Hutong Series: Tall House, Catalpa Tree and rostrum

On the north side of the central street of the village, turn into an alley. There is a tall blue brick house, which people used to call "on the high house". The wing in the high house yard seems to have collapsed. The exit gate is a large leisure garden with various flowers and trees. There are signs of house demolition in the north of the garden, and a new building "podium" stands in the south. At the southeast corner of the garden, near the junction of the street and the east alley, there is an old catalpa tree with three branches. Why do I put these three irrelevant elements together and repeat them? That's because they are framed in an alley. Through this hutong, I will talk about the stories of Gaofang, rostrum and old catalpa tree that happened in the mid-196s.

At that time, the high-rise building seemed to be the property of the public, because in my memory, it was always a place for "discussion" in the village. It was not clear whose house it was before, but it probably belonged to a large family that was "confiscated" during the land reform. It was one day in 1968 when I walked into that tall house. There is a branch of the People's Liberation Army stationed in our village. "Left" a small officer, and, of course, the size of the "east is red" command leader. I was led by the teacher to the high room and introduced to the soldier wearing a military uniform with a belt and a small pistol. I'm the youngest boy among a dozen people in this tall room. The soldier was very interested in me and patted me on the shoulder and said, OK, just be an orderly! Then he told me to pour water for everyone and clean the ground. After that, every time after school or Sunday, I went to the high room to "serve". After about a month, the soldier withdrew, and my career as an orderly automatically ended.

even so, the head of the headquarters still won't leave me alone. I remember one time when their adults were going to a commune meeting and asked seven or eight of us to attend, saying that they wanted us to go to big waves? Go to exercise and grow up. We didn't know what it meant, and obediently walked fifteen miles to Changle No.2 Middle School in the west of the commune. The "commander" told us that you should not go out of the school yard, there will be a war outside. And gave each of us a wax pole with spikes, telling us to do well in self-defense. The backbone militia in our village lined up on the school playground? Close, and then file out from the north gate of the school in four columns, and turn left and there is a big road. We teenagers climbed up the west wall of the school and saw the militiamen in our village and other villages, mostly holding stones, bricks and sticks in their hands, looking murderous. Looking at the high cliff fork road again, a dark crowd crossed the Mengjin River rolling water bridge and came to No.2 Middle School with big slogans. Ten minutes later, the two sworn factions met on the southwest corner road of No.2 Middle School, and immediately fought hand to hand in a wax strip field on the west side of the school. Because the other party was unprepared, they had to abandon the gongs and drums, and the big-character slogans and paste dispersed to the south. The field of the high cliff tomb has been on the north bank of the Wenhe River, and it has become a battlefield for the two sides to compete. Some of them were beaten to death, kneeling for mercy, and some shoes ran away and their pants were torn. The scene was a mess. Stunned, we saw this scene for the first time in our lives, and our hearts panicked. We slipped down the wall and escaped the chaotic crowd, and hurried to the way home.

The catalpa bungeana in the southeast corner of the garden is very thick but not very high. All three branches are as thick as bowls, which is only four meters above the ground. I don't know who had an idea to embed a board on the three branches of catalpa bungeana, so that they can sleep and enjoy the cool in summer, and village cadres also convey the highest instructions on it. The street under the tree and the south square of the street are places where important activities in the village gather. Every Tuesday and July is the day when people go to the market. Therefore, this extraordinary Catalpa tree has an extraordinary mission to become the official command center, and the instructions from the high room will be transmitted to the villagers through this Catalpa tree.

What I remember most is two working group cadres sent from Jiaonan Social Education Working Group. One is a thin yellow face like his surname Huang, with a thick head and a cross face; One is a wang xing cadre with a big head. Our village has been restless since the arrival of Huang and Wang. Standing on the plank of catalpa bungeana, group leader Huang held a trumpet made of wrought iron in one hand and a newspaper in the other, and read People's Daily in the voice of a drake. He read people as forests, and "Lin Min Daily" once became our joke. His "We are sent by the Jiaonan Social Education Task Force, and those who come are not good will not come" is also chilling for a while. Wang xing cadres stood beside group leader Huang and stared at the people under the tree, which suddenly reminded people of two idioms: Smith and collusion. These two people have turned our big village of nearly 2, people upside down, even a little smoky. Books were burned, troupes were smashed, and many people were beaten innocently and even paraded in the streets. To their surprise, their evil deeds were quickly liquidated, and the angry villagers wanted to "smash their dog's head". Thanks to the rescue sent by the commune, they were prevented from falling to the ground. Since then, Huang and Wang have never been seen again in our village.

Speaking of the rostrum, many people still remember that it is the tallest rostrum in the whole commune. Between the tall house and the old catalpa tree, the village invested to build a tall podium in the form of archway. It is about 12 meters high and 6 meters wide. I asked the painter to draw a huge portrait of the chairman of the oil painting, like copying a couplet of the vice-chairman on the stone pillars with water brushes on both sides: "The four seas churn and the water is angry, and the five continents shake and thunder." The podium is a flat archway with five five-pointed stars at the top and stone pillars painted with water, which is spectacular. In the rostrum of the building, we were sent to the terrazzo column to polish the cement column embedded with colored stones with a butter millstone, and our hands were blistered. Village cadres and teachers stood aside and chatted, and from time to time they praised who worked hard and who grinded well. After the podium was completed, it became the center of political and cultural activities in the village and a symbol of power. Before leaving work every day, members gather here to wish the leader three times and then bow three times; It is also here that the conference on criticizing the rich and combating bad Rightists was held. Force the rich to fight against the bad and the right to go to work for free, first gather here, and then instill proletarian ideas in them and criticize their evil deeds. Sometimes, because the meeting time is too long, they have to extend their working hours, and they are not allowed to rest at noon and work overtime at night.

The tall building, catalpa bungeana and the podium, like Huang and Wang of the working group, disappeared forever in this land of our village. Together with the hutong, bazaar street, the square on the south side of the street and the Associated Press, they have all become a thing of the past, leaving behind some unbearable memories. In the following decades, I still felt the depression of high-rise houses, the absurdity on the branches, and a little helplessness under the podium. Reality washes away the dust of history, but the soul may not be purified. That messy picture will never be erased from the mind, and it has become a deep memory.