For the Chinese, having a house of their own means they have a place to settle down. No matter how big or small, as long as they can live in it, they no longer have a fixed place to live. "If a family lives in a house that is built with a shoulder, the family will also perish." This is a popular proverb in the south. The house with a shoulder refers to a house that stands tall among a group of private houses, that is, it is the only one in the house. A house, higher than the other houses around it, looks like a lonely man carrying a burden from a distance. Therefore, "if a family lives in a burden house, the family will perish" is a completely ignorant and ungrateful saying. As the saying goes, "blessed people live in a blessed land, and a blessed land brings blessed people to live in." A virtuous person, no matter what kind of house he lives in, Everyone will be full of blessings and live a happy life!
Follow me to see what happens when a family carries a sedan and a load to bring a 100-year-old mother to live in their home.
New School
Mr. Feng Zikai’s cartoon "Music Class in the Village School".
Nagging 4□ Qin Ying
At the end of "Memories of a Private School" (Nagging 3), I wrote: "When Baoguomin Primary School opened in Pingyuanli, Nanjiang, The private school could no longer be opened. And my great-grandfather also felt that after studying for so many years, his two grandsons could handle reading, writing, and arithmetic, and they could also shout out greetings, which was good enough. Plus, there were many children in the family and they had to open their mouths to eat. There are too many people and too little labor. I don’t want to send him out to study anymore. This is nothing more than a nightmare for my father, who has opened his eyes and is full of expectations and imagination about the world.”
After the private school closed, what happened to my father (Qin Xuqing). Many students went to Wangbei Township Central School in Laogangcang. Those classmates came back and talked about their study life at school, which was fascinating. Deng Hengyuan and Ma Mingjun especially like to say: The teachers have all read new books outside. The courses also include geography and physical education, and they have to do exercises in the morning and between classes. In his spare time, he had a lot of fun running, playing ball, writing competitions and other activities... Deng Hengyuan was sociable, had many friends, and even boasted that he could talk to the principal, etc. My father felt itchy and expressed his desire to study, but my grandfather, the main labor force in the family, objected, and my great-grandfather, the head of the family, was hesitant.
Although my family has 120 acres of farmland and is considered a well-off family, and my father and uncle (Qin Xuquan) are both called well-fed boys, but outsiders don’t know that they also eat porridge during the year. . The family has a large population, and although they employ part-time and part-time workers, the main labor force is still the grandfather. He only hopes that his two eldest sons can help soon. If you are sent out to study, not only will you have no one to help you, but you will also have to pay for tuition and living expenses, which is a huge expense.
People's situation and destiny are closely related to their vision. It would be different if you could see further than ordinary people and have the means and ability to realize it. Pursuing dreams requires courage, and ultimately wisdom. Mr. Yu Jingbing, the principal of Wangbei Township Central School, is a well-known local gentleman and his words are quite influential. His family lives in Majiatan, Yaodu River. Every week when he walks home from the old granary, he passes by the foot of the mountain ridge and knows something about the Qin family's situation. My great-grandfather admired him even more. My father knew that if he could lend his strength, studying would be easier. But for my father, this gentleman was a person whom I looked up to and could not hope to reach. So he came up with a plan: write a letter under his own name to make his great-grandfather change his mind. He pretended to be Principal Yu and wrote a letter, and the recipient was Deng Hengyuan. The main idea of ??the letter is: I heard that there are two grandsons in Yunqi Public House. They are outstanding in appearance, smart, and good at speaking and writing. Why not send them to study? If you think that after reading some books in private school, you can recognize a few words and write well. If the contract is calculated clearly, everything will be fine if the rituals are shouted out. That is just a dream. Times have changed. If you don't study, you will never get ahead. Wake up quickly!
Father completed the letter secretly. He first showed the letter to his uncle, saying that it was given to him by Deng Hengyuan, and then encouraged his uncle to read it to his great-grandfather. The scene at that time is still fresh in my father’s memory. Next to the water tank outside the kitchen door, my uncle was reading in a serious manner, and my great-grandfather was listening quietly, with hesitation and joy on his face; my father was shaking nervously, partly out of guilt and partly out of anxiety. .
