Remember that touch of green shirt (revised second draft)

Outside the window, the moisture after the heavy rain was thick, and the maple and poplar fruits were swaying in bunches, reflecting the afternoon sun. The bright yellow-green flashed back and forth, and a path emerged. A figure gradually appeared on the path. He was wearing a blue shirt and a small jacket and navy blue trousers. He was wearing a pair of small black cotton shoes. Along with the figure walking towards me, there was also a call of nickname "Juan~" , a smile filled his face, as if the wrinkles on his nose were trembling. Grandma~~ I threw myself into the arms of that green shirt and shed tears. Yes, grandma came to see me (Shandong dialect, the dialect version of grandma).

My grandma is from Gaomi, Shandong. She likes to wear old-fashioned cotton gowns with slanted front placket, also called cloth shirts, with beautiful flowered buttons on them. In my impression, my grandma always has her eyes closed and a smile. She has a bump on the right side of her nose. Her hair is always tied up in a bun at the back. She is not messy at all. Her clothes are also clean and she can walk very well on her little feet. She is fast, always diligent, and always very kind to others. People from all over the country respect her.

In the 1970s, around 1971, my grandfather’s family was collectively relocated from Gaomi, Shandong Province to a farm in Siping, Northeast China due to the construction of the Xiashan Reservoir. They worked with other villagers who moved there to reclaim wasteland. He cut down trees and built houses from scratch, slowly taking root in the Northeast. My grandma cultivates the few acres of land allocated to me by the production team, and my grandpa drives a donkey cart to carry some groceries. The family also runs a small shop. Although they try their best to improve their lives, they still have to support my two uncles, my mother, and their three sisters. There is a large population, so life has always been tight. Later, my uncle, my second uncle, my mother and my second aunt all got married one after another. However, my grandfather passed away when I was six or seven years old (in 1989). Since then, my grandmother’s small shop has slowly grown. It’s closed, leaving my grandma and aunt living in the old house. By the 1990s, my uncle, who was the smartest and best at doing business, left his wife and children and went to Xi'an. He was never heard from again and his life and death were unknown. His aunt also got married. Later, my grandma sold the old house and took turns living with her three sisters. Finally, she lived in her aunt's house until her death.

? My grandma has always been very kind to me. On the one hand, I am her first granddaughter. On the other hand, my home is the farthest away from my grandma’s house. I can only go back on Sundays or during summer vacation. Every time I go back, my grandma will always happily say in a loud voice, "Juan, here you go." When I hear her calling me by my baby name in a sophisticated way, I feel filled with joy. My grandma welcomed us into the back room, and after we got on the Kang, she would walk to the two yellow wooden boxes by the north window, lift the covering, open the box lid, and bring out all kinds of delicious food for me. While giving it to me, she said, this is a good thing given to her by so and so, and it is specially reserved for me. Sometimes it’s canned yellow peaches, sometimes it’s toffee, sometimes it’s Qingdao biscuits, so my grandma’s room and the yellow box always exude a sweet smell.

My favorite thing is staying at my grandma’s house during the summer vacation, listening to her tell stories, watching the stars, and eating melons. It was one of the few memories that I can feel that was both relaxing and gentle. What a picture that is! ~Grandma’s house is in the middle of the village. Several families are very close together. It’s not a particularly open yard. The south side is surrounded by a garden. Beans, cucumbers, cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, etc. are planted in it. There are also some specially planted for us children. There are yellow tomatoes, green tomatoes, and lizard melons, etc. Yellow persimmons are a rare variety. You can pick the lizard melons when they burst open and peel the inside. The red flesh is sweet and can be used as snacks. There are also sweet stalks that can be eaten in autumn. wait. In that era when every piece of land had to be planted with practical goods, only my grandma’s garden planted sweet things for us. Between the garden wall and the house is a yard, where you can dry clothes, put a well, and raise chickens. My grandma set up a shed with some thick wooden sticks on top of the water pressure well. She planted some square melons and the like in the garden and climbed up to the shed along the courtyard wall. The big leaves were dense, and from time to time there were square melons hanging down. , and gourds. When they grow up, you can pick them off and make dumplings to eat.

After dinner, we took a small bench and sat down to enjoy the coolness. The melons were frozen in the well water in the bucket. There was a rustling of leaves through the summer wind, and the chirping of crickets continued. Occasionally, There was also the smoke from the bonfire outside, the scent of burning leaves and the choking feeling. The yard was swept clean by my grandma. There was no chicken or duck excrement at all. There was soft fine soil on the hard ground, leaving only the feeling of fine soil and foam when walking barefoot on it. It was particularly comfortable to step on it.

