Chapter 23 shake to granny bridge

Everyone has their own identity.When adults meet, they often hand over a business card respectfully, with the words "manager" and "professor" printed on it, which refers to the position; as a host, I often use "famous performing artist" and "professor" when introducing guests. Famous writer" title, that refers to achievement.For children who have neither occupation nor achievement, their identities are often only confirmed by their relationship with others, such as "children of the XX family" and so on. In my childhood, I used to proudly own my identity and logo.It was a small handkerchief with my name embroidered with red cotton thread, and a line of small characters below: "I live at No. 112 Houjia Road".Today, many celebrities do not need to list a large number of positions and honors on their business cards because of their names, and often adopt this method of only printing their names and addresses.And the small handkerchief that I wore on the skirt when I was young seems to have a similar function of reducing complexity.Of course, the main purpose is to prevent me from losing it.

No. 112 Houjia Road is the address of my grandmother's house in Shanghai.There are two or three minutes' walk between there and the Town God's Temple.I stayed there from one and a half to four years old, and then two years off and on.There is the earliest coordinates since I can remember, and my first social symbol is the little girl who lives at No. 112 Houjia Road. Today, however, I can only search for this location in memory.When I returned to China this summer, I took Wu Zheng enthusiastically to "visit" my childhood home, ready to point and brag.But, it's too late.The houses on the side of Houjia Road have long been razed to the ground and surrounded by concrete walls. It is said that Hong Kong stars Jackie Chan, Anita Mui and others funded the "Star City" here.It won't be long before Qionglouyuyu, feasting and feasting will endow this area with never-night prosperity.The public phone booth on the inclined road is still there, but the entire city will be demolished in a year.I was sighing, Wu Zheng pulled me aside, and a tricycle drove past me quickly, carrying watermelon rinds full of flies.

My maternal grandparents, who are nearly ninety years old, moved out of Houjialu, where they have lived for more than seventy years, into a two-bedroom apartment in Pudong last year.As they are old, they are as open-minded as ever, and they are not sentimental because of the difficulty of leaving their former residence.They said that instead of climbing up and down creaky, narrow and steep wooden stairs every day, they can say goodbye to the inconvenience caused by old-fashioned toilets and breathe the fresh air of Pudong. Why not do it? It was me, a young man, who was sad: forever lost that wet alley, lost the half-person-high vegetable vats in the vegetable market in front of the door, lost the cigarette paper shop next door selling plums and zongzi candies, my childhood Can you still find your "identity"?

Fortunately, the memory has not been lost, and as I panicked about losing it, it became clearer. The first time I lived in Houjialu was in the summer of 1969—of course, this is not my memory at that time, but what my mother told me afterwards.Because I was only one year old at the time.At that time, my young father was working as a foreign aid expert in Albania, and my young mother was about to leave Beijing to report to Hubei Yangxin May 7 Cadre School. She wanted to take me with her, but my grandmother insisted: "How can this work? Rural areas The conditions are not good, maybe it’s not easy to buy milk powder, so I’d better stay in Houjialu, let me bring it, and make sure that you will be well-fed and fat.”

Grandma has been a housewife all her life and has raised five children.On the experience of running a home and raising children is widely praised in the neighborhood.Although my mother was reluctant, she had nothing to worry about, so I was a baby, with a baby bottle in my mouth, lying on the swaying train, shaking and shaking, until I reached Grandma Bridge. Houjia Road is only a hundred meters long and five or six meters wide.On both sides of the street are two-story buildings with an old wooden structure. Because the street is not wide, people hang long bamboo poles on the window sills protruding across the street when drying clothes and quilts.Once the rainy season is over every year, every household opens the cabinets and rummages through the boxes to dispel the dampness that has been covered for a long time in the sunny day.As a result, in the midair of the whole street, blankets were unfurled, dresses fluttered, with the grandeur of a gathering of thousands of national flags.

In the midsummer evening, the wooden house without air conditioning is unbearably hot.Rows of bamboo chairs were moved to the street, and families appeared in short clothes and shorts.A Houjia Road was filled to the brim.At this time, the old man in the backyard will shake the cattail fan and tell a ghost story to the children gathered around him; the old ladies of the neighborhood committee will go door-to-door to deliver mosquito repellent; Put a wooden clip to hang clothes on top. The most pitiful thing is the fat father-in-law. He loses the most. Often both ears are covered, and his face is as purple and red as his ears.But every evening, I still see him sitting there shirtless, concentrating on the cards in his hand, his persistence and stubbornness are still admirable today.

There is a vegetable market on Houjia Road.Every morning, the trucks carrying vegetables often drive to the middle of the street with their headlights on.Soon, there were sounds of unloading vegetables, loading baskets, and price marking one after another.Around four o'clock in the morning, the vegetable market began to be lively.Shanghainese are used to buying fresh vegetables of the day before going to work.Retired old men and old ladies from various families got up earlier, and after doing Tai Chi on the Jiuquqiao of the Town God's Temple, they lined up at the vegetable market.People who don't have the ability to separate themselves often use bricks, bamboo baskets, etc. as "queues" to buy both vegetables and fish.Sometimes, the people behind in the queue would not buy it and would happily remove the bamboo baskets out of the queue.When the master came, he was extremely indignant at such indecent assault and questioned loudly.But the people before and after shouted "Don't know", or said nothing, which made the owner helpless, and finally let it go.This resentment is often vented on those salesmen who are not kind enough, so there are a few high-pitched and loud voices in the busy and noisy market.

People in Houjialu are used to all of this.They slept soundly at night, and a few car horns did not hinder them.In the morning mist, they got up, washed, swished the toilet with clam shells, said good morning to each other, and then ate their own pickles and rice, or extravagantly bought a bowl of small wontons, eating with gusto , quite contented.Just now I heard a young couple arguing in high-pitched voices, and not long after, I saw the two of them coming out, neatly dressed and arm in arm.Amidst the soot from the raw coal stoves in the neighbors' houses and the tangy aroma of breakfast in each house, they drove away the crowded crowd with the ringing of bicycle bells, turned their feet, and rode to work.

This is a typical residential area for citizens and the earliest old city in Shanghai. However, with the development of the city and the influx of new immigrants, it has become increasingly crowded and dilapidated. It is not considered a "high-end residential area" in the eyes of local Shanghainese. ".The people are very mixed and the environment is not elegant.Why do I still miss it so much?Out of childhood memories, there must be something else.Thinking about it carefully, when I returned to my parents at the age of five, I entered a relatively simple university campus.His father is a university teacher and his mother is an audio engineer. The neighbors are all intellectuals.People talk elegantly and behave well. The spacious campus is quiet and the garden is clean.However, this gentle world is so simple and almost monotonous to me as a child.In contrast, Houjialu may be messy or trivial, but the scenes of tragedies and comedies staged there are so rich and real, which fascinates me.What's more, the people there gave me the earliest enlightenment.