“I’m sick and tired of not being allowed to go Home for New Year’s Eve. “In the afternoon of Jan. 11, Liu Xin received a message from her son He Zhe.
When she received the WeChat, she was buying vegetables at the town’s market. The town, located in the southwest of Shaoyang, Hunan Province, has stretched out a picture of the Chinese New Year: rows of whole fans of pork hanging from cast iron hooks in the butcher store; large roosters with red crowns stretching their necks in bamboo cages along the roadside; street vendors’ stalls are also set up with wet roasted peanuts, five-spice melon seeds, and colorful candies.
Liu Xin stood on the roadside, looking at his cell phone and froze, after half an hour, before sending three “love”, four “Hugs”, at the end, added a sentence, “to send you some good Food to. “
This is the first Time in 22 years, the son is not at his side for the Spring Festival.
During the past ten years, his son He Zhe went to high school in the provincial capital of Changsha, and later went to college in Beijing and worked. After college, only the Spring Festival, only once a year back to her side, do not have to see through the phone screen, see the big boy alive and well, listen to him around their ears chatter. The Spring Festival is a thread left in her hand by her “son”, a long-distance kite.
On December 23, 2020, an asymptomatic case of New Guan Pneumonia was diagnosed in Shunyi, Beijing, breaking the record of 165 consecutive days without a local case in Beijing. In the following month, 75 cases were diagnosed in Shunyi and Daxing, and eight districts were successively classified as medium-risk areas for the outbreak. In order to control the development of the Epidemic, the National health Commission advocated that everyone should stay at their place of work for the New Year as much as possible. Subsequently, 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across the country issued new policies to encourage “spending New Year’s Eve in place”, as well as The new policy encourages people to spend New Year’s Eve in their hometowns, as well as “epidemic prevention measures for people returning to their hometowns.
Under the initiative, most of the young people chose to stay in place for New Year’s Eve, and behind them were countless Parents like Liuxin waiting alone in their hometowns.
Fighting the quarantine
Throughout January, Liuxin was thinking about two things: what to prepare for the Chinese New Year and how to solve the problem of her son’s isolation when he returned from Beijing for the Spring Festival.
She is 45 years old and always wears a clean plain dress with a pink or green silk scarf tied around her neck, a dress that often makes people in town forget her age, some thinking she is only in her early 30s. When her son was three years old, she gave up her job as a factory accountant and worked for twenty years to take care of her son. The Family‘s income relies mainly on her husband’s salary as a government civil servant, and it is good to see that the cost of living in the town is low and the family lives a simple and peaceful Life.
In late December, when there were sporadic confirmed cases in Beijing, Liuxin became worried, and every time she saw from the news that there were confirmed cases, she had to check the distance to her son by entering the cell phone map one by one according to the address of the flow transfer. on December 25, a confirmed case of the workplace in Beijing Chaoyang’s Li Xing Xing Xing Center to work, she saw that the map showed only 3 km, and immediately panicked, rushed to call and let Her son stocked up on rice and vegetables, “in case it was blocked off, he wouldn’t starve”.
At that time, the news came out of the town that those who came back from Beijing would be quarantined at home for 14 days. At first she was optimistic and even a little excited, “the big deal is to stay at home and not go out, the family together in isolation afraid of what, and can also stay at home for 14 days. “Since May, my son went to Beijing from Hunan to work, has not seen more than seven months, 14 days of isolation, in Liu Xin’s opinion, than 7 days of Spring Festival holiday is much more cost-effective.
Unexpectedly, a day later, her husband brought new news from the street, saying that the local area would start the day the Spring Festival began, at the highway intersection and high-speed rail station guard, intercept all the people returning from Beijing, immediately sent to the county party school centralized isolation.
