Red Net Moment News reporter Yin Zengqi reported from Changsha.
Big city, small town. When an individual steps on the land of these two ecosystems, where do they come from, why do they stay, and why do they leave?
At the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, the reporter interviewed four young people from Loudi, Anqing, and Hengnan who were quite unique. In the tossing and turning of big cities and small towns, they are one step closer to the life they want.
Struggler ** Dengcong: "Take root in the big city and let the branches spread".
At 3 o'clock in the morning, when the world was still asleep, Deng Cong had already gotten up and started to prepare for the opening of the breakfast restaurant.
The post-80s sisters are from Lengshuijiang City, Loudi City. In 2002, there was a wave of migrant workers in the town, and their teenage years also moved south to Guangdong to make a living.
*, Deng Cong is busy in the store.
Over the years, with the ups and downs of the industry, the two have changed many jobs - they have worked in factories, done tourism and convenience store business, and then came to Changsha to work as real estate agents. Last year, my sister took a fancy to the façade of this breakfast shop in her circle of friends and started a new business.
Everything in our house is sold every morning, so we have to get up early in the morning to make it. "Regardless of the cold and heat, rain and wind, it has become their daily routine to get up early to roll noodles, prepare ingredients, and deliver takeaways, as long as the surrounding schools are not closed, the store will be open until six or seven o'clock in the evening. The small shop is running well, but it makes hard money, and there is little time to allocate freely, and it also has to take a certain amount of risk.
It's weird to do business, sometimes you're prepared, but things just don't sell. Sometimes I don't have much preparation, but the business keeps coming and going. *Refers to the ingredients prepared in the kitchen.
After preparing for the day's business, the sky has just been polished.
But big cities can make money and give children better learning resources. When my sister Deng Cong comes home at night, she will accompany her elementary school children to read for a while, and she also uses her spare time to read and study. At the beginning of the year, she successfully won the intermediate title of construction engineering, and now she is preparing for the first-class construction engineer exam. "In order to do some part-time jobs to earn some money, but also to have more possibilities for development in the future. Deng Cong said with a smile.
When it comes to future plans, ** has a long-term vision, "It is better to have a stable income and a certain amount of time to be free." Now that the breakfast shop is doing well, the sisters want to continue to open branches, preferably to build their own brand.
Taking root in the big city and letting the branches spread has become the biggest motivation for them to get up early and stay late.
The dreamer is round: "Let my family's sesame oil fragrance float all over the world".
When I was a child, I ate instant noodles at my grandparents' house, and my grandmother would always pour some sesame oil, which was very fragrant! Later, I went to Australia to study and couldn't cook, and after eating instant noodles for a month, I couldn't buy pure sesame oil there, and every time I ate instant noodles, I missed the bite of my childhood. ”
Born in Anqing, Anhui Province, Yuanyuan grew up in his own sesame oil factory, and after going to study in other places, the taste of his hometown gradually thinned. After returning from studying in Australia, Yuanyuan got an offer from his favorite factory and successfully started a career adventure in Hangzhou.
When Yuan Yuan was working in Hangzhou.
The big city is lively, enthusiastic, and exciting, but the smell of sesame oil lingers in my heart. The smell on my father's coat when I was a child, the smiling faces of my uncles and aunts in the sesame oil factory, and the concern when I was studying abroad. Finally, after a year of polishing in a large factory, Yuanyuan made up his mind to return to his hometown and participate in the "entity + Internet" transformation of Liangyou Sesame Oil (Jin Liangyou).
Even with a professional academic background and social practice, it was not smooth sailing when Yuanyuan started the transformation of the old brand business model. "When we first started, we experienced a fierce collision of old and new ideas. The post-60s and post-95s generations have very different perceptions of the Internet. ”
This kind of objective difference can only be slowly run in the process of the team moving forward. Yuan Yuan mentioned that an opportunity for a change came when she and her father were discussing new product packaging. My father said that this sesame oil is the taste of several generations of memories, and some old people want to send sesame oil to children from other places, but the glass bottle is fragile and expensive. The father and daughter hit it off - the new packaging is made into a sealed and fresh-keeping iron can, so that the wanderers from afar can also taste the most authentic taste of Anqing.
Yuanyuan prepares the application materials for "Anhui time-honored brand" in the factory.
In the first few months, Yuanyuan spent some time sorting out the condition of the old factory. "Why is it that the factory has been in business for decades, but it has not been online? What's in the way? ”
After the idea was slowly clarified, I began to polish the new product, change the packaging, and explore how to make the content. In the most anxious stage, Yuanyuan was brainstorming almost every night, and he had to get up at five o'clock in the morning to prepare for the live broadcast.
