Lutzer: When the oil tea is ripe

Text/Luce Editor/Goose

In the homeland of the southern country, the indispensable cooking oil comes from peanuts and soybeans, but also from another crop, oil tea. It is an evergreen tree with four seasons. The branches spread out, shaped like a large umbrella, and the height is about a long time. Its fruit is like a green plum, and when ripe, it is green and round, full of branches, and bent branches. Because generations of hometown people cherish this precious oil crop that does not occupy the field, but only grows on the mountain, it is well cared for and cultivated. Continuous cultivation, weeding every year, hundreds of years down, the formation of a large area of green onion oil tea forest. This piece of camellia oleifera canopy covers the genus, intersecting branches, forming a piece of thick shade world. The shade is empty and transparent, and it is a good place to rest and play. Therefore, whenever the oil tea is ripe, it is also the time when the hometown people are most looking forward to, the most relaxed, and the most happy. Because, to pick camellia oleifera fruit can not only get the cooking oil that depends on survival all year round, but also the most relaxed and pleasant labor, but also take the opportunity to play in the camellia oleifera forest, play, laugh and sing, and indulge in the release of their feelings.

To this end, when the production team gave the order to pick oil tea the next day, it was as if the pot had been blown up. At dusk, every household is busy washing bamboo baskets by streams or ponds and cutting wooden hooks for the next day to go up the mountain to pick camellia oleifera fruits. It presents a busy, lively scene.

The next day, we set off. Men and women, young and old, dressed in colorful clothes, all carrying bamboo baskets and wooden hooks in their hands, marched on the rugged mountain road, forming a strange team. From a distance, it looks like a long winding dragon passing through the mountains, which is spectacular.

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As soon as they arrived in the oil tea forest, people invited a group to accompany them, scattered in a nest of wind, and took care of themselves to pick.

Women like to pick tea trees in pairs of threes and threes; because girlfriends are good enough to talk to the nearest lagua; men like to step on the poles to pick, because it is difficult for women to reach the place, there are many oil tea fruits; children like to climb on the branches to pick, because it is the place where adults are dry-eyed and difficult to care...

For a time, the oil tea forest was lively, talking and laughing, and nagging. Because the tea forest is dense and hidden, there is no embarrassment and shyness, and people become bold. Talking loudly and jokingly, some women also sang mountain songs. You listen:

Tea forest green scenery is good,

Tree tree tea peach cracked mouth smile,

Men and women, young and old, are busy picking,

Sweet in the heart! ......

The bolder the woman, the more arrogant the man becomes when he sees it. Some even sing some flirtatious and provocative love songs:

Since the day I beat my sister,

Three meals a day are tasteless,

If the old sister sleeps together,

When a cow makes a horse there is no regret

"Yo ho!" "Yo ho" Every mountain song, according to the custom, will arouse people's echo. Sometimes the men's mountain songs are too "earthy", the women will laugh and call them "dogs", and the old people will accuse them of being "improper". Talk too much, men will also be unconvinced to say, you are also young, you are not the same when you were young?

Mountain songs, like firecrackers exploding in the oil tea forest, a burst of echoes like waves floating in the air of the oil tea forest... At the climax, people are excited, people are jubilant, people are agitated. People shout, people go wild!

The forms of singing are varied.

Sometimes it is a continuous singing, one person and one sentence, one after another, singing to each other. Originally, someone was singing at the mountain ravine, and someone was singing at the Lengbuding Pass. This suddenly burst out in the east or west, and it is interesting to be funny.

Sometimes it's a solo singing, it's just one person singing. There are some folk love and sorrow stories circulating in mountain villages, which have long been passed down to generations of descendants through the form of mountain songs, and people have long been familiar with them. Whenever there is such a relaxing moment as picking oil tea, people can't help but sing it out, entertaining the emotions and expressing their feelings.