The county party school is at the far west end of town, a new white four-story school building, encased in the middle of several hills, a place away from the crowds. Last winter, when the new crown epidemic first hit, everyone in town stayed at home, and the Liuxin family always went out at 3 p.m., walked all the way to the party school, then climbed a low hill, looked at the stalled excavators and the yellow mud land halfway through construction, and discussed He Zhe’s future. At that time, He Zhe was frustrated with his forced interruption of his study abroad program and was anxiously posting his resume around to find a job and wait for the epidemic to pass. Liuxin, on the other hand, was peacefully enjoying the parent-child time that had been unexpectedly stretched by the epidemic.
Initially, Liu Xin thought that the county cadres were using ticket checks to intercept people returning from Beijing at the high-speed train station. She then thought of a way to have her son take the high-speed train to Changsha first, then contact a cab with the license plate number of Changsha and return to town so that the county cadres would think her son was coming back from Changsha and could escape quarantine. But He Zhe told her that people are going to check through the cell phone positioning, she had to give up this plan.
“If my son comes back only to go to the party school isolation, we will accompany him to the party school for the New Year. “Liu Xin later discussed with her husband, but also asked around with people, how big the kitchen in the party school, how much free space to move around, how much New Year’s food can be put ……
In addition to Liu Xin, in this Spring Festival, there are many mothers who are also “fighting” with various segregation policies, in their minds, segregation is fine, but I have to put me and my children The problem is that they have to keep me and my child together.
Liu Yuhui, who lives in Xiangtan, also started planning on December 27. The woman, who is usually an avid mahjong player, was staring at the news about the confirmed cases, while calculating what to do this Spring Festival.
Initially, she thought of the population movement during Chinese New Year, and if her daughter came back from Beijing, the risk of infection on the road was too great, so she wanted to drive from Hunan to Beijing to pick up her daughter, nearly 2,000 kilometers and two days away, but her daughter said not to worry, the epidemic was not that serious and did not want to bother.
Xiangtan CDC issued another notice on “strengthening the health management of the public during the Spring Festival” a day before the start of the Spring Festival. Liu Yuhui skimmed a bit, only to see the head to write, if someone comes back from abroad, the family needs to match a room with a separate bathroom for people isolated, “this is at home ‘Jail’,” she forwarded to her daughter flirtatiously said. As long as you can return home, Liu Yuhui felt better than staying outside, she thought well, buy a sufficient amount of disposable tableware, three meals a day are placed in front of the room.
The cell block has notices posted underneath the unit, if someone returns home from abroad, to report to the community in advance. The word that kept appearing in the news during this time was “New Year’s Eve in place”. She thought to herself, there is only one big year, or have to come back, “otherwise what is this New Year? “
At the end of January, there was a new notice that train tickets and airline tickets could be refunded and changed for free. More and more measures are saying, “Stay where you are. “Liu Yuhui guessed that is not the new crown epidemic has become serious? Daughter delayed to buy the return ticket, she called, “If you feel bad to return, it is better not to return, for fear of something. “When riding in the car, Liu Yuhui saw some slogans hanging on the road,” advocating the public masses to spend the Spring Festival in Tam “, “encourage foreigners in Tam to spend the New Year in place”. The old man at home read the news and issued a complaint, “Saying that spending the New Year in place is so nice, is it not just spending the New Year outside? “
Liu Yuhui also wants to go to Beijing to find his daughter, “can not return, I go over still can not? “Nucleic acid testing, home isolation, these troubles compared to reuniting with his daughter for the New Year, it is not a matter.
But not long after, the unit also notified, can not go to Beijing, because there are constantly new confirmed cases emerge.
The meaning of the reunion
February 5, the 24th day of the lunar month, is the traditional Chinese New Year in the south. Liu Xin found herself almost forgetting this day. Only when she saw her neighbor’s son return did she suddenly realize that in less than seven days, it would be Chinese New Year.
In an ordinary year, the Chinese New Year is spent on the busy preparations before the first month comes. Every year near the Spring Festival, Liu Xin picked up her son from school early. On the twenty-fourth day of the lunar month, we have to go to the town to buy fried goods from a store in Shandong Province, and we have to pick the fried and dried melon seeds, and the candy has to match the color, wrapped in red plastic bags and carried back heavily.
