? Xiao Zhifeng
Open the dusty memory, recalling the distant past.
In the early 1960s, during the three-year natural disaster period, I heard the adults say that there was a famine in our area, and there was no food in the house, and people were so hungry and skinny that they had to leave their homes and go on the run to get food. In order to fill their stomachs and survive, they had to eat tree bark and wild vegetables. At that time, I do not remember, but after I remember, anyway, my family ate all the dried groundnuts, vegetable nests, drinking gruel; home empty, in addition to agricultural tools and household goods, nothing, all the family belongings are not worth a few dollars. At that time, people didn't worry about anything else but the lack of food. In order to have enough to eat and not to starve, my parents planned to go to the northeast to join one of my uncles and grandparents. Going to the northeast is not a small thing, if you go, it will take several days by train, there are more than 3,000 miles away. I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to do this, but I'm going to be able to do it, and I'm going to be able to do it, and I'm going to be able to do it, and I'm going to be able to do it, and I'm going to be able to do it, and I'm going to be able to do it, and I'm going to be able to do it.
I remember that it was 1964, when the spring flowers bloomed, and we went north to run to my grandpa's house. My grandpa's family lives in Hunjiang City, Jilin Province, Shiren Town, a countryside remote mountain village, they are before the liberation of the desertion to the Northeast. We went to the Northeast, for the adults, but it is difficult to change the homeland ah, at that time I was only nine years old, of course, I do not understand these, I only know the fun. I dimly remember our family of three hit two rolls, wrapped up two packages of things, these belongings, my father asked the commune's only Gass car to take us from Ezhuang to the West River, and then from the West River we took a small train to Kunlun and then to Zhangdian. This is the first time in my life to take the car, but also the first time to see the train, I have not been out of the house since childhood, can really see the big world, happy, feel everything is so rare and fresh.
We went to Zhangdian after the train station marquee waiting for an afternoon. At that time, the train station is all bungalows, the road is a sandy road, the car is very rare, but from time to time there are carriages to and from the busy center of the road now do not remember that there was a building. The marquee was not big, but there were a lot of passengers, men and women, old and young, coming and going, and my father was always tugging at my hand, afraid that I might get lost. I remember when the sun is about to set to check the ticket, drilling tunnels across the footbridge, came to the platform, I look at the train so long, especially the locomotive big red wheels higher than me, it pulls the long whistle put steam is not scary.
Boarding the northbound train, facing the evening sun, we sat by the window. Open the window, the warm spring breeze came, dispersed the nervousness of the ticket on the car, the mood gradually calmed down. Facing the sunset, looking out of the window, everything is so new, one after another village, towns and cities into my eyes, and one by one disappeared in my field of vision. The train was like a wild horse, whistling on the Jiaoji Railway. When the night gradually descends, outside gradually nothing can be seen, only that few as the star-like lights, flashing through the window backward. Passengers in the carriages, you come and go, speak in different accents, talk, greetings. Along the way, I kept asking about this and that, everything I had never seen or heard of, everything was new. At that time I was still a child who did not know anything, just know play, where know the mood of parents, they are not too much to speak with a sullen face, and then when I grew up, only to know that they have a heart of sadness, thinking there is pressure. Their background away from home, in order to make a living, leaving home and work, far from home, the heart is how complex, worry, despair and helplessness. The kind of wandering outside far from home, without relatives, how sad, to say, life is a journey of suffering. When looking back, I can't help but feel a sense of emotion.
We went through three days and two nights of long-distance drive, from Zhangdian along the way economic South, Tianjin, Shanhaiguan, Shenyang, and then transfer to Meihekou, Tonghua, Hunjiang, Shiren, in a small station called Yao-Lin under the car. I remember that it was the middle of the night to the station, the dark night we huddled in the chair and cold and timid through the middle of the night, looking back really make people feel sad. But all the way to see the city, the countryside, the Yellow River, the plains, the sea, the forest.
I remember the North China Plain, bare and white, as if the frost, I asked my father curiously, he said it was the saline underground up, no trees, no weeds, villages are very sparse. The train sped in the North China Plain, the car speed, we looked at both sides of the railroad poles are down, pulling a long whistle, railroad track joints issued by the sound of the rhythm of a particularly fast, whistling Mercedes-Benz in the railroad line, it is really fast and furious in general.
