Panorama of Playground Lane Photo/@Wang Zhao
In the early 1980s, the wind of reform and opening up blew the ancient city, and the pedestrians on Jiefang Road were weaving, and some prophetic Wenzhou people operated clothing, shoes and hats at the minsheng rental counter, and the housing was rented in the playground alley nearby. For the first time, playground lane people experienced the impact of the tide of business.
At first, several social offices retired, and the old lady who was idle at home saw the crowd on Jiefang Road and tried to cook corn to buy, but she did not expect that the business was surprisingly good. A dime to buy three or four raw, cooked to sell a dime a dime, the profit is quite considerable. Later, steamed sweet potatoes, boiled corn together, but all the active old people in the alley, big and small daughters-in-law have followed suit, with strollers, bamboo carts, bamboo baskets, three wheels, etc. to form an army of corn sellers, at home to cook for children some of the Sister-in-law Of the Green Mountain can not sit still, the use of leisure also quietly boiled corn, steamed sweet potatoes out to sell.
At the beginning, hindered by face or embarrassed, she replied shyly with a basket, buried her face when she saw acquaintances, and the neighbors sold in front of the people's livelihood, she ran to the intersection of four roads and five roads, in short, to avoid acquaintances. Although the sale is slow, but there is an entry every day, so hidden and tucked away for more than a year, with a meager income, let her see her own value and the hope of the whole family's life, since then she has put all her energy into this work, up to more than ten years, is the only person in the alley who insists on the longest.
Little pancakes, settle down Photo/@Network
Regarding the Chen family, it is a long story. Chen Qingshan, 1939~2013, a native of Shan County, Shandong Province, has a secondary school education and is one of the few intellectuals in Playground Lane. His parents went out to earn a living at the beginning of the Republic of China and settled in Luoyang, Henan. Due to the war, the famine, the Japanese occupation, and in 1942, the Central Plains was ravaged by "water, drought, locusts, and soup (Enbo)", and hunger was everywhere, and mourning was everywhere... In order to survive, the Chen family's parents fled to Shaanxi with their 3-year-old son. After coming to Xi'an, I used wooden rafters and bamboo mats to smear mud inside and outside, wheat grass to eat the top, and made a corner house (three tofu blocks) to settle down.
In the early 1960s, Chen Qingshan was recruited to work as a salesman in a cloth shop on East Avenue, and when he entered the marriage age, he wanted to find his crush in the big city of Xi'an, but his parents had to find him in his hometown. The order of the parents, the words of the matchmaker, it is better to respect than to obey the fate! When he met Feng Cuirong, who was 5 years younger than himself in the same village in his hometown, his heart was moved: "It turns out that there are beautiful girls in his hometown", and the two married each other. At that time, it was the "great repatriation", a couple of newlyweds received a permit and began to live separately in two places, and the wife's hukou had been pending, becoming a heart disease of the family.
There is land in the hometown, there are people in the city, it is said that people should be envied, but since the eldest daughter landed in 1970, rations have become the biggest obstacle to the family's life, and then the two daughters and one son have come to bring insurmountable mountains to the Chen family to eat. Chen Qingshan had to take the initiative to apply for transfer to the Xi'an Hydraulic Components Factory in The Textile City as a worker, in order to increase the monthly rations of four catties and four or five yuan of wages. Now his eldest daughter, who is more than half a hundred years old, said of the plight of that year: "At that time, the family did not have enough food to eat, from the beginning of primary school, every winter and summer vacation, I would go back to my hometown to farm, and I would not do it, because the grain grown could subsidize the family." ”
This pancake stall is much more advanced than Aoyama's local stall of that year Photo/@Network
The family struggled to get to the eighties. Coinciding with the reform and opening up, the household registration policy was gradually implemented, and the hukou of Qingshan sister-in-law and her four children was finally solved, which also fulfilled her original intention of "coming to Xi'an with a city hukou". At that time, the in-laws died, the husband went to work, she had to take care of the four children who were studying, but also to take time to sell boiled corn, without a trace of idleness, like a never-ending gyroscope. She was too busy to take her mother, who lived alone in her hometown, to Xi'an and asked her mother to help her with housework and accompany her out of the stall. It didn't take long for her mother to become a solid partner in her business and a steering wheel at home. No matter the life of the whole family, the children's food and clothing, learning, etc., they are all organized by Grandma.
