A new home in the cemetery

1

In the 1960s, most of the employees of the Shanhaiguan Railway Department were foreigners, and many of them were separated from each other, and young people who were ready to get married had no housing. In order to solve these problems, the railroad department chose a site in the southeastern part of the city and built a “dry barricade”, where our family lived for nearly 20 years.

Young people nowadays may not have any idea about “dry barricade” – as the name suggests, it is actually a simple method of building a wall: two layers of wooden boards are separated by the width of the wall and fixed, and then the furnace ash mixed with lime water is poured into the middle of the boards and hit with a heavy object and tamped down. Then the wall became a wall. This wall is not soundproof, neighbors talking loudly at home, can hear clearly. Sometimes, there is something to look for neighbors, just use your fist to smash the wall twice, there will be a call back, more convenient than the phone. When I was a kid, I often learned various animal sounds from each other across the wall.

The “dry-built” house only used a few bricks in the door frame and window frame, and the bricks were also gray bricks made of furnace ash, far from the strong red bricks made of earth. Wooden herringbone frame to hold up the roof, the top is laid on the old-style cement tile, no one does not leak in the rain. And catching up with the low-lying terrain of this area, the rain is a little bit bigger, the house into the water, suffering.

Such living conditions, although people can not help it, but then the general are living in bungalows, the same conditions, we do not compare the meaning, there is no mentality difference.

The only thing that always makes people feel a little uncomfortable is the opposite side of this residential area.

Not far to the east of this “dry barricade”, is a section of the Great Wall of the remnants of the wall, the Great Wall north-south direction, accompanied by weeds and overgrown trees, the southernmost end directly into the sea – is the starting point of the Great Wall “Old Dragon Head”; west of the original is a large piece of crop land; north of a river flowing east-west, running through the East-West Beijing-Shenzhen Railway next to the north bank of the river.

It is worth to talk about the south, that is, the “dry basin” in front of. There, the terrain gradually increases, forming a large steep slope, the “dry bastion” in the depression. Further south, there was an unmarked grave where no one had visited for years – later, people planted crops there without any scruples, and later, they built tall buildings.

In fact, at the foot of the “dry barricade”, there was also a graveyard, and when the house was built, the grave was leveled before the house was built on it. Later, when the residential buildings were built here, one building was said to be “haunted” and no one moved in for a long time, and the rumors spread. A time of fear attacked the neighborhood, and even the whole city knows, people are called this residential area “ghost village”.

Back then, no one knew why the unit had to build this row of bungalows in this desolate, spooky place, but also in this “dry bastion” lived in a crop after crop.

However, whenever something strange and bizarre happens, it is always a bit frightening to talk about, someone will always attribute the cause of these misfortunes and suffering to this “dirty” cemetery, as well as the imaginary ghosts.

2

Back then, there were more than 70 families living in the “dry barricade”, all railroad workers and their families, basically all young people.

All the houses had the same area, less than 40 square meters, one and a half rooms, with a larger room with a kang that could sleep four or five people. The other half of the house, separated by a wall, was half a kitchen and the other half was a bedroom, barely able to sleep two people. For families with four or five children, it was very crowded, but the bungalow had a courtyard, and the courtyard was built with a room (a simple room for storage), so it was possible to make do with the people.

At that time, although my family’s population is small, but there are often relatives from abroad to visit the family, each time they come to stay for a few days, but also very inconvenient. My father got a mason to build a regular room in the courtyard and built a kang, which could accommodate three or four people and felt quite bright. When the neighbor’s son got married, he also used their house for his wedding room, painting the interior walls, putting up a paper roof, putting up red letters, hanging red curtains and brand new red and green covers, which was very festive.

“The kitchen stove was connected to the kang. In winter, as long as the kang was hot, the house would be warm. Coal for living was supplied by ticket, and firewood had to be bought at a designated place by pulling a small tin cart with two wheels. Not every family has a cart, you can borrow it, and it was very convenient to borrow things at that time, and it was a common thing.

The poor quality of the coal, which is pulled back, needs to be made into coal slurry with water, and then beaten into briquettes or briquettes, and at night, in order to keep the fire from going out, the coal slurry is used to seal the fire, and every winter there are people who die from gas fumes, and those who do not die, also go into the hospital autoclave, and walk in front of the ghost gate. Later, there was a cellular coal, only then some convenience.

