When I was in the village, there were two good fellows, an old man and a young man, they knew each other in a village, but basically did not cross paths, and I was a single line of contact. It is these two people in that year, let me know, that year of the human world and the chaos and brightness of human nature.
The seventh master raised pigs in the team’s pig farm. In addition to eating a mouthful of food every day, he grew up in the pig farm, from morning to night. I slept in the pig farm and slept on a bed with the Seventh Master.
At that time, every night when I came back from the field and circled the sheep, I went back to the youth compound to eat, and after eating, I sometimes bragged with the youth, and sometimes went to the homes of the good old folks to string, all of which was idle, passing the monotonous and unchanging days. Every night, I had enough of playing outside and went back to sleep in the piggery, the seventh grandfather left me the gate of the piggery, I do not go back, he never sleep first. If I come back late, always say to him, let him bother, next time early. This time, he would say, young people love to move, you go play your, I’m old, light consciousness.
If I come back early, the seventh grandfather will tell me about his youth, the two of us intersecting topics is a Beijing. Everything often starts with Beijing. He said Beijing is a good place, the capital of the emperor, good feng shui, for thousands of years, except for the foreigners to fight in, God has never given Beijing a disaster, sent a disaster. The Beijing he talked about was unfamiliar to me. For example, he likes to talk about how to ride in a foreign car and how to pay the price; which street and which lane (called hutong by Beijingers) are the money changers and grain stores owned by Shanxi people.
The most interesting thing was that the brothels he talked about were a thousand miles away from what I had read in the novel. He said that the difference between high and low brothels is far, the first-class brothel is called small class, the girls inside, not only have good faces and bodies, but also have been educated from childhood in qin, chess, calligraphy and painting, which can walk a few strokes of the landscape, flowers and birds, and sing two lines of poetry and songs, do you think you can enter the brothel just to have a lower body pain? That’s not true, it’s not called a mad brothel, it’s called a dark door, a dark door is specially for the hard workers who carry big men and pull foreign cars.
Rich people into the brothel, the first is to play tea around: a pot of tea, a packet of red tin packet or powder tin packet (are then the brand of cigarettes, grade equivalent to the 50s and 60s of the last century, the county magistrates usually smoke Daqianmen, Hengda smoke and so on) four small plates of dried fruit, that is, peanuts and walnuts and so on. Tea drink, smoke, (that dried fruit is the appearance of goods, let you see, not let you eat, eat people laugh, you know the bottom, not a civilized person) idle piece also finished, you should get up, not on the pit, is to leave. To the bed, that tea round always have to play some days, your boy’s money out of almost, before there is a further possibility, but also to see whether the girl is looking at you, not the movie played box gun to the eight immortal table a shot, everything is done, that is called rape of women! It is not a visit to the eight hutongs.
I always ask him if he went to the eight hutongs when he was young. Whenever this time he will not say, dry cough two, and get up his night to do. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers. At this point, I knew it was time for me to go to bed.
I didn’t inquire about the Seventh Master’s life. If he wanted to tell me about his life, I would have told him without asking; if he didn’t want to tell me, I would have made it difficult for him to do so. But I thought the old man must have been a man of the world in the old days. I knew about the old man’s life after the Mid-Autumn Festival that year, which was my first Mid-Autumn Festival in the countryside.
That night, when the Seventh Master saw me coming back, he picked up a handkerchief-wrapped bag from the bed and opened it with a kerosene lamp. Under the lamp were five or six small golden cakes. He said to me, the moon cakes burnt at home, not something valuable, brought to you from home, at least to celebrate the festival, do not let the old people in your house miss.
I took it and ate it clean in one gulp, and only after I finished eating did I say to him: delicious. I knew in my heart that the cakes I ate were very valuable at that time. I only slept with him on the same bed and listened to him brag about the past, and I felt that the old man was quite righteous when he was thinking about me on a holiday.
The next day, I told the guys in the team about it. Guys said, you dare to eat? I said, I ate, beautiful, ate hands still have oil. The guys said, you know, the old man is our village’s famous wealthy man! You can not look at his current appearance, a face of walnut skin, a dirty rustic clothes and pants, when he was young, but also very scenic.
He saw that I listened to him, and was not surprised, and no class struggle face, before going on to say that the old man is very benevolent, in the old days, the village people can not afford to borrow food from him, they never said anything, is this: all the countryside, who still have a difficult situation? The food loaned from his family is always high, no loss to the villagers, if anyone is really bitter and anxious, he will also put the account rotten.
So, later the land reform, the four clean-ups, the Cultural Revolution, these movements came, but only to put him on the stage, no one in the village has ever beaten him. After each criticism, he was given a back rub and a drink of water. Even the cadres of the production team took care of him in terms of work, didn’t they? Let him work in the pig farm, day and night both ends have work points, or a long year work points, wind and rain, New Year’s holidays can not miss to earn work points.
This was the first time I met an “alternative” landlord, and the first time I heard a poor peasant say so about an old landlord. From then on, I have a conceptual to human understanding of landlords and peasants. The seventh grandfather of this person, although the composition of the landlord, but the old landlord’s words and actions, is to tell me, in those days the so-called social trend has abandoned the most basic human nature. This human nature was so strange to me, completely different from the concept of right and wrong instilled in me through formal channels.