The train passed through Qinhuangdao, Shanhaiguan, the vast sea into my eyes, the sea rolled white waves rolled, so no air. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands dirty. Finally saw with my own eyes, the sea and sky boundless so vast. Before I heard of the sea, books have learned the sea, the sea can only be in my imagination. The sea, so big, the sea in front of everything is so small, I witnessed the vastness of the sea, the sea has been y buried in my memory. When Cao Cao's eastern expedition to Wuhuan, had climbed to Jieshi, facing the vastness of the sea, wrote a magnificent poem, "watching the sea". In the summer of 1954, Chairman Mao took a summer vacation in Beidaihe, when it was raining heavily, he looked at the sea and wrote the poem "Beidaihe". Heavy rain fell Yuyan, white waves, Qinhuang Island outside the fishing boat, a piece of the ocean are missing, know to whom the side, the past more than a thousand years, Wei Wu waved his whip, East Jieshi have the remains of the story, Xiao Se Autumn Wind today is again a change of the world.
Shanhaiguan is the North China to the Northeast pass, the said Guandong is east of Shanhaiguan, Shanhaiguan since ancient times is a place of war, the strategic position is important, there is a capital to protect the title. Train sailing through the Shanhaiguan will enter the land of western Liaoning, after a stop, and a stop. Do not remember what station, what name, then arrived in Shenyang. Get off the train and then transfer, I remember waiting for a long time in Shenyang Station, Shenyang Station can be really big, there are countless trains at the station, pulling the whistle back and forth, not spectacular. Train station marquee building magnificent, the station around the high-rise buildings, inside and outside the station, the square, a sea of people. Shenyang ancient city has a long history, but also a modern metropolis. According to the records of the Yuan Dynasty was named Shenyang. Qing Nurhachu fixed capital Shenyang, alias Shengjing, was once the birthplace of a dynasty.
Small cars and trucks driving on the road, buses, streetcars in the streets through, and occasionally people riding an electric donkey to shake the wind to play broad. Shenyang is a heavy industrial city in the northeast, and is the capital of the province, the economy is developed, there is a metropolitan style, and Jinan compared to the disparity can be too big. No wonder people are poor to run to the northeast, the northeast is really an affluent place, can save the lives of the poor place. In Shenyang, I ate bread for the first time, I had never heard of before, big bread with sweet and sour delicious.
After a few transfers finally arrived at the destination Yao Lin station. The first thing I did was to ask the station personnel to go to the small black pine ditch is more than 10 miles away. According to the direction of the pointed out, we from the remote forest train station marquee out to look around, suddenly there is a kind of eerie feeling came. Within the field of view of the black, raise your eyes up to see the trees in the sky, hidden sky and earth, left and right remote view of a railroad from the pine forest through, straight railroad to the direction of the two sides extended. In this vast sea of forests, on the invisible sky, left and right look around in addition to the pine trees are pine trees, gloomy, quiet, a pedestrian also disappeared. Walking in the mountains, creepy, this remote station away from the village, located in the mountains halfway up the mountainside, and now recall really a little afraid. Northeastern mountains are sparsely populated, tigers, bears, wild boars, wolves and other erratic. In case of wild animals that's not good. We went down the mountain, in accordance with the direction indicated, along a small road through an open area, face to face is a large river in front of us, the river rolls, waves, rushing away. The river is built with two logs of a wooden bridge, the bridge is not wide, the water under the bridge is fast flowing, the bridge is dangerous Halo river dare not go forward. My father put the luggage roll first moved over, and then carry me over, and finally help my mother over.
After the river, the heart of a stone is considered to land, along the muddy forest path, over a hillock, found in a remote depression, estimated that there are two dozen families. Each family's yard is surrounded by wooden fence walls, houses are built with wood, mud, thatch. There was a big thick and high chimney erected beside the wall of each house, emitting white smoke. From time to time, the dog's barking came, finally found the door of the grandpa's house, we were in the mood not to mention how excited excited.
We arrived at the house at about 7:00 p.m., and it was a great pleasure to see you there," he said. The first thing you need to do is to ask your mother how she found the house from the remote forest, and my mother said that she met people to ask ah. After a few moments of chitchat, we all **** into breakfast. Adults and children sat around the dirt bed, the pit table was full of food. There are pancakes, there are corn cakes, vegetables are shredded potatoes, potato cubes, cabbage stewed vermicelli, drinking congee, a big plate, a big bowl, good not sumptuous. In those days, in Shandong home is not to see, can not eat this kind of meal.
