The thousand-year-old association once flourished, and the seven aunts and eight aunts gathered relatives and friends
The booth is five miles of land, and the stage is noisy and the gongs are sounding
Today, the township will be withering, and it will be difficult for hawkers to make a living
The stage of Artemisia was demolished and emptied, bustling to sell yesterday's dreams.
If you say "rush to the meeting" to the post-00s, they will be confused, they don't know what to do, and they think it is antiques and classical Chinese. For our post-70s, 80s, and even post-90s, "catching up with the meeting" is a very important event in childhood, and we have a very deep memory.
Thirty-four years ago, when transportation information was not developed, in our vast rural areas, rushing to meet was a commodity fair, and it was also an important day for relatives. Many of the larger villages have ancient meetings, which have been passed down for hundreds or even thousands of years. Generally, when the ancient meeting is in winter, the wheat has been planted after autumn, and the farmers are leisure, and there are ancient meetings from time to time.
Generally three days in advance, the village leaders will draw a section of stalls of similar size with lime at the meeting place (village road, wheat field, open space) and charge a small fee to the vendors. There is no charge for remote corners. Some places will invite a play, which will start three or five days in advance, which is also to set off the atmosphere and make the feeling of coming to the meeting more lively. The singers are also "poor operas" who often walk around the countryside and struggle to survive, and the cost of eating is not large, and most of them are paid by large families in the village.
In fact, the things that will be sold at the meeting are not fashionable and high-end. Generally: cloth, children's clothes and hats, leather shoes and cotton clothes, farm tools and saplings, of course, snacks, sugar gourds, balloons, monkey showmanship, head shaving, billiards, villain books, etc., are also dazzling. For us rural kids, it's the equivalent of a World Expo.
Each family will cut the meat and steam the bun two days in advance, preparing for the food that relatives need to come on the day of the meeting. Generally, there is no need to notify (and there is no ** mobile phone), there will be some relatives in each family that day, if one does not come, it will make people laugh and feel faceless. Children and elementary school students are looking forward to the meeting half a month in advance, and the elementary school in the village will definitely have a holiday on that day, which is very humane. The old people gathered in front of the stage in the evening after dinner, carrying small benches and horse clips, and were the most loyal audiences, and some were dazzled and deaf, so they joined in the fun.
I was very excited the day in advance, running around the venue with my friends, predicting that tomorrow there would be fun to sell, and they would show off each other, and their parents might buy themselves new shoes or even toys.
In the early morning, I will be woken up by the sound of my mother's chopping board. My father cleaned the yard, cleaned up the tables and chairs, and walked out from time to time to smoke a cigarette at the intersection of the venue and spray it with people. As soon as I got out of bed, I ran to the venue to "catch the meeting", at that time, there were not many people at the meeting, and the vendors on both sides had just set up stalls to set up things. We would meet friends running around, and we would stop in front of the fried bun balls and cold noodles stall for a while, but we didn't have the money to buy them. Or rummaging around the villain's bookstall or running around the stage.
At around ten o'clock, there were many people at the meeting, and the stage was lively. Relatives also arrived one after another, and there would be someone in each family waiting for relatives at the door or at the meeting to show their attention. Generally, I don't rush to the meeting first, I will chat enthusiastically first, and when I see the child grabbing some candy, I will eat fat again. At eleven o'clock, the dining table is usually placed in the courtyard, and the gate is open to let people see how many relatives there are in my family. Seven plates and eight dishes were put on the table, and a bottle of Yangshao was eaten. Occasionally, the two beggars would visit with dog sticks, and the family would bring them a few buns.
By noon, a few alcoholics were still under the drinking order, and the seven aunts and eight aunts were still leading to the meeting, and our children followed behind, there would be benefits, and it was possible to mix snacks, small toys and even new clothes. At this time, the crowd began to crowd, and the vendors' small trumpets shouted loudly. At two o'clock in the afternoon, the meeting reached its climax, and it was also a crowd. Adults hold children's hands for fear of losing them, and call their nicknames from time to time. The high-spirited Mu Guiying came from the stage, "cheap" and "the last few pieces" came and went, the sound of the monkey's gong attracted a circle of people, in the melon seed stall, I would secretly grab a handful of melon seeds, the long-haired young man played billiards, the water in the shaver's bucket could not distinguish the color, and occasionally stepped on a child's shoes ......under his feet
By five o'clock the basic climax will pass, and some people can make a few hundred dollars in these few hours, and many people have made a fortune in a few hours of the day. Relatives have paid their respects one after another, and vendors with bad business are preparing to evacuate, and friends have begun to gather to share or show off the benefits of the day. Slowly, there are fewer people, leaving behind all kinds of garbage and flying plastic bags. Only the stage is still performing, and the best operas and the most climactic jokes are on the stage today, and the old people will continue to talk about it for several days.
The next day everything was calm and everything was going to be done. The stage still exists and will continue to be used next time.
It's been twenty or thirty years, and I've been running around for life. In the middle of the meeting, I occasionally went back in a hurry, but I lost the excitement of my childhood. Nowadays, life has changed dramatically, and there are fewer mobile phone networks for transportation vehicles, but there are fewer relatives to interact with each other, less contact, and fewer so-called string relatives. Now there are large and small supermarkets and shopping malls everywhere, and rural e-commerce is also popular. The relatives who came put down the gifts and left after a brief chat. I am also busy making money and rarely go back to my hometown, and I have made money, but happiness is getting farther and farther away.
And the stage, the soul project of the meeting, is also overgrown with wild grass, and in the winter wind, the lonely remnants exist on the northern plains.