Notes on returning home during the Spring Festival | Where did the pig heart go
Text | Wang Chunxuan
As the New Year is approaching, I went to the market to buy some New Year goods. Looking around, there are all kinds of food, and there is a dazzling array of them. When I came to the meat section, I saw pork, beef, mutton, and chicken lined up in two rows. Fatty meat, lean meat, bone meat, and offal products were all available. Longda, Fuzu, jinluo, delis brands compete with each other. I bought five pounds of pork, two pounds of beef, a pork chop, and a pheasant. At the market, just mince the beef with some pork, save it for making dumplings, chop the pork chop into small pieces, and cook it when you want to eat it. Blanch the pheasant in boiling water, throw it into the plucking machine , and it will be completely plucked out in minutes. I can’t help but sigh that food is so abundant now and it is so convenient to process. I can’t help but think of the scene of buying meat during the Chinese New Year when I was a kid.
Life was hard when I was a child, and I was looking forward to the Chinese New Year, to wear new clothes and eat well. As soon as the twelfth lunar month comes, adults and children recite the jingle one after another:
"Children, don't be greedy, it's the New Year after Laba Festival. Laba porridge After a few days, it will be twenty-three. Twenty-three Tanggua Sticky, twenty-four Clean the house , make tofu on the 25th, buy meat on the 26th, kill the New Year chicken on the 27th, make noodles on the 28th, steam the steamed buns on the 29th, play all night on the 30th night, and twist on the New Year's Day. "
These things of killing chickens, making tofu, and steaming steamed buns are all done at home. Only killing pigs and buying meat is done in public places, which is grand and lively. The location of our village's New Year Pig Killing is the village committee compound, which is the political, economic, and cultural center of the village. The supply and marketing cooperative, machine room, and cooperative medical are all here. In front of it is the village's primary school. Usually there are many people in this courtyard, but on the day when the New Year pig is slaughtered, there is an endless flow of people coming and going. Especially teenage boys. The school is on annual vacation, so come and join in the fun if you have nothing to do. One of them saw a very interesting pig heart in the big basin containing the pig's unloaded goods. He tossed it over and over for a while. Then he had a sudden idea and saw that no one was paying attention, so he picked it up and put it in his pocket, and walked out of the compound as if nothing had happened. After a while, he was still proudly showing off to his companions. These thirteen or fourteen-year-old companions were also itchy and followed suit. There was a man who was fifteen or sixteen years old who was even bolder and took away the pig's heart and liver together. No one noticed at the time. They stole most of the pig's heart and did not dare to tell their parents. They secretly roasted it on the stove and cooked it in the pot, making it half-cooked and eating it with relish. But the fire could not be contained in the paper, and the secret of the matter was quickly revealed. Several cadres in the village easily found out the truth, picked out each one, and severely criticized and educated them. As the saying goes, good things never go out, but bad things spread thousands of miles. In just a few days, the news spread all over the country, and a message was sent: The pigs in Hangbeitou have no heart.
I also spent a long time at the pig killing site that day, and I also knew about them stealing pig hearts. But because he was timid and afraid of getting into trouble, he didn't dare to take action, but he was unwilling to do so. After turning around a few times, I aimed at a small piece of meat strips, about two taels in size, and secretly stuffed it into my pocket and took it out. He secretly cooked it in the stove while no one was at home, and ate it quietly by himself. It can be said that he did it without anyone noticing, and the key was that he didn't make any announcement. Therefore, he slipped through the net during this drag-net investigation and had a lucky escape. As for the seven or eight people who stole the pig's heart, in addition to being severely educated by the village cadres that day, they were repeatedly criticized as bad examples from the beginning to the school. One person who was not determined dropped out of school.
Alas, it’s all the fault of poverty.
Compared with children stealing pig hearts, adults stealing meat is even more hateful. The folk customs in this mountain village have been simple since ancient times, and it is close to the saying that "the house will not be closed at night unless the road is not picked up." But there are also some people who do clandestine things under special circumstances. During the Chinese New Year, eight or nine fat pigs are usually killed in the village, and each household can cut three or four kilograms of pork. But there are also people who can’t afford meat, and Dacheng is like this. He had a bad temper, his family was in trouble, and his wife could not bear to leave him, leaving him and his son to live a difficult life. During the Chinese New Year, seeing that he had no money to sell meat, his seven or eight-year-old son was secretly wiping away tears, which made him feel like a knife. He tore a piece of newspaper, rolled a cigarette, and wandered around in the street. When he walked to the door of the blind man Dali 's house, he suddenly wanted to see if his family bought meat.After entering the courtyard and looking around, I saw about two kilograms of pork hanging on the back wall. I thought bitterly, he is better than me as a blind man, and my son is so greedy for meat, so I will be immoral and take this meat back to my son to eat. So he stuffed the meat into his clothes and took it home secretly.
On New Year’s Eve, the blind man ideally ate pork stewed with cabbage. He picked up the bamboo pole from the edge of the kang and groped into the courtyard to get the meat. But when I touched around, the place where the meat was hung was empty. He immediately panicked and called his sisters to search carefully. But I searched and searched, but there was no trace of it! Immediately report to the village leaders. The leaders took it very seriously. The team leader personally announced the matter on the loudspeaker and asked the meat thief to surrender immediately and have the pork returned. Under pressure, or perhaps out of conscience, Dacheng picked up the pork and wanted to send it back. But thinking of my tearful son, I hesitated. He stood in the room and thought for a while, then he cut off half of it with a knife and sent the other half back to Dali's house at night.
Dacheng himself thinks that things are done secretly, but the devil is as good as the devil. Several village cadres gathered together and walked to the back window of Dacheng's house. They smelled the aroma of meat, entered the house, and found everyone and everything stolen. Dacheng had no choice but to take the pork he didn't have time to eat, and was dragged by the village cadres to the blind Dali's house to apologize. The captain gave Dacheng three punches, two kicks and a slap on the spot. However, this captain was a typical man with a sharp tongue and a soft heart. He secretly cut off more than a pound of pork behind his wife's back when he got home, and then threw it on his face when he went to Dacheng's house. This made Dacheng burst into tears. I don't know if Pork narrowed his eyes or was moved by the captain because of regret. Alas, the two of them still eat pork during the Chinese New Year...
About the author: Wang Chunxuan, male, from Muping District, Yantai City, engineer, national registered safety engineer. is a member of Shandong Prose Society , a member of Yantai Yinglian Family Association, and a member of Yantai Writers Association. His works have been selected into "Yantai Prose", "Jiaodong Prose Annual Selection", "Capital Literature", "Qilu Evening News No. 1 Outstanding Works Selection", etc.
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