Chuang Jia Ying: Once we were childhood sweethearts, we went home hand in hand

Original title

Going home hand in hand

Author: Zhuang Jiaying

Two years ago, I learned about it from a friend’s WeChat , he left, I was surprised, followed by a long period of silence. In my impression, he is alive and kicking. After calming down and thinking about it again, it was still him in his childhood. We haven't dated each other for over fifty years.

Strictly speaking, he should be considered a stranger.

However, because he appeared frequently in my childhood, he became a part of my life. The world is a very strange place without him. There is a touch of sadness in the bright sunshine, and a cold loneliness in the bright moonlight. How could he just leave so casually?

I wrote a letter to my elementary school classmates to report the bad news. She wrote back and said: I could tell since I was a child that he was very good to you, and I still find it strange...

He is indeed very good to me. This feeling starts from the first day of school.

Going home hand in hand

The kindergarten I went to was in the government dormitory where we lived. The children in the government dormitory, that is, my kindergarten classmates, were all assigned to an elementary school not far from home. Because my brother was in another elementary school, my mother transferred me there for easier care. . So, I flew to that school alone like a lost goose.

When school was over at noon on the first day, the teacher sent us to the school gate. I was about to leave, but the teacher asked me to wait, turned around and asked him to take me home. I looked at him, but I didn’t recognize him. He was not from our kindergarten.

As soon as the teacher finished speaking, he grabbed my hand and pulled me away. Along the way, he said nothing and held my hand tightly, probably because he was afraid that I would get lost and fail to complete the important task assigned to him by the teacher. We walked into the courtyard of the government dormitory together. In front of the door of my house, he suddenly let go of his hand. I was surprised how he knew I lived here.

Looking again, he also entered the doorway of my house and ran into the elevator. Later I learned that his family lived above my house.

For a long time in the first grade, I went home hand in hand with him every day. We were often speechless and kept our heads down as we walked on. But with him around, I felt speechless and at ease. I looked at the square floor tiles on Huaihai Road. It took three steps to walk through two bricks. I had the impression that the road was very long and took a long time to walk. Now go for a walk again, only ten minutes. Childhood time passes very slowly.

Homework Mutual Aid Group

Our elementary school was co-located with Shanghai No. 59 Middle School, with one entrance and exit, and shared a large playground. The main teaching building of the school is a three-story bungalow. The house is quite large. There are four classrooms on one floor, and each classroom can seat forty or fifty children. Behind this building, there is also a small teaching building.

We used to have classes here

The first and second grade students were on a half-day basis. They went to school for half the day and held study groups at home for the other half. At the beginning, there were four members in our group, three girls and him. The three girls were timid and quiet, but he was restless, talking, laughing, and running in and out.

Occasionally, under his leadership, we will go crazy. One day there were small groups in the morning and classes in the afternoon. We were so lost in playing that it wasn't until his grandmother came to ask him to go home for dinner that he realized that he had forgotten to do the arithmetic problems. The girl in the group who was weaker in study actually finished it, and we hurriedly copied her answers. When the teacher sent the homework back, three of the four arithmetic questions were wrong. This was the only two points for my arithmetic homework. From now on, I no longer dare to blindly copy others.

After a while, the teacher rearranged the group, and he and I were the only ones left in the group. The teacher asked me to supervise him to do his homework. I have been rigid and obedient since I was a child. The teacher's words are of course an edict. Whether he does his homework or not has become my responsibility.

He is very smart. If he works hard, he will finish his homework in a short time. Unfortunately, he often can't settle down. He will look out the window, run out, fold a paper airplane, and play with rubber. Because I don't like to talk, I think that instead of persuading him to do this or that, I might as well do it myself.

When there is a lot of homework and I am afraid that he will not be able to finish it in time, I will take his homework book and write Chinese characters for him. Copying Chinese characters is what he dislikes the most. Writing a character ten times is so boring! I lowered my head and wrote the words in the grid, and he still played with his. When he got tired of playing, he would take the homework book back and continue writing by himself. Sometimes, we divide the work and cooperate. He only writes Pinyin and I only write Chinese characters. We work together very well.

Maybe when I was a child, I wrote too hard, and the lead suddenly became very thick and short, so I had to sharpen the pencil all the time. Fortunately, he would rather sharpen pencils than do homework. Sharpening wood is his specialty. After sharpening the pencil, he put it in my pencil case. When I want to use it, I only need to sharpen the lead.

One day, he said: Look, our pencils are so well sharpened that we can help other children sharpen them. We charge one penny for sharpening one pencil. I said: People see us as children and they won’t ask us to cut it. He said: Then we will hide in a small house with no windows, there is only a small hole, and let them put the pencils in.

Such a life is really interesting. He suggested that we use the chipped wood chips as firewood in the future, and I was also very interested: the lead core could be made into briquettes. I also took out some play toys to show him. Those things can be brought into our little house.

He has a sharp mind and many ideas. He must have turned around and ran around outside, and his great plan disappeared with the wind. But being rigid, I still remember the business plan we made in the first grade.

There is no 38th line

In the third grade, No. 59 Middle School was relocated. Our school building more than doubled in size and became a full-time school. Staying in the classroom all day is a challenge for his active nature.

He is more casual and has a clear distinction between love and hate. If he thinks that others have done bad things, he will not forgive them. Once in class, he began to angrily scold a classmate. The more the teacher tried to make things trivial, the more dissatisfied he became with the teacher's injustice. Once he gets angry, we don't plan to go to class. Even if three or five teachers come to put out the fire, they can't put it out.

