me, saying that today's white eggplant was good, it was taken by others, planted by herself, and did not take medicine.
I said: I won't eat it.
She said: Delicious, very pink.
Every time I meet, I will buy her something. Her cart was still the same, surrounded by several mothers-in-law, two were helping her peel peas, one was chatting with her, and the child sleeping in the stroller next to the stroller was her grandson. It had been a few years since I had been buying her vegetables, and this morning I found out that she had a very serious disability in one leg.
There were two men sitting under the sun umbrella at the exit of the market, uncorated, apparently in charge of the market, smoking.
Everything is slowly recovering, but what is different, can feel, and suddenly can't say.
The morning of meeting each other again in the small alley was particularly pleasant, it turned out that everyone was fine, they all survived, as if there was nothing to carry, and they could pick vegetables and cut meat around in pieces, calculating what to eat on this day. Taste it, buy it, eat it fresh, suddenly turn the morning's people into relatives. The most healing thing is the Chinese wet market.
On the way home, I met my aunt who often came to the door to collect old books, and I said in passing: Come back, your hometown is Hubei. She immediately corrected me: No, it is Hunan. I clearly remember her as a native of Hubei, two children in college, both boys. Perhaps the least mentioned at this time is Hubei.
In May, a text message came from an unknown number
There is a text message from an unknown number: Sister Wang, hello, I am so-and-so from Yanchi County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, taxi driver, I haven't seen you for many years, are you okay?
Immediately remember who he is, and immediately reply: After so many years, you are all right, I am fine. I wish you happiness, happiness and health.
He said: Hello, Sister Wang, hello, a good person has a peaceful life!
I said: Take care! If you go to the salt pond again also take your car.
He said: Thank you Sister Wang, but I am already at home concentrating on taking my grandson.
Reply to him: How good, if you go again, you must be invited to dinner with your family.
He said: Welcome Sister Wang to the salt pond.
In the spring of 2006, he went to See a friend in Yanchi, Ningxia, and accidentally took his car in the county town, went to see Yandi two days apart, and asked him about his car again.
That day the wind blew, the sky was yellow, out of the county town to the direction of Shaanxi, soon disappeared, full of wild land wasteland, occasionally appeared a section of the Great Wall, said to be the Great Wall of Sui. Near noon, a figure waved at the car in the distance, and approached to see the car stopper holding a red quilt, a short girl, saying that she would take the baby back to her in-laws' house. Let her get in the car, the girl pulled the quilt in her arms and let us see her months old baby. Asked how old she was, she wow wow crying, said twenty-two, the other day and mother-in-law quarreled to carry the child back to the mother-in-law's house, just and the mother-in-law's stepmother quarreled, holding the child to go back to the mother-in-law's house.
Take the girl with the doll to a nearby bus stop where she can take the bus back to her in-laws' house. She asked me to call and say that I would be a relative in the future. At this time, the driver master spoke: saying that you baby, how to recognize your relatives, your aunt still has a matter, sending you here is the wrong thing about your aunt.
I wrote about this encounter, but I didn't expect that after 14 years, this taxi driver in the Great Northwest could find me and ask me for safety.
On the day of seeing the salt pond, I heard him say that he had been stationed with the unit to do business in Tamsui, Huizhou, Guangdong, and then the company withdrew to Ningxia, and he was laid off and drove a taxi. He said that he liked the southern sea, and in those years he took his family to the top revolving restaurant of Shenzhen Guoshang to eat morning tea, worried about high consumption, did not dare to order, and only knew at checkout that he had not yet reached the minimum consumption of 48 yuan per person. He lamented that his good time had stayed in the south, and that when he returned to the northwest, he had never seen anyone from the south, and that seeing him was the same as seeing relatives.
I don't know how he found the phone number I had changed in May 2020, and I don't know if he has a chance to come back to the south to see the sea.
2020, June 27, Fangcheng Port, Guangxi, a national 4A-level tourist attraction Bailangtan. Photography / Zhang Zhitao
In July, I went to see the sea with my classmates
P classmate from Guangzhou to Shenzhen on business said that by the way want to see me, looking at the line she sent over, I feel that I and her can not just have a meal and talk, we have to go to the sea together, this idea jumped out of the particularly strong.