I just wanted to be cool and barefoot, clinging to my grandma's side, or leaning on her legs, or sitting next to her with my arms folded, pestering her to tell me stories.

"Grandma, grandma, tell me something else."

"Hey, what are you talking about? Tell me about that skinny monkey"...

"Grandma, grandma, tell me something else"

"Hey, what are you talking about? Let me tell you about the bastard in the Huaihe River"...

A tortoise as big as a dining table, and a monkey spirit that turns into a mother and eats children. I don’t know where my grandma came from. Such wonderful legends made me wide-eyed and galloping around in the summer evening. Imaginary galaxy. Until one day I saw a writer named Mo Yan. The weird style of his novel "Baby" was exactly the same as what my grandmother told me. I thought it should be the culture of Gaomi.

? At that time, the happiest thing was that when I was scared, I could sleep on the same bed with my grandma, lying next to her and holding her soft arms. I don’t know why the flesh on my grandma’s upper arms was so soft at that time. Yes, it feels a little cool to the touch and feels very comfortable. At that time, I disliked the dirty air in my parents' room and already slept in a room by myself. But when I went to my grandma's house, I would lie in her arms. I could always sleep well and soundly, letting go of my stubbornness and Fight and be the obedient child you are.

?Every time I came back from my grandma’s house, my grandma would wrap half a catty of candy in paper for my mother to take home, or stuff my pocket with candy balls. It was the best candy I have ever tasted. The white balls were like glass marbles with a touch of red or green on the surface. They melted away every time you chewed them. It's good to eat melted or chewed. It doesn't stick to your teeth and isn't hard at all. Every time I eat, my grandma’s smiling face is in my eyes. ?As long as I can remember, there has never been a shortage of sugar at home. When white sugar balls cost 5 cents a piece, and other children could not eat sugar, I felt full of abundance when sugar balls were free.

? My grandma was very popular in the village. Everyone who saw her would greet her warmly and make things happen. On the one hand, my grandma is very popular. Most of the people in this village are related to each other. My grandpa has many brothers and relatives, and my grandma is very senior. Moreover, she treats people very kindly and leaves good things to the guests, so everyone has the impression that they are I like her very much. Every time I go to the market, all kinds of aunts, uncles, third grandpas, second grandma, etc. will always say hello to us, so I have been trained to say hello since I was very young. . Another reason is that my grandma knows how to do massage. People who work in the countryside if their waists or feet are sprained or their children’s arms have fallen off will come to my grandma, who will massage and set their bones. She also knows some very magical spells, such as helping children summon their souls and some folk remedies, etc. She can even help others find objects. It was not easy for my grandma. She suffered a cerebral hemorrhage just a few years after arriving in the Northeast when she was in her forties. Although she was miraculously rescued, there are still some sequelae left, such as headaches, high blood pressure, etc. She has been a widow since she lost her husband in her sixties. Her eldest son, the most promising and smartest, has also disappeared. Her second son and his wife are not filial to her and even fight with her. But in my memory, she always has a smile on her face. Her thumb has always been swollen and she rarely complains or speaks ill of anyone.

? As I grew older, my grandma often had headaches, back pain, or arm pain, so I would scrape her head, massage her back, and squeeze her arms. She taught me and I could give her some I'm very good at stroking my butt, and I learned Gua Sha massage very early. I watched her use a needle to pick out the "fish" inside her eyes, which is also known as cataracts, wash her eyes with salt water, etc. I helped her and she learned it subconsciously. Later, every time I visited my grandma, I would massage her back, arms, and eyes, perform scraping, bloodletting, and cupping, which made her feel very comfortable. I once asked my grandma, I am so good, why don't you teach me a lesson, and I can help others massage and set their bones. My grandma looked at me with a smile and said, "Just study hard. Why do you want to learn this? My thumbs are almost crippled by doing this. It's very tiring." However, my grandma must not have thought that among the five children, My mother is the only one who has learned her skills and helped people in the village with bone setting and massage. Among the dozen or so grandchildren, I am the only one who has not only learned her massage and scraping skills, but also taught myself many things about traditional Chinese medicine, natural therapy, and Western medicine. Touch healing can also help many people.

