One day, I had lunch in a Xinjiang restaurant. 12, cheerful music sounded in the restaurant, and two Uighur girls dressed up came to the restaurant to perform a dance in Center Stage. Watching them dance lightly, twisting their necks and snapping their fingers, I felt like a crack was torn by some force, and my attachment to my hometown surged out. After the dance, my eyes filled with tears. ...
I have been busy moving forward in recent years, but I have neglected to look back at my hometown. On that day, I really wanted to go back to Xinjiang where I lived as a child and a teenager.
One morning in the summer vacation, I flew from Shanghai to Urumqi and took a three-hour train to Korla. In the afternoon, I left Ku by bus and returned to my hometown.
I am looking forward to reliving the past: let the soul cross the desert with the bus, let the soul get rid of the crowded and noisy city life and stretch in the vast and quiet Gobi; Let the faint homesickness be released in a vast space.
However, where did the Gobi in memory go?
On both sides of the road, there are endless green grape racks, with strings of purple and green grapes hanging between leaves. As the car goes, sometimes you can see the winding stream, the swaying red willow on the bank of the stream and the boxwood fluttering in the wind. Spacious and beautiful farmhouses are scattered by the stream, and all kinds of flowers are planted in front of the door, blooming in the hot sun. The courtyard door is open, and you can see the long grape trellis in the middle of the courtyard. The vines are thick with branches and leaves, and clusters of round and full grapes are hung. Grapes under the green trees, on the heatable adobe sleeping platform covered with beautiful flower mats, elderly people sit cross-legged, eating snacks and drinking afternoon tea, and laughter faintly wafts from the yard.
I came home at night and told my mother about the Gobi becoming a vineyard. Mother said, "You don't know, those vineyards are valuable now!" " You can't buy a 500,000-acre vineyard! 10 years ago, no one wanted the land on the Gobi Desert for free. A few years ago, the government invited experts to study. Car after car of soil was laid on the Gobi, and experts taught people to grow grapes and red dates. I didn't expect them to grow so well! Now, look, how lovely the vineyards and jujube gardens are! "
When eating, the neighbor's Uighur aunt sent a large plate of mutton pilaf, which was shiny and fragrant. She told me in Chinese that she made it specially to let me taste the taste of childhood.
I liked to eat her pilaf when I was a child. Lamb chops are not fat or greasy, fragrant and delicious, carrots are sweet and rice is mellow.
There was a low wall between our two yards at that time. The vegetables we grow are often sent to her house through the wall, and she often sends us fresh melons and fruits, and every time she cooks pilaf, she also sends us a big plate.
Once upon a time, we were very warm and friendly to each other, but every time we communicated, we spoke different languages, and we needed to dance, guess and understand each other's meaning. Now the language is open and communication is smooth.
The next night, my parents took me to the cultural square in the center of the town. Due to the government's emphasis on and promotion of cultural activities, in the past two years, large-scale song and dance parties have been held every Saturday night, and all villages and units have come to participate.
Uighurs are ingenious, good at singing and dancing, and show great enthusiasm. When they dance, their bodies are tall and straight and their eyes are flexible. Dance movements sometimes follow the beat, sometimes follow one's heart, beautiful, comfortable and free and easy. Influenced by them, my mother's square dance team also began to practice Uygur dance. My father always likes to stay at home, and now he has become a member of the community choir. He often rehearses choruses with his peers, and he rejoices every time he sings on stage.
In the process of modernization, hometown has changed, Gobi has become an oasis, life has become richer, more poetic and more leisurely, and cultural integration between ethnic groups has deepened.
However, urbanization and other factors have also brought new problems to hometown, such as population decline.
Our town once had the largest rural market town trade center in Xinjiang. Every market day, people are crowded, bustling and pushing each other. Every booth is filled with goods. There are also temporary stalls and sheds near the entrance and exit of the market, and the voices of hawking and bargaining are one after another. People of different nationalities communicate in various languages and gestures in the market. Later, the commercial street leading to the market could not meet the needs, and another street was opened, and the business was booming. There are rows of individual shops on both sides of the street, and the pop songs from the tape recorder are deafening, and people come and go, so lively.
Now, many people in my hometown have gone to town, many shops in the street have closed down, and the Bazaar Center is quiet and empty.
My hometown has become more beautiful, but many people have left, including me.
Back home, mixed feelings.
(The writer is a teacher in Shanghai)
(Welcome to write down what you have seen, heard and thought about the countryside in the "Hello, Southern Week" column of the Southern Weekend App and share it with you. Submission email: nfzmreaders@ 163.com)
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