One day, I had lunch at a Xinjiang restaurant in Shanghai. 12 o'clock, the restaurant sounded cheerful music, two Uyghur girls dressed in costume, on the center stage of the restaurant to perform a dance. Watching their light spinning, neck-twisting, finger-snapping dance, my heart was like what power to tear open a crack, the attachment to their hometown surged out. The end of the dance, my eyes have been covered with a layer of tears ......
In these years, I was busy moving forward, but I was negligent to look back to my hometown. That day, I wanted to go back to Xinjiang, where I lived during my childhood and teenage years.
One early morning in the summer vacation, I took a plane from Shanghai to Urumqi and transferred to a 3-hour train to Korla city. In the afternoon, I had already left Korla city by passenger car to the town where my hometown is located.
I was looking forward to revisiting the past: letting my mind travel with the passenger car in the desert, letting my soul be extracted from the crowded and noisy city life, and stretching out in the vast and quiet Gobi; and letting my faint nostalgia be released in the vast space.
But where is the Gobi in my memory?
On both sides of the road, there is a long stretch of green grapevines, big bunches of purple and green grapes hanging between the leaves. The car is traveling along, sometimes you can see the winding stream, the bank of the red willow swaying, the yellow poplar with the wind. Scattered along the stream are spacious, beautiful farmhouses, with various kinds of flowers planted in front of their doors, blossoming in the sun. The door to the courtyard is open, and you can see the long grape arbor on the road in the center of the courtyard. Grapevine branches and leaves are thick, hanging bunches of round and full grapes. Under the shade of the grapes, on the earthen bed covered with beautiful flower carpets, the elderly people sat cross-legged, eating snacks, drinking afternoon tea, and the sound of laughter drifted out of the courtyard.
In the evening, I arrived home and talked to my mom about the vineyard in Gobi. Mom said, "You don't know, those vineyards are worth a lot of money now! A 50-acre vineyard can't be bought for half a million dollars! Ten years ago, the land on the Gobi, no one wanted it. A few years ago, the government invited experts to come over to study, a carload of soil to the Gobi, experts teach the people to plant grapes and jujubes, did not expect to grow so well! Now, you see, a vineyard and date garden more love!"
At dinner time, the neighbor's Uyghur aunt sent a big plate of shiny, fragrant mutton rice. She told me in Chinese that she had made it specially so that I could taste the flavor of my childhood.
When I was a child, I loved to eat the grabbed rice she made. The lamb chops were not too fat and not too greasy, the flavor was thick and delicious, the carrots were sweet and the rice was mellow.
At that time, our two courtyards separated by a low wall, we planted vegetables, often sent to her family across the wall, she often send fresh fruits and vegetables to us, every time we do rice also send a big plate to us.
Once upon a time, we were very warm and friendly to each other, but every time we communicated, we spoke our own language, and we needed to gesture with our hands and feet, and we guessed at each other to understand each other's meaning. Nowadays, the language has been bridged and the communication is smooth.
The next evening, my father and mother took me to the cultural square in the center of the town. Thanks to the government's emphasis and promotion of cultural activities, for the past two years, a larger-scale song and dance party has been held every Saturday evening, with villages and organizations coming to participate.
The Uyghur people are dexterous, can sing and dance well, and are very enthusiastic about performing. When they danced, their bodies were straight, their eyes were flexible, and their dance movements were sometimes in time with the beat, and sometimes with their hearts, beautiful, free and spontaneous. Influenced by them, my mom's square dance team also started practicing Uyghur dance. My dad, who has always liked to stay at home, has now become a member of the community chorus, often rehearsing the chorus with his peers and rejoicing in every performance on stage.
In the process of modernization, our hometown has changed, the Gobi has become an oasis, and life has become more affluent, more poetic, more leisurely, and the cultural integration between ethnic groups has become deeper.
However, urbanization and other factors have brought new challenges to the hometown, such as depopulation.
Once upon a time, our town had the largest rural trading center in Xinjiang, and on market days, it was crowded with people, bustling with activity. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on a new one, and you'll be able to do that. Near the entrances and exits of the market are also full of makeshift stalls and shelters, and the sounds of hawking and bargaining rise and fall. People of different nationalities communicated with each other in the market in various languages and gestures. Later, the commercial street leading to the market could not satisfy the needs, and another street was opened, and the business was also very prosperous. On both sides of the street, individual stores are lined up, and the pop songs coming out of the tape recorders are deafening, and people come and go, bustling with activity.
Now, many people in my hometown have gone to the city, and many stores on the street are closed, and the market center is quiet and empty.
The city has become more beautiful, but many people have left, including me.
I'm going back to my hometown, and I have mixed feelings about it.
(The author is a teacher in Shanghai)
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Zhu Yike