When I was undergoing therapy, I would think of my grandma from time to time and her swollen thumb. Although she didn’t stop me from choosing such a difficult path, I thought grandma might be very happy to be able to help others

? Many years later, after my grandma passed away, I heard from my second aunt how powerful the old lady was. Not only could she help people find things through several window lattice, but she could also turn a bowl of hydrated fish bones into a bowl and tie a red string to cure styes. Wait, he even calculated his own death date and prepared his shroud early. Grandma passed away very easily. I heard that she passed away while being put on an IV drip, and there was no pain. My mother was very troubled about this matter, and she kept thinking about going to the hospital and claiming it as a medical malpractice. However, the person who hung up the water for her was also a cousin. Considering that my grandma loves her younger generation the most, she passed away without looking for her in the end.

? Yes, my grandma has left me. Probably in the second year after I got married, when I received the news that my grandma had passed away, I didn’t go back because I was too busy with work and couldn’t take leave from home. Another reason may be that I subconsciously felt that if there was no real goodbye, my grandma would never go back. Everyone is here. When I went back to pay my respects to my grandma’s grave during the Chinese New Year, looking at the grave with a handful of loess, I truly felt that she had passed away and I was left alone. I knelt on the ground and cried uncontrollably. My grandma~~You actually left like this~~What should I do? I don't know why I have so much sadness and tears in my heart. I am so confused that I can't stop crying.

I don’t feel guilty or regretful at all for not attending my grandma’s funeral. Because the little girl who acted like a spoiled child in her grandma's arms gradually grew up and traveled farther and farther, first to the county town, then to Beijing to study at university, and then to work in Shanghai. As time goes by, my grandma and I are getting further and further apart. When I was in high school, I could live with my grandma for a week or two. After I started working, I could only visit my grandma during the Chinese New Year and have a romantic relationship with her. But she doesn’t have that much time to talk to me, because there are many relatives and descendants who come to visit her, so the connection is getting less and less. The only thing that worries her is that she suffers from emphysema, which makes her very hard every winter. It feels like there is a chicken crowing "hou~hou~hou" all the time in her throat. It is difficult to breathe, and she often falls asleep in discomfort at night. not good. If you catch a cold, you will catch a cold. If you catch a cold, it will get worse and you will need to get an intravenous drip.

? Also, death may not be that scary to me. After my grandma passed away, I seldom dreamed about her. I felt that she should go to heaven because she was so kind. . Grandma was very happy now that she was gone. She was freed from the pain. Secondly, she lived to be over eighty years old. Before her death, I got married and found a good family. Her eldest grandson, my eldest brother, was already married and had a daughter. Four generations lived under one roof. Her grandchildren love her so much and they kiss her every time they visit her. I learned to be filial to her very early. When I was in college, I would use the money I earned from working to buy a lot of Beijing delicious food for her every time I went home. Later, when I made a lot of money as a part-time translator, I would also spend money on my grandma. , although it is not much, she is very happy, so I think she should be very happy to have a granddaughter like me. She doesn't have to endure the uncomfortable headaches of pulmonary heart disease and the sequelae of cerebral hemorrhage, so people who love cleanliness don't have to endure the increasingly sloppy and old-smelling self, which should be very comfortable. In heaven, my grandma should be healthy, clean, and as beautiful as the woman in "Rain Lane".

? With a touch of green shirt in my heart, I am very attached to my grandma and love her very much. I think one of my qualities comes from her. But the relationship between her and her mother makes it difficult for my grandma to express her love. My mother always hated my grandma for her feudal ideas and forced her to marry a father she didn't like. Later, my father suffered a heart attack and lost the ability to work. He lived in embarrassment and hard work. My mother hated my grandma even more, even though she took care of me. Mom's two confinements, even though her grandma lived at her aunt's house and helped take care of her younger brother, her mother still had nowhere to place her disapproval of fate, so her grandma became an outlet for her emotions. My mother would often tell me that she was so miserable because of my grandma, and so on. Sometimes they would quarrel when they saw my grandma, but my mother hated her, but at the same time she wanted to take care of her, help her with various chores, make her clothes and make delicious food, but she was not favored by her. After my grandma passed away, my mother was actually very sad. She kept a vigil for her in the twelfth lunar month of winter when the temperature was more than minus 20 degrees Celsius. She knelt and cried for three days and three nights. Her knees hurt from kneeling for more than a year.

Those hatreds did not disappear with the death of my grandma. Instead, they lost their outlet and ran rampant. Until once, I listened to her talk about the sadness and the affirmation she had always wanted, and my poor mother slowed down. Slow down a little.