Selling boiled corn and steamed sweet potatoes is often expelled by the city because of the occupation (business), which is not the case in the long run, so Qingshan sister-in-law rented a place under the eaves of a department store in the northwest corner of the intersection of Jiefang Road And Wulukou, and applied for an individual business license to sell soda and cold drinks. Seasonal reasons, coupled with limited conditions, in the summer in order to meet the needs of consumers ice, early in the morning riding a tricycle to the Shijia Street ice warehouse to buy ice, pull back to put the soda code on the side, in the winter coal stove on the basin hot water soaking, with the most primitive method to maintain the basic livelihood. Fortunately, guarding the intersection, they got up early and extended their business hours in the dark, so they sold a few more bottles of soda. In 1986, the construction of a circular flyover began at the intersection of Wulukou, the four corners were fenced, people had to detour from the side, and their stalls became the only way to pass, so in those months, sodas were sold much better than usual, and the mother and daughter were particularly satisfied.
Former Jiefang Road Ring Bridge Photo/@Zhang Yuming
Jiefang Road has more tourists, the east-west fifth road is a large east-west passage, after the completion of the ring bridge is often occupied by small vendors and tourists, some people peep out business opportunities, they sell pancakes and dishes with a sieve under the bridge. Pancakes are folk snacks in Henan, Shandong and other places, and Qingshan sister-in-law paid special attention to it after discovering it. She found that a pancake roll was a dime and a dime, while the profit from selling a bottle of soda was only three cents! She and her mother were overjoyed by their discovery and decided to try selling pancake cabbage.
For them, a dish of pancakes, stir-fried potato shreds, bean sprouts, etc., cold radish shreds, and pickles with roses are all home-cooked side dishes. They make these at home, put them in baskets and take them to the stalls, selling sodas and pancakes. At first, pancakes were not easy to sell, and she asked customers without knowing it, "Why didn't you buy mine?" The customer said: "People's round looks like they want to eat, your three flats and four rounds are not round, which has a selling appearance!" She suddenly understood the reason. Since then, she has deliberately gone to the pancake stall, where it is not good to eat at her own home, and only take it out to sell after seeing it. Later, he also summed up his experience: "The bread should be round, and the side should be light; the thickness should be evenly eaten with incense." There are many dishes, and the right amount, eat the tendons without flowing soup. "An expert in pancakes throughout!
Pancake roll dish picture/@web
In my impression, Sister-in-law Aoyama is not good at talking, and in the alley, in addition to asking for warmth with my mother, most of the people left are her busy figure. I don't know how she sells pancakes, imagining that she and her mother shouted at the passers-by in a Yulu accent, "Eat a pancake, pancake rolls!" "That picture must be interesting. Whether they shout or not, they take a seemingly sparse and ordinary small thing as a cause to get rid of poverty and get rich, and they have been doing it for more than ten years in one breath, which alone makes it difficult for me to forget.
The Chen family pancakes are soft and sticky, reasonable, economical and popular, making the mother and daughter full of energy. After a long period of experience, they have their own ideas, abandoning soda cold drinks and specializing in selling pancake rolls and porridge. Every day at home, they spread pancakes, boiled porridge, fried good dishes, put them in containers, as soon as the day was dark, the whole family began to load on the tricycle: pancakes, porridge, dishes, chopsticks, spoons, tables, stools, umbrellas... These trivial and complicated things, after skillful fiddling, are obediently straightened out in a few moments, following the general pace of walking to the designated position, such a scene is staged in the playground alley every day, day after day, has become an indelible landscape.