In the blink of an eye, more than a month has passed, my parents decided to start another pot, live in peace to enjoy the work, in my grandpa's family, with the help of the arrangement of good housing, the purchase of pots and pans, after settling down, they began a new life. We fell into the temporary household registration, my father worked in the production team, the production team to give my family a large piece of wasteland for us to cultivate their own, the northeast is all black soil, fertile land, abundant rainfall, as long as the seed planted to extinguish the weeds on the line, without fertilizer and watering. We planted potatoes, kidney beans, turnips, leeks, peppers, also planted a strawberry; also raised a mouthful of pigs, more than 30 chickens, and ducks and geese, can not eat the chicken, ducks, geese and eggs to the town of Shiren to sell, so the money to spend.
The land in Northeast China is wide and full, and there is no shortage of food. In the fall, in addition to the production team to share the grain, my family planted the wasteland also harvest a lot, can be said to be full of grain warehouse wood full of stacks. In the northeast, as long as the people diligently on the line, after the fall of the family dug a large cellar, the potatoes, turnips, cabbages, all stored in it, a winter will rely on these winter. In winter, they kill a pig and drop it in the warehouse, or share it among neighbors. Pork stewed with vermicelli and chicken stewed with mushrooms were the best dishes at that time. Crops in the Northeast were mainly corn, oil wheat, sorghum and soybeans. We lived an affluent life, with no worries about food or clothing. In the village where we lived, every family kept a dog to guard the house and prevent wild animals from sneaking into the house. There were wolves near the village, and roe deer and foxes were often seen.
A month or so after arriving in the Northeast, I began to go to school in the brigade school, because there was no school in our small mountain village, so we had to go to the brigade school six miles away, the brigade village is called Rongbin, and there are more than a hundred families living there, plus the population of the neighboring villages, which adds up to a thousand or so hundred people. The school was spacious, with five classes, a large playground, a blue ball racket, a ping-pong table, and a volleyball net. There are also sports meets on June 1, Children's Day. Although this place is a rural area, it is fifteen miles from Shiren Town, and just over a hundred miles from Hunjiang City. The economy and culture are more developed, Rongbin village has a store and a theater. Shiren Town alone has three large department stores and four large hotels, all state-run. Because there are calcium carbide mines, talc mines, coal mines, and forest farms near Shiren Town, it is more densely populated.
I remember the first day of school, in the morning, all of us teachers and students gathered in the playground, the principal beat the beat and led us to sing "We walk on the big road", "learning Lei Feng good example" and other songs. I've never heard these songs, let alone sing them, there was no radio in Shandong home no radio, where to learn ah, can not eat, not to mention the other. Each class has a study area, the school has a cabinet organ, with feet on the hands to press the keys to play, there is an accordion to hold to play, music teacher every Friday to give us music lessons. I remember the first music class was "Socialism is good"; the second was "Song of Spring", and I remember the lyrics were "Spring wind blows in spring, butterflies fly on flowers' heads, whistles blow on the street, children's groups want to hold a general meeting ......" Culture and education were very advanced, and every family All have wired loudspeakers, some families have radios, political and cultural propaganda is in place. I remember that in my hometown in Shandong Province, it was far less advanced. The first time I saw this, I was in the middle of the night, and I was in the middle of the night, and I was in the middle of the night, and I was in the middle of the night.
When we first arrived in the Northeast, we saw that people were very well dressed, young adults wearing uniforms, adults and children wearing sneakers, everyone has a raincoat. In Shandong home to wear clothes and shoes are handmade cloth shoes civilian clothes, I have not seen a sneakers. The second year after we settled down in the northeast, I sometimes followed my mother on Sundays to go to the town of Shiren to sell chicken and duck eggs in the production team's horse-drawn wagon, I remember that an egg was more than 10 cents, a large basket of chicken and duck eggs can be sold for dozens of dollars, the income is quite substantial. From then on, I also wore sneakers and new clothes. I remember that every time I went to the town after selling eggs, I went to the department store to buy this and that, and there were big chairs in the store, so I rested for a while when I was tired. At noon, we went to the restaurant to eat rice and fried vegetables, and the life in the old country can not be compared. The town of Shiren is a corner of the Changbai Mountain range. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on some of the most popular products and services in the world, and you'll be able to do it all in one place.
