Fangchong is an old man sleeping on two mountain beams, it has experienced the vicissitudes of more than a hundred years, it will be able to release all the stories of sadness and joy in the heart to accommodate, like a kind mother in the care of her children. Whether sad, or happy, its accounts are silent and true.
This is a typical Yudong Tujia courtyard, with hanging footstools bathed in the aroma of Hanmin architecture. Over the hill behind you, you can see the clear Yangtze River that rolls in from the plateau.
In the rush of years, Zuofangchong seems to be going to sleep. It is no longer lively, and its silence reigns supreme among the surrounding cluster of villages. At night, one or two oil lamps wandered through the empty darkness, my aging parents cooling themselves by lamplight or talking to the chickens and ducks that could sing.
My heart hangs deep under the eaves of the workshop, and on days when the wind blows, I can hear it chime like a wind chime, is that my tears falling, or is it my nostalgia roaming?
The Yellow Jade Tree
Workshop Chong is not alone, it is the north side of the two huge Yellow Jade trees, like a loyal guard, they have always been in the years, as always, baked Workshop Chong endless cooking smoke.
One of them was planted by my grandfather. It was a beautiful umbrella. It provided the fallen leaves that could be used as firewood in those poor days of the 1970s. Oh, in my childhood, when those fallen leaves made a kind of laughing and talking sound in the stove, my father said that it was the warmth given to us by my grandfather in heaven. In the light of the fire, our childhood was enveloped by a deep love, a love so great that it drove away hunger, poverty, loneliness and disappointment, so that no matter how cold and dangerous life was later on, they were always our umbrella, the source of our joy, always reminding us of the unending little bit of hope in the distance. And so it was as if our laughter, tears and anger all stemmed from the love knotted on this tree. Even now, occasionally on the street, when I see a weathered old man from the bazaar carrying a handful of vegetables that may only sell for 20 cents weaving in and out of the crowd hawking, my blood pushes my love to pervade, and I let this grandfather of my heart give me the green that smells so strongly of the field, and sprinted away in the wisp of warmth that flowed out of his eyes as he received the paper bill, and at that moment, I always somehow think of The yellow jacobo tree.
Grandfather's tree gave us a strong sense of kinship throughout the year. It gazed at and listened to the workshop rushes from the place closest to us, and when I was tired of walking in the city, suddenly, I felt that the yellow-juet tree stood behind me. Though, when I really looked back, there was only the hustle and bustle of cars in front of me.
Three, make gentleman vine
Said vine, but my father always honored it, called it make gentleman tree.
It is a specialty of the workshop, which once brought this village an unparalleled honor and reputation. In the old days, when someone had a bloated belly and indigestion, Zuofangchong was a free hospital for the people. The relatives of the patients traveled through many villages that looked very large on the outside, and in front of those villages, they always asked reverently, "Where is Zuofangchong?" In the end, their exhaustion was always replaced by a smile in front of the make-or-break vine. If there was fruit on the tree, they climbed the vine and picked the fruit themselves after asking permission, and it was reassuring to know that the simplicity of the people ruled in their hearts, obliterating their desires that nowadays seem all too greedy, and that they always picked enough fruit to be able to cure their illnesses and then went away, never picking more than they needed. For the workshop rushes, they preferred to come and visit again. If there was no fruit on the tree, they asked my parents or grandparents for it, and my elders became the ambassadors of healing.
The vines were wrapped around an orange tree, and the hammock they wove was my childhood playground for reading books. Surrounded by greenery, one summer noon, I always slept in it with a good novel, swung on the swing, and then settled down to read in the serenity created by the heat for a pleasure that could replace hunger. At a certain moment of reading, there are often dragonflies dancing on the vine, they are just dancers, will not wake up the kind of concentration I read.
The vine is still there, and it is a lonely one that was once glorious. So its fruit grew and died in the mud. It is then surrounded by a large area of tiny juniper vines, in the face of their deep love and care for the elders, far from the native land, I can only bow my head, ashamed.
Four, the ancient well
In fact, the ancient well should not be now this kind of appearance.
Memory of the ancient well is beautiful like a painting. It is a young girl without grooming, all the charm in the nature of the people to be convinced. Calamus is its hair, surrounded by its clear and charming face. Next to it is the old stone land, and beyond it is a small pond made of its clear water. This is the paradise of a few ducks in the workshop, and also the nearest place for our mother to do laundry, but as children we always liked to watch an insect called waterwheel by the pond, which had six or seven legs and jumped on the water surface, and were happy to be with them for a long time. Occasionally, we also folded a paper boat sailing on the water, pillow crouching on those stones, we seem to have become those waterwheels, looking forward to the boat carrying our fantasies floating across to the wonderful world outside.
The old well was never dry, and it was always the proud champion of all the wells in the neighborhood. Its water is sweet, warm in winter and cool in summer. Approaching it in the cold, picking up a bucket of water for panning rice, that warmth swam through our whole body at once. In the light of its stunning face, the summer heat is always humbled by it, and its coolness is enough to drive away all the depression. In the rampant heat, all the peasants from the villages with dry wells came to Workshop Rush, which was as lively as a market town in the morning sunlight and under the moonlight.
But then the well was renovated by the township and lost its original beautiful appearance. Calamus disappeared, the pond disappeared, after the grooming of the well can no longer be found in the past that kind of charming style. People wear a lot of water pipes in its neck, the well water to their own pool. Only the workshop rushed my parents, will still be in the morning sun and twilight across the stone ladder path, with the original bucket to stir up a large wave, and the ancient well of laughter together to paint the workshop rushed that beautiful as a poem of the day.
Perhaps the old well is lonely, the workshop is lonely, my elderly parents are lonely. They are all in my heart and respect for the highest, their broad-minded and quietly endure the sorrow and happiness of the cultured, in the world between the vastness of the sky and the earth is so dazzling, so that the wandering walk in the distance in the dream I also want to bow for it.