Indeed, this landlord is completely different from the image of the landlord portrayed to me in class education and textbooks, he is not at all vicious, not to mention green-faced fangs, is older, more wrinkles on the face, and the village of those kind old farmer is no different. And in my opinion, the seventh master is also one of these good farmers ah.
My other good friend in the village is the second ghost. The meaning of ghost in the local dialect is not the dead ghost of the opposite meaning of the living, is the meaning of the man, in Hebei language is “kid”, people call you what what ghost, is and you do not see, in short, is a little bit of banter, and a little bit of affectionate name.
The second ghost is also a member of the village, not only my buddy, but also my friend, and I am the same age, also belong to the dragon. He studied in the village agricultural school, after graduation, naturally in the village and many folks as the same as the earth to shave food. In this regard, he was very reluctant. He often said to me, we both have a town account, why are you a youth? I am a farmer? This God is not fair.
I said to him, “Now we are both earning work credits, we are both farmers, we are even. He said, “It’s not even. In the future, you can go back to the city, I do not still have to bully the dirt. I envy you from the bottom of my heart for eating imperial food!” The second ghost and I said, if not for his old man’s shallow vision, for a mouthful of food, regardless of the future of his descendants, he is also a youth!
It turns out that the old man’s son was on official duty in the county, and in 1960, when he was in difficulty, he was put back into the countryside, because it was easier to live in the country than in the city. But his old man’s action at the beginning, then let him do the life of a farmer. Every time he said this, he had to gashengheng said, really should be the life of my old man! I thought to myself, that public family is the second ghost’s own father ah.
The deepest friendship I ever had with the second ghost was that we both worked as youth watchers, or “patrolmen” as the people called them.
When the youth returned to the city, there were only a few left, the two ghosts lived in our youth compound and became my neighbors. I have a lot of social understanding of the world is taught by the second ghost.
The second ghost told me, we do see the youth business, must first make their own benefit, otherwise sorry for the crop field under the night dew. I said how to benefit? He said the food and fruits grown in the ground are the people’s commune, we are a member of the commune, the commune is also our family. We are the official steal, the head of the village does not catch us, no one dares to cross us! I said, there is God watching us. He said you motherfucker or city people? Very superstitious ah! I tell you, even I, a crop farmer, know that there is no Jade Emperor in heaven, there is no King of Hell’s truth, you are afraid of which can bite your balls? If we don’t take back the autumn beautifully, I’m sorry to my ancestors, and you’re sorry to your good slave family.
I said I do not have a good slave family, is a slave family, I do not need to steal, the team said, if I do not have food, just go to which field yard to ask on the pocket jade water bamboo is. He said, forget it, you’re a family member, but we’re a buddy, you don’t have to help me steal, I steal not only for myself, but also for you. I asked him how for me? He said, do a few times you will understand.
And he stole the first time from the ground out of the sweet potatoes, two sacks, transported back to the village, from the village head of the family’s courtyard wall backwards in, heard the dull sound of the sacks hit the ground, we withdrew. I said you pay respect to the head, why not tell him? He said, you silly, meet him not scold you can not do? We do not suffer for nothing? The second time is to the head of the family to send watermelon, also in the middle of the night, two sacks, not from the courtyard wall to throw over, placed in the doorway, he knocked twice on the door, heard the door ring, dragged me away. There are these two times, I understand the two ghosts said “I steal not only for myself, but also for you. What does it mean? To put it bluntly, it is to pay tribute to the head of the team, so as to get the head of the future care.
Later, he gave the head of what I do not know. Also with him in the dry canal on the side of the castor picking two times, but also in the middle of the night. I said, pick this stuff for what? He said to change the oil. I said castor oil is industrial oil, can eat dead. He said, the old people have eaten half a lifetime also fine, eat less is fine.
A few years after I left the village, the second ghost was in trouble. At that time, the society was just a little bit loose, the second ghost will see the opportunity of the city people like the fresh produce in the countryside, to do both ends of the money-making business.
He got up at dawn every day and rode his bicycle, with two large baskets that could hold hundreds of pounds of corn on the back frame, and walked along the highway to Taiyuan City, packing up the fresh corn in the field along the way, and when the car was full, he also arrived at Taiyuan City. The corn sold, chatter a bowl of bistro knife cut noodles, then find a roadside tree to squint, the latter half of the morning to ride back, passing through Qingxu County and then dumped on two large baskets of seasonal fruits, back to sell, no cost of trading both earn, want not to hair are difficult. The number of runs, careless, sleeping under a tree, cold stroke, paraplegia, back to the village to raise a few years also did not slow down, they did not say a word to go.
Later, when people in the village talked to me about this, they always said, “This guy is too capable, there is no reason to always take advantage and not suffer, this child will eat a loss once in his life, a loss will be the life of the child. God is still fair. I listened to it and thought, in fact, many farmers have learned enough truths for us to learn several lifetimes.
Now, my two fellows have gone to another world far away, but they both left their souls to me, who was still on the ground with them. The old one left me the soul: to be generous, to speak of humanity; the young one left me the soul: people are doing, the sky is watching, the day to get others, but also the day to get their own.
Recent Comments