When I was older, I went up the mountain with my companions with a basket to beat the hogweed, and in the fall went to the mountains to pick mushrooms, hazelnuts, hickory nuts, and sometimes Chinese medicine, and on weekends in the winter pulled the plough to get firewood. Strange to say, we live in this village, the east side of the mountain is full of horsetail pine boundless, while the west side of the mountain is a piece of birch forest, birch bark is white, in the bottom of the gully is the hickory tree. As if the ancestors intentionally planted the same, elm trees, quercus, is more scattered. Whatever the trees were, they were growing upwards as if they were drilling into the sky, which I later realized was because they were looking for sunlight. The old trees are down in the woods, lying horizontal and vertical, while the young trees are crazy growth, which is exactly what Liu Yuxi said, sinking boat side of a thousand sails over, the sick tree in front of ten thousand trees spring.
Rongbin village, located in an open area, east and west of the mountains, forming a north-south corridor, according to the mountains, alongside the water, east of a river, west of a river, the village is sandwiched in the middle of the family to drink the water in the river, the river water is clear and sweet, a lot of people all year round to drink the cool water, and I have not heard of a stomach ache. People often say that the Northeast water is the water of the ginseng, drink the people, no wonder people in the northeast of the rosy cheeks. Loop is very wide water is not very deep, adults and children in the summer to bathe in the river. There are also a lot of net fish, fish especially. Northeast rainfall abundant rivers throughout the year is not dry, so the growth and reproduction of fish have unique conditions, otherwise how would say the scoop scoop fish it.
Rongbin brigade seventy percent of the total population of Shandong, they come from different years, different regions, very few locals, the TV series "break into the East" story, is a reproduction of the Shandong people break into the East. Just as we Shandong people are in the Ming Dynasty from Shanxi migrated over the same. It may also have something to do with the government's policy guidance. Northeast is a small number of land is the need to develop, just like our current development of the West, the country to give preferential policies, so that people to develop and utilize the resources there, so that the East and West balanced development. The northeast is rich in natural resources, the land is vast, the development potential is huge, this may also be a major factor.
Our village is the fourth production team of Rongbin Brigade, the production team raised more than twenty cattle, the spring came production team members, they used the oxen pulled plow plow plow, youths flung the whip holding the plow, singing songs, very leisurely. The children followed the adults in the mountains and dug wild vegetables, mountain celery, monkey head cabbage, picking garlic, wild spinach, everywhere. Pheasants are especially abundant in the woods, and sometimes you can pick up wild eggs by chance, and there are many tits in the grassy woods, and sometimes you can catch small birds and pick up their eggs. In the northeast of the childhood life is very happy, today think also beautiful. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on some of the most popular products and services in the world, and then you can get your hands on some of the most popular ones.
In the sixties, Changbai Mountain area, just started to develop, in addition to some places where the forest was cut down, the whole is still the original state of the forest, the air and water without any pollution, the air is clear, fresh, pure water, is actually attached to the name of the natural oxygen bar. People live in the environment of green mountains and green water, people enjoy the fairyland-like living conditions, eating pure natural food, rarely heard of sick. It is hard to find that kind of environment nowadays. Changbaishan affected by the Pacific warm and humid air flow, the climate is humid and abundant rainfall, winter in Siberia cold air and the Pacific warm and humid air flow of the role of falling snow frequently, Changbaishan winter, although dozens of degrees below zero, but the cold soft and soft, and the cold in northern China, the feeling is not the same, unlike the cold and cold as the north of China, as cold as the cold and cold, as in the northeast of the Shandong to wear the same cotton clothes to wear. The wind in the northeast is not as big as the wind in North China, because there is a natural barrier of the Daxinganling blocking the northwest wind from Siberia. In winter, the snow covers the earth, the air is clean and fresh, there is no dust, the coat wear a winter are very clean.
Changbaishan is a beautiful and fertile place, a vast sea of forests to support the water, dense forest vegetation covering the earth, winter snow and ice flying, snowflakes hanging full of pine branches, the mountains present a silver world, thousands of trees and trees wrapped in silver, canyons like clouds winding rolling, mountain ranges such as the Silver River as the emergence of the towering mountains clothed with a dress, embroidery of the general mountains and rivers, a good northern scenery. Changbai Mountain due to the high mountains, but also because of the cold weather, the top of the mountain year-round snow, so the name Changbai Mountain. Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, is in the Changbai Mountain area, Korean women wear skirts all year round, wearing pointed shoes, with the head of the things, men always use a basket to carry things, the Korean people can sing and dance, the girl handsome, graceful, with traditional cultural practices, ethnic customs colorful, inherited from the long civilization of mankind.
