Where is the original Chen Chen Amber City?

Chen Chen

{September 2, heavy rain, Guangzhou}

After finishing the freshman admission procedure, I didn't follow my seniors to the freshman dormitory, but went to a small hotel next to the school with heavy luggage, and struggled to move my suitcase to the room on the third floor alone.

There is a strong smell in the room. Open the window, it's still raining outside. The humidity in the south is heavy, and the rainy season has not passed yet. Suddenly I feel that kind of humidity is very familiar. When I remembered that the train drove to the suburbs of Guangzhou this morning and saw the dirty dark yellow river, the slums on the shore and the large dark green banana leaves, I thought I was back in Hanoi.

On this day, I took the train for more than ten hours to Guangzhou, then took the intercity train from Guangzhou to a small station next to Shenzhen, and then picked up the new school bus at the station and other schools. It was raining heavily at that time, and a large group of freshmen and their parents huddled in a small canopy to avoid the rain. After waiting for half an hour or so, a minibus slowly pulled out, and parents rushed to the narrow door with their luggage. Some parents even turned in from the window. I was left behind in despair. When the car drove away, I was soaked to the skin, and a person was standing in the rain, grasping the pull rod of the suitcase blankly.

Maybe I'm too tired from running around. I lay in a bed with a strange smell in the hotel and fell asleep soon. The whole evening was quiet, and the only dream in a trance brought me back to hangzhou east railway station. In the noisy station, I was carrying a big bag and dragging a 20 kg suitcase in my hand. I looked back in the waiting room and saw tears in my mother's eyes through the crowd.

| On July 29th, Nanjing turned cloudy and sunny |

I expect the result to be in the middle of the seventh order. The school I applied for didn't admit me. When I volunteered, my family didn't support me to fill in the art class, but I pretended to be very firm and finally filled in the Beijing Film Academy and another art school in the south. In fact, my heart is also uneasy and hesitant. Nortel's major is admitted according to culture, and my cultural score is low. In another art college, although I got the sixth professional certificate in the country, that school implemented local protection and only recruited three students from other provinces.

That's it. Not surprisingly, I failed the list.

It's just calmer than I thought My parents didn't scold me either. They have been asking people to help me contact the school that bullied him. Looking at their busy figures, I feel sad and guilty.

A week after learning the admission result, I received an email from Nanjing Confucius Temple International Youth Hotel. I got the opportunity to work there during the holiday.

So, at the end of July, I went to Nanjing.

The days of working in Nanjing, though dull, are worth remembering and cherishing. I work the night shift, from 4 pm to 8 am the next day, and I am on duty all night, 16 hours. Youth hostels are short of staff, and I am often the only one in the whole hotel. Sometimes just after receiving a phone call, other phones and fax machines ring at the same time, and suddenly they are at a loss. When I met an old Korean man, I could speak neither Chinese nor English. Now I can't remember how to help him book a room smoothly. In the middle of the night, I also encountered problems such as "the air conditioner in the room is broken", "the room card is broken" and "the toilet is blocked". Facing the ghost guy's puzzled and anxious expression, I really want to hit the wall and not help.

Nanjing is particularly hot in summer. In summer, life seems to flourish, and all life is scrambling to perform their vivid gestures. The youth hostel is on the Qinhuai River. Through the window, you can see a dense mass of dark green on the river bank. Late at night, the lobby of the hotel is very quiet. I play Keren Ann's songs, often.

It was my favorite late night in Nanjing. Ghosts surf the Internet with laptops in the lobby, drinking cold beer and chatting quietly. I read novels at the front desk, and there are very few telephone numbers for booking rooms. Occasionally strangers come to talk to me. Most of the topics are about travel or asking about the traffic routes in Nanjing. Although I haven't been to the routes that passengers often ask about, I can almost recite those bus routes.

