In recent years, all over the country, demolition and reconstruction. It is a good thing to get rid of the old and replace it with the new, but some have destroyed the original ecological environment, not to mention, and finally make it absurd and awkward.
Over the years, my hometown has been like this, it has been changed in ruins. As time went by, I went back less and less often, sometimes not even once for two or three years. In fact, as people grow older, more homesick, but those ugly faces, I would rather take my elderly parents to live in other places, rather than go back.
1
In my memory, my hometown is remote and isolated, but the scenery is still beautiful.
There are three rivers around the village: The Shaying River, the East River and the West River.
The Shaying River is the widest and the river is also deep. People often cast nets and fish there. Poplar trees stand on the bank of the river. The East River is narrower and its banks are often strewn with wild fruits. The West River is the narrowest and the water is full of reeds.
In addition to these three rivers, there is a river in the middle of the village, when I was a child to summer, I and a group of small partners in the river bathing, learning dog paddle.
In the decade or so when I was growing up, several rivers began to run out of water, and only in rainy years would there be any water, so the land on both sides and the bare riverbed began to be “exploited”. Today, only the East River, far from the village, is still standing — along the Shaying River, houses are built, roads are paved with stones and sand, cars drive through the dust, people walk through the ashes; Some parts of the River were turned into rubbish dumps and some were planted with crops. The government planted small saplings every year along the river, but every one of them was uprooted by someone overnight. The road is still bare. The river in the middle of the village was the worst. It was a complete dump, with houses built along the banks and an abrupt two-story house built in the middle.
That small building has four beams.
Four liang his niang is the village far and wide famous fierce role, the person grows beautiful, stand up to things, fierce and capable, can bear half a day at home. When she was young, she gave birth to four sons in succession. Even the village youth scouts could not find her out.
Later home to less people, more is to do ligation, she reluctantly accepted, also after sterilization, and connections in township hospitals to pick up a daughter of age — that their hometown son preference in the 90 s thought seriously, someone gave birth to a girl in the home, before discharge will be the family directly by drowning in douwei, so want to my daughter’s family, you can go to hospitals “pick up” a relationship.
A family of two adults with five children and seven mouths struggled to make ends meet by farming, let alone building a new house to marry their daughter-in-law. Like others in the village, siliang’s children dropped out of junior high school and went out to work. After their youngest daughter dropped out, the whole family went south to Guangzhou to make a living.
With a son and daughter working in an electronics factory, the couple went around “picking up waste” — actually stealing while doing so. A few years down, the family earned a lot of money, back to the old man first for the three sons have built a two-story building, the wind and glory to marry a daughter-in-law.
The four-beam house was built behind the house of the three brothers. The reason why it was built in the middle of the river was also influenced by the evil tendencies in the village.
2
Most of the villagers went out to work to earn money, and when they had money, their minds became active. The first thing back home, is to flip the new house, appear to have a face. After driving through shenqiu county, almost all the branches of yingjiang river turned into gutter all the way to the south. After turning right at liuzhuangdian, we walked to the west for dozens of li after leaving the market. Houses were almost built along the river.
The Shaying River connects the villages and forms a market, with a dense traffic flow. Later, the hometown also developed, and many people no longer go out to work, but to do their own business at home. Business needs a storefront, riverside people more than cars, is naturally the best choice to build a storefront.
Starting around the end of the 1990s, powerful people in their families set the precedent: they cut down trees during the dry season, framed the river, poured concrete and steel into it, beat up the piers, put up the floors, and then built small houses on them to open their businesses. People bring money, the day gradually prosperous.
Others in the village were jealous, and the people who owned land by the river began to follow suit. We have a relationship of trust, it doesn’t matter on a cry two make three hang oneself, with the government personnel make: “why XXX cover I can’t cover? How much did you take him for? If you don’t let me do it, I’ll go up there and Sue you, and I’ll fucking drink pesticide and kill you!”
Saying, the woman was lying on the ground with hair dishevels crying, taking a bottle of 3911 to drink, the man carrying a kitchen knife to scold the edge before the onlookers in the side pointing; Aunts, uncles, relatives, friends, and even people from neighboring villages who wanted to build houses came to help. The old, weak, sick and disabled in the home, usually were thrown into the small dark room, let its own, when the trouble became a precious knot, to the cart on the throw bed of cotton wool, pulled out at the door of the township government.
The government was afraid that someone might die, and repeated people to persuade, but it had no effect.