On the twenty-seventh day of the lunar month, she would take her son to the countryside to watch the killing of a pig, the most important ritual in preparation for the Chinese New Year in the local countryside. She would tell her son to go to bed early the day before, “I’ll take you to see the pig kill tomorrow morning, it’s fun. He Zhe heard this every year and watched the pig killing every year on the 27th day of the lunar month, the scene of the pig killing was actually not a novelty to him.
He only remembers the first time, a group of men wearing black rain boots, wide hats over the head, camouflage clothing splattered with yellow dirt and mud everywhere, a knife stabbed in, the roar of the pig shook the house, he closed his eyes, don’t face away, and so no sound, and then look back, the pig is all limp in a large wooden basin full of hot water. After killing the pig, there is always a banquet waiting. At the banquet, everyone’s black and red faces are glowing, eating new meat, opening new wine, holding glasses, you and I, full of pride and celebration.
Liu Xin would always give his son a big piece of the best meat. “Taste this, this taste where else can you eat! “
On the night of New Year’s Eve, before the New Year’s Eve dinner starts at six o’clock, there is a ceremony waiting there, which is called “singing wild” by the people of western Hunan. The door should be completely open at ninety degrees, the table should be prepared with the favorite dishes of the deceased relatives in their lifetime, the wine should be poured, and it is believed that at such a time, the spirits of the loved ones will gently come to the front, when people put their hands together and extend their arms long, while worshiping and talking, all the words, the spirits of the loved ones can hear. Although it is “singing”, but the words are extremely common, what did last year, what will be done next year.
When singing in the wild at home, He Zhe never can naturally complete this process, he is always embarrassed to talk to the air, so he quietly followed his parents, put the words in his heart, to tell grandparents again. Parents in the front while worshipping, saying what they have to say, while sweeping behind with the afterglow, quietly said, “you have to tell grandparents ah, begging ancestors are not to bless you, what else do we have to bless? “
The past year after year, are praying that the son can get a good high school, a good university, and later, into the study abroad can be all right. This time, the son is not at home, Liu Xin do not know what to say when singing wild. “Spring Festival how can not go home? “She remembers when she was as old as her son, every year the Spring Festival must go home. At that time, a dozen kilometers by boat on the water, once in the village, the door of the plum tree, the small pond in front of the house, the sound of her father sitting on a small stool sharpening knives scraping fish scales, all at once let her find the feeling of home.
Although her daughter is not coming back, Liu Yuhui’s Spring Festival is still progressing according to plan, with her mother-in-law and parents at home and the whole family getting together for a reunion.
But without her daughter, the Spring Festival is even more difficult for her. Every year, from the 23rd of the lunar month, the couple would argue over whether to go to her mother-in-law’s house or her mother’s house. She had a bad relationship with her mother-in-law, and never called her “mom”, and she could count on one hand the number of things her mother-in-law and daughter-in-law had said.
She had to deal with her in-laws on New Year’s Eve, barely eat a New Year’s Eve dinner, and then run back to her mother’s house early in the morning, with her brother and sister-in-law and parents, a family of 13 people waiting for a reunion. But this table, even blood family members, there are also people who hate. The second brother borrowed a sum of money from her five years ago and never said when he could return it. Two years ago, the Spring Festival, when the second brother drove back a new car, but also did not mention the money, look at their own family for more than ten years did not change the manual gearbox broken car, she was angry stomping her feet, “money how not to pay back! “. She and the second brother have a dislike in their hearts, usually not even telephone.
But as long as it is the New Year, regardless of what unhappiness, regardless of whether to make money this year, sitting at this table, thirteen small glasses of wine or to clink together, reunion. The emotions of the New Year always made her struggle until gradually numbed.
