Memories of Maranhua

Everyone's childhood is different. My daughter has loved the cartoon "Winnie the Witch" these days, even if it is the English version, Winnie has a cat, Winnie dances a magic wand and shouts "Abrakandabra"!

I also watched an animated film in my childhood, the title of the film is "Ma Lanhua", there is also a cat in the film, the protagonist reads "Ma Lan Hua Ma Lan Hua, the wind and rain are not afraid, hard-working people are talking, please blossom immediately", Ma Lan Hua rose to the sky, golden light, shining on the world!

But I never knew what the real maran looked like.

Many years later, when I went to Xinjiang, the first time was to go to the field to investigate the drip irrigation project, the off-road vehicle passed, the machine ploughing road, layers of floating soil were raised, I covered my nose, tiptoed to walk, I was surprised to find that there were flowers and grasses creeping on the side of the road, small, blooming blue flowers, in such a dry plug, I could see such beautiful flowers, and it was my favorite light blue.

Maran flowers

The second time I saw this little blue flower, I also went to the countryside. He went to visit the home of a Uighur girl with the school teacher. After leaving the asphalt road, I passed through a towering poplar forest and turned into a dirt road in the countryside. This time, however, there was no dust. The accompanying village cadre told me that the little girl's family knew that we were coming, and they had swept the road yesterday and had just sprinkled water. The little girl's home was in a large field of farmland, water diverted for irrigation, the Gobi in the distance, and the bare mountains in the distance. The house was low, big and clean, but rammed. Such houses can not be seen in southern Xinjiang now, and when we were there, we began a large-scale housing project, and the villagers had to move into the newly built red brick houses.

I have now forgotten how we were welcomed at the little girl's house, the Uyghurs are a hospitable ethnic group, and I now like to eat mixed noodles is also a habit formed at that time; now I often think about the bread, which is also a delicacy in Xinjiang, but unfortunately the south can't buy it, and it can't be made. Of course, I still remember the little girl standing at the door of the house, looking at us, a red flowered dress, and a red scarf floating on her chest. When I got into the car, I looked down and saw small blue flowers creeping on the ground, light blue, my favorite.

On the way back, I don't know when I sprinkled water again. In southern Xinjiang, water is precious. Before I came to Xinjiang, I thought, what can I do when I go to Xinjiang? What can be left behind? I'll plant a tree, wash my clothes every day after washing my face, and then pour water on the tree! When I arrived in southern Xinjiang, I knew, Oh, this is not the case!

I asked the comrades in the same car that I often saw a small blue flower here, and I just saw it again in the field. A young man replied, you should be talking about maranhua! Think about it and say that we have a Malan base here, and Deputy County Governor Zhang worked there. It turned out that this was the ma lan flower, small, very beautiful, if it did not grow at the foot of the Tianshan Mountain, but it was not remarkable.

The Malan base is in Xinjiang, and the place where we worked is separated by the Tianshan Mountains, and it is said that when the troops built the base there in the 1950s, it was when the Malan flowers were in full bloom, and the commander named this place the Malan base, which is the place where China's first atomic bomb exploded. The commander, also surnamed Zhang, fought in Shangganling.

One of the teachers who came with me to aid Xinjiang came out of the Malan base and settled in Wenzhou, and later, because he wanted to xinjiang, he signed up to help Xinjiang. I once asked her why she was going back to Xinjiang again, and she smiled and said nothing. Or maybe I ask stupidly, sometimes there are so many whys in life. When Deputy County Governor Zhang learned that there were comrades-in-arms from the Malan base in the aid team, he was quite excited and asked me to arrange for me to meet him. I told this eldest sister, but she said, or not to go, I will be nervous when I see the leader, I don't know what to say when the time comes. Yes, there are also some feelings that cannot be expressed in words.

When I was in Xinjiang, I was playing "Wenzhou Family", and the end of the film was the Yueqing folk song "To the Birds"; after I returned to Yueqing, I once watched TV, and it was "There is a Place Called Malan".

It has been 8 years since I left Xinjiang in the blink of an eye, and I often silently recite "Ma Lan Hua Ma Lan Hua, the wind and rain are not afraid, the industrious people are talking, please blossom immediately"! I miss the maran flowers that bloomed at the foot of the mountain that day, and I miss the place called Malan that I have never been to!

(Yu Ruopeng, November 1, 2021)