In winter, even if the house is not cold, the north wall will be a thick layer of frost, even if scraped off, will be again – the wall itself contains a lot of moisture, can not avoid; in the summer, the house is hot and humid, the north wall and will flow down the water beads. In the summer, when the house is hot and humid, water drops off the north wall, and the wall skin starts to peel and fall off when it is soaked with humidity.

The rainy season was even more worrying because there were no drainage facilities at all, only a small gutter on one side of each alley. Whenever a heavy rain comes, adults use prepared sandbags to block the door, and then, with a basin to pluck the water out of the house. Some people were too late to pluck the water, so the light household goods would float up and the water would not reach the bed.

Drinking water was also disturbing, as there was no running water, and the open wells at the two ends of the neighborhood were used. At first, there was a “hand-wheel” faucet, and when it was unscrewed, the water kept flowing, and when someone finished playing water and left, they didn’t turn off the faucet, so the water kept flowing, which was very wasteful. Later, after the transformation, you can use your foot to step on the switch set in the ground, the foot leaves the water automatically cut off.

The waste of water is no longer, but in the winter often “frozen well”, we will come up with various ways, boiling water, wood burning, and so on after the ice melted, people have long lines of water.

The ground around the well was frozen, and it became an ice skating rink for children. Parents do not have time to control a litter of children, ice carts are the older children themselves with broken wood nailed, fixed under the wood two thick wire as the edge of the child – most of the time, they are the north side of the frozen river skating, playing ice at the well, once encountered someone to pick water, not pay attention to the dirty ice crumbs into people’s buckets, will attract a big scolding.

There were only two open-air public toilets in the whole neighborhood, and there were long queues in the morning. The toilets were so dirty that it was disgusting to think of them, and when it rained heavily, the feces flowed everywhere with the rainwater, and bad children often threw dead cats and dogs into the toilets and smashed some stones and tiles.

3

The quality of the people living in the “dry barricades” is not very high.

Often, when a couple quarrels, a group of people block the door of the house to watch the hilarity, like a big show, and even crowd into the house to watch. If neighbors quarrel with each other, people in the neighborhood would like to see, the scene was once very crowded.

An older girl was squeezed to the front of the crowd to watch a couple quarrel, straightening up, without any sense of shame. The wife of the quarrelsome family could not face, so she pointed at the girl and cursed: “What the fuck are you looking at? Want to see into the house seems! Shameless things, quite a big girl what things!”

At that time, married women cursing, there are endless flower stoner. When people saw that the spear was not right, they did not dare to say anything, they walked away, and some people would pretend to say, “Hey, what is there to see,” but also know that such a crowd is very undignified – after saying that, the next crowd quarrel, he was there as usual.

A young couple was known for their fights twice a day, and as soon as they got into a fight, everyone dropped what they were doing to watch. The wife is very articulate and speaks without adjectives, cursing her husband hysterically, and the profanity is simple and rude to the ears. Every time they quarrel, the home can smash things to smash, the big stand mirror, only the fragments left embedded in the wooden frame. I do not know what they often fought about, and later, simply divorced.

At that time, the management of the residents was called the “residents’ revolutionary committee”, and several old men and women drank tea and read newspapers every day. When families fought, they sometimes went to mediation, but after mediation, they continued to fight. Two children fighting, two adults each protecting their calves, can be a big fight; couples fighting, shrews often bring their own brothers and sisters to help beat their husbands, but also the old man brought a few other aunts together to do it, reputation is nothing.

A older shrew, playing up to the scandalous appearance. The neighbor’s house was built on top of the lower room and turned into a two-story attic, which stirred up a hornet’s nest. The shrew sat on the courtyard wall facing the neighbor’s house, two feet on the roof of the neighbor’s small coal shed, the roof is a foreign tin, she “thud” a stomp, as loud as the drums, crying and cursing, saying that the attic blocked the light of her house, bad feng shui – in fact, the shrew has The neighbor reported the official, the government also issued a notice to let the neighbor’s house demolished, while the neighbor has not yet demolished, the shrew has to hurry to make a scene, in order to relieve the hatred of the heart.

The neighbor, surnamed Tong, said politely, “Sister Zhang, I have received a notice, the notice is in my pocket, and will soon be demolished, why are you still making trouble?”

The old Tong took out the notice for the shrew to read, and the shrew cried out, “No, demolish it now! Demolish it right now!”