As her daughter grew up, she had company, holding back and resenting someone who cared. Her daughter always stood in the same boat as her. On New Year’s Eve, with the Spring Festival dinner on TV, her mother-in-law pulled a stool and sat on one side, her husband was busy in the kitchen, helping to prepare the New Year’s Eve dinner, and she and her daughter were sitting on the sofa, “I don’t see him doing any housework at home. “My daughter whispered what she always minded, “Next year, can we spend New Year’s Eve at grandma’s house or our own house? She pursed her lips and laughed bitterly, but instead reassured her daughter that she could endure it and it would pass.
This year, the New Year’s dinner and reunion will remain the same, the only warmth in Liu Yuhui’s heart, but is not around anymore.
“Satellite”
Every year, once the Chinese New Year is over, the short reunion ends, her son leaves home, her husband resumes work, and Liu Xin is always the last in the family to come out of the sadness.
She would post a circle of friends on the day her son left home again, a photo of an empty room with the caption, “My son went to school, and my mom was dazed at home. “
Year after year, the same photo, the same caption, on the same day posted in the circle of friends. Only this year, this circle of friends in advance, the text has also become: “son can not come home, mom at home dull. “
The joy of looking forward to her son’s return home for the Chinese New Year, to the loss of sending him out, Liu Xin has been repeating for ten years. When her son was 12 years old, she sent him from the town to the provincial capital of Changsha to read boarding junior high school, secondary school in Hunan Province is very heavy coursework, even in the summer and winter, they have to stay in school to make up for it, only the Spring Festival a holiday. Every year, Liu Xin picked up her son on the day of Chinese New Year and sent him back to school afterwards.
Over the years, the cell phone was the only channel of communication between Liu Xin and He Zhe.
In middle school, the school only let use the senior phone, no network function, can only call. Every night, Liuxin had a long phone call with his son. There was not much in the closed middle school life, only intensive exams and review summaries of the exams, and He Zhe’s phone calls were always about the stress of the exams.
After my son went to college, his cell phone had WeChat, which has a group chat function that allows sending pictures and links, making the window of communication a little wider again. She could feel that her son was no longer talking about his frustrations and unhappiness on the phone, but was always cheeky and joking. She knew that after years of living in a different place, her son had gradually learned how to solve problems by looking for teachers and classmates around him, and that he was no longer the first person he thought to ask for help when he was frustrated.
The parents in Liu Xin’s WeChat group call their children “satellites,” and every time their children buy tickets to go home for the Spring Festival, they tacitly agree to send a circle of friends –The satellite has sent a return signal. This coded language, only the parents of children who are always wandering outside, can instantly understand.
Willowheart was not willing to find a solution for her son, and when there was no problem, she went to discover it.
When she was in college, Willowheart and her husband still had a general idea of the subjects her son would take, and during finals season would ask, “Are you preparing for advanced math or for linear algebra? Even though they didn’t know what was behind these terms and couldn’t help, they always asked, as if they knew what their son was working on in this way and had a sense of solidity in their hearts.
After going to work, but found it difficult to grasp the son’s movement, once he studied, parents can probably guess what a student’s life is busy, nothing more than classes, reading, revision, exams, following those imaginary, can always feel the outline of his life all the way.
But after he worked, the rope was broken, and his parents only knew that he was “working”, but as for “They didn’t know what he was doing at work, so they couldn’t talk about it, so they could only repeat some trivial things at home. The frequency of phone calls also dropped from once a day to once a week because of their son’s work exhaustion. Their new method is to look at the “WeChat Sports” step record, 10,000 steps is a standard water level, below 5,000 steps, they have to call to ask, how Stay at home today did not go out? More than 20,000 steps, they have to ask clearly, today busy with what went, walking so much.
People in the town do not understand, in their view, “just one son, send out, not afraid to lose a son in vain in the future. “Willow heart not in front of the town people to express their own claims, only in front of their own son to say,” what do you mean lost? I want my son to be successful, a son who is not successful in the house, I immediately take the broom to drive out. “
Every year when the Spring Festival is approaching, acquaintances in town will ask Liu Xin, “When will my son come back? “After the Chinese New Year, people ask her again, “When will you go back to school? She politely replied, but in the back of her mind she always thought, “These people are too low, they are “going to “school”, not “back to school”, my son has only one home, only when you go home, it is “back”, go somewhere else, not “back”. “.
