Chapter 6 Dayabao Hutong A No. 2

——I would like to dedicate this document to Mr. Keran and Mrs. Peizhu Mr. Keran passed away.Being so far away from him, I miss him very much. I will watch for him for a few hours, say goodbye to him, and see his last face. Our friendship is not in vain.Alas! It's a pity that it can't be done. He was sixteen years older than me, that is to say, he was only forty-four when I returned to Beijing when I was twenty-eight.what is that What age?too young.The past is like a dream, and I hardly believe the friendship we had started at that time, that warm time. In 1953, I returned to Beijing from Hong Kong with my seven-month-old Heiman, and first lived at the home of Uncle Shen Congwenbiao in Datoutiao, Beixinqiao, Beijing.Calculating chronologically, my cousin was only forty-five years old at that time, which is really remarkable. His brilliant literary works were all completed before the age of forty-five.

Not long after I lived in his house, the school had already arranged a place for me.That's where I'll settle down for a decade or so. Keran and his wife were the first to visit us in our new home. A group of children—twenty or thirty faces of various sizes—gathered at the window to observe the visit.They know that there is a small family who has moved from Hong Kong and will share their destiny with them for decades to come. The dyeable couple gave me such a good impression! "Welcome to come, great! Great! I didn't expect you two to be so young! Great! Great! Just here, if there is anything missing, use us first! ——You Cantonese, Beijing So well spoken!"

I said, "She is from Canton, and I am from Hunan." "Good! Good! Let's say goodbye, and we will live together in the future." Next came Zhang Ding and his wife with their four children. In the days to come, my life with the two of them was almost inseparable.Thanks to the guidance and care of Zhang Ding's wife Chen Buwen. There is a small wine shop at the corner of the hutong fifty meters away from Dayabao. Mr. Kuchan always stands there drinking two glasses of liquor when he comes back from get off work.He is such a kind and simple person, an important freehand brushwork painter, but he was arranged to paint ceramic vases with Mr. Wang Qingfang in the Ceramics Department.Why? Why? So far I can't say why.If I run into him when I get off work, he will greet me and proudly tell the shopkeeper of the liquor store:

"...This is Mr. Huang Yongyu, the youngest teacher of our Central Academy of Fine Arts, invited by our party from Hong Kong..." It's too late for me to say "I didn't invite the party, but I came here myself."He had good intentions, so sincere and innocent, I couldn't bear to live up to his good intentions. Sometimes Dong Xiwen asked Sha Bei to carry a small blue and white girder jug ​​for drinking. That fashion is ancient.There is also a pale middle-aged man carrying a basket covered with a clean blue calico, selling the "hard-faced pastry" we have seen in books.The soft and slightly sweet noodles inside the crispy skin, this is a very poetic little food sold on the street in the middle of the night in cold weather.

On the other side of Dayabao Hutong is a family noodle shop that sells soy milk, deep-fried dough sticks, pancakes, fire, sugar cakes, and crackers in the morning, and dumplings and pasta at noon; after the "capitalist transformation" in the next few years, it closed down.Sometimes we met on the street and exchanged a few pleasantries, and it was unavoidable to be relatively sad. This is a later story. Beijing Dongcheng is the dormitory for the teachers of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. My family lived in a large room and a small suite.The house is not good, but we are very satisfied.Many of the gentlemen I respect live in houses of the same caliber but of a different style.The college also has several dormitories located in east and west cities.

There are only three house numbers in Dayabao Hutong. The road at the entrance is quiet and wide. There are refreshing stone blocks for people to sit and lie under the green shade of old locust trees hundreds or decades ago.Life at that time was still in the style of old Beijing. Although it had begun to boil and turmoil, it had not lost its elegance and euphemism. The gate of No. A and No. 2 is small.On the left is the white powder wall at the corner next door, and on the right is a row of old gray brick walls. In the next few years, it was converted into a two-storey public building full of Western-style windows. There is no need to understand this.

Our yard has a total of three entrances, connected to a long strip, and the back door is Xiaoyabao Hutong.Go west for a few steps in Xiaoyabao Hutong, turn right and you will arrive at the end of Lumi Cang; "Lumi Cang" is actually an alley, and it is understandable to save the word "Hutong".It's just that when they were called Dayabao and Xiaoyabao, they were both connected to the Hutong, because many years ago, there were dumb people in the front and back Hutongs. Lumi warehouse is very important to our life.There are grain stores, vegetable stations, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar, pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, fish shops, barber shops and a daily grocery store.There is also an ancient temple with twists and turns, and there are many places to go.It's a pity that the big round dome in the main hall was sold to the Boston Museum in the United States by people who were greedy for money and didn't know the importance of the old society.I even heard the legend that those big bucket arch materials were numbered and stored in the warehouse with no more and no less, and there was no master who could assemble them.Brother Wang Shixiang, our young national player at the time, happened to be there, and after receiving his advice, he met the surprised and admired foreigners again in a foreign country.

That temple is an iron factory, smelting and manufacturing tinplate daily utensils, oil fume and electric welding smell, stamping and beating of tin pots, it is really the feeling of the ancient couplet: "The wind blows the bells and flowers, they are loud and fragrant".