Chapter 16 Mr. life

my childhood Recalling my childhood, there is no red or green in front of my eyes, it is gray and yellow. In China more than 70 years ago, the rule of the Qing Dynasty had just been overthrown, and the land of China was in chaos and darkness.My earliest memory about politics is the word "imperial court".At that time, the country people called being an emperor as sitting in the imperial court, so the word "imperial court" became an alias for the emperor.I always thought that things like the imperial court were not people, but something with great power.When the country people mentioned it, they seemed to be in awe.I certainly am more so.In short, the imperial prestige was still there at that time, and the old habits had not been eliminated. It was the continuation of the Qing Empire, and there was no sign of renewal.

I was born in Guanzhuang, a small village in Qingping County (now Linqing City), Shandong Province, on August 6, 1911, at this time when the old and the new are changing.At that time, the economic situation of the whole of China was rich in the south and poor in Shandong (including other provinces in the north).As far as Shandong is concerned, the east is rich and the west is poor.Our county is the poorest county in the west of Shandong, our village is the poorest village in the poor counties, and our family is the poorest family in the whole village. Our family is said to have not always been like this.There seemed to be better days before I was born.But my grandfather and grandmother were both dead when I was born.My father has three brothers, the youngest one (ranked eleventh, we call him Uncle One) was given to someone else and changed his surname.My father and another younger brother (Ninth Uncle) were alone and depended on each other.There is no room, no stretch of land, two orphans without father and mother, what it is like to live, and how difficult it is to live, you can imagine.Their uncle was a juren, the most learned person in a radius of tens of miles, and he was the biggest official if he was an official in any county.He had raised my father and uncle and was said to have treated them well.But the family is big, and there are many right and wrong people.Several times the two of them were so hungry that they went to the jujube forest to pick up the dried dates that fell on the ground to satisfy their hunger.In the end, they were forced to abandon their home (in fact, they had no home) and run away, and the two brothers fled to Jinan to make a living. During the "Cultural Revolution", I "jumped out" to oppose the author of the notorious "First Marxist-Leninist Big-Character Poster", which made her show off her power and sent people to my hometown Guanzhuang twice to investigate. Wholeheartedly wanted to "beat me" as a landlord.People from my hometown told those "revolutionary" young generals that if there was a complaint meeting, Ji Xianlin would be the first complainer in Guanzhuang, and he would not even be enough for poor farmers.

After my father and uncle arrived in Jinan, they were strangers. They had pulled rickshaws, carried heavy loads, worked as policemen, and worked as coolies.Uncle stood at last.So the two brothers discussed and asked my father to go back to his hometown, while my uncle stayed in Jinan alone to earn money, and sent money home for my father to live on. After I was born, the family situation was still extremely difficult.The number of times I eat white noodles a year is limited, and I usually only eat red sorghum flour pancakes; I don’t have money to buy salt, so I sweep up the soil on the saline-alkali land, boil water in a pot, pickle pickles, and no sesame oil.At the end of the year, eat this pickle.Juren's wife, I call her grandma, she likes me very much.When I was three or four years old, every day when I opened my eyes, I raised my legs and ran to the village (our home is outside the village), and ran to my grandma. At that time, half a white flour steamed bun would be held in my hand and handed to me.I tasted it as if it was gentian and phoenix marrow. I didn't know there was anything more delicious than white flour steamed buns in the world.The steamed buns made of white flour are especially filial to her by her two sons (each with dozens of acres of land).She likes my grandson, and saves half of it every day for me to eat.For several years, this was my highest daily enjoyment, my greatest pleasure.

When I was about four or five years old, Aunt Ning and Aunt Ning, who lived opposite each other, would take me out to pick up wheat, beans, or millet in other people's fields every summer and autumn when harvesting crops.After a day of hard work, you can pick up a small basket of ears of wheat or grain.When I went home at night, I handed the basket to my mother. It seemed that she was very happy.One summer, I probably picked up a lot of wheat. She ground the wheat into flour and put a pot of dead flour pancakes on it.I must have tasted it. After I finished eating, I stole another piece and let my mother see it and rushed me to beat it.I was naked and naked at the time. I fled to the back of the room and jumped into the puddle.My mother had no way to come down and catch me, so I stood in the water and enjoyed the remaining white flour pancakes to my heart's content.

