In my hometown, on the Sonnen Plain in the northeast, every family lived in a Manchu-style adobe house with a flat roof. Three rooms were built on the east-west floor, and two rooms were built on the north-south floor. On the outer purlin in front of each house and on the fence on the ground outside the house, there were one or two semi-circular bird’s nests, which accompanied the family members in their daily cycle of “three full and one down”. “The earth has flourished. Now, with the loss of time, that little swallow’s nest still holds many, many plain and touching stories for me.
I remember that my family lived in an adobe bungalow from my childhood memories to the 1970s of the last century. Swallows’ nests were glued to the purlins of the outbuildings every year, and to the purlins of the outside windows every year. The swallows come and go in spring and autumn, and the same thing happens every year. Two old swallows come and go, and a small nest of swallows is taken away when they leave. Life is very regular and full, just like the folks in my father’s family, who are busy with whatever is in season.
In my father’s old mansion, my parents raised eight of us children, and one by one, just like the little swallows, they have been coming out of the “nest” to take away the little swallows. They “flew” out. My brothers joined the workforce and flew away, my sister got married and left the old mansion, and my brothers got married and separated to live in the city. The old house was full of people, but now the house was empty. Most of the time, the two old people could only keep the swallows company, and they lived a lonely life, watching each other. When the swallows come in spring, they think of their distant children; when the swallows nurse the swallows in summer, they think of their distant children; and when the swallows fly away with the swallows in autumn, leaving behind a lonely and empty nest, the old people seem to feel a little bit lost.
Every year, only on the New Year’s Day or the old man’s birthday can we, as children, gather at my father’s old house from far away. For decades, my old house has been a bit like a bird’s nest: sometimes the nest is full and the children and grandchildren crowd the house; sometimes the nest is empty and the grandchildren leave, leaving the old man behind. As my fifth brother said, “A full nest is family, an empty nest is nostalgia. Even though he was worried about his children, the old man was reluctant to stay away from the nest until he was old enough to visit the city every now and then. When the two old men were on their deathbeds, they instructed their children to be buried in a cemetery not far from the old house. They did not wish to “ascend to heaven,” but were eager to “ascend to heaven. Enter the Earth”.
In my rural home, my father used to call swallows meteorologists. Before the rain came, the swallows could tell if it was going to rain or not by their actions. There is a folk proverb that says, “When the swallow burrows into the snake aisle, heavy rain will come. At this time of the year, when the weather is sultry and hot, a flock of swallows gather in the sky above the bird’s nest, circling, chattering and croaking. Once an experienced farmer saw these phenomena, he could accurately deduce that heavy rain was coming. Often, at this moment, my mother was busy with rain prevention. She went to the small garden to make sure the sauce jar was tightly covered, so that the rain would not beat the lid off and fill the soup; and she went to the back of the tree to bring back the “old hugger” and the brood of chicks, so that a heavy rain would not fall. The film was blinded. In the yard of Dacenan, the members are busy with the wheat thatching. The “weather forecast” of the swallows is always accurate.
Swallows are known for their sensitivity and are often admired by their fathers. The agility of the swallow was a bit like the posture of the airplane in the sky that year. I have wondered a few times as a child if airplanes were designed according to the swallow’s agility. I observed that when swallows are looking for food, they only swoop and flip a few times, and then they can easily catch the flying insects into their mouths and fly back to the nest to feed their young. At that time, I heard from adults that swallows don’t eat landing swallows, they only eat wheezing swallows. I remembered that whenever it rained lightly outside the house, I would lean over the window sill and watch the swallows drilling in the rain. Then I thought, only swallows can be so agile in the world.
The poet said, “The spring breeze in February is like scissors. They cut the peach red, the willow green, the river and the fields. I don’t think it’s enough to say that the tail of the little swallow, like a sharp scissors, came back to my hometown for the first cut, and then cut out the spring breeze of the earth, cut out the spring song of the countryside, cut out the romantic spring. Whenever the swallow flies to the nest under the eaves, the little scissors of the tail will be in one piece, and we will sing the nursery rhyme that has been passed down for many generations: “The little swallow wears flowery clothes and comes here every year …… “The sound of a child’s voice and the song of a swallow fused together to form a human-bird chorus, and it was beautiful. Perhaps there is no better combination in the world than this, and only my childhood was blessed with this joy.
Swallows and humans live together under the same roof, in harmony and coexistence. They are both neighbors and family. My two little swiftlet nests are still the same, years after my siblings left us and flew away. The birds and the people are close, and the people and the birds are close. Once the bird’s nest under the eaves of the house, because of the age of the contact with the purlin is not sticky, my father used a small wooden board to hold up the nail on the purlin, a pair of old swallows do not need to re-base the house. Afterwards, my father told us: “Swallow’s nest is just like building a house, it takes a lot of effort to repair it, but it can still be a few years. It is evident that my father has long considered the swallows as one of our family members.
