My Village My Home (Prose)
Text/Bi Yanjie
I spent the Spring Festival this year at my home in my village. It has been many years since I spent New Year's Eve at my home in the village. This year I brought my wife and children home to spend the New Year with my parents. My elderly parents were very happy.
My Village My Home is the place where I was born, raised, raised, and stayed with me through my childhood and youth. It is also where I think about it day and night when I travel between cities.
But it is a bit far-fetched for me to say it is "my village" now, because except for one name that has not changed, there are too many other aspects that have changed. The village has been under planning for many years, and the old houses have been demolished and rebuilt. In the past ten years, when I went home, I always took the rural road in front of the village directly to my home, and then at most I walked among elders with the same surname. I had no chance to walk in the village. In the past few years, I have been home for Spring Festival greetings. Except for the homes of my three immediate uncles and the nearest elder neighbors, it has been difficult for me to find their homes.
It's a bit far-fetched to say it's "my home". To be precise, it should be my parents' home. Because the house my father built for me and my brother to get married in the early years has just been demolished and rebuilt due to village planning. It was transformed from a large courtyard with six main rooms into a small courtyard with four main rooms. Because of this change, many traces of my life in this home have also been removed. Although my father still prepared a room for each of my brother and me in the newly built house, it was only a "temporary residence" when we occasionally went home to visit our parents.
So, now "my village, my home" has nothing to do with me except the name of the village and my parents.
In these years, emotionally speaking, I should spend the Spring Festival with my parents at home in the village. Because my parents are old, my younger brother married a wife and had children in Yan'an after graduating from college. It has been many years since I came home to celebrate the New Year. My father Mother and two elderly people looked very deserted in a large courtyard. Especially during the Spring Festival, parents will feel particularly lonely when they see their children and grandchildren gathered around them.
But in fact, I have only stayed at home for one night in the past ten years. Because my child is young and thinks it is too cold at home and cannot watch the CCTV Spring Festival Gala well, he is unwilling to go back to my hometown with me to celebrate New Year's Eve. I had no choice but to take a taxi early in the morning on the first day of the Lunar New Year to take my family home to pay New Year greetings to my parents and other elders, and then return to the city to live on the same day. This summer my father rebuilt his house and put up a kang. Besides, the children have grown up and are sensible. This time he readily agreed to go back to his grandpa’s house for the New Year and spent New Year’s Eve with the old man until the second day of the first lunar month. Our family just returned to the city.
This should be the happiest New Year's Eve that my parents have spent together in years. The father heated up the kang early, played happily with his granddaughter and grandson, and happily took out the new year's money. In a remote rural area like ours, whichever family has more children and grandchildren, especially boys, will usually have a higher status, and then it depends on power and money. This is especially obvious in a remote rural area like ours. I heard my father say that XX from our village had only four daughters because he had no children. Even though the whole family worked in the city, they were often looked down upon by the villagers. Therefore, although family planning is also implemented in rural areas, every family must try to have a son. Currently, there are very few true only children in our village. The vast majority have two or even three children, and at least one of them is a boy. I am not exempt from the secular world, which is one of the important reasons why my son came to this world. My grandparents were still alive at that time. They were both in their 80s. My father was the eldest son and I was the eldest grandson. My grandparents hoped to see their great-grandson continue the fireworks in their lifetime. Although my parents also wanted to have grandchildren, they never revealed it to my wife and me. Instead, they once mentioned it to my classmates very tactfully. I finally did not disappoint the elderly. The birth of my son indeed brought a lot of joy to our big family.
Early in the morning on the first day of the first lunar month, I followed my cousins to the village to pay New Year greetings. Only then did I finally have the opportunity to see "my village".
But in my village, I know fewer and fewer families, and I know fewer and fewer elders. My brothers pointed out to me one by one whose home this was and which home that was. Yes, the houses are beautiful, the gatehouses are tall, the streets are wide, and the lanes are straight, but I am lost in my village! My village used to have crooked streets and low houses, and most of the houses had fences or mud walls. But in the dining room, it was a simple and natural place where you came and went, called and responded to each other, and shared the guests without distinguishing between each other; my village There used to be lotus ponds in front of and behind the village. The lotus ponds were as big as the village. They were full of lotus roots, full of lotus flowers, and full of geese and ducks. I also swam in the lotus pond, picked lotus seeds, and dug lotus roots. I caught fish, caught dragonflies...but all of them were gone.
I don’t like the neat and uniform layout of my current village, which has straight lanes and wide streets, tall buildings and large houses. I think that although the tall courtyard walls prevent bad guys, they also cut off the harmonious relationship between neighbors. I also don’t like the fact that my village has cut off the river and filled up the lotus pond. I think that if a village loses its water, it will lose its aura. If it loses its river and pond, it will also lose its character. A village without its character. The village also annihilated itself.
