Old things in the south

Chapter 39 My Beijing-style Memoirs (2)
A few years ago (more than ten years ago), I saw a report overseas that Zhao Bingnan had become a famous doctor in mainland China, and he was no longer called "look at the bumps" by ordinary people.The intractable diseases he treated were not only my sister's pimples on the face or my son's small intestinal hernia, but also rat sores, wet scabies, bullet digging... He has cured all kinds of strange diseases.He was born in a bakery worker's family. When he was 14 years old, he worked as an apprentice in a Deshan clinic in Beijing, working 30 hours a day.One day when he was making a plaster, he fell asleep while stirring the ointment with a stick, and accidentally inserted one hand into the hot ointment pot, and the skin on his hand was burned off completely, and the pain was unbearable for him. Had to take some ice flakes and sprinkle it on top.Unexpectedly, the boss saw it, grabbed the ice sheet, and beat him up.Perhaps stimulated by this, he studied hard at a young age and finally mastered some surgical techniques.After his old age, he also published a [-]-word book "Zhao Bingnan's Clinical Experience".

When I lived in Xijiaominxiang, I was in the fifth grade of elementary school.One year in the house next to my home, the words "Gospel Church" were suddenly found on the wall of the white powder door. Every weekend, like a class, foreigners preached.My father asked me to listen, he thought maybe I could learn some English!In fact, I like the pictures posted there. I haven’t learned a single word of English, but I have learned this song: “It’s good that Jesus loves me, because a holy book tells me that every child shepherds sheep…”

There is also a group of missionaries from the Salvation Army on the street, right in front of the Bank of China. They are also foreign devils, wearing the gray uniforms of the Salvation Army.There are three characters of "Salvation Army" on the purple collar. Hearing the sound of the musical instruments (cracker drums) they use, children from every family run out to watch the fun around them and listen to preaching. Who really wants to believe in religion!
At this time, my father was admitted to the hospital because of lung disease. He had been admitted to the German hospital, Rihua Tongren Hospital.He died when we moved to Liangjiayuan again.

Liang Jiayuan

Liang Jiayuan's home has two floors, which is rare in the southern part of Beijing.Exiting the south entrance is the bustling Luomashi Street. It is very convenient to buy daily necessities. Famous stores such as Fozhaolou, Yifengxiang, and Xihe Niantang are all in this area.Opposite the North Exit is Nineteen Primary School (later called Liangjiayuan Primary School). My second, third younger sister and younger brother all attended this elementary school, so it was very convenient to get in and out.I remember being on the roof terrace overlooking the large playground in front of the classroom.It is a pity that my father was seriously ill at this time, and finally passed away at the young age of 44 at the Rihua Tongren Hospital in Sanjo, Dongdan.Before his death, his father ordered to be cremated and his ashes brought back to Taiwan.And he also instructed that the urn should not be placed in the suitcase casually, but must be held in hand.My father was cremated in a Japanese crematorium, and Japanese monks recited sutras.But when making Qi, the rules of Beijing are used, and the burnt paper is used to paste the ghosts, buildings, boats, figures, etc.From then on, we lived with our widowed mother in the not-too-familiar foreign land of Beiping.

After my father passed away, my grandfather sent several letters asking us to go back to Taiwan. I was only in the first grade of junior high school, but first of all I refused, saying that I would not go back to study Japanese!The younger brothers and sisters with the word "Yan" in their names don't know anything about Taiwan, and my mother, I know that she has lived a free life in Beijing for so many years. She is from Banqiao, Taipei, and speaks southern Fujian. In other words, my father is the first big Hakka family, and my mother has lived in the Hakka village for two years as a difficult daughter-in-law. Compared with the aunts and aunts in the film, how could she want to go back!Well, when my eldest daughter said this, she obeyed us and was too happy to go back.

South Willow Lane

That being the case, in order to save money, I moved to the Jinjiang Guild Hall at No. 55 Nanliu Lane, a house that does not have to pay rent.Although we are not from Jinjiang, our mother's ancestors immigrated to Taiwan from Tong'an, Fujian.

