From time to time, branches full of flowers stick out of the wall. What poems are there?

Spring can't shut the garden, an almond goes out of the wall.

Suzhou manbu

Lu

I like Suzhou, especially its quiet alleys. This is not because "there are few idle places in the Forbidden City, and there are many small bridges in the water lanes", but because it is often the easiest to see the great changes in life and the rebirth of the city in the alleys, resulting in a sense of pride and joy.

The alleys in Suzhou are full of flavor. It's neat and deep, with twists and turns. Streets are paved with bouncing stones, and there is no sand in spring. You can wear cloth shoes without getting wet after taking a bath in summer. On both sides of the alley are high courtyard walls covered with ivy and wisteria; Branches covered with flowers occasionally protrude from the wall. Deep in the yard, the sound of looms came from here and there, weaving silks and satins rustling; That creaking thing is knitted velvet. I have seen the silks and satins and elastic velvet in Suzhou, like colorful clouds embedded in the blue sky, like sunrise, like sunset glow, like light smoke rising at dusk. You would never think that these world-famous silks were born in an alley where thousands of families live together.

In the alley, the gate is always open. In the open door, mother and daughter can often be seen lying on a stretcher, quietly embroidering. They divided a thin silk thread into eight sections and embroidered flowers, birds, insects, fish, people and scenery with hundreds of needles. Live shrimp embroidered with Qi Baishi; Embroidered Xu Beihong's galloping, splashing ink, watermarking and demeanor can be accurately expressed.

Sixteen years ago, I also saw Su Embroidery and Embroidered Mother in Suzhou. In the quiet alley in the middle of the night, it is common for them to embroider from late at night until dawn, exchange money at Gu Xiuzhuang, and then row to the door of the rice shop, and use chalk to make up the number on their shoulders and point to a little parity rice.

Today, we can see "Su embroidery" not only in the alleys, but also in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. In the international exhibition, you can also watch Suzhou girls perform embroidery. Residents of London once asked to see the embroidered girl's hand to see what secrets she had and why embroidered flowers could confuse butterflies! Who knows that the only secret is the diligence of these hands, which is our society's respect for hardworking hands.

Before liberation, in a shabby old temple in Suzhou, there lived a beggar with messy hair and serious eye diseases. She is the famous "embroidered mother" Shen Jingfen. She devoted all her youth to "Suzhou embroidery", and she knows hundreds of clever stitches. When she was young, she painted countless Youlong phoenix for her daughter, and made a lot of profits for Gu Xiuzhuang. Finally, I ended up in a ruined temple, begging for a living. The skill of "Su embroidery" was trampled with her, and it was carved like a broken temple in the wind and rain!

Now, in a small garden, on the flower diameter, next to the curved bridge, people see Shen Jingfen, the consultant of the embroidery workshop. Her hair is still gray, but her eyes are gone, and her face is ruddy and full of vitality. She is guiding a group of lively young girls to plant flowers, paint and embroider, pushing traditional skills to a new peak: stationery residents and Suzhou girls can find secrets here and here.

In autumn, the whole city is filled with the fragrance of osmanthus. Smell the flowers and stroll along, and you will be introduced to the ancient gardens. Gardens are like scattered flowers, distributed in the streets and alleys of Suzhou, with more than 100 kinds recorded. As for digging a pool, building a mountain, and setting up a small pavilion or two in the middle, there are countless more. "Wu" records: "Although the inscriptions on the lower part of the tomb are decorated with birds in the hills for fun", we can see the universality of Suzhou gardens. On this universal basis, skilled craftsmen and famous teachers have left a large number of exquisite masterpieces.

Of all the gardens, I like "staying in the garden" best. Like all masterpieces of art, it is hidden. A simple corridor at the door, an ordinary yard. The pavilion in the middle of the forest is faintly visible. Passing the "Hanbi Mountain House", standing on the balcony near the water, I saw a group of rockeries rising head-on, jagged and jagged. The six corners of the "Keting" stand high on the rocks, and three small bridges span between the mountains and streams. The distance is tortuous, as if it were bottomless. Here, I feel people are painting, but I can't see the whole picture of the painting.