My village is a small village called Penliuzhuang located about 7 kilometers south of the Yellow River. It has a current population of about 800 people. I have always wanted to ask why our village is called "Penliuzhuang" with such a strange name. As long as I can remember, there has been neither a person named Pen nor a person named Liu in the village, and there is no one who makes pots as a profession. It seems that there is no such thing in history. But I couldn’t tell the root cause from my father’s mouth, so my second uncle should know. My second uncle is a cultural person and old party secretary in the village. He writes and does calculations, and has hosted events in and outside the village for decades. Now that he is retired at home, he is usually asked to participate in hosting important events such as weddings and funerals. For example, he personally attends important events such as renewing our surname and family tree. He is the most familiar with the village's anecdotes. The approximately 800 people in the village I mentioned earlier is an approximation. If you ask the second uncle, he will definitely give a more accurate number. This Spring Festival, I wanted to solve the question that has been pressing in my heart about the reason why my village was named. It's a pity that I went to my second uncle's house twice but only met once: when I went there on the afternoon of New Year's Eve, he went to attend a grandson's wedding, but I didn't see him; This topic never came up again. I only know the name of my village but not the reason why it is called this. Moreover, it has changed so far that only this name is still familiar to me!
But at my second uncle’s house, I unexpectedly met my aunt whom I had not seen for more than ten years! The eldest aunt is 80 years old, but she is still in good health. She is helping the second aunt with cooking and cleaning. My aunt's home is in Nenjiang County, Heilongjiang Province. I checked the map and found that Nenjiang is on the rooster's head, close to Mohe, the northeastern border of the motherland. It is a very cold place. I think my aunt may have traveled to Guandong with my uncle in those hungry years and settled there, but this is only my speculation. My aunt had five sons, but my second uncle had three daughters but no sons, so my aunt adopted the fifth child to my second uncle. But because of this relationship, the aunt was afraid that the sensitive second aunt would be angry, so she never came back. Now that Lao Wu has become a boss and is rich, and after more than ten years of hard work, Aunt Second has been able to face this problem squarely. This year's Spring Festival is a time when the whole family (two families?) will be together.
My aunt has been away from home for decades and finally returned to her home because of Lao Wu. I don’t know how my aunt feels about “my village, my home”. Is it a feeling of being lost and found again? But when I was still young, I felt that I had lost my village and my home.
I do have a feeling of confusion in my wanderings in recent years, which I have expressed more than once in my previous articles. In fact, before we had a holiday before the Spring Festival, I took my family away from work and hurried home. As soon as I arrived in my hometown, I felt a sense of peace in my heart.My wife and children have said "home is better" more than once, but the home they are talking about is not my village or my home, but my new home in the city, which is a 140-square-meter, spacious, bright, and spacious house. It is only possible to come and stay for a few days during the winter and summer vacations every year. My daughter and son have always had a clear concept of home. This is our home, and that is the home of our grandparents. They have followed us around cities over the years, and they are no longer as attached to home as our generation. For example, my daughter, who is studying in college in Nanjing, tells her classmates that she wants to go home on weekends or holidays. She actually means returning home to where her mother and I work, which is the temporary place that I have always called "residence" or "apartment". Habitat. This year, due to the inconvenience of returning to my hometown, my wife has mentioned many times that "after the death of my fourth wife, my parents will be brought to the city or live with us" because there is only one elder in our family who is older than my father and is still alive. Fourth Grandma, according to the custom in my hometown, if there are elders around, my father should rush home during the Spring Festival to pay New Year greetings. If I wait until my parents move to the city to live in the future, I will have less reason to return to my village and my home. By then, I am afraid I will lose my village and my home! If I wait for my parents for a hundred years, my village and home will really be lost! I also want to take this opportunity to tell my brother who is far away in Yan'an: It is better to take your children back to your hometown to celebrate the New Year this year, otherwise, you will really not be able to find your home! There is also my younger brother's son, who has gone to elementary school and has never been home. Although the little guy kept saying "I am from Shandong" on the phone, he claims to be from Shandong, but he has no idea about Shandong or his family in Shandong. Concept, he is completely from Yan'an!
My village and my home may really be lost in reality! But I also know that my village and home that I lost in reality will still live in my dreams. No matter how far away I am from you, no matter how long I leave you, whether I am dreaming or awake, you will always be alive in me. From the bottom of my heart. But what lives in my heart is not my current village or home, but the small village decades ago with winding streets, low houses, lotus ponds surrounding the village, roosters crowing and dogs barking, guests sharing, and simple folk customs. , that is, the place that gave birth to me, raised me, raised me, and haunted me when I was wandering!
Note: The picture comes from the Internet and has nothing to do with this article. Infringement will be deleted.
Author profile:
Bi Yanjie, a native of Juancheng, Shandong. He is the author of the collection of essays "People on the Journey", the editor-in-chief of "Teaching You to Write Compositions Step by Step", "The Compilation of Reading Training", "Photos of Youth" (Volume 1.2.3), etc., and the editor of "The Compilation of Writing Training", " Writing Guide" and more than ten books. Poems, essays, and novels have been published in newspapers and periodicals at all levels across the country, and more than 200 of the students' compositions they have guided have been published or won awards.