Spring Changbai Mountain is a colorful season, turquoise verdant virgin forests, with the mountains and rivers winding up and down, the spring breeze, Song Tao tumbled, the sound of waves, the nature of spring and autumn harmony and beauty. The wild taro, red flowers and yellow core are all over the mountain. Red peony, white peony, respectively, white flowers and red flowers dotted in the green grass, mountain flowers spitting fragrance, in the mountains and forests under the backdrop, a different flavor. In the spring, the spring breeze blows, hundreds of flowers beautiful purple wilted red competing to open. Lead to colorful butterflies, very beautiful, spring is really a colorful world, everywhere warbler song and dance, hundreds of birds competing.
Spring and autumn is another scene, nature nurtures all things, spring and autumn and come, the laws of nature carries the world, cold and summer and spring and autumn, in the endless run. Autumn is the harvest season, the woods are full of wild mushrooms, hazelnut tree fruit lei lei. Five flavors, mountain grapes, round dates, vines cover the sky, winding in the trees, a string of hanging full of branches and vines, and horsetail pine pine knot pine nuts, large like a small pineapple, hanging in the branches, quercus knot acorns full of trees full of branches are. Hickory in the ditch in the field is full of, winter snow mountain bears, wild boars, eat these fruits, which is dependent on the survival of natural food. Everything in the world has its own living environment and living conditions. This is exactly what Darwin's theory of evolution says, the survival of the fittest. God gives the conditions, and the earth dominates the living beings. The world is big enough to accommodate all things, the earth is large and diverse, thriving with life, and human harmony **** exist. The vast northeast of the land is beautiful and rich, the black soil nurtures the hard-working people, people often say, the northeast of the three treasures, ginseng, sable, leg warmer grass. There is also a rod playing roe deer, ladybird scooping fish reputation.
Changbai Mountain is a desirable place, the winter snow covered the earth, the mountain silver white sea of snow. The snow is closed to the mountain is the hunter hunting season, leading the dog along the animal footprints to find, often hit the wild boar, roe deer. Then there is winter, it is the season to cut wood with a plow to pull firewood and save energy and speed. Every year around the 15th of August in the lunar calendar, snow, to the next year when we open peach blossom in Shandong, that is, the snow began to melt at the time of the Qingming Festival. Northeasterners say run peach water, daytime freezing night ice, because of a winter of snow is too thick, run peach water sometimes cause flash floods, to make the river overflow.
In the summer of 1969, the school organized a summer camp for our students to Linjiang tourist activities. Under the leadership of the teacher, dozens of people in our class took the train from the Yuanlin Railway Station directly to Linjiang. Linjiang was then a county, the city is not big, but neat and clean, although there are no skyscrapers, but the city streets are wide and well laid out. Linjiang, as the name suggests, is a city built on the river. I remember the Yalu River water dark green dark green, the river is wide and smooth current, riverside people fishing, some people sprinkle nets. An iron bridge flying east and west through North Korea. When the anti-American aid to North Korea, my volunteer army is from this iron bridge across the Yalu River. On the bank of the extreme view. North Korean villages can be vaguely seen, and the two peoples look at each other across the river. During the war of liberation, the Northeast Field Army was able to protect the Yalu River, and this is the place where it was said to be.
Remembering the past years, the Northeast is a piece of hot land, is the Northeast of the corn tortillas big pancakes raised me, I write with special feelings of this Guandong past, to express my gratitude to the black earth. When moved back to Shandong home, in the northeast of what I saw and heard, learning life, often flash in my mind, back in my memory.
The sea has changed, and more than half a century has passed. In the past in the northeast of the study and life of the little by little, with the passage of time, some of the past has faded out of memory, but the snow-capped mountains of Changbai Mountain, and the Yalu River ink green river, the reckless sea of forests, curved rolling Changbai Mountain range, I still remember vividly, that sentiment of Changbai Mountain, often lingering in the heart, I can not forget.
A person's life is a long process, the years of wind and rain I do not know how many memories of life washed away, decades of the stars, sunrise and sunset, a lot of past events with the passage of time has been forgotten, recall has felt very distant. However, sometimes feel like an instant process, the past is like yesterday, as if in the haze back to that childhood.
Diary