This shrew previously fought with the neighbors all over, always brutal and unreasonable, talking is also jabbering, do not listen carefully can not hear clearly, do not know where the accent. The onlookers were amused and said it was a great waste to give her a human skin. Her husband loves to fish, there are several times in the sea almost drowned, some people say that the shrew brought the disaster, is drowned, also with this shrew related.

Old Tong is Shandong, also considered hard-working, in the not large yard planted a few poplar trees, has grown a bowl thick, the shrew usually look angry. Later, the old Tong picked up the wall bricks with mud to build a loft (the Great Wall is so destroyed, no one cared at that time), almost no money, which makes the shrew even more jealous, watching the loft once completed, immediately the old Tong sued.

There is a family raised a milk goat, the male owner looks fat, bald, people call him “monk” behind. Monk has a son, grew up drinking goat’s milk, five big and three big. When the child hit elementary school is often truant, not learning, stealing chickens and dogs to do everything.

Monk son discipline is quite harsh, usually beat, but he hit the child, the wife will come out to block, fussing, the chicken and dogs, each time the education of the son, are to the couple ended in a big fight. The son became more and more mischievous under his own mother’s indulgence, and once the neighbor’s house was empty, he pried open the window and went in to steal a few pounds of food stamps. When he went in through the window, he left footprints on the bed sheet. The neighbors reported the incident, the police came, looked at the scene, and after investigation, soon found the child with a previous record.

When the boy was 14 or 15 years old, he got a little girl who also lived in the “dry barrios” pregnant. This was unthinkable at the time, for the little girl, people can not stand the blank stares, even if you are the victim, no one sympathy. The girl’s family did not pursue the case and did not report it, I do not know how the two families negotiated a settlement, and then the little girl’s family moved to the field.

There is also a family, the son was later shot during the 83 year crackdown because of gang rape, the couple also quarreled in the courtyard, unapologetic, what to say. The husband had called his wife a “foster wife”, the wife was furious and shouted: “You find the man for me! Who did you say I was with? Who did I raise? If you don’t tell me clearly, you are not raised by your mother!”

The husband’s words hit the wife where it hurts – the woman had been a prostitute in the old days – there were about two or three housewives in this area who were prostitutes, and after the liberation they were married to good people and became wives and mothers, but most of them did not work and stayed at home.

These things are known to people, usually no one dares to mention, but only their own husbands quarrel when angry only dare to speak out of turn, if outsiders casually say this kind of scarring words, is to fight for their lives.

4

In this “dry basin” with only 300 residents, there have been some surprising unnatural deaths. For some reason, it was mostly the first family in each row of houses that was involved.

In the mid-70s, a girl named Xiao Li died, but thirteen or fourteen years old, not heard of any serious illness before, after the disease was examined, also hospitalized, but the condition never improved, to the end of the person died, and no diagnosis of what disease. Xiao Li looks handsome, very well-behaved look, not before the disease jumping around, especially understanding, see who greeted first. Her departure really made the neighbors feel bad for a while.

Xiao Li’s family lives in a row of “dry barricades” of the first house in the west, and the first house in the east of this row of houses, there is also a girl named Xiaoyu, similar to Xiao Li’s age, also had an inexplicable disease, a long time in hospital, resuscitated several times, a variety of drugs, but also used prescriptions, did not work, or died. Later, Xiaoyu’s father talked to people about his daughter, saying that a lot of money was spent, suffering is not less, people did not stay, fell a chicken and egg.

Xiao Li and Xiao Yu’s family behind a row of houses, the same west of the first family, the young and strong head of the family, early 30s, not long after marriage, for some reason drank pesticides and died by suicide; the first house in the row of the east, a young man in his 20s, working at the train station, almost off the night shift, grabbed over the railroad tracks, was driven over by the train rolled over, the scene of the witnesses were too scared to go to work for a long time The witness was so scared that he was afraid to go to work for a long time. This young man lives next door to two families, the husband in his 30s was also hit and killed by a train, the two accidents are only five or six years apart.

This row of houses seems to be a concentration of murders, and there has been a suicide and a run over. The man who committed suicide was about 40 years old when he died, and in the early hours of winter, he quietly left his home and went to sleep on the tracks on the Beijing-Shenzhen line, and the cotton wool in his cotton jacket was shredded by the train and scattered all over the place, taking him a long way away. The reason for his suicide is clear, there is a suicide note, saying that his wife messed with men and women, can not tolerate.

There are also deaths that are even more saddening and emotional.

A new home in the cemetery

A young man named Xiao Qi, less than 20 years old when he died, was in an accident in the unit, fell from the flatbed small railcar carrying goods was rolled to death. The accident killed two seriously injured, Xiao Qi died on the spot.

