Chapter 71 i arrived in beijing

Probably in the early autumn of 1913, I arrived in Beijing. After the founding of the Republic of China, the Minister of the Navy Huang Zhongying sent a telegram to call my father to Beijing to serve as the Director of Military Science of the Ministry of the Navy. My father went to take office first, and my mother brought us four siblings. After a few months, my uncle escorted me to Beijing. To be honest, my affection for Beijing has grown with the years of living in it. I went from Yantai with vast sea and sky, to Fuzhou with beautiful mountains and clear waters, to Beijing, the seat of the Qing government, which I had heard about from my uncle since I was a child. I had no hope or excitement.When the ship sailed slowly into Shiba Bay of Dagukou, the muddy yellow water and shallow river beach gave me a feeling of depression and irritability.

From Tianjin to Beijing, along the way, there are many young and yellow fields, endless, and it didn't arouse my interest!When we arrived at Beijing East Railway Station, my father came to pick us up, and we got into the carriage. What passed before my eyes was the tall and thick gray city wall, the avenue paved with dusty loess, the hurried and slow pedestrians and the sweaty people. The rickshaw driver's running around, in my dazed and indifferent mood, the carriage has already sent me to my "new home" where I have lived for 16 years, No. 14 Jianzi Lane, Tieshizi Hutong, Dongcheng, Beijing.

This is a small facade, just like the cover art of Mr. Lao She printed by Tianjin Publishing House. It is a typical residence of a middle-class family in Beijing.On the door frame to the left of the gate, there is a "Qi Zhai" sign in gold letters on a black background.Inside the two doors on the right of entering the door is the residence of the landlord Qi's family.Go left and walk through a small rectangular outer courtyard, and enter through the four doors facing south. It is a small courtyard, which is our "home". This courtyard house has three rooms in the north, with a porch on the outside and two suites on the inside with brick kangs.There are three rooms in the east and west rooms, two of which are bright and one dark. The east room has been used as the living room and father's study, and the west room has become the uncle's living room and the place where the younger brothers study.From the east side of the north porch, there is a small yard, where there is the kitchen and the chef's room, and there is a squatting toilet at the back.There is a very small two-story "building" against the wall on the west side of the back of the north house. The God of Wealth is enshrined on the top, and the Fox Immortal is on the bottom!

In the north room where we lived, except for the east and west suites, the main room with two lights and one dark has a glass rear window and a carved "partition fan". A painting or a poem is embedded in a small wooden frame on the partition poetry.This is a decoration that I didn't have in my house in Yantai or Fuzhou, and I love this decoration!The paintings in the frame are ink wash or colored flowers and landscapes, and the poems are mostly sentences from "Three Hundred Poems of Tang Dynasty" that I have read, and some of them are later found in the poetry collections of predecessors.There is only one song among them, which I have never encountered before, and that is a seven-law song: The wind is rushing and the sky is high (?) Suddenly cut off the hearing, difficult to understand, and the messy threads, but don’t care about it, keep the lingering flames, don’t teach burning things, be a three-pronged intersection to mislead people Jiangtou Nine Factions only know today that my left plan is in vain, my book is in vain, and my sword is in charge of hard work. I think this poem is very philosophical.

We have lived in this yard for sixteen years!Many of my first memories of our family and Beijing are piled up here. The first Beijinger I came into contact with was our landlord Qijia.On the second day of our arrival, Mrs. Qi brought her fourth daughter to visit.She called my parents "Uncle" and "Auntie" and called us girls and students. (Now I will use the word "you" because I learned it from them.) Mrs. Qi often invites my mother to her house to play cards or go out to listen to operas.My mother is weak and not used to this kind of entertainment, so after a few polite thanks, she came less often.I went with them to Jixiang Garden in Dongan Market, and listened to several plays. I also caught up with Mr. Yang Xiaolou playing Huang Tianba, the name of which I forgot.I saw Mr. Mei Lanfang for the first time again from the play "Fenhe Bay".

I was often taken to Qi's house, and there were three north rooms and one west wing in their courtyard.There is a large copper briquette stove in the house, which is very warm.There are many guests in her house, and when the guests come, they play mahjong and smoke cigarettes.The fourth girl also played cards and smoked with them, she was only two or three years older than me! Qi's family is a bannerman, and his original surname was "Qi" (later I heard a Manchu Chinese doctor who treated his mother say that bannermen have eight surnames, namely Tong, Guan, Ma, Suo, Qi, Fu, An, Lang.), in the Republic of China, most of the banner people changed their surnames to Han, so they took the surname "Qi". The old lady in their family was in power, and Mr. Qi and their little-footed daughter-in-law walked in and out with their heads bowed, busy with work, and rarely spoke.Later, I heard that this old lady Qi used to be the "grandmother" of a royal family, and she saved money to build this house.I always feel that she has something to do with the owner of the big house on the west side of the compound in front of our house.The front door of this mansion is in Iron Lion Alley, and the back door is on the west side of our courtyard.