Relying on the sky to eat is often restricted by the weather, and when it is windy and rainy, they never interrupt their livelihood, and at this time they always put away their food and wait for the rain to stop, and then put the stalls in front of the train station after the rain stops. Grandma often said, "No matter how much you sell or how little you sell, you can't waste grain." Because pancakes spoil overnight, from the first day of the night market, their job is to "come out at sunset and rest at sunrise", and the hardships in between are known only to them. Long-term overload of labor, every second half of the night is particularly difficult to stay up, one is cold and the other is sleepy, every time at this time Grandma will look at the stall herself, let the girlfriend take a nap, that is, take a nap and often play things.
The place where Qingshan Sister-in-law used to sell soda and drinks on West Fifth Road has long changed its appearance Picture/@Xi'an Old Thing
One day, Aoyama sister-in-law saw that no one was pouring a hot water bottle on her lap and snoozing on the car, because she was dozing off, she closed her eyes and "passed out" in the past, two hours later the customer came up to her mother to wake her up, and when she woke up, she felt that her legs were burning and hurting, and when she returned home, she found that her legs were burned and blistered. Once again, there were customers in the nap to buy food, shouting that there was no movement, shouting twice to wake her up, and suddenly one arm reached into the hot porridge pot, burning the skin and flesh blurred, making people unbearable to touch. To this end, Brother Aoyama repeatedly advised her to return to Japan with her body as a heavy return, but she was intimidated by her "family opening their mouths and waiting to eat", and the stalls came out and the pancakes were sold. The two mouths did not mix their mouths less for this reason.
In the railway station stalls, it is inevitable to encounter scoundrels, eat the overlord meal, take it, eat the claim to keep accounts, etc. There are too many to list, when encountering these people, it is useless to say that it is light, it is heavy to blow the beard and stare, and even move roughly. At this time, the mother and daughter had to swallow their breath and sigh after the people walked away: "Hey! Sold for nothing again today! "Outside, there are often white eaters in the alleys.
In those years, there were a lot of outsiders in the playground lane, and the smoke and miasma all day long made some young people look like they did, and they did not go to eat white food. Once, a descendant came to the Chen family for food on credit many times, and Grandma said, "You have so many accounts on credit, let's settle the account today." The other party immediately changed his face and said, "I eat you because I can see you!" "Then the wrestling was rough. Aoyama's sister-in-law's son was present, only fourteen or fifteen years old at the time, but the other party was arrogant, and he rushed out from the house with a kitchen knife to desperately fight, and then he was held by his grandmother to death. The old man thought that money is a small thing, and it is not good to hurt anyone! While talking back, let me take the pancakes... It is such a small business, inadvertently there is a danger of intersecting with life, grievances, helplessness and only secret tears.
Once a corner of the playground lane Photo /@ Wang Jianhong
The efforts of grandma and mother, the four children look in the eyes and remember, they come back from school to finish their homework and start to help make pancakes, each of them is handy. When the children want to help when they are not busy, grandma will politely refuse, and let them go to study, write homework, and repeatedly emphasize "don't delay your studies!" "Four children, in addition to the eldest daughter auxiliary mother more, junior high school graduation work, the second daughter bachelor's degree, the third and fourth are college diplomas, a family of three college students not only let the Chen family raise their eyebrows, in the poor and weak playground alley also rang the bell."
In 1994, the Xinzhong Lane area was demolished and renovated, and the Qingshan brothers moved to Dongtianqiao, still showing stalls at the railway station on time every day, selling pancake rolls, porridge, etc. If she sells boiled corn to later, it has been fourteen or five years.
Aoyama's sister-in-law is not tall, a pair of wise eyes on the round face seem to be able to see through everything, and the long-term labor disguises her youth, and the busy figure is like a labor model in the pole factory. Her tireless, hard-working, never-ending figure is deeply imprinted in my mind. She is a member of the playground alley, the representative of the most grassroots and hard-working workers, and the most respectable person. Now, whenever I pass the five intersections, I will gaze affectionately at the place where she has stayed, and silently shout in my heart: Labor is the most glorious.
Xi'an Railway Station in the 1980s Photo/@ Network
Aoyama sister-in-law used to sell pancakes and porridge near the train station Photo /@ Xi'an old thing