A bowl of oil tofu vermicelli soup

One day in 1971, I was 7 years old. My father took me on Jinling East Road in Shanghai. Seeing an individual vendor selling oil tofu vermicelli soup on the side of the road, my father's eyes lit up, so he pulled me to sit down and ate it with relish.

This is 1971, individual vendors are very rare, appearing in jinling east road, which not only retains the memories of the past paper drunk gold fans, but also has just been baptized by the Cultural Revolution, which is even more incredible. What is even more eye-catching is that my father is still wearing a military uniform, exuding a heroic military temperament. In this way, soldiers, children, Jinling East Road, oil tofu vermicelli soup stalls, cultural revolution, all kinds of coincidences, constituted a shocking spectacle that could not be sought in that era.

This is the first time I have eaten oil tofu vermicelli soup, for a child who grew up in scarcity, this bowl of oil tofu vermicelli soup, delicious and refreshing, has a completely different flavor from the usual meals eaten at home, extraordinary, refreshing.

Just as we were eating, there were some onlookers gathered around us. I was a precocious child, sensitive to the eyes of others very early, and at that time I felt that there were many different things in the eyes of these viewers: surprise, curiosity, amusement, confusion, contempt... I was a little restless, hoping to finish eating quickly, but my father was not affected in the slightest, and leisurely ate his oil tofu vermicelli soup in these eyes.

At this time, a middle-aged man of about 40 years old, with thin white and delicate eyes in the crowd, asked his father a question:

"Is it delicious?"

His tone was mixed with curiosity and teasing, and I can't forget the disgust of this exquisite middle-aged man at that moment. As a child, for the first time, I felt the full malice from the adult world. Of course, this may also be the illusion of an overly sensitive child. In any case, I felt humiliated.

Then the father smiled and replied, "It's delicious." ”

I will never forget the tone and look of my father's voice and expression in answering this ambiguous question: gentle, natural, sincere. The middle-aged man in the glasses seemed a little satisfied with this answer, and seemed a little lost.

My shame and uneasiness seemed to have suddenly disappeared, and we calmly continued to eat the oil tofu vermicelli soup, at a small stall on Jinling East Road, in 1971.