Those who travel in the middle of the night grope their way from the airport or railway station to find the youth hotel by the Qinhuai River. There is no one in the hall at this time. I'll close the hotel door, lie on the sofa, and maybe take a nap. At that time, I turned off all the lights in the hall, and there was still a vague light on the wall. It was the traffic on Pingjiang Bridge and the night boat passing slowly on Qinhuai River. At that moment, I felt really quiet, so quiet that I could hear the sound of the river flowing outside the door and the sound of traffic. The night in Nanjing is very quiet, the street lamps are dim, and the buttonwood trees glow faintly on the road. The shops will close early and the whole street will be quiet.

The city is sleeping, but those who wander on the road are still moving on. The other day, I chatted with a Lanzhou elder brother in the hotel lobby over cold beer. He took the train from Lanzhou to Nanjing and arrived at 3 am. He talked to me about his journey, walked around Qinghai Lake with his tent and bag on his back for a week, and then rode a motorcycle from Xining to Lanzhou. This kind of trek is what I love and what I want to go. However, due to various reasons such as time and funds, it failed to move forward. But I am willing to be a listener, a story of the journey, and a person who wanders in the journey. They make me feel free.

Although working in Nanjing is very tiring, I don't know why. I love this kind of work, settle down for people on the journey and try my best to help them solve their troubles on the journey. I have never greeted a city morning so kindly. When the sky in the city turns white, open the door of the hotel and the fresh air comes. The bright red morning glow gradually dyed the Qinhuai River red, and the streets became busy, with new smells everywhere. And I was on duty all night, and I was exhausted to the extreme. I often buy a cup of iced soybean milk in a nearby store to refresh myself, and then sit in the empty hall and plan the time to get off work.

Sometimes I hesitate to pick up the phone and dial my home number. Before I said a few words, I heard my mother's voice choking. Good morning ... What are you doing? I didn't know what to say at once, so I hung up the phone in a hurry after a few commonplaces.

I still remember those desperate feelings in the morning. Walking to Pingjiang Bridge with an indifferent face, looking at the cruise ships docked on the shore in the distance, the future is very vague.

On September 3rd, it was drizzling in Guangzhou.

It was noon when I woke up, and it was raining in Mao Mao outside the window. I took a shower with cold water, opened my suitcase and took out clean clothes to change into. The moment I opened the suitcase, I saw the neatly arranged clothes, and suddenly my mother came out to sort out my clothes at night, and my heart suddenly felt a chill.

Send a short message, the first one is for my mother: I am at school, everything goes well, don't worry.

The second end was for Ling: I didn't apply to college. I'm going to Beijing now.

I immediately received a reply from Ling: What's the matter?

I never went back. An hour later, I received his short message: OK, here we are, be safe.

I rode back to the railway station and bought a train ticket from Guangzhou to Beijing the next day. I have no extra cash in my pocket. I bought a hard seat ticket, and the journey is 23 hours.

In the afternoon, I decided to have a look at this school that no longer belongs to me. Unexpectedly, I compromised for a summer and finally chose to give up. The school is very lively, and parents are sending new students everywhere. The number of parents is almost several times that of freshmen. On the campus path, the faces of freshmen are full of excitement. Parents enthusiastically helped to hold the washbasin quilt, and the family was as happy as a holiday. I was alone, with my hands in my right pocket and my head down. But I don't know why, my heart suddenly became firm and firm in the next road. In fact, this ending has long been expected, and finally, it has not been exposed. Now, I finally face and reject this reality. But it will definitely make parents sad and disappointed, suddenly uncomfortable and guilty.

But in the future, they will certainly understand why I made such a decision. Sometimes thinking like this may make you feel better.

{September 5th, Yin, Beijing}

People in southern cities are always used to cold expressions. In such a busy and messy city, everyone is like a piece of amber, and the soul is frozen. All kinds of pressure, compromise, patience, into boiling turpentine, wrapped us heavily, wrapped our slightly painful memories.

In fact, I don't want to make the same mistake, but some things can only be saved in time by turning back.