There are often noble ladies wearing bright cheongsams and waistcoats, combing their "two hairs" with long "swallow tails" behind their buns, and wearing high-soled shoes.When they met each other, they kept saying hello and greeting each other for a long time. I found it very interesting to watch from a distance.But these noble ladies have never been to Qi's house. In this way, all I have been in contact with is everything inside and outside the courtyard of my house. My world is much narrower and deserted than before. Fortunately, my father is a person who is unwilling to be lonely. (Beijingers call going to work the Yamen!) So they rolled up their sleeves and planted flowers.We also set up a grape trellis in the rectangular yard outside, and planted the grape seedlings sent from Yantai.Later, my father's garden gradually expanded beyond the gate. He planted some easy-to-grow flowers such as wild jasmine and hollyhock at the gate, and set up a swing frame.The children around often come to see the flowers and play on the swings. They call this compound "Xie's Courtyard".

"Xie's Courtyard" is a gathering place for the surrounding children. Those who fly kites, play diabolo, skip rope and kick shuttlecock, and practice bicycles... are very lively.Therefore, there are often "sugar gong beaters" resting there. When the gong sounds, the younger brothers all run out, and I follow.This burden contains everything, including sugar balls, masks, kites, knives and guns, etc., and the price is very cheap.This candy gong burden made a deep impression on me!A few years ago, I met a doughman Zhang, he made a birthday cake for me, and I gave this birthday cake to a British friend, an anthropologist, and I especially asked doughman Zhang to pinch a birthday cake for me.” The burden of "beating sugar gongs" is placed in my glass bookshelf to lock a picture of my childhood.

Generally speaking, the first period of my life in Beijing was strange and boring. Of course, "Years in the Mountains" and "Mood at Sea" are gone, but I haven't experienced much of "Scenery under the Chariot" either!At that time, the Forbidden City, Jingshan and Beihai were not open to the public, and I don’t remember going to other places of interest.There was only one time when my uncle took me to visit the Longfusi Market with my younger brothers. This was also a novelty for me!The market is bustling with crowds of people.Rows upon rows of stalls sell everything, antiques, clothes, food, and uses; in addition to business, there are also those who practice martial arts, jugglers, and storytellers... But our attention is concentrated on the toy stalls superior!What I remember most clearly is the play of the brown man on the copper plate.This is a kind of paper-made villain in costume, the most exciting is the general, with feathers on his head, four small flags tied behind his back, full of armor, and a circle of palms under his robe.These costumed figures are placed on a large copper plate.As soon as the juggler knocked on the copper plate, all the brown figures spun around, and the swords and guns flew back and forth, which was really beautiful.

After my father arrived in Beijing, he seemed to be more depressed. Of course, he would not take me to the "yamen", and he didn't like to go to other places, so I seldom went out.I seem to have grown up a lot this year!Because at this time, I was not surrounded by those cousins ​​or cousins, but only three younger brothers who were much younger than me.Secondly, because I had fewer opportunities to follow my father, I naturally became my mother's daughter.Not only did I learn to comb my mother's hair (my mother was already feeling sore in her arms and wrists at that time), but I also shared some housework. Only then did I know that "living life" is a very worrying and difficult thing to deal with!At this time, I also often read various magazines my mother subscribed to, such as "Women's Magazine", "Novel Monthly" and "Oriental Magazine" published by the Commercial Press. It was from the Wenyuan column of "Women's Magazine" that I first came into contact with To the poetic form of "word".My uncle, Mr. Yang Zijing, became the tutor of my younger brothers. He didn’t ask me to participate in the study. I helped my mother with some housework and learned some needlework during the day, and at night, I shared a side with my three younger brothers at the square table in the main room and helped them. Review subjects.When they are tired, tell them some stories, and lead them to play some games, such as "Eagle Catch Chicken", and I feel like a little gentleman.

After my brothers went to sleep, I sat alone, and what I heard was not the high-pitched bugle, but the long and desolate sound of selling "mutton head meat" or "Sai Li's radish" outside the wall, or just one The sound of the small gong knocked by a blind fortune teller makes people's hearts tremble, making me hesitate and bored! As I write this, I feel a little bit emotional.The train of my life has always been speeding along the coast. Although the mountain circuit turned and left the open sea and sky, I still saw the village with dark willows and bright flowers.However, the first section of walking to Beijing was like a train entering a tunnel, the window was dark outside, the window was closed, and the lights in the carriage were turned on. My eyes were drawn back, and under the shadow of a circle of yellow lights, I took a closer look at the carriage. The people and things in it, and I also looked at myself... The first year in Beijing was the first short tunnel on the road of my life. Of course, there will be such dark tunnels in the future, and they will be longer, but I have already Grown up!June 16, 1981.