Aesthetic prose describing the grassland?

Camels and airplanes

When I left Hohhot and waited at the airport, I looked at the souvenirs on the counter one by one. They are all things with grassland national characteristics, especially leather products with many varieties. But I finally chose a furry camel. When I brought it back from far away, my daughter didn't particularly like it. After a few strokes, she put it aside.

No wonder camels are not in his dreams. A lifeless cloth bag, just because of its strange and unfamiliar shape, can hardly produce "meaning" in his young mind. On the contrary, my choice is meaningful, because camels are almost the grassland I imagined when I was a child. So if you choose an object to commemorate the grassland trip, of course, choose a camel.

A herd of camels jingled past the door. In retrospect, it was a mysterious and romantic scene. Camels are guests from grasslands and desert Gobi. Children who have never seen grassland and Gobi describe the grassland in their hearts through camels. Come back from the flowers with the smell of horseshoes. The scent of flowers is enough to draw a group of bees lingering in the horseshoe; The vast grassland, the biting cold of the grassland and the great difference between the grassland and the surrounding land are enough to make you look at the strange appearance of the camel and the strange hump.

Camels are not only common in grasslands and Gobi, but also in the transition zone from farming civilization to grassland civilization north of Beijing, such as my hometown Zhangjiakou. Therefore, the grassland is a familiar stranger to me. Although we have never set foot on the grassland, the biting northwest wind in winter and spring, the loess flying all over the sky, oat noodles and other grasslands remind people here that we are close neighbors of the grassland. The impression of camel is also an obvious symbol for people living on the edge of grassland to perceive themselves and confirm their hometown.

Lin wrote in the preface to "Old Things in the South of the City Dongyang Childhood and Camel Team": "The camel team came and stopped in front of my house. They stood in a long line, waiting for people to arrange. The weather is dry and cold. The camel puller took off his felt hat, and the bald ladle was steaming, and a white smoke melted in a dry and cold atmosphere.

……

Summer passed, autumn passed, winter came again, camel team came again, but childhood never came back. I will never do the stupid thing of learning camel chewing in winter again.

However, how much I miss the scenery and people who lived in the south of Beijing when I was a child! I said to myself, write them down, let the actual childhood pass and let the childhood of the soul last forever.

In this way, I wrote a book "Old Things in the South of the City". "

"Old Things in the South of the City" has become a classic describing old Beijing. Twenty years ago, the film of the same name won the Golden Rooster Award and the White Flower Award, which was almost the most beautiful film of that era. Xiaoying, wearing a flower head, has clear and innocent eyes, and the voice-over says, "I saw the camel team coming in the winter and heard the slow and sweet bells, and my childhood came back to my heart ...". This is a lingering memory fragment of old Beijing in the 1920s and 1930s. This film also made Li Shutong's "Farewell" very popular. "Beyond the sunset, beside the ancient road, the grass is blue and the sky is blue." Are you talking about Beijing or the "legendary beautiful grassland" of a child in the south of Beijing?

Although the years are different, I can read about my childhood from here: the camel team that I passed by the door, the camel that never took its time, the camel puller who took its time, and the camel bell that seemed melodious because it was slow. If the camel team wants to "tip" in the village, it will have the same opportunity as Xiaoying to see the white smell of the camel and see that it seems to be chewing forever.

Now the situation has completely changed. I used to look at camels and imagine the unknown distance of grassland, but today I am experiencing time travel in dizziness.

From Beijing to Hohhot, I want to take the train, and I really want to experience how the prosperity of Beijing, an international metropolis, turned into grasslands, yellow land, dilapidated adobe houses and old farmers hoeing in corn fields on the eve of the Olympic Games. Finally, because of the choice of plane, the change of feeling can only be more abrupt. The surrounding areas of Beijing, especially the north and northwest areas, are called the poverty belt around Beijing and Tianjin. It is really appropriate to describe it as "the city is better than Europe and the countryside is as broken as Africa". Once, I took a taxi and listened to the radio broadcast of Beijing Communications Literature and Art Station, saying that I had made a very gossip statistics, and asked Beijingers to talk about their familiarity with various provinces and cities in China. The result is both "unexpected and reasonable", and most people feel that they know more about Shanghai and Shenzhen than about Hebei and Inner Mongolia.

Indeed, there is no difference in "meaning" between taking off from the magnificent T3 terminal of the Capital Airport and going anywhere on earth, but the length of time is different. What's more, with the air corridor arrangement such as "Beijing-Shanghai Express", that is, measured by time, Shanghai is much closer than Hohhot. Just because Ningbo arrived in Beijing late, we waited for six or seven hours, and then took the flight to Hohhot, and it took several round trips to Shanghai.

The rapid and accelerated modernization has made Beijing a real "enclave" both economically and emotionally. Without camels, the feelings with the land will inevitably be lost.

There is a joke that someone spent a lot of savings to buy a house in the suburbs of Beijing, took it out and lived a hard life, and finally bought a house in the suburbs of Beijing. On the day of closing the building, he took out his mobile phone with trembling hands in tears and was ready to tell his family. Suddenly he received a short message: "Welcome to Hebei Mobile!" It feels like one word: sweat!

Different from Lin's daydream about the direction of camel journey, modern Beijingers hate the helplessness that the "enclave" can't really fly, and the proximity of "Khan" Hebei has broken the honor of "Beijingers". Of course, it may also be because of the helplessness of the yellow sand in spring, and some people think of Hebei and Inner Mongolia with resentment.