Get on the train heading north again. This year, I took the train frequently and was busy running from one city to another. I am used to the strange smell, mess and long train journey of ordinary hard-seat cars. On this train from Guangzhou to Beijing, follow outside! The temperature is getting lower and lower, and my heart is getting more and more desolate. Wash your face in the small and rickety bathroom in the middle of the night. It was dark outside the window and I couldn't see anything clearly. You only feel the wind blowing across your cheeks, and even if you cry, you won't leave a trace.

It was early morning when the train arrived in Beijing. I dragged my suitcase out of the railway station and saw Ling. He came over and patted me on the shoulder. I suddenly felt that I had nothing to say. He probably noticed my embarrassment, said "Let's settle you down first", and then took a taxi and left.

Taxis run along the North Third Ring Road. Ling sat in the front and I sat in the back seat. Each of us opened the window and looked out at the city. The night in Beijing is still familiar, and the unhurried buildings are arranged neatly, and the lights extend into the distance. This huge city always gives people an inexplicable sense of alienation and always feels that they can't really get close to it. It suddenly occurred to me that in the winter of last year in Beijing, when I was walking on Chang 'an Avenue during the Lantern Festival, fireworks suddenly shot up to the sky. There was a shout around. I squeezed into the crowd and rubbed my frozen hands.

At that time, I felt that I didn't belong to this city at all, and I had always been a stranger in Beijing. But I still vowed to tell myself that I must work hard and be admitted to Beijing. All this came to fruition in July. Without regret, failure is failure.

Ling was admitted to Beijing. He was the only child in the studio who left Zhejiang. He got his due reward for his hard work.

The taxi stopped at the gate of the Academy of Fine Arts. Ling said, I still have two empty beds in my dormitory. You can sleep with me today and take you to the hotel tomorrow. I nodded yes.

I didn't fall asleep quickly that night because of the fatigue of the journey. I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep, so I went to the bedroom balcony. The dormitory building opposite is still lit with small lights. On both sides of the path in the campus, tall poplars in the north and dim street lamps cast mottled light and shadow.

Ling came from behind me. He looked cold and said, what are you going to do?

I said, I want to go back to Hangzhou to repeat my studies.

Don't be silly, it's not that easy to repeat.

What do you want me to do？ ! I asked him. Do you want me to stay in a place where I can't even buy magazines for four years? ! Do you want me to stay for another four years? !

He doesn't talk. After a long time, he sighed and turned back to the dormitory. I vaguely heard him say that you were too ignorant. I stood there, feeling my body trembling slightly, like a very wronged child. In fact, I have nothing to be wronged. I should be thankful that my parents tried their best to find me a school and let me have a place to live after three years of high school. They spent a lot of tuition to get me into a school that many people might not be able to afford even if they were admitted.

Maybe in a few years, I will understand my "luck". But a few years later, I didn't become what I am now.

Hot turpentine dripped on me, trying to trap me and make me a souvenir of time. But I am still trying to break free, trying to break free from the fate of becoming amber. And such a break, whether brave or futile.

{February 18, Xiaoxue, Beijing}

During the day, Ling has classes at school, and I wander around Beijing alone. The weather in Beijing has turned cold and winter has come. I take the subway to Di 'anmen and then walk to Houhai.

Last time in Houhai, there was still thick ice in Houhai. I sat on the stone bench by the lake and watched people skating in the lake. That winter, I was swallowed up by the bubble of dreams and couldn't see the reality clearly.

I think I'm too familiar with winter mornings in Beijing. The dark black light on the edge of the city began to cover the city vaguely. The turbulent airflow in the subway station blew away everyone's hair, and the wide streets were crowded with vehicles crawling slowly like ants. I take three trains to school and often start exams when I am hungry.