Opportunity favored those who persevered, and at the end of last year, after many efforts had paid little attention, the team picked up the spirit and made a new content attempt.
I didn't expect that it took an hour to shoot and edit, and it broke the million** volume in less than a day, and since then we have finally found the content direction that suits our brand and products. Yuan Yuan smiled and said, "This incident makes me even more convinced that as long as there is action all the time, miracles will happen!" ”
Yuanyuan's daily work in the packaging room of the sesame oil factory.
For the "small goals" in the future, Yuanyuan still hopes to be more down-to-earth and set sail steadily. "The first step is to hope that it can officially go out of Anqing, Anhui Province, so that the wanderers who have left their hometown and the friends who miss the pure sesame fragrance of their childhood can eat it. After taking this step, I hope to let Jin Liangyou go abroad and let the world see our Chinese brand and the safe food made by Chinese brands. ”
This girl who came out of Anqing, in the past ten years, has been to different cities and different countries to play and live, and now she has returned to the place where her dream began with what she has seen and heard all over the world, and has returned to the familiar sesame oil factory.
I used to want to be away from home because it wasn't prosperous enough and not fun enough; But now I feel that we are not going to stay away from our backward hometowns, but to strive to make our hometowns no longer backward after seeing the advanced. Yuan Yuan said.
Prowler Qin Yue: "Stick to your love and wait for a possibility".
In February, when the county town of Hengnan was warm and cold, a tall man with a shy smile pushed the door in the cold wind. He told reporters that his pen name is Qin Yue, born and raised in Sri Lanka after 95, and it was not until he graduated from university that he really jumped into the city made of steel and concrete.
Qin Yue checks in at the old railway station in the town.
I majored in automotive manufacturing and assembly technology, so I definitely had to work in other places. Accompanying him through the pressure and confusion of entering society for the first time was Qin Yue's hobby that had been hidden in his heart for many years. "When I was a child, I seemed to be learning under the influence of 'everything is inferior, only reading is high'. Later, he came into contact with many books on literature and history, and gradually inspired his love for Chinese studies. ”
The Internet has smoothed out the information gap between big cities and small towns, and there are many online dating circles for literature and calligraphy, and Qin Yue has met many like-minded people here. A few years ago, the Hanfu craze rose, and Qin Yue also "entered the pit" and experienced the costume of an ancient literati and inkman. During the holidays, he returned to the town with long hair and straight clothes, and sure enough, the elders of the family "dropped their jaws in shock".
Qin Yue recalled the scene at that time and said with a smile: "The elderly don't go online, and they don't have any fashion. ”
This hobby does not bring direct income and has nothing to do with the work he does, but it is his spiritual self-preservation in the big city, a corner of the peach blossom paradise. Back in the town, although there are familiar people and things around you, there are very few people who have the same interests.
During the Chinese New Year, Qin Yue practiced calligraphy in her hometown.
How to find a balance between the differences between cities and small towns is a topic that every young person in a small town who bravely enters the city has to face. Big cities are more tolerant, but still crowded, entertaining, and changing; Although the town is comfortable and caring, its relatively conservative and monolithic cultural atmosphere and social possibilities make many young people in the town reluctant to stay.
When working outside, Qin Yue was most concerned about the two old people. He grew up with his grandparents, and the old man's care for his baby grandchildren can be described as meticulous. When he was young, what impressed him the most was the slightly hunched back carrying a large bag and a small bag to pick him up and drop him off from school, and the rugged mountain road of several kilometers, Qin Yue followed his grandfather for many years.
When I first learned "Chen Qing Table", I felt the ups and downs of the author's life experience, and when I read Sven again, I thought that I could not always accompany the two elderly people in order to make a living. ”
On the third day of the first lunar month, Qin Yue made dumplings with her family.
Qin Yue dreamed that one day, the small town would have more opportunities like the big city. He believes that in recent years, the country has comprehensively promoted rural revitalization, and in the near future, more young people will be willing to return to their hometowns to work and develop, and everything has infinite possibilities.
Of course, I am willing to go back, and I want to contribute to the construction of my hometown, so that more children can be with their families, instead of letting them spend time in each other's thoughts and waiting. Qin Yue said.
With the economic and social development, for more and more young people in small towns, cities have more diverse choices, and small towns are no longer hometowns that "can't go back".
** and Deng Cong who walked out of the town, Yuanyuan who returned to the town, and Qin Yue, who was still wandering on the way to and from home, they were traveling in different directions, but they were running towards the same destination - there was a better future that they built with their hands.