Chapter 59 14. My travel

As usual, I arrived at the pier just as the motorboat was leaving.I went to Zhangzhou, which is the hometown I miss.I haven't been home for many years, and I was overjoyed to see my hometown and countryside that December morning.Xiamen is about 35 miles away from Zhangzhou, and it would have been an hour and a half by car along the newly built highway.I heard that this is a great improvement in domestic transportation since I left university. We originally took a motorboat from Xiamen Island to Zhangzhou. There were more than 20 passengers in the cabin, including two female students and a wealthy Nanyang businessman.The businessman was about forty years old, his face was greasy, and he was showing his gold watch and gold pipe, but he was wearing short socks, which reminded me of the severe winter in Xiamen.He speaks in a voice that everyone seems to be able or should be able to hear. "Salibaya...Siam...Annan...Saribaya..." These words rolled out of his mouth one by one like smooth marble beads.Sitting next to him was a woman, quiet and gentle, not ugly, but with a gold bracelet on her hand, a gold chain around her neck, and a square box hanging in front of the chain, which seemed to weigh about a catty.The two female students were envious of that woman, giggling and laughing from time to time.They had thick woolen towels around their shoulders, like Spanish women.But they wore short skirts, so that all that could be seen were the woolen towels and the legs.They are in complete contrast with the wives of Nanyang merchants.One represents old China and two represent modern China.Modern China snickers at old China.Modern China—or let’s say that modern China—has short, permed hair.

It is often very difficult for a boat to pass through the Xiamen Canal.But that morning, the weather was fine and the water didn't make any waves. We could only see the ripples on the sea surface, showing a leisurely smile.After a quarter of an hour, we arrived at Songyu Island, which is the terminus of the road on the mainland, where there is a cliff standing above the sea, with a large white oil pool on the top of the cliff and a residence of the Asia Petroleum Company.The cliff was about thirty or forty feet high. On that fine morning, the sea water was still crashing on the cliff rocks. Under the warm sunlight, the cliff body was like a blue-purple mud wall, and the bottom gradually took on the color of terracotta. The upper end is light gray, covered with a layer of green, and there are blue clouds galloping in the sky.What a beautiful picture this is.But on a dark and stormy night, one may imagine that this is the set in Hero and Lean Bder by Grillparzer.Among them, "Leander" has to swim across the waterway, ride up the rock, and sing a love song to the beautiful "Hero".As long as we use a little imagination, we can change the waterway into the Helispon Strait (now the Dardanelles in Turkey) in the play, and change the oil pool of the Asia Oil Company into the tower where "Hero" meets "Leander", Let their enthusiasm and turmoil go unrestrained.It would not be uncommon for Geshi himself to find "Leander" taking a bath under a cliff one morning.

When the motorboat arrived, we bought tickets, but we had no cars.There were three cars there, but they were all packed with soldiers.I heard that the company has a total of twelve vehicles, eight of which have been requisitioned by the "army". "Where are the cars?" I asked the station master. "It's hiding in a nearby village, and it will come in a while. It's useless to rush. We'll get rid of these dhiupas first, otherwise we will have as many cars as they want. " After the soldiers had left, the car drove up.Passengers were scrambling for seats, and I was lucky enough to get a front seat in the first car to arrive.The Nanyang businessman was in the same car with his wife and me, but the two schoolgirls were in the other car: Modern China broke up with Old China.After a while, I could hear someone behind me seeming to be arguing.The two soldiers boarded the train without a ticket, and the conductor told them to go to the box office to buy half-price tickets, but they ignored it, saying they would rather buy tickets in the train.

"What's the use of a ticket booth if everyone buys tickets on board?" said the ticket inspector. "It's still very early." To my surprise, the two soldiers each angrily took out a dollar and handed it to the ticket inspector. "Fujian is really bad!" said a soldier with a Henan accent. "The traffic is bad." That greasy businessman also didn't buy a ticket to get on the bus. "You need to study human psychology." He said, carefully citing the two new terms "research" and "psychology". "Of course everyone is willing to take their seats first." He has that instinct for making his own way, and he is worthy of being a fellow of ours.