What's the point of writing these things now? These little things like sesame mung beans are out-and-out trivial things around me, which will benefit me forever.It sometimes motivates me to move forward and sometimes lifts me up.To this day, I don’t have high requirements for daily life, and I never care about eating and drinking. Does it have something to do with my experiences when I was a child? I see some only-child parents spoiling their children like that, and I don’t think so.Children are the flowers of the motherland, and of course the flowers must be cherished; but the love must be done properly, otherwise it is tantamount to harming the children.

I don't remember when I started to learn to read, but it was always between the ages of four and six.My teacher is Mr. Ma Jinggong.Now I can't remember any places like private schools, and I can't remember any books like "Thousand Characters".In my bare house, there was no book, and I had never seen any paper slips with words.Anyway, I always read a few words, otherwise where did the teacher come from? The existence of Mr. Ma Jinggong cannot be doubted. Although there is no private school, but there are friends.There are two that I remember most clearly: one is called Yang Gou. I only knew his name when I went home a few years ago. He is still alive and can’t read a word; I still haven't figured out who his last name is.The three of us played together every day, floating in water, hunting jujubes, catching cicadas, and touching shrimps.Later, I heard that the dumb boy became the king of the mountain, and he developed an amazing ability to jump over the roof of the house. He could grab the rafters of the temple with his fingers, hang his whole body in the air, and walk around the hall for a circle.He was caught once, in the twelfth lunar month of winter, naked, doused with cold water, tied up, hung upside down overnight, and still alive.It is said that he never came to Guanzhuang to commit crimes, "rabbits don't eat grass by the side of their nests", this is the loyalty of a green forest hero.He was finally caught and killed.Every time I think that such a little friend playing with bare buttocks has become such a "hero", I feel quite proud.

I have only been in my hometown for six years, and I can recall many things, but I don't want to write any more.It's time to bid farewell to my gray and yellow hometown. When I was six years old, on the eve of the Spring Festival, it may have been 1917 in the Gregorian calendar. I left my parents and my hometown. It was my uncle who took me to Jinan.Uncle probably has a good life at this time, he and his brothers only have me as a boy, and they want to raise me into a man so that I can be a bright future, and the only way is to go to Jinan.This can be said to be the most critical turning point in my life, otherwise I would still be farming in my hometown today (if I can live), which is certainly a good thing.But good things can sometimes turn into bad things. During the "Cultural Revolution", I thought several times: If my uncle hadn't taken me from my hometown to Jinan, I would always be able to live a muddled but comfortable life, and how could I be knocked down by the "revolutionaries"? If you have a thousand feet on your body, you will never be able to stand up again? Huh, the world is changing, life is easy to grow old, there is really no way!

After arriving in Jinan, I had a difficult time.It is hard to understand what it feels like for a six or seven-year-old child to leave his mother unless he has experienced it himself.I have woken up crying from my dreams a few times.Although at this time, not only can I eat white flour steamed buns, but I can also eat meat; but I would rather eat red sorghum pancakes and bitter pickles.This wish is, of course, an illusion.I couldn't do anything about it, and over time, I got used to it. My uncle hopes his son will become a dragon, and he is very concerned about my education.Arrange for me to study in a private school first.The teacher was an old man with a white beard and a stern face, making him intimidating.Every day when you enter school, you first salute to the tablet of Confucius, and then "Zhao Qian Sun Li".At about the same time, my uncle sent me to study in the primary school attached to the First Division.This place is inside the old city wall, and the street is called Shengguan Street. It looks very grand, but in fact, "officials" are also "coffins", and the whole street is made of coffins.At this time, the "May 4th" movement probably had already started.The principal is concurrently the principal of the first division. He is a pioneer in Shandong Province. In the eyes of a primary school student, he is a big man and he is not easily seen.Unexpectedly, more than ten years later, when I graduated from university and went to teach in Jinan High School, the two of us became colleagues, and he was a history teacher.My disciple was very respectful, but he thanked me again and again.I thought life was so unpredictable!