On the day of the accident, a jeep came from the residential area and parked on the east side of the hutong entrance of Xiaoqi’s house. At that time, except for police cars, almost no car ever came to this place. I saw a young man holding Xiaoqi’s mother out of his house, the young man said as he walked: “Mom, I am Xiaoqi’s colleague, Xiaoqi had an accident in the unit, now sent to the hospital, a small injury, you go to the hospital to take a look.”

Xiaoqi’s father was at work and didn’t know about it yet. Xiaoqi’s mother took a look at someone to pick up, it is a premonition of what, pale, almost leaning on the body of the young man in the moving steps, if the young man a hand, it is likely to fall to the ground.

I usually call Xiaoqi’s mother “Big Mother”, but that day she and the young man passed by me, I did not dare to call her. She looked straight, did not even look at me, as I do not exist. I heard Xiaoqi’s mother say to the young man: “Son, you can not hide from Big Mother, tell Big Mother the truth, what happened to my son?” The young man just said, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine, it’s a big deal, the unit leader is here, so I don’t have to come.”

This is where the leaders are brilliant, sending a worker who can speak well, first conceal the truth of the matter, so as not to make the family suffer too much stimulation. As long as the mother of Xiaoqi brought to the son’s remains, things are done, save before the morgue, you have to be a mother first to resuscitate.

The first batch of enrollment in the country that year, Xiaoqi successfully passed the examination, but his father did not let him go, saying that there is a unit recruitment opportunities, let him go to work: “early to work to earn money, to buy wine for Dad.” At that time, our railroad block, in addition to Xiaoqi, there was another person who graduated from junior college and was assigned as an accountant, while Xiaoqi is no longer alive.

Xiaoqi’s grandmother was already more than 70 years old, small feet, wearing clothes always have a very thick oil stains. The old lady was always in the courtyard or in the alley, ranting like a demon about her daughter-in-law treating her badly, not too loudly, but never stopping, repeatedly saying that Xiaoqi’s mother gave her leftovers, leftover food, did not burn her bed, beat her and scolded her. Xiaoqi’s mother never came out to defend herself, and it was hard to say whether she was beating or scolding her back in the house.

Xiaoqi’s grandmother’s face was full of folds, as if she had not washed her face for years, and her eyes were almost covered with eye droppings. The old lady often sewed something, always with a needle and thread, and let the children playing in the hutong thread her needle. Every time she finished sewing her needle, she would say, “What a good girl. Several children and I were afraid of her, and when she mentioned sewing needles, we rushed away, but she didn’t say anything and looked for another child.

When Xiaoqi’s grandmother died, Xiaoqi’s mother wept with the fancy accent of the past rural weeping, slapping her hands on the coffin on the hearse, crying uncontrollably, her face full of tears, looking as if she didn’t want to live: “Mom, I didn’t do anything wrong to you old man, why did you leave just like that? Why don’t you stay with us for a few years, how can I live?”

People do not say anything, but their hearts are clear, not only not moved by the cries, but also find it funny. Years later, this evil daughter-in-law’s legs became too sick to walk and she needed a wheelchair to go out.

5

In addition to these saddening deceased, there are often some puzzling oddities occur.

The first family in the east end of a row of houses, the mistress is a mental patient, when she got sick, the family does not know. A fortune teller said that the woman had mental illness and the orientation of their home, so the man tossed the door orientation, sometimes to the south, sometimes to the east, back and forth many times to change, but did not see the woman’s mental illness improved.

Outside the east wall of the house was an open area where the “Revolutionary Committee” often called residents to meet in the open air. Sometimes when the meeting was in progress, the mentally ill woman would suddenly throw a basin of water from the courtyard of her house through the one-person-high wall, and there was nothing the person could do about it.

The mentally ill woman died in her 40s, but her daughter was strongly stimulated by her death and also became mentally ill, going from house to house, opening the door and entering whoever’s house, without talking, going through the cupboards, not knowing what to look for, not taking anything, going through and leaving. She was always followed by a group of children, and no one stopped her when she arrived at anyone’s house, but they all knew that she was irritated and sick. Later, after medical treatment, her daughter recovered, but many years later, I heard that she was robbed driving a cab and her mental illness returned.

Not long after the death of the mentally ill woman, her husband took another wife and had a son. This son, to some surprise, used to catch snakes when he was very young. He always found snakes somewhere, used them as toys, and sometimes at night, snakes crawled out of his clothes pockets.