I remember there was a movie in an exam & gt. I was placed in the front because of my poor eyesight. At the beginning of the movie, Bozi lay on the snow, panting slightly, then got up and walked slowly on the snowy hillside. I still remember the opening piano song clearly. Later, when the exam was over, the first thing I did was to run to the school gate and buy a two-dollar omelet and wolfed it down. Then I bought & gt.

The last round of the third trial is scheduled for the evening. The atmosphere in the corridor on the third floor of the Film Academy is tense. I sat on the bench outside the classroom and vaguely heard the teacher calling his name. I don't remember what I asked at that time, except that a teacher asked me at the end, what if you can't get into this school? I said, if I don't pass the exam, I will go to an ordinary university, but I will still work hard in this direction.

Later, sitting on the bus, I remembered some melodramatic words I said in the interview and secretly felt happy for myself. Really, those original melodramatic words, once spoken firmly, are full of power.

The cold wind whistling outside the window, the sky is getting wet and it snows in Beijing.

{May 25th, Hangzhou Thunderstorm}

There is a small theater next to Ling School. There are some old movies in the midnight movie screening, and student tickets are 40% off.

At the beginning of the release of Zhou Xun's> movie, Zhou Xun looked at the misty and rainy West Lake with an umbrella. How familiar that scene is to me. In senior three, I often ran out of school alone. Without a clear purpose, I transferred to the West Lake several times. Sitting alone on the stone bench by the lake, watching the cruise ship in the lake. Suddenly, dark clouds were gathering, and the storm came suddenly. I took my schoolbag and ran to the bus station to hide from the rain. The rain is noisy and the boundary of the lake in front of us is blurred.

Ling said, anyway, you have to go back and don't stay in Beijing for long.

I held my chin in the dark and didn't speak.

He added that it is wrong for you not to report to school like this. You are nothing in Beijing. I think you should have a decision in mind. Repetition is not the best choice. Repetition is just an escape. In this society, if you choose to escape, it means failure. If you fail, you are a coward, you will be looked down upon by others, and you will not survive.

He is always so direct. It stung me directly and pierced the idea in my heart directly. I suddenly feel very weak and sad. Don't hold your hand too tightly.

He patted me on the shoulder and said, well, tomorrow I'll take you to the underground book market and buy your favorite catchphrases and movies. Then I'll take you to the railway station.

I said to him in front of the fluorescent movie screen, okay.

{September 14, Shower, Dongguan}

If those dreams are the opposite.

If I still stand on the back of the world.

It suddenly rained heavily that afternoon. I was awakened by the rain in my bedroom. I got up and went to the window. The rain ran down the glass and my vision blurred. I think I'm used to the sudden humidity in southern cities.

At noon that day, it was the Mid-Autumn Festival. My roommate went outside to buy beer, cooked food and Cantonese moon cakes, and borrowed a small folding table from another dormitory for drinking and chatting. At first, everyone was very interested, talking about a brand-new life and the beautiful girls in the class. Can drink to a half, the atmosphere gradually cooled down. In fact, we all know that we all miss home and our parents far away. Although I left home not long ago, I received a message of condolence from my family on the night of the reunion. Who won't be moved by it?

On the way, I received a short message from Han Hui. Han Hui is also a native of Zhejiang, and subconsciously I think she is very kind, so we can still talk. She said, it's another Mid-Autumn Festival without moon cakes. I'll go back: then I'll buy it for you.

She looked back: hmm. So I don't know what to do.

Ten minutes later, I received a short message from her: I'm downstairs in your dormitory, waiting for your moon cake. In a panic, I had to pick a fairly complete moon cake and hurried downstairs.

The afternoon storm passed, the air was clear, and the streets washed by rain shone in the dim moonlight. Just still can't see the full moon, and the thick dark clouds in the sky have not dispersed.

When she saw me coming with my hands in my pockets, she shook her body a little shyly. I reached out and handed her the moon cake. She was happy when she saw it and said, you really brought it. I smiled a little embarrassed. She said, come on, there's a new barbecue shop behind the school. Today is my treat.

