Whenever Pufang is mentioned, my heart will always tighten for no reason, accompanied by an indescribable sadness and grievance. It was as if a heavy stone was pressing down on my chest, leaving me breathless.
Where does this sadness and grievance come from?
Now that I'm sorting it out, I still can't tell. In the dead of night, memories of the past flood back and make it difficult to sleep.
On closer inspection, I am also a child of Pufang's factory, growing up in a three-story red brick building above the six-meter bridge lighting stadium, and there are two younger brothers below. The addition of the word "count" is because my father was a member of the carpentry class in Pufang in his early years, and most of the wooden doors and windows of Pufang's iconic three-story red brick building were made by their team.
For a few years in my childhood, I would always be awakened by the earth-shattering ** sound, that is, the fathers reclaimed the mountains little by little, and built factories and high-rise buildings according to the general design plan. The factory area and the living area were separated, and the lighting stadium, cinema, barber room, and bathhouse came into being......
The red slogan of "good people, good people, good people and three fronts, prepare for war and prepare for famine" is the truest portrayal of this period.
When he grew up, his father tried his best to use various connections to enter the Pufang Textile Factory, and was assigned to the former spinning workshop A shift as a "push boss" for several years.
At that time, Pufang was in its heyday, and the logistics support and welfare distribution of employees were quite in place. During the New Year, the fish and meat are divided and moved home. The number of places to enter the factory is extremely limited, and ordinary factory children like me have no relationship, no money, and can only wait for the allocated opportunities year after year. But fortunately, in the end, through his father's efforts, he won an opportunity and became a member of the Pubo factory.
After entering the factory, I also worked hard like my fathers, hoping to create a better life for myself and my younger brothers.
Within a few years, I found my other half in the same workshop, we got married and had children, and the child's household registration also fell on Pufang.
At that time, we were young and full of hope and expectation for the future.
However, the good times were short-lived. As the operating conditions of the factory gradually deteriorated, the shadow of laid-off unemployment began to loom over the hearts of the factory workers. Although the factory later gave us money to buy out our seniority and laid-off preferential certificates, the money did not make up for the pain and anxiety of losing our jobs.
I remember an older worker who cried bitterly when he helped his daughter get a laid-off preferential certificate: "When I recruited workers from the countryside to enter the factory, I later found a partner to marry and have children, and then put the child's household registration in Pufang, which was a big capital at the beginning!" I didn't expect to be laid off and unemployed when I got old"! When he said this, there were many onlookers with red circles in their eyes on the spot.
Pufang, which belongs to the third-tier factory, is a history of prosperity and decline, and a history of the country from weak to strong.
A large number of third-line working class are generally laid off and unemployed, and in this change, the hesitation and ** experienced is no less than a flat thunderstorm, and its destructiveness is comparable to the Great Depression in the United States, and it can be said that the aftermath of its ** is still unresolved.
I always feel that our parents and our generation have endured great hardships and suffered great hardships, and the spirit of third-line military enterprises for many years has been inherited, "loyal and patriotic, loving the factory like home". Therefore, in the face of this injustice, the vast majority of people are responsible for their own responsibility, swallow their own bitterness, and put words in their stomachs, and when they turn around, they still show a smiling face.
Are we too talkative?
Is it our generation that has nothing to say?
I don't think so!
At the very least, this lovely country owes us workers a warm apology. When we were not ready, they treated us as a burden and resolutely threw us into society, to a future where no one could know the outcome. It is impossible to say that there is no pain in the heart, no complaints. But who can talk to about such unspeakable pain and complaints?
Later, through various channels and **, I learned that nationwide, there were nearly four million children of laid-off workers in third-tier factories and mining enterprises similar to the fate of Pufang. Thinking about it this way, we are not alone, we are like a dandelion blown by a strong wind, which is now scattered in all directions of the motherland, each surviving and growing separately.
In this parallel world, the third-tier factory people, how similar you and I are. We have so many similar life experiences, similar fates, causes and effects.
Everyone has no contact with each other, but there is warmth when you think about it!
We used to be the children of the factory, lived in roughly the same red brick building, went to the children's kindergarten and the children's school, and also in the third-line factory and mine when the most prosperous, the son inherited his father's business, entered the Pufang textile factory with three shifts and four downs, we spoke the Mandarin spoken by the third-line factory people, and finally lived as a foreigner in the local Jingquan population of Pufang. Although we are the household registration of Puqi Pufang, we can't speak Puqi dialect, and we can't integrate into the real life of the local Puqi people!
Ran away for half his life and returned to Pufang.
Half strange, half emotional!
Where did the towering chimneys of thermal power plants go?
Where did the familiar section of the Osmanthus Tree go?
Where did the roaring train go?
Most of the Pufang that I once relied on for survival and called my hometown has changed, where is the hometown of my soul?
Looking back now, I often wonder if I hadn't gotten into Pufang, if I hadn't gotten married there and had children, what would I be like now?
But there are no ifs in life, only results.
I chose Pufang, I chose the life there, and I chose to face and experience such a dilemma in life.
Still, I have a deep affection for Pufang. There is my youth, there is my family, there are my memories. Those good times, those dreams that I once had, are deeply imprinted in my heart. Even though I am no longer a member of Pufang, my heart still belongs there.
Every year, I would take time to go back to Pufang to see my father, who was getting older year by year, and I couldn't help but climb 681 and go to the Lushui River on No. 4 Road for a walk.
When I walk by the river, looking at the river that has accompanied me for countless days and nights, I think of Pufang. That river, like my Pufang, has witnessed my growth and changes, and has also carried my hopes and dreams.
My Pufang, my land and water rivers.
No matter how much wind and rain I go through, I will remember the place that once gave me warmth and strength. Even though I'm far away from there now, my heart will always go in that direction. Because there, there are my best memories and the most sincere emotions.