6

At that time, there were often funeral crowds walking on the dirt roads in the countryside.

Often the dead from far away places also came here to be buried. In the near road, the black and red coffin was carried by people, and in the far road, there were carts pulling the coffin. People wore mourning, a cry, some women were supported, extreme grief.

I have seen the process of coffin in a farming family, the body into the coffin, the burial goods should be put into the coffin, the family and then look at the remains of the deceased, and then someone to cover the coffin. Cover the coffin people take a head of a large iron nail, in the corner of the coffin lid, swinging an axe to smash the nail into the coffin wood, until the coffin all four corners nailed.

Burial grave has long been dug. The direction of the tomb is a precaution, are let the old man who knows how to read. Coffin whether it is carried or horse-drawn, can not fall to the ground, to use two ropes from the bottom of the coffin pocket, four rope headers through the stick, carried by people, slowly sink into the grave, and then correct the direction. After completing some kneeling, kowtowing rituals, the eldest son buried the first spade of soil, followed by the rest of the family and helpers can be handful of soil buried. At this point, the body of the deceased is completely separated from the yin and yang, the person’s life has completed a reincarnation.

This large area of the cemetery was trodden out of a trail, walking in which always makes people feel eerie, even in the daytime, is also creepy. Here you often see collapsed graves, large black holes, broken coffin boards exposed, sometimes on the side of the road, one is not careful, you may fall in. Some of the tombstones were lying horizontally and vertically, but the handwriting was still very clear and the font was carved correctly, so I really admired the craftsmen at that time. When children passed by in groups, they were more daring and would curiously gather around the tombstones to identify the words. In fact, there was no special content, just the usual inscriptions on the tombstones.

This place is a cemetery for miles around, and there is no way to prove when it started to be a cemetery. Some people say that when the Great Wall was built, people died and were buried on the spot, and it became a cemetery. If this is true, the history of this cemetery is the level of cultural relics.

7

In the late 70’s, the government wanted to build a middle school in front of the “dry barricade”, but unfortunately, there was a huge stone monument at the chosen location. The monument was two to three meters high, three to four meters long, and half a foot thick, with patterns and words engraved on it, which should be for the dead.

When I was a child, I often came to the monument with a group of children to play, so I was especially familiar with this monument. The whole monument was made of one piece, a whole stone. The base of the monument was so strong that it was buried deep in the ground, and the area was not small. On the day the monument was blown up, a group of us children watched from a distance, and the monument was completely demolished after several days.

The school was built in a three-story building, where the terrain was already high, and after the building was completed, it was right in front of the “dry barricade” to the west, giving people a sense of depression. The good thing is that many children who live in the “dry barricade” go to this school, which is really convenient, so no one raised any objections.

In the early 90’s, the school had no students and was changed to a technical school, but still had difficulty enrolling students, so they had to stop teaching and cancel the establishment, and the students were transferred to other schools. This high school built on a cemetery ended its short-lived mission, and now the ruins of the school remain, or the doors and windows of that year, which are already in disrepair. The doors and windows are locked, the building is empty, and the room is cluttered with desks and chairs from more than 20 years ago.

In the 80s, a new 2-story building was built on the original site of the “dry barricade”, and nothing strange happened.

In the early 90s, several 6-story residential buildings were built next to the buildings. During the time when the building was handed over and the residents were ready to move in, there were rumors that the building was “haunted” at night. The building was left empty for a long time.

In the end how a haunted law, we are not clear, it seems to be a strange sound emitted from the building, but what is the sound, but also do not understand. But this can not continue, the house has bought, can not always be so idle. A discussion of the group, why not move in together, a lot of people will be able to suppress. When people moved in, nothing happened, and the haunting naturally faded away.

Years later, almost all the cemeteries were occupied by new developments, developers and builders are the first to break the superstition, they are willing to do some grave digging things, as long as the graves can be razed to the ground is good, or even dig up the roots, and then build a high-rise building on top.

The properties built here were once unsold, and the older generation of local people knew that this was a graveyard and did not want to live here. However, property prices are rising, people’s concerns slowly diminished, there are some people want to open up, the price of the property here has not fallen, they began to buy the property here.

The cemetery is no longer there, and the high-rise buildings have covered the cemetery circle, and now there are only a million lights in front of us, and the story of the “ghost fire” can only be found in the tattered memories of the elderly.