Old things in the south

Chapter 18 Epilogue

I once wrote a small manuscript titled "Recalling Childhood", and now I transcribe it below:

My interests are broad and mundane.I like to be lively and afraid of being lonely, and since I was a child, I have loved to drill into the crowd.

I remember when I was a child in Beiping on a summer night, I moved a small bench and squeezed into a large crowd to listen to ghost stories.Turning around suddenly, I saw a kitten catching a gecko in a dark oleander flower pot, and couldn't help screaming in fright.But moving the bench forward still encourages adults to continue talking.

When I was seven or eight years old, there was a kind of "talker boxer" who walked through the streets and alleys in Peking, which left a deep impression on me.It was also in summer, every day after dinner, Momozui hurried to the gate to look around.First came the tuberose sellers; they strung tuberoses into beautiful large flower baskets, and hung five or six of them on a long bamboo pole. Women liked to buy them and hang them in their bedrooms, so that they would fill the room with fragrance at night.After a while, the "light bulb changer" came again.He carried a box full of new and old light bulbs, and he gave him a few money to exchange the broken ones at home for new ones.To this day I don't understand what he did with the old light bulbs.Then, the "talker" I was looking forward to the most came, and I saw that person carrying a "chatterer" (later changed to a gramophone, now it's a record player), and holding a loudspeaker like the dog listening to a gramophone on the Shengli company trademark .I ran into the house and asked my mother to call him in.My mother can't be disturbed, and she will always follow me.As soon as my mother agreed, I ran out again, and shouted loudly before I ran out of the gate:

"Chatterbox! Don't go! Don't go!"

In fact, when the chatterbox saw me running into the house, of course he would wait at the door, and he would not leave until he got a result.When negotiating prices, a group of neighborhood children and mothers surrounded the door.Come in after negotiating a good price, and the people around will follow you in, which is called "Ting Ceng Er" in Peking dialect.Sometimes I openly let them all in; sometimes I just push someone out if I don't like it, and slam the door, so majestic!

The person who sang the chatter box pressed the big horn on the box, and then installed EMI's records.The film turned, and the two opening lines first: "EMI Company specially invites Boss Mei Lanfang to sing the universe front", the needle of the diamond rubbed against the record that should have been retired long ago, making a creaking sound, and sang creakingly Sometimes it meows like a cat, sometimes it sounds like a broken gong.If you encounter a newly arrived record, you will have to increase the price!But because of the familiar customers, they will always give up a piece of "Foreigners Laugh" in the end. Before singing, everyone started laughing. Great reunion" ending.

Children’s education in the mother’s time is different from our modern times. For example, my mother gave the old mother a dollar (what a useful dollar!) and asked her to take our children to the “Chengnan Amusement Park” to spend a whole day and a whole day. all night.No one said it was unreasonable.Because mothers at that time did not pay attention to the dogma of "don't take children to public places".

The old lady at that time was really powerful, and she had to arrange it when she entered the amusement park. She loved to listen to Zhang Xiaoying's civilized plays "Saw the Bowl" and "Chun Ah Shi", but I couldn't go to the big theater to listen to Xue Yanqin's "" Mei Yu Pei".Later, when I got familiar with it, I became more courageous, so I found a topic-to ask for two big coins (two copper coins) to go to the toilet, and slipped out to run around here and there.See the jugglers in tuxedos; watch girls with long braids sing drums; watch the open-air movie "Konggulan" by Zheng Xiaoqiu.In the big theater, men and women are divided into seats (except for boxes), and sometimes the audience applauds the "towel throwers", those who put sunflower seeds on the plate, those who sell magnolia flowers, those who sell candy, and those who ask for tea money. Go, make a lot of noise, maybe sometimes catch a tantrum lord flying teapots.On the stage, there was a play newspaper on one side, and big characters on the other that read "Decree from the Hall: No Strange Applause is Prohibited."

The big drama always ends at the end. It was already midnight, and I hired a foreign car to go home, and fell asleep as soon as I got in the car.I don’t understand the mentality of adults at that time. It was past twelve o’clock, and people were not allowed to sleep. They sat on them (mothers or old ladies) and dozed off, but they shook you from time to time and said: “Don’t sleep! Hurry up! Home!" Then I asked my mother why the sleepy child was not allowed to sleep?The mother said, on the one hand, she was afraid of catching a cold, and on the other hand, she was afraid that she would be too sleepy to return home.

Many years later, Chengnan Amusement Garden was rebuilt into a slaughterhouse. If you pass by there by chance, you will feel the past and present.This is not nostalgia for the lively life of the past. The social customs at that time are not worth mentioning, just because those things were experienced in childhood.That's true joy, carefree, out-and-out joy.

