Dream Chasing Dazhai (Short Notes)

Dazhai, deep in my memory, is the eye-catching slogan with red letters on a white background in one street and two alleys of my hometown. It is the colorful flags that the whole village's laborers hunted and fluttered when they were still pushing frame trucks to build terraces in the cold winter. It is the roar of the threshing machine on the wheat field of the production team day and night...

Indeed, as a symbol of an era, Dazhai has achieved a height that the Chinese people look up to, and people still dare not underestimate it.

On May Day four years ago, with some curiosity and some pilgrimage, I let the wheel spin around the peaks and peaks of the Taihang Mountains. The ravines outside the window are still dim, seeming to illustrate the harsh mountains and rivers faced by the people of Dazhai back then. After passing Xiyang County, we arrived at Dazhai Village in a few minutes.

On one side of the village entrance is a broad red flag square. With a huge mountain as the background, the square has a huge red flag with Mao Zedong's five characters "Learn from Dazhai in Agriculture". On the layered "terraces" under it are sculptures of Dazhai people who fought against heaven and earth. When you are there, you can't help but step back in time, as if you were in another world. In sharp contrast to the crowds of tourists in other scenic spots during the short-term holidays, there are not many tourists here, and most of them are elderly. They staggered, stopping and staring from time to time, looking for their passionate years.

Dazhai is just a small village located in a mountain valley. An old willow tree several arms thick in the center of the village hangs down its buds, seeming to tell the story of the vicissitudes of life here. "Chen Yonggui's Former Residence" is scattered in the village and is an inconspicuous small courtyard. This man who walked from Dazhai Village to Zhongnanhai has maintained his hard-working and frugal farmer character from beginning to end. After becoming the deputy prime minister, he took the initiative to ask the chairman for approval of the "three-three system", that is, one-third of the time should be spent in Beijing, one-third of the time running outside, and one-third of the time back to Dazhai. He could not live without this piece of yellow land.

"The sons and daughters of China are so full of ambition that they dare to make the sun and moon change the sky." Dazhai Forest Park is located on Hutou Mountain behind the village and has been designated as a 4A scenic spot. Wandering on the asphalt road in the park, the terraces on both sides are spread out like pieces of brocade. In the orchard, there are rows and rows of peaches and plums, and clusters of flowers. The fragrance of the flowers is astonishing, and it is as beautiful as an idyllic poem. Follow the bluestone road to the Wangshan Pavilion, lean on the railing and look into the distance. The mountains and rivers are rolling like waves, and Xiyang County is at your feet. The poem "The sea is flowing across the sea, and the true character of a hero is revealed".

Walking past Chen Yonggui’s giant stone sculpture and entering the Dazhai Exhibition Hall, you stepped into more than half a century of history. The museum uses objects, pictures, etc. to reproduce the struggle of Dazhai from people's shoulders to today's modernization, and records the down-to-earth footsteps of farmers on this land fighting against poverty and fighting against fate. Despite the special cloak given to Dazhai by the political turmoil of the year, the ironclad character of this famous Chinese village is still shocking, and the spirit of "self-reliance and hard work" still shines brightly.

Walking out of Dazhai seems to have ended a heavy conversation between today and yesterday. The predecessors planted trees, and the descendants enjoy the shade. It is the hard work back then that left green mountains and green trees for today’s people, as well as inexhaustible spiritual wealth. I can't help but feel sad: Today, Dazhai should not be a forgotten corner.

Yes, the land in Dazhai Village was barren and poverty-stricken back then. However, the people of Dazhai had the dream of changing the world, and they worked hard and down-to-earth for their dreams. It seems that whether you have a dream or not has nothing to do with whether you are rich or poor. A person can be impoverished, but not without dreams; we can survive, but not without "poetry and distance." I remember that many years ago, the "Brother Smiling" who went viral on the Internet always made me respect him: while wearing a torn coat and eating sesame seed cakes, he could still look up at the stars and be intoxicated by the short-lived meteor shower. Today, on the road to the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation, "the journey is long, but the only thing is struggle." The Chinese Dream is a collection of dreams of hundreds of millions of Chinese people. It requires you and me and others to work together to realize the dream. Doesn’t this require the ambition, confidence and backbone of the Dazhai people? !

As the sun sets, it’s time to wave goodbye. Withdraw your wild thoughts and drive out of this inconspicuous village reluctantly. From a distance, I saw a stone tablet standing in the flower bed in the middle of the street turning towards the county seat, with the bright red words "Chasing Dreams" engraved on it. It was thick, solid, vigorous and powerful!