Chapter 12 ancestral hall

ancestral hall The ancient ancestral hall is a pure wooden structure, and there is a clay statue of a general inside.Later, the family tree was reworked, and I gradually learned that the ancestors of the residents of this village were a branch of the royal family. They fled from Shanxi to this place, reproduced their descendants, and changed their surnames by using the same voice and different form.So the surname here cannot be found in the hundred surnames.The king of Shanxi arrived in Zhejiang, reached the depths of the mountains, and finally found a piece of land next to mountains and rivers.Going forward, we will reach the East Sea, and there is nowhere to escape.It can be seen that this place gives him shelter.

The big stage of the ancestral hall used to perform plays every Spring Festival.The singing troupe took turns to perform in several nearby villages, and it was an extremely lively event.The same is true for the open-air movies in the rice paddies, which were all gone later.When I was a child, there was no electricity in the village, so kerosene lamps were lit at home.Later, there was electricity, gas, and running water.Wealthy families built small buildings two or three stories high.Cobblestone paths became concrete.Only the water in the big stream at the entrance of the village is stranded and dirty, the water does not flow, and garbage is piled up everywhere.At first, I could still see piles of dried fish carcasses by the stream, but then I couldn't see anything.

It is no longer the big stream meandering from the east in childhood memories, flowing and crystal clear.Women wash clothes and vegetables by the water, children swim and play, and schools of fish swim nimbly in the water.Daxi used to be the blood of the village, providing nutrients and vitality, but now people no longer need it.The dry stream is like the current situation of the village.All the middle-aged men and women in the village go out to work, leaving only the elderly, children and women at home.Empty and deserted during the day. The ancestral hall is still preserved, with gorgeous and delicate wooden carvings full of cobwebs, damaged but lifelike, retaining the glory of the former clan power concentration.The stage has long been deserted.A bunch of elderly people sat around watching TV, playing mahjong and smoking here.The lively event at the ancestral hall in the past was almost a dream, leaving no trace.

The village became rich, and the tranquility and abundance that used to be self-contained were also washed away by the economic tide.Walking on the only street where the market used to be held, the wall of the old house that has not been demolished has sunflowers and carvings of Chairman Mao's head, with quotations written on it.Wars, the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, and the market economy have all affected this place.The only thing that remains the same is the silence of the surrounding mountains.They are still the shape of the fallen kings who arrived here in ancient times.He believed that they would give him protection, so he dismounted and parked with his family and entourage, and built a home here, cultivated land, planted crops, and reproduced.An ancient village was created and continued.

My mother and I, the village in our memory, are all the same, washed repeatedly and mercilessly by the tide of the times.Only ruins remain.