When you climb the mountain veranda and walk into "Smelling Osmanthus fragrans", all the scenery in the garden will be presented. Things are staggered with pavilions, which are set off by ancient trees and strange stones, and the south is the veranda flower wall. The small "Minser Building" is above all buildings. The front of the building is full of clear water, reflecting all the scenery in the south and making it a wonder outside the park. In the middle of the pond, there is an island called "Little Penglai". The bridges and pavilions here are flush with the water. Boarding the "Little Penglai" seems to be standing at the bottom of the lake, but it feels surrounded by mountains. When we arrived at the ground floor of Quxi Building through "Little Penglai", the scenery in the central area was unobstructed, and we could come to an end. However, there are many brick frames and leaky windows next to Quxi Building, like landscape frames, which condense the scenery in the garden and make people linger. Looking up to the west, in late autumn, bright red maple leaves are spread on the undulating cloud wall, which makes people nostalgic. The aftertaste is endless.

Before liberation, "Lingering Garden" became the stable of Kuomintang troops. Trees were cut down, pavilions collapsed, and rubble and bricks were everywhere. Today's "staying in the garden" is colorful and colorful. Looking back at the outside of the "Lingering Garden", I saw tall chimneys standing everywhere on Huqiu Road and on both sides of the canal. The factory built after liberation vomited thick smoke day and night, and painted the quiet blue sky with thick ink. Machines roar, metals collide, and life boils. From the alleys and ancient gardens all over the city, people who have a full rest day and night walk all the way to the boiling place.

Shitang reading newspaper

Braving the drizzle and facing the wet fog, I walked into the lead mountain stone pond. This is a thousand-year-old town known as "Little Suzhou" under Wuyi Mountain, and it is also the world-famous hometown of historical papers.

The old street covered with pebbles and bluestones, like a thick thread-bound book, took me into its interior along the vein woven by thousands of years of history. As I walked, I looked at the life of Shitang people, wondering about the prosperous history of paper and touching the texture of "as thin as cicada wings and as light as silk".

In my opinion, Shitang is a dream that smells like old paper. Dense numbers of paper-laying, magnificent ancient buildings, exquisite stone carvings, floating manhole covers in rice wine shops, hemp fibers and bacon hanging on the walls, blacksmiths that are still open today, and troughs, floating ponds and puddles left by paper-making are flickering between reality and fantasy. More than 50 alleys in the town are mysterious and deep, winding and winding. The names are also nice: Xia Jie Street, Keng North Street, Qipan Street, Chamber of Commerce Lane, Luohan Lane ... There are many paper shops in the alley, such as Fushengyuan, Luoshengchun, Jinhongchang, Tianhe, Chashengquan, Laijia Paper Company, Songtaihang, Shanshan Club, Raozhou Club and Fuzhou Club. The grandeur of the rich family compound is a symbol of the prosperity and business prosperity of the paper merchants in those days. Because of their age, they now look a little lonely and haggard: the fence is covered with moss, the gate is gray and shabby, the stone slab road is uneven, the pattern of the stone tablet square is vague, and the carved colonnade has long been stripped of gold powder. There are high courtyard walls on both sides of the alley. A few loquat trees outside the inclined escape wall are occasionally covered with small golden fruits, and creepers or branches covered with flowers sometimes protrude from the wall, which adds a little vitality to the alley and looks a little elegant. Clusters of rotten grass on the wall of a big house can't hide the glory and prosperity of the past.

There are small bridges and flowing water in the ancient town. Guan Zhen, built in the Ming Dynasty, has crystal clear canal water. Walking slowly along the canal, you will meet women who wash clothes from time to time. Because of the rain, small tables were set up in groups on the street, and bamboo chairs filled both sides of the roadway, playing cards, drinking tea and chatting. They are like bluestones under their feet. After years of tempering, they are more peaceful and arrogant, maintaining the leisure of sunrise and sunset. They stubbornly stayed in this thousand-year-old town, and time hurried by them. They don't realize that ... with their residence, this ancient town has the ability to resist the noise of modern life.