In Beiping, we know more friends and fellow countrymen who speak Hokkien than Hakka people, so although life is more difficult, we are not lonely. We have many sisters, and we live around our mother who goes to and from school every day. Favorite meals.

Her dishes are Taiwanese and Hakka dishes. Many green vegetables such as leeks, lettuce leaves, and spinach are blanched in boiling water and dipped in Japanese soy sauce.She is also good at roasting five fillet fish, roasting pork belly with green garlic, stir-fried pork liver, pork heart, stir-fried pork lung with shredded ginger, etc. They are all Taiwanese or Hakka dishes.But I have another set of Beijing food, of course, mainly pasta, dumplings, pies, leek baskets, stretched noodles with fried sauce, pancakes with green onions, fried leeks, soybean sprouts and so on.With such a hobby of eating, I have learned to help Song Ma make dumplings and bake boxes with a hot oven since I was a child.I like to cook because I love to eat!

When it comes to eating, I would like to "interrupt" it. When I lived in Xijiaominxiang, I would go home for lunch every day. When I saw that the meal was ready, but the dishes hadn't been fried, I was so anxious that I would be late for school in the afternoon.My mother poured the refined lard and Japanese Wanzi soy sauce into the steaming Jingxi rice. It tasted sweet, sweet and fragrant, not to mention how delicious it was.But after half a year, the faces of our school children are all chubby and round.

Entering middle school is the period of development and growth, I am delicious, but I have a few weird recipes:
Rice with soda.In summer, open a bottle of iced Yuquanshan soda and pour it into hot rice, it tastes very refreshing like rice soaked in soup.

Ochazuke is just pickled radish.Liubiju, Tianyuan or Tiemen are all famous soy sauce gardens in Peking.My mother said that I like to eat this way because I ate "Ochazuke" in Japan when I was a child. Japanese people often eat tea with rice, and Japanese pickles are called "Fukujinzuke".Until now, I still like to eat chazuke and pickled melon, so it can be used as a meal.

Roast lamb sandwiched with sesame seed cakes is sour plum soup.At four or five o'clock in the afternoon in summer, every mutton bed will burn a pot of spiced mutton, full of aroma.After school at this time, I was a little hungry. I bought roasted mutton and sandwiched it in freshly baked sesame seed cakes. If there is a dried fruit shop nearby, I would have a bowl of iced sour plum soup.I remembered why I like to eat foreign things called "submarines" now. I baked French baguettes and cut them open, sandwiched roast beef or tuna or ham, and some lettuce, onions, etc., with a bottle of Coca-Cola, which means the same!
Fried fried dough sticks with kimchi.This is for breakfast. The freshly fried fritters are sandwiched between hot sesame seed cakes and some hot and sour kimchi, which adds a different flavor.

Since we decided not to go back to our hometown in Taiwan, of course I became what Lin Huaimin described day by day: "Taiwanese girl, but there are Beijing rules." Food, language, I all have a Beijing flavor.Although Hokkien is spoken, it has become "Beijing Taiwanese".

Diagonally opposite my house, there is a house named "Yongxing Temple" but it does not look like a temple. The common name is Nanliu Lane "Paper House".It has to be written in the history of the newspaper industry in Peiping, because Yongxing Temple has become the distribution office of the newspapers in Peiping. Every morning at four or five o'clock, before dawn, all the wholesalers of newspapers gather here.Just outside the wall of my house, there is a lot of noise, because they are squatting at the bottom of the wall waiting for the report.The picker who sells almond tea also came. In winter, people in Peiping are used to drinking a bowl of almond tea in the morning, which is warm and warm.When the newspapers delivered the newspapers, there was a lot of noise, because the newspapers were bought first, delivered first, called out first, and sold first!