Compared with my mother’s regrets, at that time I thought that I was very close to my grandmother, and I had no regrets about her passing. ?However, when I wrote this article ten years later to remember her, I found that regret and remorse were almost overwhelming me. I have never seriously thought about the fate of this very dear grandma, and many of my memories are fragmentary and vague.

? I have never heard anyone call my grandma by her name. People outside call her Liu Chuanyi (grandpa’s name). Later, when I went to high school, I went to ask my grandma for her name. She happily traced her name on my palm and told me that her name was Wei Aizhen, beloved love, precious Jane, with squinting eyes and a smile, and a wrinkle on her nose. It was also shining brightly, as if he was not an old man in his sixties, but a doted little girl. I think this name is a hundred times more thoughtful and more cultural than the name that my cousin and uncle picked up casually when they were riding by. It should be in the heart of the person who named her that my grandma is very valued and loved. My grandma has a brother who seems to have also gone to the Northeast, in Dunhua, Jilin. He took the train to visit her when he was in his seventies. I remember that when he came, my mother and father went back, and my father drank with him. He was a man with a white beard. A very kind grandfather, who at such an old age still has to squeeze in trains and walk for many days to see his sister, must be very caring about her. From this point of view, my grandma must have been a doted and cherished little girl before she became a rural woman.

My grandma must have been born in the 1930s. She was a young lady from a wealthy landowner’s family. My grandma’s father had a very strict upbringing. When I went out, my grandma had to keep a hair out of place and her feet were bound. The Republic of China was no longer the Qing Dynasty, and those who still bound women's feet were wealthy families. I heard from my second uncle that my grandma’s grandfather was a scholar, very good, and a very famous Chinese medicine practitioner in the local area. Unfortunately, he passed away in his forties and did not pass down his medical skills, but his family business and tutoring were passed down. Perhaps because of such a family background and upbringing, my grandma always had to comb her hair, pull up her gown, and dust herself off before going out. Although he lives in a rural area, he walks straight out of the house, his clothes are always spotless, and his conduct is very dignified. He is completely in the style of a wealthy family. He is very polite, treats others kindly, and is never greedy for small things.

Although my grandma is uneducated and illiterate, her children are very kind and generous. She taught me many principles, such as being clean and seizing the time to do things. The slovenly appearance and messy hair, as well as the subtle kindness and courtesy in dealing with others, all made us feel like a lady, and they also benefited me a lot after living independently. After work, an older sister suddenly told me that it was extremely rare for a girl of my age to be thoughtful in all aspects, deal with people in a safe manner, and be friendly to others without feeling arrogant. At that time, I suddenly saw my grandma wearing a blue shirt smiling and waving her hands to me, and then I realized that this was a gift left by my grandma.

In my impression, my grandma is very capable, she can make clothes and cook, and she is also very neat. The melon seeds she fried are the most fragrant melon seeds I have ever eaten in my travels. It seems that the aroma of the years has been slowly baked into the small sunflower seeds. When you take a mouthful, the roasted aroma fills your mouth. It is fragrant at first and then sweet, spreading. My mouth is full of saliva, and I want to eat one more. In contrast, the melon seeds fried by my mother had a strong flavor of Huba.

I also remember that the dried sauce balls she cooked were also unique. The beans were broken into balls and left to ferment outside. They then turned into dark dried sauce balls, which were then cut into thin slices and fried in oil. When cooked, the semicircular slices of sauce are placed in the bowl, shining black, as a side dish when drinking porridge. Every time I go to my grandma's house, I go to the kitchen to search for dried sauce and chew it as a snack. It has a salty, long-lasting aroma and a bit of sweetness. One bite is as big as a bean and you can linger on it for a long time. Every time my grandma discovered that the bowl of dried sauce was all bottomed out, she would smile and say, "It's amazing, there are rats in the house and they have eaten up all the dried sauce." Then she would look at me, and I would secretly laugh beside me.

I also remember that the steamed buns she steamed were very fragrant. My favorite thing was to take the steamed buns she had just steamed. I would hold them while it was hot, peeling off a layer of steamed bun skin, and then another layer. It was fragrant and sweet. He killed one in a short while.