After all, my great-grandfather valued his two grandchildren and had high hopes for them. Being sent out to study is equivalent to entering a foreign school, not to mention the meaning of such an influential figure. Grandma is open-minded. She hopes that her son will go out to study and does not feel bad about having to pay for rice. The matter is settled.
My family has never provided schooling, so preparing supplies for studying is no small undertaking.
I can only afford one piece of quilt, mosquito net, mat, washcloth and wooden basin. In addition, I have to prepare clothes for two people, etc. What to use to pack these luggage is another question. My grandmother remembered the bamboo cage she had used when she got married. Her aunt had borrowed it when she got married, so she went back to her parents' house to pick it up.
In 1942, the two brothers entered the new school.
On the wall outside the school gate, the large characters "Wangbei Township Central School" were daubed with yellow mud and traced with ink. It is said to be written by Yang Jinnong, a teacher who teaches picture and music classes. The school borrows the venue of a Guanyin Hall. The entrance to the school is the auditorium. Passing through the auditorium is an open space in the center of the school. Opposite is the Guanyin Hall. On the left and right are classrooms and offices. The classroom on the top corner on the left used to be the canteen and the pig pen. Pigs were also fed there. The student dormitories are mainly located upstairs in the auditorium, with wooden floors covered with straw, and most students live here.
At that time, it was the most difficult period of the Anti-Japanese War. Most of the teachers in the school had fled from outside and took refuge, so it was said to be rich in talents. In my father's opinion, all the teachers are energetic and handsome, most of whom graduated from Changsha First Normal School. Among the teachers, such as Wang Jingdong, Zeng Xuehai, etc. in Changsha in the past, Wang Zitai who taught arithmetic, and Chinese who taught Chinese Hu Luzhang and so on. There were no classes in the first few days. What impressed me deeply was a report given by teachers such as Wang Jin. He gave an article and talked about some common sense. So fresh. There are shelves of newspapers and periodicals in the auditorium, but I find the contents on them difficult to read.
All the novelty cannot compare with the impact of concepts. What is the physical education class about? Skipping, playing ball, running and camping are also considered courses? One day of learning starts with the Chaohui song:
Chaotun Guishu He Huanghuang,
Teachers and students gathered together.
Vibrant He Zeze,
Teachers and students should strive for self-improvement...
Look at our East.
Every Monday, the host first reads "Prime Minister (Sun Yat-sen)'s Will" (my father can still recite it in large sections), and then the teacher talks and sets out some basic behavioral requirements: don't throw away paper, don't phlegm. Don't vomit...
There is a main road outside the school gate. Turn left and fill in a field to make a playground. Get up in the morning and do morning exercises, and do inter-class exercises during class. They are all here. The exercises are related to ordinary life and seem to be the teacher's own invention. For example, there is an action where you squat with your feet in a horse stance and pull your hands up and down in front of your chest in turn, just like drawing water from a well.
The school has various competitions. There are speech contests, big-character writing contests, essay contests, current affairs contests, etc., and sports competitions are indispensable.
My father’s favorite sprint competition in physical education class. The competition is held on the road in front of the school gate, and there are also cross-country races, which have to wait until after the autumn harvest to finish the crops and then hold them in the fields. My father finished first in the 100-meter run, but he was a little behind in the cross-country race. He also specifically talked about walking along the river and playing on the river beach after dinner in the spring and autumn weather. Thinking of that scene today, my father still finds it wonderful and fascinating.