Our university is on the beach, students after graduation as long as the sea is clinging to, in this special 2020, no matter how sunny and hot, we must also go to the beach with P to see, otherwise I am sorry that we experienced together this year.
Meet at the exit of the community. She said we hadn't seen each other in six years.
Oh, it's been so long, it doesn't seem to feel like it.
On a sunny day in the summer in Shenzhen, she was particularly sunny, and she put on a hat to shade her, but she said she didn't need to, as if she wanted to be hit by the strong sun on the beach for a day.
Originally prepared to take the winding mountain road, did not expect road maintenance, half of the walk forced to return to the highway. This winding mountain road is the best scenery, completely along the coastline, more than 30 years ago when I first arrived in Shenzhen to go to the eastern seaside this winding mountain road is the only way, when I was the same age as the current P, just 30 years old.
In 2020, the number of visits to the sea was the highest in recent years, and the beach was closed in early April, when many hotels were closed. Brush the health code again in May to get to the beach. July was much more relaxed, and there were almost no tourists on several occasions.
The beach is hot, but the sky is very blue, and there are big clouds running in the sky, and P goes to jump against the waves, and we laugh hard. Later, sitting on the hot sand, with the light and shadow under the tree moving the picnic mat to avoid the sun, more often we were in a daze, watching the endless waves on the sea, thinking about things that would be far away from reality for a while.
A hot and cheerful and simple day, did not say anything, did not mention the past, did not say the future, is the spirit of a move to see the sea, very simple.
P is the first friend to travel together in 2020, and the first to meet in more than half a year since several Haida students came to their home for Christmas in 2019.
In August, the first gathering
On Sunday, three classmates who worked in Shenzhen said they wanted to come and see me, which sounded like an understatement, saying that J was going back to Sichuan, and came over to say goodbye.
This is the first time in 2020 that someone has come to the house. It was agreed that they would arrive at 11:00 noon, but they all went the wrong way, holding a very heavy watermelon, and on such a hot day, the two groups of people waited together before entering the door together.
They like to eat the dumplings I wrapped, and agreed to wrap them together beforehand, and the leeks are grown themselves, really organic vegetables. They have never seen such a fine leek, so it can be seen that what they usually eat is wide-leaved, and the fertilizer is urged out. Several of them, some enrolled in 2006, some in 2010, and the latest have known each other for ten years, are old friends.
After graduating these years, they are not very good at cooking, clumsy, but excellent attitude, and they are busy together. When they were in college, they were also called to come to the house to eat, at that time they just did not interfere, there was no work in their eyes, now it is different, life is the most severe teacher.
No one can escape three meals a day, and they are slowly accumulating their own different stories, especially in this 2020. Listen to them that it is impossible to buy a house in Shenzhen. Freelance D said he only did one job this year, sitting on the mountain and eating the air, and there was no way to be in a hurry. And J is about to leave, she is seconded by the superior company in Shenzhen for the second time, always only borrowing and not transferring, this time back may not be easy to come again. Y said that she really couldn't stay, she went to Dongguan, said it was a little tragic, everyone quickly advised her not to, there is always a way to stay, but who knows. He also said that a classmate who did not come today was going to get married and was about to set up a banquet. It is also mentioned that a university teacher warned students at the graduation ceremony not to be exquisite egoists. Y rushed to wash the dishes, from the kitchen came the sound of water and dishes, we continued to giggle and say one sentence to the west, until it got dark, as if they were reluctant to go, they wanted to accompany me for a while.
Today is January 11, 2021, this record has a first draft, I feel that there is nothing more to say, this year has witnessed "others are hell", but also experienced "others are heaven".
The six clips above are all from ordinary notes. When I was a child, I was repeatedly admonished: to write on paper is equivalent to putting yourself in an unsafe situation. But after so many years, the habit of recording at will has not been changed, otherwise, many fleeting details will be forgotten, and finally may disappear clean, we may lose the past that we can trust, so this habit is not bad.
January 11th, good sun today. The sun is really good, it shines on everyone, making people feel hot, no matter who you are, whether you are infected, whether you have done good things, or whether you have done bad things, everyone is the same.
(The author is a poet and writer, whose representative works are "Lesson Notes", "People and Birds Fly Low", "My Paper Wraps My Fire", etc.)
Source: China News Weekly