Sometimes it's a duet, and two people sing against each other. Many love songs are sung in front of each other; one plays the hero, one plays the heroine, and the two answer one-on-one like an act, interpreting a love story.

In the midst of laughter and laughter, mountain songs, soon, a morning passed, and people also picked a basket of oil tea peaches, and poured them into the large basket in the middle of the tea forest, taking the opportunity to eat lunch.

Lunch in the camellia oleifera forest has another unique scenery. In the oil tea forest under the shade, it is empty and comfortable, people are three or three in twos, with the family as a unit, the east group, the west group, each taking out their own dry food, such as fan dry, fan chu bad, zi, rice, biscuits... Start enjoying. In order to express affection, they will also exchange their own food with each other, you taste mine, I taste yours. Some of the men also secretly used gourds to sell water and wine and enjoyed them alone; smokers also took the opportunity to swallow "clouds" and spit "fog" and indulge in enjoyment. Children love to chase and fight in the open woods, hiding from cats and cats. It was just a moment's rest, and soon people were going back to the intense picking. It wasn't until the sun went down and the twilight rose that the villagers carried a full load of oil tea peaches home.

The camellia oleifera peach that is picked back, after being exposed by the sun, cracks the skin sac to reveal the shiny black kernel, which is what people need, called "Muzi". This is also a good material for oil extraction. The squeezed wood catalpa oil is environmentally friendly, pristine, pollution-free, and has medicinal value. Older generations of hometown people often use it to smear mosquito bites, or boils and carbuncles.

Therefore, peeling the wood zi kernel is another process when the oil tea is ripe. When the wood is peeled, it has become another scenery for the hometown people to harvest oil tea.

In the ancestral hall or hall of their hometown, people take baskets and baskets, groups of three or five, or groups of four or five, during which old women like to sit together because their parents are short, chattering, and there are endless topics; young women or girlfriends like to sit in a pile, because they have many secrets and need to speak quietly or confidants. Kids like to get together because they have a lot of mischievousness and childlike fun. People filled the peaches with cracked skin sacs and peeled them on the basket. The oily black shiny wooden ziren, under the dexterous hands of the people, gradually piled up into a pile of hills.

When the peeled wood is dried on the drying field, the rest is the business of the men. They picked the dried wood nuts to the oil press room, and used the difference between the mountains and streams as a driving force to crush the wood catalpa kernels and squeeze out the best wood tea oil. The remaining wood bran is a good product for washing clothes and shampooing.

A load of bright wooden tea oil was picked up and distributed to all households. People were filled with joy with cans, urns, buckets, and busy. It is full of the joy and joy of the harvest.

At night, smoke rose from the roofs of every house, and every house sounded the sound of crackling oil, and people were busy frying oil fruits, fried rice dumplings, fried slices, fried flour skins, fried peanuts, fried New Year goods...

Above the village, a strong smell of fried oil wafted out and the laughter of each family...

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Work unit: Gannan Daily Address: No. 3, Gongbaofu, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province

Biography

Lu Ce: Member of the Chinese Writers Association. He is a member of the World Chinese Writers and Artists Association in China. He is a member of the Chinese Prose Literature Association. Chief Editor Title. He began his literary career in 1960. He has published nearly 4 million words. More than 50 awards have been awarded. Among them, he has won the first prize of the National Essay Contest of the Selected Essays of the Chinese Academy of Arts: the second prize of the Chinese Academy of Arts; many works have been selected into the "Chinese Prose Series" and "China's Most Beautiful Prose". He has published more than ten monographs, including the poetry collection "Spring Song Collection", the reportage collection "Stars Can Can", the novel prose collection "Tea Tree Pass", the short story collection "Red Plum Blossoms", the prose essay collection "Qingjiang Water Under the Lonely Platform", the commentary collection "Aesthetic Emotions of Literature", the long novel "Nantian Beacon Fire", "Little Ghost Class", "Three Years of Guerrilla Warfare", and "Women in the Mountains".