The feeling was like eating today's thousand-layer bread, peeling it off layer by layer. Only my grandma can create this sense of layering by steaming it. I once asked my grandma, why does this steamed bun have so many layers? My grandma said, "This is just about kneading the dough. It's nothing. Kneading is only tiring because of the fire. The dough is hard, so you have to keep kneading it for a long time." She said that she also learned to do many jobs since she was a child. When she was a child, there were many long-term workers in her family. She had to get up early every morning to make noodles, bake a large basket of noodles, bake them on fire, and send them to the fields before noon for the long-term workers to eat. I have never had this type of fire roasting before, so I went to find a video of a Shandong aunt making it. This type of roasting is called stone mill roasting. It requires five steps of rolling, rubbing, tearing, kneading, and rolling. The noodles are constantly pounded in and out. Knead until the rolling pin can no longer move it, then let it rise. After it rises, bake or bake it. The texture is crispy on the outside, soft and fragrant on the inside, tough but not hard, chewy but not chewy, and slightly sweet when chewed. When it is freshly baked, "you can smell its aroma for ten miles away", making it a particularly hungry ration.

My grandma also said that at that time, the Japanese had already arrived in Shandong, and the Japanese who had just arrived in China were not that bad. She was very cute when she was a child. Once she met a Japanese military doctor who chatted with her about daily life and gave her a handful of colorful candies. Later, the situation changed and many people were arrested to do hard labor. My grandma also said that the Japanese also shipped Japanese sweet potatoes to China, thinking that this poisonous thing could kill many Chinese people without anyone noticing. But later I found out that it didn’t work. After researching for a long time, I said it was because the Chinese people like to eat radishes. It detoxified all the sweet potato poison. These few memories of my grandma’s childhood have actually refreshed my understanding. It turns out that landlords are not all in the family, and the whole family has to get up early and work late at night. It turns out that the Japanese are not all beasts, and there are also good people. .

I have always wondered how my grandma could do so much work and walk so fast with such small feet. I saw my grandma’s feet when I was cutting her toenails. They were only about 10 centimeters long. The shape of the feet looked like a spindle when viewed vertically from above. Only the deformed big toe was left on the pointed head. Look at the soles of the feet. It was particularly ferocious when it was in motion, the soles of the feet were almost invisible, and all four toes were curled under the soles of the feet and were pressed as flat as the soles of the feet. I heard from my grandma that at that time, when she was only five or six years old, people in wealthy families had to bind her feet. My grandma’s mother was reluctant to give up, but my grandma’s father refused, saying that he was afraid that it would be difficult to find a family in the future without binding. The binding of the feet was extremely painful. It felt like the feet had been torn off and then tied tightly. The pain was so painful that I couldn't sleep at night and had a fever for several days. I couldn't walk for a long time, but I got used to it later. After liberation, women were allowed to stop binding their feet, but my grandmother's feet were still so big that I couldn't even buy shoes, so she had to make her own soles. When I heard my grandma talking about this, I stared at her feet in a daze, feeling like a person was trapped in a foot binding, and my own feet hurt. But my grandma raised five children and grandchildren just like this with a pair of feet that hurt every step she took.

I heard my grandma talk about her childhood, but I have no idea what happened after that. I guess it was not a happy thing. How come the eldest lady’s grandmother has so many folk remedies and why is she so powerful? How did you meet the grandfather of the militia company commander and marry him, a rough guy who loved drinking? How did you survive three years of natural disasters? How did you feel when my mother got sick and had herpes all over her body, so she just threw it away? How did you end up in the Northeast after a lot of ups and downs, and how did you earn a family fortune from scratch? Is her relationship with her grandpa good? I have absolutely no idea.

I don’t know how my grandma spent the 20 years after losing her grandfather. I don’t know how her eldest son was missing for so long, how did she put those thoughts and concerns away? I wonder how she could face the years of resentment and accusations when her eldest daughter's marriage, which she arranged single-handedly, was so painful? I can't imagine how she could fight with her daughter-in-law and son if she was always kind to outsiders.

I don’t even know when the feelings of love and hate for my mother were inherited from my mother to me? There were too many unknowns, and it seemed that a heavy fog separated me from my grandma. I wanted to catch something, but I felt that it was too late.

? Ding dong ding dong, the phone rang, and the express call pulled me back from the fog of memories.

I sighed deeply. My grandma was very ordinary all her life, but she possessed all kinds of special skills and lived tenaciously. However, such a living woman disappeared in the air like the wind. No one understands her, and few people remember her. Few people inherit it. An inexplicable sadness and regret triggered my own reflection: After all, like me, who pursues a future all the way and only wants to work, but forgets the people I love most and ignores the people around me, is this journey a journey together? Keep missing out? Is it worth it?

I want to hold on to that touch of blue shirt, even if it is just a hem. If I could turn back time, maybe I could understand better...

(Pictures are all from the Internet)

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Wan Taotao will be at Zhuohuaxuan on June 23, 2022