My father loved the swiftlet nest, and the swiftlet loved his father. The swiftlet’s nest in our outhouse is very dirty, and a bunch of little swiftlets’ droppings fall on the ground. The swiftlet’s nest is the only one in the house that is not so dirty, so my mother said, “Let’s leave one nest outside. The swiftlet’s droppings will fall on the head of the bed, which will be cleaned once every few days. In addition, when the windows and doors are closed at night or on rainy days, it is very inconvenient for swallows to enter the nest on the other side of the house. In the daytime or in good weather, swiftlets could enter the nest with the door open, faster than people, but not with the window closed. So, my father used to make a small ten-centimeter hole in the door for the swallows to come and go. I remember when the swallows flew in and out, they even chattered for a while. I translate “swallow language” into “Chinese”. In my hometown in the countryside, there is an unspoken rule that if a family doesn’t have a swallow’s nest, it’s a dead man’s life.
In the countryside where I come from, there is an unspoken rule that if a family does not have a swallow’s nest, they are living in hell, and they don’t even have a “swallow’s edge,” let alone a “swallow’s nest. It’s a bad luck. There is another saying, that is to say, if a person is outside, if his body is repeatedly pulled by swallows, it is very bad luck. In fact, this is all idealistic. But from another point of view, it also shows that people put a lot of good things in the swallow, but the truth of goodness is sincere.
In my memory of life, swallows have the best memory, especially of the “family nest”. Every fall, no matter how far they traveled, they were guaranteed to return home the following spring. I remember one time when my father didn’t believe me, so he sneaked a swallow into the nest and tied a red velvet rope around its bladder, and the next year he really brought it back. Afterwards, my father said to us: “All of you give me the same memory as the swallow, and you can guarantee that I will go to college. Later, from the swallow’s natural law of “flying back to the north when it is warm and to the south when it is cold,” I realized that people’s lives had become richer and their habits had changed over the years. The Some people have also made two “nests” like swallows, one in Heilongjiang, the other in the north. A “nest”, another “nest” in Qingdao or Hainan! The “nest” in the south when it is cold, and in the north when it is warm. A “nest” to the south when it’s cold and to the north when it’s warm. The “nest”. The swiftlet’s nest is a scientific one, and there are many things that humans have learned from each other.
The swallow’s nest is scientific, and there are many things that the swallow and human learn from each other. The swiftlet takes the grass in its mouth with the mud, and then it can knead it together to make the nest wall. The mud is the glue and the grass is the tendon of the nest, which is tensile and folding resistant, and its wall is very strong after drying. In fact, the swallow’s nest is very similar to the wall of the father’s “dry base”. The wall is made of sheep and mud, with fork after fork going upwards, and finally a wall is formed, which is then purlin-sided and covered, making a farm house. The construction of a house is very similar to the bird’s nest project. But was the swallow the first to learn this technique from man, or man the first to learn it from the swallow? This is a question that, up to now, scientists may not have ventured into this area.
Swallow’s family is very united, is the family prosperous! I remember one spring when the swallows came back, the “old farts” borrowed the swallows’ nest for the winter, and had the ambition to take it for themselves for a long time, but did not give the swallows the nest. One of them wants the nest, and the other one doesn’t, and a battle of tit-for-tat is going on in the swiftlet’s nest. The swallows came one after another, and they drove away the “old farts” with a flutter, and so far the swallows I am also inspired by the spirit of “not giving an inch”. Another time, during the nursing season, a young swallow chick accidentally fell on the ground and died. A flock of swallows, chattering and chattering in collective sorrow, surrounded the dead chick and refused to leave.
The swallow does not dislike the rich and the poor and is full of integrity. When it chooses its friends, it does not dislike the rich and the poor of its master, but the good and the bad of people. No matter how rich you are, no matter how beautiful your house is, if your family treats you badly, the swallow will not build a nest under your roof. But no matter how poor you are, no matter how crooked a small adobe house is, if its family treats it well, it will nest under your roof. It chooses the environment, it chooses the character, it chooses the safety, it chooses the long term. I remember when there was a captain of the original production team, the big brick house with beautiful glass windows, but he didn’t like swallows, and he coaxed them away as soon as they came. Therefore, swallows did not like to nest in his house. This is the reason why many women criticized him behind his back, saying that he had no “swallow edge” at all. The next year, he was really voted out as captain by the members of the community. I don’t know if it was a coincidence or a miracle, but God only knows.
It has been more than twenty years since my mother and father passed away. When the old man was still alive, we children rushed back to my father’s old house from all over the world, which was the “nest” that nurtured us as we flew away one after another. Whenever we returned home to visit our parents, we could see the “swallow’s nest” under the eaves, and our hearts were filled with infinite emotions. My father’s old house – the swallow’s nest – and we – the swallows – let me spread my imagination and fly over the old house like a swallow.
After my parents left, we went back to Laotun every year to visit the old man’s grave, and at night we stayed at my elder sister’s house. After the Year of the Snake, we had dinner at Big Sister’s house. I went outside to watch the stars and saw a bird’s nest under the rainbow. In the light of the rainbow, the bird’s nest looked empty. At that moment, I thought of my old son, Zhongzheng, who had originally planned to come back to Japan for the New Year, but he couldn’t, and my daughter, who had been coming back every year, had to go back to her in-laws’ home for the New Year with the consent of my partner and me. Thus, we were the only two people left at home, and the building was empty and so was our heart. When I saw my elder sister’s children returning one by one from a distance, I felt even more sorrowful in my heart.
My father’s old house, the bird’s nest under the eaves, how many memories do you hold for me? I can’t tell you, I can’t count them all. And every time I see a bird’s nest back home, it reminds me of my father’s old house, the cradle of our lives!
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