This year again to the Spring Festival is approaching, the people in town again began to ask Liu Xin, “When will my son come back ah? She straightened her back, but did not know how to answer. When she got home at night, her husband hadn’t finished work yet, and when she turned on the lights, it was cold everywhere in the house. There was no time like this day when she was looking forward to a son who was not productive but kept her side.
“I wish I had two sons, one productive and out there fighting, and one unproductive and at home with me.”
“Learn to let go.”
Liu Yuhui’s daughter, who left her life four years ago when she went to study in Guangzhou. She never thought that her daughter’s growth and farewell came so suddenly and decisively.
Initially, when her daughter was studying, she went to Guangzhou every half month, and it only took three hours by high-speed train from Xiangtan to Guangzhou. Every time she went, she stayed in a hotel in front of the school. The room facilities were old and the sound insulation was not good, so when the two of them were lying in bed watching TV, they could hear the chatter in the next room. In the process of frequent visits to her daughter, she suddenly came up with an idea, “If I had a house in Guangzhou, it would not be able to meet my daughter’s determination to break into the world, but also not far from me? “
Liu Yuhui remembered the house in Hunan that had not been renovated, and sold it to make a down payment in Guangzhou. She wants to take advantage of her ability, both as an investment and to buy a stable for her daughter. “Are you just going to develop in Guangzhou? “Liu Yuhui asked this question several times, and her daughter’s answer was always ambiguous. Liu Yuhui still made a decision, “If you buy a house, you certainly can’t run away. “
She could not afford to buy a new property in Guangzhou city, the agent took to see a set of housing built in the 1990s, into the building, surrounded by black, climbing along the handrail to the sixth floor, standing at the door of the house, she did not know where to stretch her feet, the wooden floor of the living room bulging one after another bubble, the walls yellowed, a piece down, the kitchen pipes exposed to the outside are rust, the toilet a musty smell, she rushed back out. She rushed out. In Hunan, people buy new houses, she has never seen such a dilapidated one now.
“I wouldn’t stay in Guangzhou for a house. “Her daughter never accompanies her to look at houses. It was hot in the summer, and Liu Yuhui ran around Guangzhou city, looking at five or six sets a day. She called her daughter to discuss, “You pay for it yourselves, so decide for yourselves. “Liu Yuhui did not want to care about her daughter’s emotions, thinking to buy a set first,” anyway, it is all hers. “
Finally settled on that set of broken house, the price is right, and close to the city. She thought that the suite has two bedrooms, and so the daughter graduated, she retired early, the house to her daughter, the hut to live on their own, three meals a day with her daughter.
The day of the delivery, she handed the key to her daughter, was pushed back, repeated over and over again, “This is your room, I really do not want. The people coming out of the subway station looked at them, and Liu Yuhui felt that her face could not be embarrassed, her heart was on fire, and she cursed in dialect, “You wolf, we did all this for you. You, you day after day here what face. “
Daughter is like a spring, Liu Yuhui just hold tight, let go of the hand, but found that the bounce in the opposite direction. The job she introduced to her daughter was put off, and she went to Shanghai and Beijing by herself. The daughter on the phone was very determined, saying not to force her. Liu Yuhui could not accept it, hysterically shouting into the phone, you do not come back we will break off the relationship between mother and daughter, there cried and cried no sound, the phone hung up. But after the quarrel, in less than ten minutes, Liu Yuhui will still call the phone, pretending that nothing has happened and ask, “What do you want to eat lately? Mom will send you. “
Last Spring Festival, my daughter came home from Beijing for a month, and because of the epidemic, the family was isolated at home, and the only activity was for my husband to take the family for a walk in his car. They drove all the way west along the river, came to a riverbank, the grass are withered, sitting on the head does not tie, the sun shines down, softening the sun, the daughter’s head leaning against her, “out of this more than a year, in fact, very tired …… “The words are very slow, Liu Yuhui interrupted,” then you go to Guangzhou or go home ah. “
“I just want to be by myself. In order to prove that I can, internship that year I did not ask you for money, with chanting, borrowing, credit cards. Only after six months of official work, almost paid off. “My daughter lowered her head and pulled off the dead grass one by one,” I just want to prove that I can really do it alone. “Liu Yuhui do not know what to say, feel heartbroken, but still do not quite understand such a toss.