The shouts on the streets of Beiping are cadenced and ups and downs, each with its own witty words and melodious voices.Newspapers were not street snacks, nor did they beat clappers or gongs, or hit the utensils they sold with rattan sticks, such as those who sell crock pots and porcelain, those who solder foreign iron pots, and those who collect secondhand goods and sell foreign money big and small. A leather drum, sharpened by a string of piercing iron sheets.The most popular among the children is the "sugar gong beater". His small wooden mallet hits the small copper gong, and the clear and clear sound of the gong, the children all ran out of the small house gate!Go around the picket and see that there are hundreds of delicious, fun, and beautiful things on it, such as egg skin, jujube noodles, green apricot dipped in honey, colored glass beads, small clay figurines, soda balls, cigarettes, foreign paintings, etc. Stickers, tiny glass rings, bracelets and more.Children without money stood by the pick, looked at this and that with envious eyes, picked up this to see, asked the price, picked up that to see, and asked the price.Those who beat sugar gongs already knew who had money in their hands and who had no money, so they stared and said, "Stop moving! Go home and get the money!" Look, how hurt the child's self-esteem!

As for those who sell tabloids and evening papers, those who talk about cross talk once described their calls like this: "Hurry up and buy a Qunqiang newspaper and read it! Look at this big girl and female student on the news!" Beiping's tabloids are like Xiaoshibao , Qunqiangbao, Shiyanbao, etc. There are a lot of serial novels on them. Reading tabloids is a pastime for citizens. When the current situation is tense and changing, the evening paper sells well.

Nanliu Lane is an alley that extends in all directions. From the north exit, it is the west gate of Liulichang, my cultural area; I buy books, pens, inks, papers and inkstones here.I described it in detail in "Living at Home by the Bookstore". Now, I not only live at home by the bookstore, but also "live at the newspaper house".Exiting the south exit of Nanliu Lane, it is the intersection of Xicaochang, Weiran Hutong, and Sun Park. It is my daily life area; There are even bathhouses, pawnshops, Mingyi shops, etc., which meet the daily needs of the residents in this area.Out of Xicaochang is Xuanwumen Street, where my junior high school alma mater, Chunming Girls' High School, is located.

Chunming Girls' High School is a private girls' school run by people from Fuzhou. There are not many students, so almost all the students in the school know each other.Because in Nancheng, it is the place where Peking Opera performers live, so some children related to Peking Opera, as well as those who act in dramas and movies, all go to school here.For example, the drama and movie star Bai Yang (named Yang Junli when he was a student) was a class lower than me. It was popular among Peking students to act in dramas, and there were student drama sports meetings. I once represented the school with Bai Yang.She and her sister were living in an apartment on the West Side at the time.She has fair skin, flexible eyes, and a lot of smiles, which is very cute.Old student Yu Shuyan's two daughters, Huiwen and Huiqing, are in the same class as me and are good friends.Their homework was excellent. Huiwen later studied medicine, Huiqing studied financial business, and lived a conservative life. Their father did not allow them to listen to operas, let alone sing a few words.Yan Huizhu is also in this school, many classes lower than me, so I haven't seen her.

Nanliu Lane is also an important place in my life, and it has been a long time. During the ten years of my fatherless growth, I started from here after studying, getting a job, and getting married; my efforts, my Difficulty, my happiness, my sadness...contains all kinds of emotions. One thing, we have a harmonious and dependent family because we have a virtuous mother who never complains.

Yongguang Temple Street
Cheng Ying and I got married in 1939. My husband’s family lived nearby at No. 5 Yongguangsi Street, which was only a 40-minute walk away. Although I left Nanliu Lane, it was still my mother’s home, and it was very convenient to travel there.I came to a large family of more than 30 people to be the sixth daughter-in-law.I have described the situation and life of this family in the article "Depression in a Quiet Courtyard and a Silent Landscape".The house on Yongguangsi Street was designed and built by my father-in-law after he retired from officialdom. He described it in "The Story of the Nest", which mentioned the white lilacs, lantana flowers, grape trellises, and wisteria trellises he planted. All appreciate.Two years ago, Zhuoer visited the mainland, and went back to his birthplace, looking for the houses of his grandfather, grandmother, and uncle.Unexpectedly, the yard is full of small dilapidated kitchens, and there are [-] people living in it. How can there be white lilacs, green grapes, red tassels, and wisterias?This is also conceivable.Zhuo Er wanted to take a picture of grandma's main room, but couldn't get one, what a pity!
The life of a big family has its advantages. I became the mother of my first child in 1941 (the Xia family has an old rule that when a child is full moon, one must first go to the mother-in-law’s house to kowtow to her, and say: “Mother, congratulations to you !”).I was still working in the library of the Normal University at that time. Although there was a maid at home, when I was not at home, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law helped to take care of the children. It can be said that I worked at the desk all day in the office without "worries"!Our room lives upstairs in the east courtyard. Zhuo'er is a night cryer, and the grandfather who lives downstairs will come upstairs to watch in the middle of the night in winter.The second sister-in-law loves Zhuo'er even more, she often comes upstairs to stay with me for a day or two, taking care of the children.The second elder brother and the fourth elder brother both went to the back of Sichuan, and the second sister-in-law and her five children moved from Shanghai to Peiping to live with the big family. Everyone's life was very difficult, but she even put the dowry satin dress with colorful silk thread on it. Ask me to disassemble Zhuo'er and make a coat for it.