"Fukien is a terrible place!" said the soldier again, but the merchant said nothing more. Our journey didn't go well at first.When the car was about to start, the driver found that the spring on the floor was broken.Because he didn't know the machine, he was still playing tricks after a few minutes.If this pedal is broken, there is no way to move the gears.If the car needs to travel the entire distance after driving, only the third gear is used.Because we have to go up and down, it's kind of frustrating to me, and I'm feeling a little bit pissed off, and the omens are starting.

But the problem is how to drive the car.They don't pull with a rope, maybe because they can't find it, they push it from behind with a second car.When the car behind hit us, our car jumped, and the car's machinery rattled endlessly.Damage to the car body like this will always damage 75% every year.A moment later, when the body was turning, the car got stuck in a sand pile on the road.Those women and a little girl were so frightened and overwhelmed that they forced to get out of the car.The driver insisted that it didn't matter, but a wheel was stuck in the sand, and the body couldn't move an inch.So the greasy businessman spoke up, saying that the kid should have the "right" (another new term) to get out of the car if he wanted to.We actually all got out of the car to reduce the weight of the car.

Finally, the car turned around, so we got in the car again.The Nanyang merchants suggested—indeed, ordered—that everyone should sit still.The driver got a new one, and after he turned the engine around a bit, the car actually started moving.But once driving, he can no longer be stopped.The driving speed is in third gear, which remains unchanged throughout.When I saw a hill ahead, I politely asked the driver, how to drive up? "Go straight up at forty-five miles an hour," he replied.He said it was driving up.Coincidentally, there are several mountainous areas in a row, and he kept driving hard, just like a Honolulu man galloping through the waves with a surfboard. "Amazing experience!" I said to him admiringly.He was a bold man with a red eye and a woolen cap that looked like half an orange.

After going on like this for a long time, some passengers got off at a station.Later, the car suddenly stopped moving, and even the engine would not turn at all. "Help each other!" Nanyang merchants shouted.He let a later car tow us away.But where is the rope?By luck we found a fairly strong piece of hemp rope at the station, and divided it into four, to tie the two cars about thirty feet apart.Before the car left, there was a person who handed out a calendar printed by a certain Japanese flour company to the car for free, shouting, "Old calendar! share.Although the old calendar has become obsolete, the whole country desperately needs it.

So the car started again.The car in front dragged us along triumphantly.But it is difficult to make the four ropes the same length, so the weight of the whole car usually depends on one rope instead of four.When going downhill after a sharp turn, the rope suddenly broke.So there were only three ropes left, but because they were not tied better than last time, another one broke soon.The rest of the rope had to be cut short and separated.So the rope became shorter and shorter, and at last the distance between the two cars was only twenty feet. Maybe they would collide at some point, and I was very worried.

"Better be careful," I said to the driver. "Don't be afraid," replied the red-eyed daring driver, "I'm going to kill myself." "But you're not married. I was married," I retorted.This gave the businessman and the other passengers a chance to preach, and they finally won, so we gave up the idea of ​​going to Zhangzhou for lunch.Later, when the rope broke again, the car in front went away alone, and it was scheduled to pick us up to Zhangzhou again, but we stood still.While waiting, everyone talked about the benefits of the old Xiamen-Zhangjiakou Railway.That railway was honored to be included in the "Encyclopedia Britannica", but it was a pity that it was eaten up by the rats and uncles of the rats in Fuzhou.When passing Songyu, I saw that there were still bones chewed by Fuzhou mice on the train, which fully proved that these things could not be chewed by other mice. There it stands.I don't know if the railway is still preserved in the fourteenth edition of the "Encyclopedia" published in the United States.If it still exists, it should be deleted.The rats had already eaten all his flesh.

There is a story about a passenger on a train who asked the driver to wait for him because he wanted to get off the train to eat noodles in a restaurant. , that doesn't matter. At two o'clock, the car came, so we changed cars and went to Zhangzhou.Until now, I haven't forgotten the faces of the greasy businessman and the red-eyed driver.