The young people are running out in waves. Shandong Zhaoyuan Gao Chuntang also do not understand what in the end run out to do, his pair of children, daughter in Beijing as a beautician, son in Shanghai foreign enterprises, in addition to this, he also said no other more things. But that didn’t stop him from settling his days down.
Without preparing sugar gourds or offering sacrifices to the God of Zao, on this day of the New Year, Gao Chuntang still drapes a dark blue cotton coat, slips on a pair of cotton slippers, and slowly scoops a scoop of cornmeal mixed with vegetable leaves and pours it into a plastic pot, where the chicks dart over to form a circle and peck at it. He continued to feed a circle of sheep, pigs and geese, waiting for his wife to come up the hill to help.
In May 2020, Gao Chuntang contracted a piece of land in the hills near the village to do some farming business. Sheep, pigs, chickens, geese …… these years, people in the city are keen to eat some natural food, the village one after another to do farming to earn some money, he looked at this business, decided to take advantage of the body still can, and then do two years, to continue to save some wife to his son.
A while ago, my son and daughter called and said they would not go home for the New Year, they said they understood, “the epidemic is not well controlled, there are risks on the road. “
In previous years, these days have been busy, the home from inside to outside to clean up, with a broom to the ceiling of the ash are down, bed sheets and covers are all washed and changed, and then ready for the New Year’s Eve dinner of fish, leg of lamb, seafood, beef …… steamed a large pot of steamed buns outside can not eat Shandong, in Shandong, the New Year will be steamed on a pot of colorful The simplest is to print a red “fu” character on a round steamed bun. In the simplest case, a red “Fu” character is printed on the round steamed bun; in the more complicated case, the bun is made into various shapes, animals, peaches, and every New Year, a pot of colorful Every New Year, a pot of colorful “biscuits” is put on the table, and the year begins.
Now, the children are not back, the couple simply put their minds on making money. The couple took orders for chickens from the town, and in the morning, before dawn, they began to work on killing chickens, and in the afternoon, they delivered them to the door. This is the family’s own chicken run, every time he goes to send chicken, he thought if the children can also taste how good, but now I do not know, when the son will be able to eat.
As the Spring Festival gets closer and closer, the young people who stay at work to “spend the New Year on the spot”, have also opened up their positions and started making plans for the upcoming Spring Festival, for them For them, this is the first Chinese New Year that revolves around their social connections and entertainment habits, and it’s also a time to be a real “adult”. They started posting on Douban, renting a bed and breakfast, playing “werewolf” for New Year’s Eve, or shouting on Weibo to form a mahjong game. He Zhe decided to buy a bunch of snacks, download a bunch of movies, and have a drunken “decadence” in his rented house in Beijing.
Liu Yuhui called her daughter three times a day, repeatedly confirming whether she was coming home for New Year’s Eve or not. She thought, if her daughter really can not return, then she will not go back to her mother’s house this year, and her husband drove north on the second day, “always reunion. “
Liu Xin had a terrible dream of her son being swept away by the flood. After waking up, she was relieved that it was just a dream, while thinking she was going to “lose” the son after all, from ten years ago, she sent her son out of the house the day, it is time to The day she sent him out of the house ten years ago, it was time to slowly learn how to let go.
(Liu Xin, He Zhe, Liu Yuhui and Gao Chuntang are all pseudonyms in this article)
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