In the third grade, all the obedient students joined the Young Pioneers, and I became the squadron leader. The teacher held a meeting with us and asked the squadron members to help the naughty students study hard and strive to join the team. The teacher arranged us together again, and he and I became tablemates.

There is a little boy in the class. His parents dress him up very fashionably, wearing Hong Kong-style trousers, a plaid shirt, and pointed leather shoes. In an era that prided itself on hardship and simplicity, he unfortunately got the nickname "Little A Fei".

One day during recess, little A Fei somehow offended him. After ringing the school bell, he continued to quarrel with little A Fei: Your father is Feifei, your father is Feifei. (Feifei is a character in the movie "Sentinel Under the Neon Lights") The teacher asked them to be quiet, but he couldn't stop the car at all.

I pulled him gently and whispered: Stop arguing. He actually gave me a lot of face. The teacher was very fair and said that this incident proved that he had made great progress. Of course, I also benefited from it. The teacher praised me for helping my classmates. He joined the team shortly thereafter.

Unlike other boys and girls who sit at the same table, we don’t have a 38-point line. We can use each other’s stationery at will, and he can copy my homework at any time. But at that time, I had long stopped going home with him. He had his group of boys, and I had my group of girls.

Broken off friendship

We gradually drifted apart. In the fifth grade, I had a new deskmate. In the sixth grade, I completely broke off the friendship with him. It's not because the relationship has deteriorated, but because under the pressure of a male-female environment, no one wants to be labeled as having "yellow thoughts."

He went to the same school as him in middle school, but in different classes. They were divided into boys and girls. They met each other occasionally on the road, and looked at each other intently, as if they were strangers.

Next, we are going to Heilongjiang to jump in line. Our middle school was a one-pot school. All students in the school went to the same commune. Each production team was divided into two or three classes. He and I were in the same team.

He was busy preparing his luggage in and out, and met his grandmother in the courtyard of the government dormitory. He stood aside quietly. Grandma told me: When you jump in line at the same place, you should help each other. If his clothes are torn, you can help him mend them. If you can't do the heavy work, let him help. I nodded in agreement.

The special train for educated youth departed

On November 26, 1969, he and I boarded the same special train for educated youth heading north. The train stopped and went, the further north it went, the colder it became, and the more desolate it became. By the third day, our initial curiosity and enthusiasm for a new life were almost worn away by the procrastination, fatigue and monotony of the train journey. Instead, I miss my family, miss Shanghai, and feel uneasy about the future.

Acting bravely became a "hooligan fight"

When we were approaching Nenjiang, there was a commotion in the train. It was said that boys from our school were on the same train with "little hooligans" from Yangpu District. The fight started because the gangster "molested" the girls in our school. All the female classmates in the carriage admired the chivalrousness of the boys in our school, who usually ignored us but sacrificed their lives at critical moments.

Soon there was news that those who rushed out to fight were all the children of some cadres from our agency dormitory and nearby, and he was naturally one of them. Later, they were also labeled as hooligans because someone broke each other's head with a beer bottle, and the fight was classified as a "hooligan fight."

This conclusion made the girls in the carriage angry. How could the boys in our school be gangsters? He is obviously upright and courageous when he sees justice.

However, that was the conclusion drawn by the workers’ propaganda team that escorted us to Heilongjiang. For this reason, the boys who participated in the fight were punished. They were separated and sent to different villages. He was sent to another village seventy or eighty miles away from our village.

The workers’ propaganda team escorted them to a specific carriage. As they hurried past our carriage, I looked at each other.

It was a dark winter night, and nothing could be seen outside the window, as if the future was waiting for us. He participated in a gang fight and was sent to a place with no friends. What awaited him must be more hardships than the rest of us. How unfortunate and tragic this is.

Anger, grievance, and sadness spread in the air. In the dim car, I faintly heard soft crying. I covered my head with a cotton coat and cried silently. The hopelessness, humiliation, anger, and sadness I had suppressed in my heart for several years during the Cultural Revolution turned into tears in an instant, dripping down on the dirty and dark carriage floor. superior.

The departing river ship

The village where I jumped in line is on the edge of the Heilongjiang River, with the Soviet Union on the other side. In the winter in Heilongjiang, the river water freezes, allowing horses and sledges to be raced; after the ice and snow melt in early summer, boats can be used for three to four months, and the small riverboats become a means of transportation for residents to go to Huma County. Every time a riverboat passes by our village, all the men, women, and children in the village gather to the riverside to watch the excitement. Some people were walking up and down, some were meeting new old friends, and some were welcoming Mr. Liu and his third aunt's eldest cousin who were visiting relatives. They were joking, saying hello, and saying goodbye.

One day, I saw him standing on the deck, two or three years after we parted ways on the train. He grew from a little over 1.7 meters to a tall man over 1.8 meters tall. I hesitated to say hello to him, but there were so many people around. The educated youth in our village have followed the school's custom of separating boys and girls and still do not associate with the opposite sex.

During my hesitation, the river ship's whistle sounded, the sailor put away the gangplank, pulled up the anchor, the big water wheel at the stern began to turn around and round, and the ship left.

We stood on the river bank until the river ship sailed out of sight.

The river boats on Heilongjiang are gone

Accident

This is the end of my commemorative essay. I hope to get a few photos of his childhood. Please Fa Xiao and find his family. A small WeChat message came: Are you sure he passed away? The friends in the government dormitory said that he lived well, so why should he be "commemorated"?

I was overjoyed. He's here!

No more hesitation this time, screw the boys and girls, I’ll go find him right away.

Postscript:

Found him. Restore diplomatic relations.