Chapter 15 amphibians

In the winter of 1911, we returned from Yantai to our big family in Fuzhou, Fujian.As a child who spent lonely and desolate days in the mountains and sea corners, he suddenly entered a group of laughing and bewildered teenagers, and he felt like "forget about himself". My father has an older sister and four brothers.These five small families have all kinds of relatives alone or in common during the New Year and holidays, and they socialize and socialize; especially during the half month from New Year's Day to Lantern Festival, it is very lively.I remember that on the morning of New Year's Day in 1912, in the hall of my house, besides my cousins, there was a large group of people from various small families waiting to bow to my grandfather. Teens who are going to call them cousins.I don’t know how many red paper packets of New Year’s money were handed out from my grandfather on this day!

The cousins ​​are here, and they all live in the East Courtyard where the uncle's parents live.Together they talked about how to do live embroidery, what kind of makeup to apply, how to braid three or five strands; On a piece of red-headed rope, there are patterns such as the characters "Shou" or "Xi", etc.; sometimes I also help my grandfather trim and water some flowers and plants in the back garden of the West Court. As for the cousins, they gather from their own homes to the living room of our west courtyard every day.They played and sang there, played chess and wrote "poems".I was only twelve years old at the time, and although I put on women's clothes, I still had the temper of a wild child, and my grandfather and parents didn't care about me.I moved like an amphibian between these two groups of cousins.They were all seven or eight years older than me, they didn't take me seriously, they didn't reject me, and they didn't avoid me in anything.I also like to go to the group of my cousins, because it is more lively there, and my cousins ​​welcome me more, because I can pass letters and letters for them.Looking back now, they were also "booing", not serious.When a certain cousin writes every note or letter to a certain cousin, most of it is passed around openly and laughingly among the brothers.Of course, I have read them all. The writing in these letters is not necessarily smooth, and most of the poems are crooked poems.When I was in Yantai the year before, I was taught by Uncle Wang Fengpang. Not only could I know the three-character, five-character, and seven-character pairs, but I had already written several poems about Qijue. My appreciation is still not low. of!

These notes or poems were in the hands of my cousins, but they were not passed on. Most of them laughed after reading it, tore it up or burned it, and asked me not to report it to adults.I have memorized a relatively smooth letter, but it is not complete: Talking freely, dreaming and thinking, Sheng Sheng is melancholy, building a mansion is repeatedly looked down upon, I don't know what to blame, but I am stupid, doubts are hard to solve... There is also a seven-character poem written by a cousin, I think it is really good: I dare not Telling Jian Xiu about his love, he pondered for a long time and once showed his teeth, and looked back several times a year, confused, emotional, and heart-to-heart, delicate and romantic, dreaming of the moon, delusional and self-aware of his sin, the mud plow is willing to fall.

This poem, which I think is very good, has never been favored by that cousin!Later, when I was 17 or 18 years old, on the desk of my little uncle, Mr. Yang Ziyu, I saw this poem in "Suspected Rain Collection" by Wang Cihui, who wrote Xianglian poems in the Qing Dynasty.The cousin who I thought was very talented in poetry is also a "Wen Chao Gong"! Looking back now, there were no classmates for men and women at that time, and the social interaction was not open. Young people can only express their emotions towards the opposite sex between Chinese and foreign people who have the opportunity to get in touch. No wonder such love stories are all "brother and sister".