In my opinion, it is a problem that camels feel close and planes feel far away.

Oil cotton and water

I also ate oat noodles in Inner Mongolia. This is a typical food near arid areas.

In the past, rice was ground into glistening rice after harvest, and "people outside the mouth" drove a big carriage and pulled a oat noodle to "trade". It happens every year. As far as I can remember, the exchange ratio of rice and oat flour is one catty of rice for 1 catty of three pieces of oat flour. A foreigner with a vast territory and a sparse population and plenty of coarse grains eats rice. Although rice is produced, the "mouth" people who are generally short of food supplement the shortage of food and adjust their taste.

Now, oat noodle is becoming a landmark food similar to Lamian Noodles in Lanzhou. It is famous for its independent efforts. Not only in Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Hebei and other traditional spheres of influence, there are many "oat noodle halls", but also "Northwest oat noodle village" has a certain popularity in big cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen. Unlike snacks in Lamian Noodles and Shaxian, which are too popular, oat noodle is a kind of food with obvious regional characteristics. Needless to say, it smells like oatmeal.

In the past, we could grow rice in our hometown instead of oat noodles.

Because it is close to Sanggan River and Yanghe River, it was rich in water and groundwater. There are so many wells in the ground that water can gurgle out of the ground. There is plenty of rainfall, so Ding Ling can write The Sun Shines on the Sanggan River. Now, except for the occasional heavy rain, she can only watch the sun shine on the bottom of the Sanggan River. Ding Ling wrote about the 1970s before liberation. Even from my personal experience, the changes are amazing enough.

Paddy fields become dry fields, and rice becomes corn. Needless to say, I can see some ditch marks that can help me learn to plane dogs, which requires archaeological care. The fish and shrimp in the rice field ditch may have turned into dragons and flew away in the clouds.

I think the disappearance of water has become the most unmistakable and painful price paid by this land in recent decades.

The charm of grassland

The grassland is beautiful. "Chilechuan, under the shady mountain, the sky is like a vault, covering four fields." The undulating grassland is vast and boundless, with blue sky and white clouds, "flying freely in my heart". The scenery is very similar to the famous desktop in WINDOWS.

Those horses floating like colorful clouds are out of sight. But cattle and sheep are obviously more suitable for the needs of the times, and they are still scattered on the grassland like pearls.

I came, and I saw the natural beauty of the grassland in my mind, because I was there. But standing on the grassland, what I unconsciously seek is to associate with the beauty of nature in front of me and to seek the gloomy and historical humanistic beauty. Farfetched? Anyway, I don't know. Standing on the grassland, what touches my heart is not the fragrance of grass and the brilliance of flowers, but some thoughts of "thinking about the Millennium". The grassland in front of us, although it is the first time to meet, seems familiar, familiar. He Dianqiang walked by the beach in Dai, and even accidentally picked up a bird's egg and put it back. It felt like he had experienced it or rehearsed it in his dream, which was nothing new.

"There are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people." In our team on this trip, Guang Jun and I are out-and-out old comrades, and the age difference with other colleagues is almost ten years. Among the participants in the training, our team is also eye-catching because of its youth. Everyone's background is very different in all aspects. It is conceivable that traveling with the same Phaeton Siler and the same Huanghuagou is very different.

In my opinion, the charm of grassland is inseparable from the old revolutionary songs such as "The Sun of the Tribe Rises on the Grassland", which is simple and lively; It is inseparable from the Mongolian long tune, which can make the old sheep who refuse to breastfeed change their minds. Although there are only tones and no lyrics, it is far more exciting music than "the evening wind blows the flute miserably" So on the grassland, when such a melody flashes in my heart, the scenery in front of me is more moving and brighter, and it is a charming grassland.

For me, the charm of the grassland is inseparable from my intimacy with him.

Returning to Hohhot from Phaeton Silla grassland coincided with heavy rain. Because it is a farming area, the vegetation on the mountain is not good, and turbid yellow water flows down from one side of the mountain. Because there is no spillway ditch on both sides of the road, mountain torrents flow directly onto the road with earth and stone. Fortunately, the bus we were riding had a high chassis, and the driver's elder sister gritted her teeth and rushed out of the tight encirclement. Look at the cars behind, some of them are helpless in the face of the flood, and those caught between two mountains and rivers are caught between Scylla and Charybdis, unable to move.

"If you want to be rich, build roads first" is of course right, but on the other hand, "If you want to build roads, get rich first" is also right. Historically, the mutual attacks and killings between the Han nationality and nomadic people were based on poverty's desire and challenge for wealth. The beauty of grassland is a fact, so is the relative poverty of grassland.

My hometown is a similar situation.

Because it is not the deepest part of the grassland, or because herders choose to settle down, there are not many yurts, but there are many adobe houses on the roadside. Of course, most of those that look the most shabby go to empty houses. This kind of adobe house is memorable to me, and it is also worth looking around, because I was born in three adobe houses almost identical to these houses, and I passed my childhood blankly and happily. Of course, the earth house that gave birth to me and raised me has collapsed or disappeared without a trace. Meeting here is like a lifetime ago. Of course, I am also sorry that it did not enter history, because it was undoubtedly tragic in the era when the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube were born.

My memories and imagination have enriched the charm and beauty of the grassland in my eyes. With them, the grassland is no longer a camel in Fu Xiao's eyes, but a real camel that can eat grass, spray white air and make camel bells jingle in my eyes.