Under the canopy in summer, in the main room, while chatting with my mother-in-law, rubbing the paper match for her to smoke hookah.Sometimes Shanghainese who sell southern products come and put their burdens in the yard, and the mother-in-law picks out what she needs, such as Jinhua ham, Hangzhou tea, tin foil and silver paper, Fujian shredded tobacco, etc.This kind of life experience lasted until after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, when I became a mother of two children, we asked to move to a small courtyard house on Nanchang Street to live an independent small family life.

South Changjie

Nanchang Street is a quiet and beautiful street, which belongs to the Forbidden City.Going down this street, passing Xihuamen Street is Beichang Street. The eunuch Li Lianying’s mansion is there, and a girls’ middle school is there. I have never asked my family why this street in the Forbidden City is so crowded. What about a row of eight courtyard houses with small gates and small households?We live in one of them, house number 28.I later guessed that this must have been the residence of the bannermen, coachmen, cooks, and eunuchs who worked in the palace in the Qing Dynasty!There was a family in the dead end behind our house, and there was an old man with a strange voice and a sissy voice, who was said to be a eunuch.Maybe after the Republic of China, my father-in-law bought this row of houses cheaply!Although the house is small, the location is good. Opposite is the back door of the ice kiln in Zhongshan Park. On holidays when the weather is good, we pushed the rattan baby cart, the big one and the small one, and the four of us crossed the road and walked through the ice kiln door. Go in, and you will find the teahouse under the big cypress tree, Bosixin, Changmeixuan, Chunming Pavilion, where you can drink tea, eat snacks, play chess, and hold art exhibitions in the room.

On Fuyou Street outside the south entrance of Nanchang Street, there is a private Yiwen Primary and Secondary School, where Zhuoer is in first grade, and I also became the mother of my third child at this time.I took Zhuoer by the hand every morning, took him to school, and picked him up in the afternoon.Standing outside the classroom window, watching them attend the last class, probably because there is extra time, the teacher let the children tell stories freely, Zhuoer has a desire to publish, and often listen to his stories, there are always stories about "farting". He even sang a Beijing opera: "My legs are sore from squatting on the Wujia slope. I went down the slope and looked forward. I saw a sister-in-law..." Everyone inside and outside the window laughed, so I had to smile embarrassedly!

At this time, the current situation was already at a time of unrest. As soon as the liberation was restored, family members in Taiwan, including my Lin family and my mother’s surnamed Jian’s family (my mother’s birth mother’s family name was Jian, and later became the daughter of the Huang family), wrote from time to time asking my mother to return to Taiwan. , Delayed until the second half of 1948 before making a decision.

We boarded the plane at Nanyuan, and the plane circled around Beiping City. The last glimpse we had was the glazed tile roof of Xiehe Hospital.

I have lived in Peiping for 26 years. The Beijing dialect is crunchy, but the seven-tone Hokkien dialect is spoken in Mandarin with four tones. It can be described as "Taiwanese with a Beijing flavor". Therefore, people who come back to Taiwan often ask me: "What are you talking about?" You must be from Kaohsiung!"

My Beijing-style memories come to an end here. When I write, I always think of this and that. I haven’t written it yet.

(End of this chapter)