Because the headmaster was a reform figure, our Chinese textbooks were changed to vernacular.There is a text in the textbook called "The Camel of Arabia".The story is well known.But it was strange and fresh to me at the time, and I found it very interesting to read, and I couldn't put it down.However, this article got into trouble.One day, when my uncle was flipping through my textbook, I only saw his color suddenly change. "How can a camel speak human language?" he said angrily. "This school can't go on, I have to transfer!" So I switched schools.The transfer procedure is much simpler than it is now, and you only need to pass an oral test.And the oral test is also very simple, only a few words are given for us to recognize.I remembered that there was a word "狗" in the middle of the word, and I recognized it, so I decided it was the first year of high school.A relative who was two years older than me didn't recognize it, so it was decided as the third grade of junior high school.For a word, I was cheap for a year.This is also an anecdote.

This school is close to the Nanxuzi Wall, and the campus is very spacious with many trees.The flowers and plants are lush and the scenery is beautiful.On a firewood gate supported by a wooden frame, hangs a wooden plaque with four big characters engraved on it: "Follow the rules".I didn't understand the meaning of these four characters at the time, I just thought it was fun to have too many strokes.I just go in and out from under this wooden plaque every day, go to school, and play games.At that time, the intention of the person who erected the plaque was that I realized later that it was nothing more than to make the elementary school students behave and be good children.However, four weird words were used, and no one of the children could understand them, so the result was useless and superfluous.

