Author: Chen Xifeng
When people mention "nostalgia", it is often related to "smoke", and "distant smoke" has become a symbol of nostalgia. When I talk about "smoke", I think of the chimney in my hometown.
The chimney in my hometown is erected at the corner of the roof. The stove chamber is connected to the fire kang , and the top of the kang is connected to Fangshan. A flue is built on Fangshan, extending through the roof to the sky. Most of the chimneys of adobe houses are also made of adobe. They are square on the outside and round on the inside. Later, there were stoneware , cylindrical purple and black, very conspicuous when installed on the roof.
When I was a child, I came home from school and saw green smoke coming from the chimney at home. I knew it was my mother cooking. The wisps of smoke aroused the children's strong appetite, which was a symbol of peace, food and clothing in that era. Later, I left my hometown to study and work. Every time I returned home after a long journey, I would see wisps of smoke coming out of the chimney on the roof of my house before I entered the house, which made me feel particularly at ease and beautiful. As long as my mother is here, preparing delicious meals and waiting for me, I can truly be considered "home".
In the past, firewood was used for cooking and burning the kang in rural areas. Occasionally, when the firewood got damp or wet, it would emit thick, black smoke. If the flue was not smooth, the house would become so smoky that the smoke would make people's eyes water. When the flue is used for a long time, some floating objects will float in the mountain channel, blocking the flue, and it must be cleaned, which is commonly known as "chimney blowing". People tie a round wooden stick to a thick rope, throw it down from the chimney, and pull the rope up and down. The attachments in the flue float up like black butterflies. People above must hide quickly, otherwise they will be covered in darkness. The stick that was pulled up has turned black. There is a saying in the countryside: "The donkey beats the chimney, and the black one eats the black one." This scene is what it says.
When burning a fire for cooking, it is very necessary to keep the chimney unobstructed. Someone accidentally stuffed some firewood in the chimney, so that the upper and lower connections were not smooth, and the fire in the stove was difficult to burn. Thick smoke even came out of the stove, making the stove smoky. In the movie "Little Soldier Zhang Ga", the Ga Zi who lost the fight blocked the chimney of Fat Dun'er's house, so that the firewood in the stove could not be lit, but the smoke filled the whole house, making people cough and cry, and of course the rice was undercooked. Such pranks have happened in every village. Of course, children don't do it easily, because going to the roof itself is very dangerous. If they are caught by an adult, a beating will be inevitable.
Nowadays, the adobe houses in the village have been transformed into brick houses, there are fewer firewood pots, and most people use liquefied gas for cooking. The smoke from cooking is just a literary language. Some people still have fire pits, and the chimneys on the roofs of brick and tile houses are still there, but they have been transformed into more exquisite ceramics. Most of the time, they stand empty against the lonely sky. Occasionally, some elderly "village guards" use firewood to cook a meal or burn a kang, and the smoke slowly rises from the roof, giving the empty countryside more vitality, making tourists miss their hometown more, and making people nostalgic for the fireworks in this world...
