The writer asks the question for all of us, "What is on the other side of the mountain?"
My mother told me that on the other side of the mountain was the sea. Years after I asked this question, when I saw the sea for the first time in Qingdao and went to graduate school in Guangzhou, a city not too far away from the sea, my mother still hadn't seen the sea. In that poor, remote village, no one would think of the word "tourism", and few people had any expectation of the sea. My mother seemed to be an anomaly among them, but the burden of her family made it impossible for her to get out of that environment completely. Because of her poverty, my mother didn't want to accompany me to college and see the sea. I was a child, and I was a child, and I was a child.
I can still clearly recall, I arrived at Qingdao station by train, and then crossed the street to see the sea situation, although it has been more than five years. But before that, I had only slightly explored the edge of the land, never really appreciate the taste of the sea, I think, if we do not climb a small island, not really let our sight lose the trace of the mainland, I will never really understand what the sea on the other side of the mountain!
Taking the opportunity of this expedition, I finally had the chance to appreciate the sea of one or two points of elegance. In the Zhuhai Xiangzhou port boat out to sea, just sailed across the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge under the ship in the ups and downs of the sound sleep, until the boat docked in Guishan Island when only wake up. Although it was already winter, but the sea breeze is still warm, I turned back to see the end of the harbor breakwater on the end of each stands a not too tall lighthouse, reflecting the distant blue to green sea water, and the near those mottled dilapidated fishing boats and the sunshine on the surface of the sea swaying. This small harbor instantly satisfies all the desires and expectations of an inlander like me for the sea. The only flaw is that the sky is not very clear, a little misty, but also because of this, but really have a sense of the sea and the sky.
As Tao Qian that "long in the cage, back to nature", but the nature of this place is not my nature, I have been away from home for a long time in the mountains, the small hills on the island is not the appearance of the mountains of childhood. Here the sea is within reach, no one will ask what is on the other side of the mountain, right? After all, the waves of the sea day and night, always reminding people.
The day before the sea, I was still in school for the paper and anxious, that is, that day, a woodpecker hit the glass of the laboratory, shriveled up squatting on the balcony, I carefully hold it, feed it water ...... At that time, I think I and it is particularly similar to it, it also flew over the mountains, and then headlong into the The city's lights and greenery, I guess! I also heard other friends who went to graduate school talk about their own pressure, graduate school is like a siege, inside the people in and out of the dilemma. It took me a long time to break out of the mountains, but I still can't hear the waves of the sea.
But at this point, I really fell into the embrace of the sea, this shallow strait separates me from all the troubles associated with the land. The passenger ship left the harbor at the same time, also means that the island we must be stranded here, until tomorrow the next passenger ship to come here. I suddenly smelled the same flavor of this island as I did in my closed home. I wanted to find someone who was born and raised here and ask them if they had ever longed to see the rolling hills. Perhaps they have had a question since they were children - what is on the other side of the sea?
We stayed at a tiny bed and breakfast built on a mountain with a wooden swing set in front of the door. I sat on the swing, facing the ocean as the sun was about to sink. The white waves of the sea echoed the fall that was turning white in the wind and sun.
"What is mother doing?" Before I had time to think about it, my traveling companion, Min, was already calling me down to dinner. We had to go halfway down the hill to the side of the harbor, over a very steep road, the side of which was full of messy power lines. An old woman carrying a small bucket came up to us, a calm smile spread across her wrinkled face, and she looked at me and spoke out of the blue:
"Go home and get dinner!"
Like a familiar old neighbor, I also went along with her pleasantries:
"How old are you?"
"I'm eighty."
"Did you grow up here?"
"Ah - grown up here" she pointed to the ground at her feet.
But I didn't ask her if she had ever longed for the mountains; I somehow found that offensive. I think, in a few years, my mother will be like her, face crawling with a smile wrinkles!
After brushing my shoulders, I looked back and snapped a picture.
"I'm surprised she speaks Mandarin, a lot of the older people here don't." My thoughts were pulled back. Min said she had been here several times and rarely met a young person who could speak Mandarin.
She went on to say, "The people on the island are very relaxed, there are only a few ferries a day, and time is neatly cut short, so they don't rush around like we do, trying to get to the next place. Even if you're ready early, you still have to wait until the boat arrives to get going."
"Yeah, why didn't I think of that." It was like I knew how I was suddenly so relaxed, because there was really no way for those worries to catch up with me across this shallow strait. It's just that why that poem that I read and the thoughts of my mother instead became clearer and clearer in my mind.
Since then, I have been busy working, and not to mention that when I finally had to leave again, I sent a letter to the post office on Wanshan Island, in which I wrote the poem "On the Other Side of the Mountain" by the poet Wang Jiaxin, and attached the words: "All the past is a prelude to a chapter, and I wish that we will always love life!"
When the letter with the postmark on the island was delivered to my mother, how would she feel? I silently pondered, but also silently made a promise, when the spring flowers bloom, but also to pick up my mother to see the sea!