Have I "followed the rules"? Probably not.We have an abacus teacher with protruding eyes. We nicknamed him shaoqianr (Jinan dialect, which means knowing).He is particularly rude to students.Make a plan, make a wrong number, and make a mistake.It is unavoidable to make mistakes of ten, eight, or even hundreds of numbers.We have all suffered a lot of boards.I don't know who murmured: "Let's frame (primary school jargon, which means to drive away) him!" Immediately everyone agreed.Our group of ten-year-old children are about to "rebel".Everyone agreed: when he was in class, we overturned the teaching desk, then left the classroom together and hid behind the rockery.We ourselves thought it a very clever scheme; if it succeeded, the teacher would be so disgraced that he would have to pack up and go home.However, there were "traitors" in our class. Although there were only a few people, they wanted to flatter the teacher and did not leave the classroom.This way, the teacher's arrogance was greatly increased. He knew that he still had the "crowd", so he became very powerful and beat us, a group of "rebels" who didn't know the heights of the sky and the earth, with the palms of the hands for a while. Everyone's hands were swollen like steamed buns.But no one shed tears.Every time I think about this incident in the future, I feel that it can be included in my "Superior History". "Revolution is innocent, rebellion is justified", if there was a great "revolutionary" who created these two slogans at that time, how wonderful it would be! When it comes to study, I remember that within three years, I had taken two first-class exams (there were only three first-class exams), and two first-class exams. Generally speaking, they belonged to the upper class; but they were not top-notch.In fact, I didn't study hard at that time. I spent more time playing and less time studying.Li Yuhe is the number one student in our class, and he is number one every year.He is five or six years older than me. He seems to be very mature. He memorizes by rote, works hard, frowns every day, doesn't smile, and doesn't fight with us.I have never had great ambitions, and I don't want to fight for the champion at all.But I have no respect for my old senior, and I feel a little contemptuous, thinking that he is not of my race. Although I am not interested in the main class, there is something I am very interested in, and that is reading novels.My uncle is an old-fashioned man, and he called novels "idle books", and I was not allowed to read idle books.When I was at home, there was a large vat of white noodles under my desk, covered with a "cover mat" (Jinan dialect) made of sorghum stalks.I was sitting at the table, and the "Four Books" were on the table, but I was reading "Peng Gong Case", "Ji Gong Biography", and other old novels.Maybe it's too deep, I can't understand the mystery of it, Daiyu cried all day long, I don't like it, so I can't watch it.The rest of the books are read with relish.Unexpectedly, my uncle walked in, so I quickly lifted the cover, threw the idle books in, and began to read "Ziyue" and "Shiyun" in my mouth. When I get to school, I don't need to be on guard. As soon as school is over, it's my world.I often hid behind a rockery, or on a construction site where a house was being built, took out idle books, and read them hungrily.I often forget the time, forget to eat, and sometimes go home when it gets dark.I am very familiar with the heroes in the green forest in the novel. I can memorize their names by heart, and even the weapons they use are familiar with each other. I am more familiar with them than textbooks. Of course, I also hope to become such a hero.Once, a child told me to poke the five fingers of his right hand into the rice jar, again and again, until hundreds or thousands of times.After practicing for a period of time, replace it with sand grains and poke it vigorously with your hands, and finally you can practice iron sand palms, which can break trees with one poke with five fingers.I really wanted to have an iron sand palm, so I believed it to be true, and practiced vigorously, but I pierced my finger, and the blood flowed out.Knowing that he had no chance with Iron Sand Palm, he stopped practicing. Learning English also started from this elementary school.For me at the time, a foreign language was a very magical thing.In my opinion, square characters are a matter of course. Without square characters, they are only curved like the traces of earthworms crawling. It is incredible that they can be pronounced and interesting.The more mysterious something is, the more attractive it is.English is very attractive to me.I never imagined that something that was elusive and elusive like a mirage was within reach.I can't remember now how the opportunity to learn came about.Probably there is a teacher who knows a little English, and he promises to teach a little in the evening, and maybe charge some tuition.In short, an amateur English study class was quickly formed, with about a dozen children participating.I can't remember exactly how long it took me to learn it, but it didn't seem too long, and I didn't learn too many things. After twenty-six letters, I learned some words.I had a very nerve-wracking question at the time: Why are "is" and "have" considered verbs, but they don't move at all? At that time, the teacher couldn't answer it; when I was in middle school, the English teacher couldn't answer it either.People who used "verbs" to translate English verbs back then probably wouldn't have thought of the troubles caused by his translation. Every time I recall the scene of learning English, there is always a mess of flowers in front of my eyes, which are purple peonies.It turned out that there were several flower beds in the yard in front of the principal's office. When spring came, peonies were in full bloom, and they were all purple flowers.Walking there during the day, the purple flowers and green leaves are very distinct.In the evening, after the English class, I walked through the yard again, and the purple flowers and green flowers turned into one color, in hazy piles, because I had the impression of the day, so I still knew their colors.But at night, I can only see the shadow of flowers in front of my eyes, and my nose seems to have a little fragrance of flowers.This scene has been with me all my life. Whenever I think about learning English, this wonderful scene will come to my mind, bringing me infinite happiness and joy. However, time flies like running water, and three years have passed in a blink of an eye: it's time for me to graduate from elementary school, and I want to say goodbye to this beautiful campus.When I was thirteen years old, I was admitted to Zhengyi Middle School in the city.I originally wanted to enter the famous No. 1 Middle School.But I weighed left and right, and I always felt that my piece of material was not enough. I should take the "Broken Friendship" which is as famous as "Lan Yuying".I said above that I have no ambitions at a young age, and this is another proof.Although Zhengyi is "broken", the scenery is beautiful.Backed by Daming Lake, ten thousand hectares of reed green and ten miles of lotus fragrance, it is nothing more than a paradise on earth.However, when I get here, I have passed my childhood. No matter how wonderful Zhengyi's study life is, I have no choice but to stop writing and listen to the next chapter. Looking at my childhood, I started from gray and yellow, and reached a state of dark green in Zhengyi——I have made progress.But this is only on the surface, from the content of life, it is still gray and yellow.Even in Jinan, it is difficult to find anything impressive in my life.I have never had any toys. I made a thin iron bar into a circle, made a hook and pushed it, and I was able to run. I was very happy.Poverty, monotony, rigidity, and stubbornness are the portrayal of my life at that time.To accept outside information, only rely on five senses.What TV, tape recorder, not even a picture.I didn't even watch the movie when I was young, so I can imagine the rest. Blessed are the children of today.How many refurbished toys they have! How many children's playgrounds and activity centers they have! They eat bread when they are hungry, and drink this Coke and that Coke, as well as milk and ice cream when they are thirsty.Tired of watching movies, watch TV.Tired of listening to the radio, listen to the tape recorder.Information is pouring in from the sky, overseas, and across mountains and rivers.They are really "children know the world without going out".But they just don't know the old society.Take me for example, if I don’t remember seriously, I will gradually become indifferent to the scene of the old society, and sometimes it is as indifferent as a cloud. Today I describe my childhood as truthfully as possible, no matter how incomplete, no matter how clumsy my pen and ink are, it is what is written above, our children today can learn from it after reading it A little inspiration, do you realize something useful from it? June 6, 1986