Appreciation of Lo Jui-hua's Prose "Secular Life in a Small County"

For a thousand years, Gu Meishan, a rough "foreign land", has been carved into a spiritual and gentle small county.

There are mountains, mountains, rivers and towers around the small county. The main peak of Lion Mountain is towering, with continuous veins. There are dense trees on the mountain, the most tea trees, and the camellias are open and fragrant. It is on the lion pavilion, and the small county town has a panoramic view. Paomaling is connected with vegetable gardens, orchards and tea gardens, and the criss-crossing buildings make it refreshing to ride a horse. The seven-story pagoda of "North Gate Lock Key" is antique, exquisite and magnificent. After a century and a half of vicissitudes, it still stands tall. The water is surging, passing through the city, the long bridge flies, communicating things, and the small town spreads its wings and flies.

This city used to have a pattern of "nine lanes and eighteen streets". Cross Street, as the main road, has a turtle-back shape with bluestone slabs, and sewers are set on both sides, which are uniform and dry when it rains. Qingshi Street, which runs north and south, is the most prosperous street, and was later renamed Tianhua Street. In memory of the martyr Chen Tianhua, a modern democratic revolutionary who walked out of a small county, a bronze statue of the martyr stands in the railway station square at the southern end of the street. The shops in this street are next to each other. Restaurants, supermarkets, pharmacies, gold shops and clothing stores are thriving. The vendors in the street are shouting one after another, and people come and go.

The east-west Qingshi Road leads to Zijiang Wharf, which used to be the stopping point of Maoban ship. Maoban boats have brought prosperity to the town and to the East Street by the river. Two rows of old houses in Ming and Qing dynasties face each other across the street, behind the towering horse head wall and between the blue bricks and black tiles, there is still the glory of the past. The era of water transport is gone forever, but the taste of traditional snacks still floats on this old street, just like the sound of the Zijiang River, which lasts for a long time. In the first ray of sunshine in the morning, the beef noodles in the blue and white porcelain bowl are full of fragrance, the glutinous rice cakes wrapped in leaves are crowded on the red lacquer wooden plate, the fish and shrimp in the net are jumping, the vegetables in the basket are still dewdrops, the oil pan is sizzling, and the cat meows for begging ... The fireworks here are full of gas, bearing the thousand-year history of the town.

The comfort and freshness of the backyard is only known by the owner and regular customers. The warmth and thoughtfulness of the small county is more in Gongnong River Street behind the street. The goods here are not beautifully packaged. Some shops don't even have store names, but everything is real and durable. Cotton-padded clothes, cotton trousers, cotton shoes, quilts, sewing buttons, curtain tablecloths, bamboo chopsticks with bamboo beds, wooden tables and chairs with wooden pots, jars, teapots, jars and seasonings for fresh and dried vegetables. You can eat whatever you want, as you wish. The objects on the street are full of exquisiteness, which makes you want to be grateful for the times, the land and those who are hardworking and handy.

There is also a secluded old street in the small county-Paulownia Tree Street, which is an idle place on the edge of the market. The old paulownia in the street grows tall and scattered. During the Qingming Festival, paulownia blooms and purple and white horns pile on the branches. From a distance, they are like two lavender auspicious clouds floating on the sidewalk, ethereal and beautiful. There are cicadas, birds, whispering wind, grandma Miao, fortune-teller and a place to enjoy the cool under the tree. Miao grandmothers, wearing layers of high hats woven with ribbons, sat under the tree embroidering while weaving ribbons, selling herbs, scraping and cupping, as if by the way, someone came, smiling humbly, putting down their work and waiting for inquiries. When people leave, they sit back to their original places and pick up needles and threads. Most fortune tellers are weak. They set up a small wooden table against the trunk of paulownia, and several small benches were scattered around. When it is cold, they put a small coal stove under the wooden table and cover it with cloth to get some warmth in the cold wind. Some of them play erhu, some look through old classics written by hand or mimeographed, and some sit there silently, without shouting or anxiety. Small counties, such as nature, are very tolerant. Eagles fly in the sky, and ants live peacefully on the ground.

Fiona Fang, a small county town less than ten miles away. You can sleep as much as possible in the morning, ride an electric car or walk slowly. The street is a little narrow, and the traffic is increasing too fast, but no matter how blocked it is, it can't stop your little donkey and your big feet. All the steaming places are breakfast shops. You can have a soft spot for someone, or you can like the new and hate the old. You can change it every day, such as steamed stuffed buns, fried dough sticks, fried rice noodles, Guo kui ... you can take turns every day if you like. If a man with a wooden cart passes by you and whispers "bean powder", that's your best breakfast: pink beans, slippery powder, onions, ginger, chopped red pepper and diced white radish, which look delicious.

