Mountain Village Love
Luoannan
is located in the remote mountain village at the junction of Hejiang , Luzhou , Jiangjin . The clear river goes around the mountain village from west to east. It is so beautiful and quiet... By the river, several small boats slowly move on the river; layers of terraced fields, green crops are one after another; under the bamboo forest, there are thatched houses and cooking smoke, which is a pastoral landscape painting! This is the small mountain village I lived in.
Yesterday’s mountain village was like a black and white photo, and its contrast was deeply embedded in my heart. The familiar mountain roads, farmhouses, dams, people and things in the mountain village often linger in my mind...
50 years ago, I went to the countryside from Zhutuo, Yongchuan to work in this remote mountain village. There are many fields here and there are few lands, and the work points and is worth a lot, about 2 cents a day. I was not feeling well after going to the countryside. At that time, rural areas were poor in material resources and cultural life were lacking. Like farmers all day, working from sunrise to sunset, repeating the same life day after day.
In this strange place, another young man Chen Bingquan, who came with me, is a person with a temperament and is very close to me. He is of medium shape, solid figure and straightforward personality, and we quickly became friends. The team arranged for us to live under the same roof. Although life is difficult and hard, we will also seek happiness, encourage ourselves and live every day well.
This year, a bright moon in the sky. At this time, the seedlings turned green. Captain Li's son Li Erwa and two young men came to my house and invited Chen Bingquan and I to go to the rice fields to tinder eels to improve our lives.
At night, the village almost closed its doors, except for a few barking dogs, it was a frog sound. The group held bamboo torches filled with kerosene in their hands and held flashlights in their hands to illuminate the paths in the fields. Li Erwa and three of them rolled up their sleeves and went to the field to become our teachers. We shot flashlights on the ridges of the fields, and the bright lights and torches, which made the rice fields clearly see the water under the rice fields. Li Erwa pointed to the mud hole as big as a thumb and said, "This is the eel hole." He used his fingers to penetrate the eel, and the eel fled along the hole. Another guy quickly clamped it with a bamboo clip. The eel swayed left and right on the clip. After a while, he was thrown into the fence basket. Searching for one piece of fields, for more than an hour, the fence basket was filled with eels. Just as everyone was excited, the oil in the torch was about to ignite and the flashlight was dimmed, so they decided to go home.
Suddenly, a big green snake was plastered on the ridge of the field, raised its head, and its tongue stretched out from its mouth. I was so scared that I took two steps back and shouted "Snake, Snake!" Li Erwa rushed forward, shook the bamboo clip, grabbed "Seven Inches", and threw the snake into another field. He said: "This is cauliflower snake ! It specializes in eating mice and frogs."
returned to the educated youth house. Under the dim oil lamp, everyone scratched eels, mixed with ingredients, and set fire. I took out the vegetable oil, salt, pepper , and bean paste and cooked it into a pot. After a while, the eels were served on the table, and you grabbed me and scooped them, making everyone lick their mouths and wipe their mouths. That delicious taste has been remembered for decades!
At that time, everyone's life was not prosperous. The eels caught by the members when they were pulling seedlings loaches were reluctant to eat them, so they gave them to us. I put the eels in the stove and cooked them with firewood and dipped them in some salted sea spicy noodles. This kind of hot-burned eel has a unique flavor!
Whenever the summer harvest and autumn harvest are fresh, the members of the mountain village always invite us to tofu to eat new rice. During the Chinese New Year and the festival, the villagers would treat us to rice dumplings, glutinous rice cakes, , and shaved pig soup.
Next to the house where we lived, there is a large stone dam, and the production team's storage room is also connected to the stone dam. During summer and autumn harvest, the collective grain is dried on the stone dam, then stored in the storage room. Whenever the harvest season comes, Captain Li arranges me to go to work in the beach, saying that he is taking care of me.
One day, Dongfang just turned white, so I cleaned the drying yard. When the members were pouring the millet into the stone dam, a group of women and I scratched the rice leaves with bamboo rakes, and then spread the millet flat with scraping rakes. After two hours, I gathered the millet into ridges and spread it out again every once in a while. The sun was burning, and I wore a straw hat and went to the sun with the women. When the sun sets west, use your hand to shake the wind (windmill) to remove the shells, then weigh them and keep accounts.He picked it into the storage room, and kept Yao Er surrounded it with a bamboo mat, and stamped it with ash bucket , even if he had completed the work of the drying yard for a day. well! It’s really not easy to dry millet!
During the autumn harvest season, Shiba drying yard is busy. One afternoon, the sun hid in the clouds and said, "Cross the millet quickly, it's going to rain eastward!" Suddenly, dark clouds rolled, and a strong wind blew. Yao Er shouted, "Cross the rain eastward!" So everyone gathered the dried millet into several piles, covered them with bamboo mats, and then covered them with straw. Seeing that there was not enough bamboo mats, I ran home and pulled out the mat to cover the valley. The members also ran home to get the mat when they saw this. As soon as they finished covering it, a thunder blew up and the heavy rain poured down. We couldn't hide and all turned into chickens!
Half an hour later, the wind stopped and the rain stopped, and rays of glow came out from the west... The millet on the stone dam was spread out again.
Change fields and soil, digging ponds is the highlight of rural winter. This year, the production team arranged to carry mud fertilizer in the weir pond, one as fertilizer, and the other was to expand the weir pond. They chased each other during their labor and were full of energy. Chen Bing's whole body was strongly tied, and each time he carried the mud to the pond, he also broke the new shoulder pole in two pieces. Under his guidance, I was not outdone. I was barefoot, not afraid of the cold, and worked hard to pick mud feet with my hands at the bottom of the pond, constantly pretending to be smearing people, and refused to fall behind. In the spring of the next year, the production team had to pump water from the river to irrigate the fields and plant rice. The cast iron water pipes used for pumping water were carried by me and other members, but Chen Bingquan each carried one. The water pipe weighing more than 200 kilograms was pressed on his shoulders and he kept not stopping. From then on, the people in the team gave him the nickname "Chen Dahan". During the Spring Festival this year, we were both rated as "Advanced Member" by the commune.
Later, Chen Bingquan joined the army and left the production team, and I was transferred by the commune to be a film projectionist.
Later, Chen Bing and I both returned to the city to work. However, we still thought of the unforgettable small mountain village.
Last year, Chen Bingquan and I invited us to return to the small mountain village that we had been away from for more than 40 years. Li Erwa at that time became the old village chief of Wangshan Village. He took us around the village to take a look. The mountain is still the same mountain, the beam is still the same beam, and the river is still the same river. However, the earth-walled thatched houses disappeared, and mountain village villas rose from the ground; the dirt path became a cement road leading to every household; the stone dam became an office building of the village committee.
A gust of mountain wind blows, bringing the fragrance of flowers in the courtyard. A farm stay was built by the river, where people in the city who were traveling in the mountain village fished, played cards, sang and danced, enjoying the rural style.
Decades of time have passed by. The small mountain village I once lived in has changed, has become beautiful and rich, and has become a small countryside where city people can relax and take vacations.
(The author is a member of Jiangjin District Writers Association)
Appreciation of the layout
Editor: Luo Yuxin
Editor: Chen Taiyong
Review: Feng Fei
