I have lived in Xi for 20 years. I dare not say that this city belongs to me, nor dare I say what I gave it. But 20 years ago, I was still in the rural areas of southern Shaanxi. I really had a dream that there was a hole in a small old tree.
In real life, there are mountains and forests in my hometown, but I haven't found such a tree. I found it in the street the year I first became a city resident. Really, it is no different from the tree in my dream.
The tree is still growing. I always watch it once a year. Dead branches become stiff, and new branches are as soft as willows.
I often stare at the cracked back of the cicada lying on the trunk. It has lost its real shell. I wonder how many shells this cicada has lost. Life is changing like this, really lifeless. But when did the flying cicada start and where should it finally be? So at sunset, I stood downstairs at the southern foot of the city, listening to a group of crickets singing a complicated tune in a brick crack that has not been completely corroded by years. In a trance, I think which brick is mine, or I am a cricket, looking up at the sky in Wan Li every night, welcoming each new moon and singing.
I am glad that this city is in the west of China, on the vast Guanzhong Plain. In fact, there can only be such a city on the Guanzhong Plain in the west of China. I couldn't help singing a folk song about this place:
Eight hundred Li Qinchuan flies in the loess, and 30 million people shout at Qinqiang opera.
A bowl of sticky noodles is beaming, without the grunting of peppers.
Such folk songs may lack modern flavor, but backwardness does not mean ignorance. The momentum it exudes is cold humor, a self-examination of the old state of existence, without affectation and vanity.
When I sing this song, I often think of the tragedy that Kuafu died of thirst on the way to the seaside.
In this way, a few years ago, people from several cities in the south hired me with superior and abnormal living conditions, but I declined. I don't want to go. I love Shaanxi, I love xi.
I was not born here, but I must die here. When my body is burned in the crematorium a hundred years later, my soul will climb out of the tall chimney with black smoke, and I will also become a cloud roaming over the city.
The dream of Xi 'an in the old city, when all the new cities in the world have become a pile of cement, how can I describe Xi 'an? Yes, there is no need to brag about the history of the 13 dynasty, nor to be complacent about the geographical feng shui surrounded by the Eight Rivers, and admit that the political, economic and cultural center of China is no longer here. For the prominent Han and Tang dynasties, it can only be called "the abandoned capital".
But what is lovely is that today, Xi is the only city with the most ancient city charm in the world.
Its walls are impressively complete, standing alone on the hanging slab bridge on the moat, looking up at the towers, turrets and battlements of the female wall, even the timid people will scream with great pride.
Square and symmetrical quadrangles arranged in orderly streets and alleys, with brick gates as dark as iron, make you immediately fall into the realm of a big horse driving a wooden cart in ancient times.
If you have the opportunity to collect the names of thousands of streets and lanes in the city: Gongyuanmen, Shuyuanmen, Zhuba City, Liulicheng, Jiaochangmen, Lv Duan Gate, Tan Shi Street, Maixian Street, Chexiang, You Xiang ... You suddenly feel that history is not far away, so that an unsanitary fly flies around in front of you, and you can't help but suspect that this fly has the appearance of the Han Dynasty or the imprint of the Tang Dynasty.
Modern art is staged day and night in large luxury theaters, cinemas and dance halls, but under the moss-covered walls like ancient money, there are always people watching the oldest Shaanxi opera or shadow play in China.
These are not ordinary artists. They are entertainment after work. Some people perform, but others watch. Acting and watching are pride, and life is full of historical memories, so you will understand that the tableware and bowls in street restaurants are all so thick porcelain, called sea bowls.
On holidays, where have you seen social dramas, walking on stilts, carrying apricot banners, setting off fire sticks and knocking on pure drum music in the streets and alleys of the city? The most vulgar dialect, if written according to the phonetic pen, turns out to be a very elegant word in classical Chinese. If you don't hug your child in your arms, say "hug". If you are tasteless, say "widowed". Even if you curse, you don't roll away. Say "avoid".
You can walk into the house in the alley. An artist, a worker, a shop assistant or an individual vendor. Their living room must be hung with exquisite calligraphy and painting, and some ancient ceramics must be placed on the table and cabinet.
The understanding of calligraphy and painting and the preservation of cultural relics and antiques have become the basic requirements of their lives.
Men advocate black and white tones, while women like to wear bright red and green clothes, which are simple and generous and have obvious feelings of sadness and joy.
They use less words and more actions; Like silence, good at thinking; Worship is wisdom, disdain is slick; There is overall grandeur, not triviality and sweetness.
Xi 'an has a large number of scientific and technological talents, and has produced many world-famous mathematicians and physicists, but the Yijing has a large number of researchers who observe the sky, understand geography, make predictions and conduct remote control.
You dare not despise an old man drinking alone in the corner of a pub or an old woman with a goose skin and a crane head in an alley. They may be wizards with special skills.
In the vegetable market in the morning, you will meet tofu in your hand, standing there in twos and threes chatting about domestic news.
Squatting in the public toilet, you will also hear the most timely content about a United Nations meeting.
It seems superfluous for them to care about national affairs and look around the world, but they have the nature endowed by this ancient capital.
"Worried about the sky" has never been a word they scoffed at. Some people even solemnly proposed to build an alarmist giant sculpture in the city, which matched the towering statue of Zhang Qian, the founder of the Silk Road, and became a symbol of the city.
The whole Xi 'an City is full of the ancient meaning of China history, showing a mystery of the East, which is an ancient cultural relic and a new symbol.