After work at noon, you walk leisurely. Several grandmothers and grandmothers with vegetable baskets have just withdrawn from the market, and the dishes have not been sold yet. They are in a hurry to buy lunch for their grandchildren or catch the ferry. If there is something you like in the basket, it will be very cheap. He will pour you all a few dollars and say that you are too lazy to weigh them. You can also turn into the vegetable market by the way, where there are all kinds of meat and vegetables, as well as clean food clubs and cooked food areas. You can choose whatever you want.

After dinner, the beautiful land on the banks of the Purple River will accompany you to watch the sunset blowing by the river, and you can also bring your dog. The dusk in summer and autumn is refreshing and long, and you can enjoy every tree flower, every meadow and every cultural story on the Di Mei. You can get into the hibiscus and let the hibiscus open to the sides of your face to take beautiful photos; You can listen to the birds chirping on the osmanthus trees in Doby. When it croakes gently, you can also raise your voice and let it fly away. You can find a tile in the grass, squat down, lay it flat on the river and brush up the skills you learned as a child. You can rent a bicycle, two people, three people or four people, and you can step on it with a smile to make your clothes full of wind. Winter goes and spring comes, and dusk slips away in a blink of an eye. There is the narrowest light on Meidi, and only the water in the river shines. Don't worry, just savor working in the countryside and coming home late. Suddenly, a ray of light flashed, and ten miles turned into a dream world, and colorful neon charmed your eyes. The orange street lamp in the antique light box winds all the way, mushrooms and peach trees sway, the colored lights in the crown turn camphor trees into green cauliflowers, wicker into Bai Bing, and there seems to be a lively bridal chamber in acacia trees, tempting you with red. ...

Hot songs and dances, elegant concerts, fitness clubs ... are always just decorations of a small town, which has its own daily fitness and entertainment-martial arts and folk songs. In the early morning, people are practicing boxing, tai chi and dancing knives and sticks whenever there is a little space, whether they walk into parks or private courtyards, train station squares or the banks of the Zijiang River. Have a single practice, quietly exhale and stretch your fist; There are fights, fast and hard, each shouting refueling; There are group dances, swords shining, sticks making wind and passionate music. No matter how thin or bloated you are, you will be infected and you will follow it involuntarily.

Mountain people are hard and lonely in Shan Ye, instinctively humming folk songs to drive away loneliness, find companions and eliminate fatigue; On holidays, weddings and funerals, folk songs are used as endorsements, and even crying is used to express * * *. Over time, songs that grow in the soil, like dandelion seeds, are carried in all directions by the wind. The girl picking tea is singing, the person casting the net is singing, the coppersmith shakes the copper plate, the peddler shakes the rattle, and the folk songs are sung from the countryside to the small town. Literati like to see the sound of folk melody, collect, compile, compose music and resort to musical instruments, which will be sung for people through the ages. In the pavilion by the Zijiang River, the erhu sounded, the singer with a good face sang, and the onlookers applauded. Can you hum?

On weekends, if the weather is fine, you can invite three or five friends to the suburbs to see the mountains and rivers and the countryside. Go to Ziquejie, the world terrace kingdom, feel the farming civilization and marvel at the smoothness of the lines; Go to Daxiong Mountain, Chiyou's hometown, to worship ancestors and pray, and enjoy the tranquility of the original second forest; Go to Meishan Dragon Palace and enjoy the majestic atmosphere of the king in the cave; Go to the hot water well in Jin Shiqiao, let the world of mortals shake off between clouds and water, and the taste buds stretch infinitely. The original three-course soup, rice flour meat, snowflake meatballs, frozen fish and bacon will tempt you back to your original heart and the most real life state.

If you like, you can also keep a sky above this perfect earthly life. The folk songs, dances, quyi and arts and crafts of Gumeishan have been preserved and developed by word of mouth, and folk culture can be found in the streets and alleys of the town. Yujiang county Poetry Society has many activities and excellent works, which has won the title of "the hometown of poetry in China" for the small town. The old people in the poetry club are kind and young, ready to absorb their peers. In ordinary alleys, there are a group of unsuitable people who are keen on talking about poetry and novels without talking about business or officials. Many of their works were conceived in small counties and born in prosperous cities. They are the eyes, megaphones, recorders and thinkers of the town. You don't have to be afraid to go home empty-handed. You can approach them and even fight with them.

People around me have been tossing. Go to the provincial capital, go to the first-tier cities, find a job and buy a building; Back to the countryside, back to the tourism development zone, enclosure, building villas. And I just want to stay in this familiar town, eat, drink and be merry, come and go, and live my earthly life. "Cupcakes, er-""roasted sweet potatoes" and "junk" are silent, unhurried, unhurried, and ordinary life is supreme and immortal.

(Author: Shangmei Middle School, Xinhua County, Hunan Province)