When the flowers bloom in spring or the weather is clear and crisp, the school will also organize camping trips. I remember one time I went to Huitang and walked for about three hours before arriving. We set up tents in groups near the hot springs. Huitang Hot Spring has a large spring with very high temperature. Chinese teacher Zhang Houren put his stick in and stirred, and there was a popping sound. He said that the sound was different from the sound we usually make when we boil water. In the afternoon, nearby farmers came to fetch hot water or kill chickens or even pigs beside the hot spring. In the evening, everyone lit a bonfire around the tent, sang and performed together, and invited teachers from Tangquan Central School to watch. My father remembers a song he sang at that time: Burn the Wildfire. "Burn the wildfire, burn the wildfire, the wildfire shines brightly. The stars in the sky smile at me and ask me where I come from, from Qinghaitou, from the Yalu River..." Each group also sends people to stand guard at night to prevent other groups from sneak attacks.
Physical education classes, extracurricular activities, etc. are not only novel, but also cured my father’s chronic problems of dizziness and anal prolapse. I thought, maybe this is the lingering legacy of John Ma’s physical education thoughts and educational practices at Tsinghua University in the 1930s and 1940s: “Movement is the source of life and health.” Sports are an important means of cultivating a sound personality, and the educational value of sports can also be Indirectly affect society.
Current affairs competitions are held twice a semester. The test questions are in the form of fill-in-the-blank questions and multiple-choice questions. I was very competitive at that time, so I did some opportunistic things. I remember one time before an exam, the questions had just been printed out, and the teacher was looking at it with a paper filled with standard answers.
My father happened to be passing by the window and saw it. Seeing an opportunity, he hid outside to peek and wrote down the answer: ---+++, three, four, three, two, three. There are true and false questions in the front, and multiple choice questions in the back. Naturally, we got high scores in this competition. I won first place in both the current affairs competition and the large-character competition.
Homework includes arithmetic, Chinese, history, geography, general knowledge, etc., all arranged in the morning. One subject at a time, one section at a time.
Mr. Yu Jingbing talks about history. I remember talking about when the Qing soldiers entered the customs, Li Zicheng captured Chen Yuanyuan, Wu Sangui failed to hold on, and the Ming Dynasty fell. I was very emotional. Just because of a "shell fairy" like Chen Yuanyuan, our whole country was lost.
The big teacher Chen Guquan teaches common sense. He talked about why airplanes can fly. The key is movement. He demonstrated using a newspaper. When it moves fast, it floats up, and when it stops, it falls to the ground.
Once in a geography class, the geography teacher asked for leave, and the Chinese teacher Hu Luzhang came to teach how to read a map. He talked about how to distinguish east, west, north and south on a map. Teacher Luo Chuancheng teaches geography. When he talks about the Yellow River, he emphasizes that "the Yellow River does all kinds of harm but only makes it rich." My father said that this point is very important and Teacher Luo explained it very well. In his later years, he chatted with Professor Zou Ruibin. In his father's opinion, Professor Zou read many books and had extensive knowledge, but when it came to the Yellow River, he didn't know this important point. In my father's memory, his junior high school teacher He Yeheng, as a history and geography teacher, did not take this as a key point when giving lectures. It can be seen that the level of teachers at Laogangcang Central School is high.
I still remember that when I was a child, there were two maps hanging in my home, a map of the world and a map of China. Whenever we encountered any news or talked about a place, my father would ask my sister and me to look for it on the map. Checking the map at any time has become a habit for us since we were very young. Looking back now, I suddenly understand that my father's emphasis on geography is partly due to the influence of my great-grandfather. He served as a soldier by eating food. It can be said that he traveled all over the country and broadened his horizons. When he came back to talk about the outside world, it would inevitably involve geographical location, and Using the topography of the three towns in Wuhan to compare the topography of the Shuangjiang Estuary at the intersection of the Wei River and the Yanghua River at the entrance of the house shows that his geographical knowledge is quite rich. Of course, the complete enlightenment of geographical knowledge is still in the old granary.
The teacher Hu Luzhang mentioned earlier teaches Chinese and is very talented. The teacher joked about his name and said: Why do you have to go to the foot of the mountain to write an article? There is a section of the road in front of the school known as the Ten Mile Cliff. Everyone carrying burdens and sedan chairs has to pass here. There are only one word to describe the busy scene here. Around that time, a new tea pavilion was built on Shunfeng Er Road. Teacher Hu wrote a tea pavilion couplet here:
A cup and a spoon are enough to clear the heart, but the road ahead is difficult in the mountains and rivers;
The carriage rests for a while, and the peaks surround this spring pavilion.