I remember when I was writing the above paragraph, I thought: In order to recall my childhood and make it eternal, why don’t I write some stories with my childhood as the background!So in the past few years, I have completed these chapters of this book one after another.These stories are not necessarily true, but when I write them, the characters keep appearing in front of my eyes, Aunt Lan with a slanted smile, Mother Song who rides a donkey back to her hometown, Mr. De who ignores our children Uncle, the crazy woman in Chunshu Alley, the little friend by the well, the thief hiding in the haystack.Have readers noticed that at the end of each story, the main character in it left me, until the last article "Father's Flowers Fall", my dear father also went, and my childhood was over.I was 13 years old at the time, and I started to take on responsibilities that no child should have.If a person's life is divided into several paragraphs, the death of my father is an important paragraph in my life. I wrote an article "My Father" on Father's Day, which is still worth recording here:

When writing an article on commemorating my father, I have to recall many childhood events, because my father died almost 20 years ago, and I was still a little girl when he abandoned the seven of us.In the many years of my writing, I have never written one specifically for my father, because I know that if I write about my father, I will inevitably touch on the sad memory of his premature departure from us.

Although the time I spent with my parents was far less than that with a friend; moreover, those years belonged to my childhood for me, but I knew and knew my father very well.He doted on me, spurred me on, and did some unreasonable things to show his tyranny, but I also have to forgive him for his growing bad temper because of his weakening lung disease.

Father really should not have passed away so early.He is a person who works hard and has a deep interest in life. What a rich life he has!He is active by nature, almost doing everything wrong, as if there are so many things in the world that cannot be finished, waiting for him to do it, I think he is not reconciled to death.But his various hobbies also contributed to his early death. He loved to drink and punched happily; he loved to play cards, and our house was always full of friends on weekends.He is smart and works hard on everything.After his tuberculosis, he also has a lot of research on medicine. There is a chest of drawers at home, just like a small pharmacy.But this kind of life of drinking and staying up late is enough to destroy the efficacy of any medicine.I heard from my mother that when my father was doing business in Japan, he would often go to neighborhoods lined with wine and prostitutes, drink from night to dawn, and sing all over the street in one night. He is too capricious!

The mother's productivity is high enough, with an average of two births every three years. Some people say that most of our sisters are because of my father's love of flowers. This is just a superstitious coincidence, but my father's love of flowers is true.I have a very clear memory, that is, my father often bargained with the flower sellers in Taodan, and in the end he always bought the whole load of flowers.So my father did it, and we got busy excitedly. The flowers planted in large and small flower pots under the eaves of the corridor seemed to be particularly fond of asparagus, mimosa, crabapple, hydrangea and chrysanthemum.In autumn, the living room under the corridor is full of autumn chrysanthemums.

The flowers were the most prosperous when our family lived in Hufang Bridge, and there were several large pots of excellent oleander and pomegranate in the yard, all of which were carefully cultivated by my father.Every year, he personally puts hemp residue on the pomegranate tree, which will stink for several days, but by the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the big pomegranates are so full that their mouths burst open!In the first year after my father's death, the pomegranates did not bear fruit; in the second year, several trees died.People who like to attach superstitions say that they go with the father.In fact, it is obviously because we are not as diligent as our father in pruning and fertilizing.

Although my father's temper is sometimes violent, he has more advantages. He works responsibly, strives to survive, is eager to help others, and spares no money.He loves every one of our children, and I often think that since this is the case, he should take good care of his body so that his life can be prolonged, and seeing his children grow up is the happiest thing.But the active father refused to take good care of his illness.He died with unsatisfactory eyes, and because of the death of our father, our childhood dreams were suddenly shattered.

I've taken on a lot of fatherhood at an age when others still need to care for me.We try to pull through, shy about reaching out to people for help.Every progress depends on my own strength, and I am ashamed to be pitied by others.I also don't like to be favored, because the reward is a burden.The death of my father caused me to be stubborn. When I think about it carefully, these characters are not inherited from my very strong father!

During my childhood in Peiping, most of them lived in the south of the city, where the former capital was located.My father is so active that he likes to move, and the postman in green is the main person who reports where there are good houses.We lived in Chunshu Hutong, Xinlianzi Hutong, Hufang Bridge, and Liangjiayuan, all of which are full of the scenery in the south of the city.

The few stories collected here are a bit coherent in time. Readers don’t ask me if it’s true or not. I just want readers to share my feelings of nostalgia for my childhood.Isn't everyone's childhood so stupid and sacred?

(End of this chapter)