I don't know whether this town has cultivated Shi Lian paper. Or did historical newspapers create this town?

Paper used to be the most colorful chapter in the life of Shitang ancient town. Because of paper, Shitang is full of people and merchants are bustling; Because of paper, Shitang has a strong expressive force in papermaking culture; Because of paper, countless dignitaries and merchants have worked tirelessly to lead Shitang; It is also because of paper that Lead Mountain County has become one of the "Five Handicraft Industries" in the south of China, and it is world-famous together with the cotton textile industry in Songjiang, the silk weaving industry in Suzhou and Hangzhou, the pulp dyeing industry in Wuhu and the porcelain making industry in Jingdezhen. Because of that piece of paper, I can't help but see the past weather of Shitang Street in my mind, which is always like the riverside scene on Qingming Festival. Because of paper, Shitang is known as "Luoyang with high quality"; Because of the paper stone pond, our descendants saw a lot of information about social life and aesthetic customs at that time.

As soon as time let go, Shitang's yesterday was like a child stepping on a twisted skateboard. It has slipped for thousands of years in a blink of an eye, and now. I will read Shitang and read Shitang's paper.

Lu Zhijian, an old man who lives in Shitang, is enthusiastic and energetic. He is over 60 years old with gray hair, but he is much younger than the town. It is said that this town has a history of 1000 years. In front of the ancient town, all the people alive are children. Old man Lu is a carpenter and has lived here for generations. He likes to write articles and act as a tour guide for tourists. Speaking of the history of Shitang papermaking, there are several treasures in the vicissitudes of the ancient town. In his story, I learned about the glorious history and technological process of papermaking in Shi Lian.

Lu Laobo said that lead mountain county is rich in green vegetation. Since ancient times, the mountains have been covered with bamboo forests, and the continuous gurgling streams have provided abundant water and power for papermaking. The firewood all over the mountain provides cheap fuel for paper making; All kinds of paper medicine used as papermaking glue and lime, an auxiliary material for papermaking, can be obtained locally. All these provide good conditions for the development of paper industry.

It takes 60 days for a piece of historical paper to go from bamboo to finished product. Generally, the whole hand-made process has to go through more than 20 processes, such as bamboo skin, white paper, dipping, cooking, beach turning, paper making and paper drying, and each process is interlocking and finely crafted.

The tender Phyllostachys pubescens is cut into strips, dried in the shade, soaked in a pond, floated in the pond with clear water, shredded bamboo, washed and dried. , and has become a bamboo filament. Paper materials need to be carefully stamped with their feet or beaten with mallets to make paper. The most difficult process in the production process is papermaking. Copying paper, also called fishing paper, is the most test of the master's skill. To copy high-quality paper, paper workers need two or three years of training to copy the paper thickness evenly.

Hundreds of years have passed, with the continuous progress of industrial civilization, hand-made historical contact paper has lost its competitiveness because of its high production cost. With the mass production of machine-made paper, the market demand for handmade clay paper has declined. Therefore, Shitang papermaking, which has been brilliant for more than 400 years, gradually declined, leaving only small-scale manual production. The scenery of "a piece of paper is hard to find" in the past is long gone. Later generations can only vaguely imagine the prosperity of the old days from the old buildings on the paper lines and the font size on the lintel.

The pages of ancient thread-bound books and samples of historical paper hidden in the exhibition hall have read all the vicissitudes, which are no longer the concept of paper, but the heavy cultural history of paper industry and the historical memory of the rise and fall of historical paper. As precious cultural relics, they are not only the imprint of time, but also the last words of time.

Reading "Shitang" is the last words of the years. Today, with the keyboard rapidly replacing writing, the last words of years will not be those of paper, will they?