I have been back in this school for more than ten days, but I have never been here. I'm not interested in things here, but I often go outside and look for weak bookstores and restaurants around the school. But the result was disappointing. I remember laughing that Shanghai was the Gobi desert of culture before, and only here did I find out what a real cultural desert is. I went abroad to build a factory with overseas investment, and I couldn't even find a newsstand. I walked a lot before I found a bookstore, most of which were old books from a few months ago. And Dongguan. It is a city supported by businessmen from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. On the surface, it is as prosperous as other big cities in China, but it is horribly empty inside.

The street lights on campus are dim. Go straight along the secluded path, bypassing the boys' dormitory, followed by a low hillside. There is a humble barbecue shop under the hillside, and the business is light. Only one or two students are sitting on the stone bench drinking beer. Han Hui and I sat down. She went to pick chicken legs and sausages with great interest, and went to the store next door to buy cold beer. After a few drinks with her, I got a little drunk. She was very excited and talked more than before.

We talked about the art test, and she said that in her interview, six people answered the examiner's questions one by one. The question is, who is your favorite writer? The first girl said Lu Xun. Then they talked about Lao She and Zhu Ziqing respectively. It's Han Hui's turn, she said. The examiner in Jingguo looked up disdainfully, gave her a white look and said coldly, You can go out.

"I was invited out of the examination room like this, and I didn't even know my own reasons. When I stood outside the examination room inexplicably, soon, another girl came out with a puzzled face. She said she liked Annie Baby. I really don't understand why those teachers like such fake answers. I think those who say that Lu Xun is their favorite writer may not even know the title of Lu Xun. Those so-called admirers of Zhu Ziqing may know an article "Moonlight on the Lotus Pond". In our real life, who will read a classic recommended by a Chinese textbook? There are such people. But I don't believe that I have seen it all. "

I listened to her endlessly, taking a bite of roast chicken leg from time to time. I can see that she is a little excited.

In fact, I have encountered such a situation. I remember an interview in which a teacher actually asked a question, "What's the name of Shakespeare's wife?" . The candidates present were bored, but no one made a sound. When you ask yourself, you pretend to be modest and say you don't know, or ramble. Only one girl said loudly, "Mrs. Lisa!" " "The audience burst into laughter. Of course, her result was to be asked out of the examination room.

We chatted with the strength of wine, as if we didn't want to stop. At that moment, I found that the Wenzhou girl in front of me was so similar to me, not in character, but in the same situation and mentality as we are now. So I told her, I don't want to stay here, I don't want to stay in this school. I don't hate how bad the environment here is, or how different it is from what I thought. But afraid of being assimilated by the atmosphere, people and things here, and finally losing our temperament and our original innocence.

She listened to me quietly and didn't speak.

When we finished drinking the beer on the stone table, it was nearly 12, but no one was sleepy. So we walked up the hillside path together, not far away, only to find that there is actually another new world behind the school, with a not so small lake and a dimly lit luxury villa. We walked happily by the lake, and among those villas, we saw a brand-new church. The church is surrounded by colored lights outside. Although the door is locked, the design of floor-to-ceiling windows can clearly see the furnishings inside. The light inside is still on, the marble statue of Christ is glowing with white light, and the tables and chairs are quite Gothic. There are also palace paintings of ancient Europe hanging on the wall.

Cars with Hong Kong plates are parked outside the church. Presumably this land is a paradise for the rich in Hong Kong. Those villas with clean and elegant appearance are not like the taste of local people. It's just that the villa is still surrounded by pastoral style, big banyan trees and low bushes by the lake. Han Hui and I stood by the lake, looking at the sparkling lake in the moonlight. At that moment, I thought of the West Lake. Once upon a time, I didn't know how much I wanted to leave that city and travel outside. In retrospect, the closest thing to me is always Hangzhou.

