When I was a child, I looked forward to the Chinese New Year the most.
There are new clothes to wear, you can go to New Year's greetings, you can eat a New Year's pig meal, and you can see new candy. Too many dreams come true during the Chinese New Year.
I don't know when it started, I suddenly found that the New Year is not interesting, and the sense of ritual that I liked when I was a child seems to be too troublesome today, and I refuse it in my bones.
As a post-70s generation, I lived in the countryside for more than ten years, and then left my hometown.
From looking forward to returning to my hometown every year, to slowly forgetting my hometown, the reality is heart-wrenching.
The depression in my hometown began with the loss of my parents.
In the seventies and eighties of the last century, the hometown was very lively, even if it was a mountain.
In the wax moon, my mother took out some glutinous rice, soaked it in water, and then ground it into rice milk with a stone mill.
When the rice milk drains the water, it pokes it and turns it into a ball, and when you press it, it becomes a round cake, and when you put it in the oil pot, it is a round cake.
After the sweet potatoes are crushed, they are turned into sweet potato chips, with some sesame seeds on top and dried in the sun. Pumpkin can also be made into cakes, and taro is paired with buttoned meat. In my mother's mind, I was still thinking that a certain relative was coming, what a certain relative liked to eat, and all the preparations were for the sake of treating guests more decently.
When making rice cakes and catching New Year pigs, many neighbors came to help.
Of course, my mother would also go to the neighbor's house to help. When I go home, I talk about my neighbor's house, how well prepared the New Year's goods are, and what new skills I have for making New Year's goods.
What about the father? Nor was he idle, helping to grind. When you are tired, you call your children and grind together.
Visiting relatives and friends, that's our favorite. You can taste different delicacies, and you can also play with the old watches, just like Runtu and Lu Xun back then.
I don't know what day it began, and there were fewer guests in the house.
Mother said"Your aunt, I'm going to Guangzhou for the New Year this year. Her son is in Guangzhou and has a good job.
My father snapped, smoked a cigarette, and said, "I'm afraid, after the Chinese New Year, I won't come back." They are all old, they can live with their children and take care of each other. ”
Clearly, my father has an indescribable sourness. After all, since the death of my grandparents, my father and aunt are the closest people.
Next, some villagers moved to the city one after another, and the single old man in his forties in the village also went to Dongguan to work.
The middle-aged and elderly people who insist on living in the village are not very ready for the New Year, so they just talk"Go to the supermarket, you can have everything, save trouble." ”
There was dust on the stone mill, and the stone mortar was placed haphazardly in the doorway, and there was some rain inside, which gave off a rancid smell.
And later? The father died, and the mother went to live in the city with her children.
After just entering the city for a year or two, my mother must go back to her hometown once before the Chinese New Year, clean the door, and paste the word blessing on the door.
Every time I went to my hometown, my mother said, "So-and-so next door won't celebrate the New Year in my hometown this year." He bought a house in a neighborhood.
Now, even for the Chinese New Year, my mother will not mention going to her hometown. It's deserted everywhere, and it's not good to take a ride for an hour or two.
As a post-70s generation, we are also forty or fifty years old, and we will be old in a flash. The parents are older, or are no longer there.
If you don't have your parents, call it your hometown. It also means that we become guests of our hometown.
Especially after the old house fell into disrepair and became ruined, the relationship with his hometown became more and more cold. Even if the old house has been turned into a small western-style building, the lock on the door is rusty, witnessing our forgetting of our hometown.
My hometown has no New Year's flavor, and I don't want to go back.
When we were in our twenties, every time we came to the Chinese New Year, even if we walked thousands of miles, we had to go back to our hometown for the New Year.
Squeeze the green train, catch the bus, walk a few miles. The moment I saw my parents, all the tiredness disappeared.
When we are about 50 years old, we also want to visit our hometown, but most of us run away and leave.
Classmate Lao Zhang, in the Year of the Dragon, insisted on taking the family back to his hometown for the New Year.
Because of the ice in the mountains, Lao Zhang's car almost fell into a deep ditch.
I opened the door of the old house and found that there was a power outage. The circuits in the mountains always can't stand the test of ice and snow. There are too many trees, bending over in the snow and ice, jamming the circuit.
The power outage, the mobile phone signal is not very good, the network is not available, several neighbors are closed, and no one has to post blessing words and couplets, all of which makes Lao Zhang sad.
Some villagers rushed over when they heard the news, exchanged a few words, and then felt that Lao Zhang's behavior was a little weird, and some people even thought that Lao Zhang had failed in his career and couldn't get along in the city.
Catch New Year's pigs, divide pork, and make rice cakes. A series of traditions are missing. Everyone's house is some plastic packaging stuff, brought from the city.
Occasionally, young people return to the village, but they also come in a hurry and leave in a hurry. Everyone just looked at it and didn't have the idea of living for a long time.
In the thirtieth year of the Chinese New Year's Eve, Lao Zhang changed his mind and returned to the city.
Lao Zhang said: "I will not go back to the countryside for the New Year in the future." ”
From looking forward to returning to his hometown for the New Year, to giving up and refusing to return to his hometown, it has become everyone's consensus.
First, if there are no parents in the hometown, there will be no worries. The interaction of many relatives is not too important, and even breaks off relations.
Second, the hometown is deserted, the playmates are nowhere to be seen, and the relationship between people has become unfamiliar, which has the taste of "children don't know each other".
Third, returning to my hometown for the New Year is too toss-up, spending a few days along the way, and going to the New Year is a formality, it is better to rest in a strange city and take a stroll at will.
Fourth, whose New Year's goods are all the same, they are all commodities; At the dinner table, there are big fish and meat. I really don't have much appetite.
The ancients said: "Sad songs can be used as weeping, and distant looks can be angelica." ”If you miss your hometown, look in the direction of your hometown, and you don't necessarily have to go to your hometown for a few days.
Occasionally open the household registration book, see your place of origin, and be able to know that your root is **, it is enough. Maybe in the next generation, the place of origin has also changed. Your hometown is not your children's homeland, really.
The flowers are similar every year, but the people are different every year.
We born in the 70s are also full of gray hair. The years are unforgiving, taking away not only the face of the teenager, but also the memory, and the reality of life.
Times have finally changed, and what we can do is to change with them.
Author: Cloth Clothes Coarse Food.
Follow my words and go into your heart.
The picture in the article is ** on the Internet.