Chapter 8 4. Do I have a childhood (1)

Due to lack and suffering, due to the chaos of war, due to my premature concern and participation in politics, I said that I did not have a childhood. I don't have a childhood, but I have the experience of five years old, six years old, seven years old, until I was a teenager, not less in a year, not less in a day.Looking back on the old things, there are still many joys and attachments. I like to go out of Pingzemen (Fucheng Gate) with my classmates to play. There are Japanese soldiers standing guard with bayonets drawn in the gate.The Chinese people in the past bowed to them. This is a very bad memory.As soon as you leave the city gate, you will see forests, grass flowers, crops, and river ditches, full of the aroma of plants, and you have to jump into ditches several times along the way.Until the time of the Great Leap Forward, the Diaoyutai side of this place has always been a natural wild place.The narrow two-row poplar forest there smells like sour pears when the leaves turn yellow in autumn. Walking in the woods with fallen leaves makes people feel poetic.How the city multiplied and multiplied afterwards.

I prefer to take Taipingcang from my home in Xicheng (now a street south of Ping’anli. In the past, the public transportation on the ring road from Xisi to Di’anmen used Taipingcang instead of Pinganli.) via Changchang Bridge , Dongguanfang to the back door of Beihai.There are several high-end courtyard houses in Taipingcang. The couplets are painted on the gates, "Loyalty is handed down to the family for a long time, poetry and books will last forever", "Wuhua Tianbao, outstanding people", "Keep the body like holding jade, accumulate virtue and win gold "It's another year of green grass, and ten miles of apricot blossoms are still red"... I have learned these sentences a long time ago, not from books but from the gates of some courtyards, which also shows that I have walked there many times. The sentences of "Fangcaohong" and "Xinghuahong" fascinated me, and reminded me of the model composition I learned when I was a child.

The walls of these courtyards are very high, and some walls are still tied with barbed wire. The trees in the courtyard stretch out their branches and leaves, and the courtyard doors are often closed. I have never seen anyone come in and out of such high-level courtyards.The hutongs of Taipingcang are lined with Guohuai trees on both sides. It is a typical old Beijing hutong—a small street. After the opening of the tram lane turning from Pinganli, few vehicles need to turn a few more times on this road. A curved old street.Walking in such an alley, the mood is very delicate, it should be regarded as a kind of enjoyment.

As soon as you enter the back door of Beihai, the first thing you hear is the sound of water falling through the sluice, and you immediately feel cool and enter the cool world.Take another two steps to the south, and you will be caught by the loud rustling of poplar leaves. For a time, there are only two rows of poplar forests that are neatly arranged and covered with old trees. Straight, slim and leaning with the wind, it shows a style that is both ancient and young.Lin Daiyu in the movie complained about the noise of the leaves of the poplars, I just don't understand.For me, the sound of poplar leaves is a sound of nature, a piece of coolness, a piece of spaciousness and vitality.Every time I heard the sound of poplar trees lining up on both sides of the back door of Beihai, I immediately got great comfort, and what I got was the feeling of being rescued suddenly in the midsummer heat.

I also like the return of the Beijing city to nature for a short period of time: on summer nights, enjoying the shade in the courtyard or even at the entrance of the alley, listening to my sister Wang Sa recite Du Mu's chant "Silver Candle Autumn Light Cold Painting Screen, Qingluo Small Fan Fluttering Fireflies. The night is as cool as water, sit and watch the Altair Vega".Indeed, during the summer nights in Beijing at that time, fireflies could be seen flying everywhere.My second aunt also told me a story about a child who was beaten to death by his stepmother because he lost a dime for vinegar. one cent.From then on, I felt very happy that my mother was not a stepmother.

After the heavy rain, knee-high water accumulated in the alley, and dragonflies flew by rubbing against the water.From time to time there are cicadas singing on the poplar tree.Beijing has the most pagoda trees, and in spring there are tiny caterpillars hanging on the silk hanging from the tree trunks.No. 27, Xiaorongxian Hutong, the last place we moved into before liberation, turned east, and there was a huge Chinese pagoda tree, and there was also a big pagoda tree in our backyard.Later, sure enough, I wrote about Sophora japonica in my book.In autumn, crickets can be heard even in the courtyard.I used to be very keen on raising crickets and fighting crickets, and I was keen on feeding edamame to crickets.Experts tell me that good crickets need to be fed with ginseng, but I don't understand. Who knows what ginseng is?

I also like to raise grasshoppers in summer. I have grasshopper cages made of fine straw straw that are patchwork. It is said that the turrets of the Forbidden City were built with reference to the folk method of weaving grasshopper cages.I know how to feed the katydids with cucumbers, watermelon rinds and pumpkin flowers. I have loved listening to the katydids since I was a child.I don’t understand why some people hate the crowing of grasshoppers and find it noisy, just like some people think the symphony is noisy, and some people are afraid of listening to the violin or the erhu, saying that it’s “brain pain”.

I like all the yelling, selling small goldfish and big snails, selling braised chicken and selling candied haws, both of which have promotional means of lottery rewards.The seller of hard noodles is from Leting, Shandong.Selling climbing cakes and jelly, like a tenor.Winter night sells mutton head meat, cut thinner than paper, and the sliced ​​meat becomes transparent.Just selling a basket of radishes is also very exciting with twists and turns.In the cold late night, sometimes I would hear the flute sound of a blind fortune teller, "Somiriduo Ruimilasuo-Suo (lower octave) Domiriduo..." I felt extremely desolate.Family members said that these people, named fortune-tellers, were actually probably selling cigarettes—drug dealers.This makes me even more mysterious.I also often see blind people during the day, very poor.There were boys my age who were always bullying the blind, the handicapped, and a beggar mother and daughter whose mother looked like they were mentally ill.I sympathize with them.

Now, probably in order to appease the nostalgia of the old Beijingers, the old Beijing shouting chorus on the stage is organized.The stage is not an alley, and the noise concentrated under the spotlight is not the shouting of seasonal varieties at a specific time and place. Where do the chorus members have the mood and vocal cords of peddlers?Life and art are closely connected, but life and art cannot be copied from each other. Copying the method of selling goods and yelling cannot be successful, but it can only tell people that everything in the past has become a past that will never return.