The night was dark, and the dark clouds gradually dispersed. Finally, I saw the full moon south of the Tropic of Cancer, bright and transparent, just like my hometown. I suddenly heard Han Hui say, in fact, I also want to leave, and refuse bravely like you.

No, I don't know. I finally came back. What belongs to me is either Beijing or here. I said.

But at least you left. She said. I just wanted to answer her, but I heard her go on, but what qualifications do I have to leave? My mother suffered a lot at grandma's house for my tuition. After my father and mother separated, they often went to my grandmother's house for a little money. I can run, but where will my mother run?

I heard her suddenly say these words, trying to say something, but she got stuck in her throat and couldn't say it. I saw her turn around and felt her back as cold as moonlight.

{September 29th, Typhoon, Shenzhen}

There was a typhoon at the end of September. My roommate, Ayu, is from Heilongjiang. On the night when the typhoon landed, he excitedly asked me to go out for a walk with him. After blowing the dust with him, I went back to the dormitory. There was a sudden storm outside. I am glad that I was not blown away by this sudden storm, but he was disappointed. The word "typhoon" has never appeared in the northern city where he lives. In that northern border city, from 1 1 month to 1 1 month, there will be heavy snow coming from all directions. He went to this school and took the train for two whole days, and it was a hard seat.

The National Day holiday is coming, and the originally small school suddenly becomes empty. The first trip to Guangdong is about to begin, and it takes more than ten minutes to get to Shenzhen by train.

These short ten minutes seem to be in another world and a city. I am happy for the neatness and vitality of Shenzhen. I came to this city like a refugee with almost all my belongings and two big bags on my back.

Doudou invited me to dinner at night. Doudou is a good friend I met when I was working part-time in Nankongfu Temple Youth Hostel. At that time, I was working the night shift. Doudou stayed in Nanjing because he didn't book a room in Shanghai Youth Travel Service, and there was no room in the Confucius Temple. I had to risk being fined by the police and let her sleep on the sofa in the hall at midnight. That night, we hardly slept, and we talked all night. I played French chansons's music, and she went to the convenience store to buy instant coffee, thus killing a wet night.

She is a deep college student and is very excited to show me around Shenzhen University. Shenzhen University has the characteristics of a special zone, unlike other cities, which are located in the suburbs. Surrounded by bustling high-rise buildings, 24-hour casinos and dozens of floors of large shopping malls. The lights of high-rise buildings excite me. The teaching building of the art department is very beautiful and full of modernity. People come and go in school, convenience stores are crowded and noisy, and magazines in newsstands make me fondle admiringly. She took me for a walk and chat. I watched the boys who came back from playing ball games, the girls holding boyfriends such as books under the streetlights, the figures of students who hurried back and forth, and the laughter in the canteen, and my heart became more and more lonely and sad.

Have dinner with her in a restaurant near Shenyang University. She insisted on taking me to the nearby bus stop. We walked on the humanoid overpass. At the bottom of the bridge are speeding cars and people. I walked behind her and told her that I really didn't know what to do under the current situation. She walked ahead with a calm expression.

After a long time, when she arrived at the bus stop, she suddenly took out an amber necklace hanging around her neck from her clothes.

In ancient times, on a scorching midsummer afternoon, the transparent turpentine secreted by pine trees was melted by the fierce sunshine, slowly gathered somewhere, and then fell heavily, just falling on the insects crawling under the tree. Then turpentine gradually solidified and cooled. Worms are trapped in it forever. It lost its life, but gained eternal life.

Many times, we are like that bug, facing the cruel reality and ending. And this reality is just romantic. After vicissitudes of life, what is left to us will be eternity.

I don't remember what else she said. Maybe it's too noisy on the overpass. The typhoon's stamina has not completely passed, and sometimes raindrops splash on the face. Like Hong Kong, Shenzhen has eternal lights. In the colorful figure and light, I think her back is shrinking a little. I vaguely remember the last sentence she said at that meeting.

She said, in fact, even if we are an insect, we can wrap the whole world.