It's been a very cold few days, and it's a bit unexpectedly cold. But this cold cannot be compared with the cold of forty or fifty years ago. Spending the winter as a child was a big test. There are not as many vegetables in the field as in the past, everyone is pickling cabbage and pickles, and there are cabbages hanging on the pillars. Adults and children are wearing cotton jackets and pants, which looks much clumsier and has many inconveniences.
Some children have chilblains on their faces, which is what the people of Sixiang in Qiantang call "frozen out of pieces", red and purple.
In winter, frost and ice are the norm. Children are greedy for play, knocking the ice in the pond, or playing with the ice in the stone mortar tank and the ice under the eaves, and sometimes they are used as popsicles to eat, and the little hands are frozen red and red, swollen like steamed buns, and after a few times, the hands begin to itch, and after a few days, they are covered with "frozen lumps". The "frozen lumps" on the hands and feet, it doesn't matter if you play ice and snowball fights during the day, but when you enter the bed at night, it's really uncomfortable. As soon as the quilt is warm, the hands and feet are warmed, and the blood begins to itch when the blood is alive, and the most itchy ones are the little toes and heels. I can't help but scratch when it's itchy, and the more I scratch, the more vigorous it becomes, and it often scratches the frozen blocks. After scratching, it began to ooze blood, and the socks worn the next day were stuck to the "frozen block" together, and it took a lot of effort to take off the socks, and accidentally ripped off the frostbitten skin, and the pain was so painful that I cried.
Now when I go out, the car is on the air conditioner, and when I come home, there is air conditioning and floor heating, and the shoes are also very warm, and the hands are also coated with various brands of skin cream. More than 50 years ago, many families had to cover a quilt for many years, and it was so hard that it couldn't be warm for a long time when they slept in it.
It's okay for adults, but you still have to find a way to hurt children. For children before the age of three or four, adults put them in the standing bucket, which is cylindrical, small at the top and large at the bottom, with a partition in the middle with a gap, and an ashtray under the partition, which contains ashes and charcoal, etc., and the child's feet and whole body are hot.
Children go to school with all kinds of stoves, and most of our Qiantang Sixiang uses "copper fire" (pronounced cōng, Sixiang dialect, meaning copper stove). When you put your two little feet on the "copper fire" in class, you won't get cold. Some children carry open ashtrays, and when they accidentally burn their cotton shoes, the classroom is full of scorched hair. There are also naughty children who bring raw dried sweet potatoes, dried rice cakes, broad beans, etc., to school, and simmer them in their own stoves. In full view of everyone, the classmate was ashamed of the teacher's stern eyes and criticism, but also a little mischievous pride. After class, everyone rushed to eat, and the classroom was filled with laughter and the smell of simmered rice cakes and fried broad beans.
The women in Sixiang are the most difficult, with "frozen lumps" hands and knocking on the ice, enduring the biting cold to wash clothes, vegetables and rice. In winter, there are not many agricultural things, women weave Hangzhou baskets, at night, under the dim lights, only hear the sound of bamboo strips shaking, the rough bamboo strips scrape the hands crisp and painful, but no one stops the work in their hands, so busy, waiting for the next spring.