Another teacher, Zhang Yiren, graduated from the First Division. He is very handsome in a robe. He worked as a school inspector in Hengyang. After returning to Ningxiang, he came here to teach Chinese and he can also speak a little classical Chinese. His class was not going well. I remember when he said, "This song should only exist in heaven, and how many times can it be heard in the human world", he didn't understand the point. Didn't do well in class.
My father is very proud of his writing. He said that he always came out on top in essay writing competitions. In the Chinese language exam, I ranked first at the end of every semester. There is a classmate named Xie Minong who just wants to get first place. If you work hard, you won't get first place.
The memories of the past seventy or eighty years ago are all in fragments. The collage can roughly restore the picture of the school at that time. However, my father's youthful and courageous drive, hunger for knowledge, embrace of new things, and courage to pursue a new life were fully demonstrated. Moreover, his attention, acceptance and embrace of new things have continued throughout his life until today.
Qin Ying, publisher and writer
As the saying goes: If a family lives in a house with a load of daggers, the family will also die. What is a house with a load of daggers? Is this reasonable?
For the Chinese, having a house of their own means they have a place to settle down. No matter how big or small, as long as they can live in it, they are no longer wandering around.
But to be honest, for young people, there is really a lot of pressure to buy a house with their own income. In the past, people in rural areas were very envious of life in the city. But now, many people in cities are yearning for rural life, especially families with homesteads in rural areas. They can build a house designed by themselves. This may be a dream that many urban people will never realize.
However, if you really have a piece of land in the countryside where you can build your own house, you absolutely cannot build it however you want, because Chinese people have built many houses since ancient times. rule.
For example, there is a saying among the common people that no matter how rich you are, you cannot build a "carrying a house" because there is a saying: "If a family lives in a house with a shoulder, the family will also perish"! What is a "load-carrying house"? Many people may not have heard of it, but I have lived in a rural area since I was a child. So today I will talk to you about what kind of house this "carrying-load house" is. This saying is also Does it make any sense?
"If a family lives in a house with a shoulder strap, the family will also die." This is a folk proverb widely circulated in the south. The house, that is, this one house, is taller than the other houses around it. From a distance, it looks like a lonely man carrying a burden.
In some places, "carriage house" is used to describe such a house. If you have been to rural areas in Hunan or Jiangxi, you may have seen many places where private houses gather. The houses in these places often have red brick exterior walls with no decorations.
And the biggest feature of this kind of house is that it is never capped. The roof of the house always looks unfinished. Why does this happen? It is because the locals have a comparison mentality when building houses. Even if their house is not capped for a lifetime, they cannot let their neighbor's house be higher than their own house.
In order to prevent others from building a house higher than their own, they used the method of leaving the roof uncovered when building the house, so that they could add a floor at any time later.
Over time, such a weird scene appeared in the southern countryside. The entire village was filled with houses that looked like they were only half-built and unfinished. If someone’s house was much higher than that of their neighbor’s The house will be said to be a "carrying house".
If a family lives in a small house, the family will also die. This folk proverb reflects the ugliness and ignorance of human nature. The neighbor's house is higher than his own house, out of comparison and jealousy. Psychologically, not only does one's own house have no ceiling, but one also mocks other people's houses as "carrying burdens", which really exposes the selfish and jealous nature of human nature.
Although they say that "if a family lives in a trailer house, the family will be destroyed," secretly they want to build a house that is superior to others in order to gain some psychological satisfaction. In fact, the real Feng shui lies in people's hearts, not in whose house is taller and whose house is shorter.
Therefore, "if a family lives in a house with a load of carrying poles, the family will perish if the family is ruined" is a completely ignorant and ungrateful saying. As the saying goes, "blessed people live in a blessed land, and blessed people live in a blessed land." A virtuous person, No matter what kind of house you live in, you will be full of blessings and live a happy life!