During the day it was a busy day, and in the middle of the night it started quietly. When the day dawned, the government came and shouted, “Stop the building, demolish it immediately.” Immediately, a crowd of people came up, indignant. The government was at a loss. Even if the police forcibly took the troublemakers away, they could only detain them for a few days at a fine.
The matter of this house had not been settled, the people of that house took advantage of the chaos to quietly cut down trees to start. The east side can’t control the west side, press down a gourd up gourd gourd, law enforcement officers run around every day, exhausted, but in fact almost no effect.
In this way the house was quietly built, and the water below and the people above occupied two thirds or more of the river.
3
Once the opening in the river to build a house is torn, there is no stopping it. The phenomenon of the village is serious, behind the people build houses to be more blatant, in recent years more intense, quite overwhelming.
On the other side of the river, the farmers looked at the natural atmosphere and occupied the farmland to build houses. The government, as before, has largely let things slide.
Today, the storefront is densely built, the business is also various: ceramic tiles, building materials, hardware, groceries, funeral clothes, laminating paper, clinics, pharmacies, Internet cafes, restaurants, karaoke parlors, bathhouses. From afar, one of the tall buildings, different shapes of small buildings swallowed the river more than half, rude abrupt.
There are no garbage disposal stations in the countryside, so the river becomes a dumping ground for people, who are used to throwing all kinds of household garbage into the river. Within a few years, the river was so stinky and black that the whole county was filled with a sickening smell that the Shaying River almost stopped flowing.
(Shaying River, author’s Photo)
The poplar trees along the road had been cut down for building houses, and in summer there were no more shade by the river to enjoy the cool air. Then came the dust. The sky in the village was grey all year round, and the wind blew the dust, and the plastic bags floated all over the place. After a visit to the market, everyone was dusty.
When Siliang’s mother went out to market, she saw houses built on both sides of the river. In her heart, she began to think: She wanted to occupy the river in the middle of the village and build a house for Siliang to marry a wife.
Four liang family only three pieces of homestead, three brothers have taken the first opportunity to have built a house, the smallest four liang no land to build a house, because of this, talk about good object dead or alive do not marry.
The river is “public”, see four liang family in the middle of the river, around the river and living neighbors naturally do not want to, have come to blame. But four liang his mother is not easy to deal with, plus there are five men in the home, the neighbors also do not have the upper hand, only secretly scold niang behind.
Village cadres to mediate, four liang his niang a seize the collar of the village cadres, crying called “public” to find a place for her son to build a house, or die in front of them. Village cadre natural not stem: “at the beginning shout you little give birth to a child you don’t listen to, have no homestead to blame oneself now, this matter and I what stem?”
She spit quenched the village cadre a face: “you when the official eat person meal do not personnel affairs, since you do not help solve, I find a place to build a house myself, this concern you shit? Other people who can not see the past, let who give us four liang looking for a place to build a house, I also wish!”
Village cadre noisy also noisy not win, dozen also dozen however, oneself again can’t stand deliberating. So the pain is not itching for a few months, the four beam of the house is hard to build a tile.
On the night of the completion of the new house, I do not know who threw dung on the gate of the Four Liang family, the villagers saw how much to relieve some of the breath, secretly laughing. Four liang her niang scold a street scold half a month just calculate settle.
The dung on the door can be rinsed off, but it is also true that the house was built, and eventually the matter is abandoned.
4
After heavy rains this year, the nearly dry rivers finally began to fill with water, and the garbage at the bottom of the river floated to the surface. The two-story house in Siliang was surrounded by grey-green stinking water and various kinds of garbage. It was summer and the smell was getting worse.
All four sons were married and lived in Guangzhou for a long time. Four liang’s parents no longer go out to work, every day live in the middle of the river four liang home gatekeeper house, ease of retirement.
Every time I go home, I often see Siliang’s father walking around the streets, crowded in the crowd, boasting about how he had “fought wits and courage” with the police in Guangzhou. When it comes to the highlights, he laughs his head off.
His mother wore rings on all her ten fingers, a camel laced overcoat, and was in her late sixties, still dressed in style. Every morning she ran on the field paths and occasionally danced in the square with the stereo on at home. She told everyone she was wearing a designer dress, a scarf made of pure wool, and pants made of magic elastic.
People in the village laughed and chatted with them, and the atmosphere was harmonious. They seem to have not mind the four Liang family occupied the river to build a house, or maybe just because everyone has been accustomed to the smell of the four seasons, think four Liang parents also did not take any advantage of it.
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