Yuedu

Poster: Ma Shuang

I miss the rain in Kunming.

I didn’t know there was a rainy season before. I only had a concrete experience of "rainy season" after arriving in Kunming.

The rainy season in Kunming is bright, full and emotional. The vegetation is deep in spring in the city, and the vegetation is long in Mengxia. The rainy season in Kunming is dark green. The moisture in the branches and leaves of the plants has reached a saturated state, showing excessive, almost exaggerated exuberance.

……

There is a small street next to the lotus pond, and there is a small hotel. We walked in and ordered a plate of pork head and half a pound of wine (packed with green wine). (in a glazed earthenware cup) and sat down. It's raining heavily. There were several chickens in the hotel. They all had their heads tucked under their wings and stood motionless under the eaves with one foot on the ground. There is a large tree of woodland flowers in the hotel yard. There are many woody flowers in Kunming. The banks of some small rivers are full of woody fragrance. But such a large woody scent is rare. A woody tree climbed on the trellis and completely covered the yard. The dense green leaves, countless half-open white flowers and swollen flower buds were all soaked by the rain. We couldn't walk, so we sat like this until noon. Forty years later, I still could not forget the emotion of that day and wrote a poem:

There were few pedestrians outside the lotus pond,

The moss marks in the wild shop were an inch deep.

It’s past noon with a glass of turbid wine,

The woody flowers are wet with rain.

I miss the rain in Kunming.

——Wang Zengqi "Rain in Kunming"

In 1939, 19-year-old Wang Zengqi came from his hometown of Gaoyou, Jiangsu, via Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Vietnam to Kunming, the rear area of ??the Anti-Japanese War, and was admitted to the Southwest College He studied and lived in Kunming for seven years. The city's scenery, people's livelihood, and delicious food left a deep and cordial impression on him. His attachment and cherishment for this city are everywhere revealed in his works. The National Defense Online "Joyful Reading" column today takes you into Kunming written by Wang Zengqi, and feels the charm and fragrance of the old times together.

▼Landscape and Scenery

"After hurriedly walking through the noisy downtown and boring institutions, once you enter Green Lake, you will immediately feel relaxed. The heavy pressure of life, daily necessities, grievances and troubles will be diluted a little. People will unknowingly slow down and even stop, sit on a stone bench by the roadside, smoke a cigarette and look around. "In Wang Zengqi's eyes, "Without Green Lake, Kunming cannot be called Kunming."

▼People in the Market

"Wenlin Street is full of people shouting and selling all year round, from morning to night. Residents, shops, adults, children, college students, and middle school students on the street , primary school students, pastors of small churches, and these hawkers themselves are all very familiar..." The hawker selling Fenghua Dan, the old man selling flea medicine, the Miao girl selling bayberry and jade wheat cakes, buying pretzels The old man in the teahouse, the old lady buying Western cakes for her grandson, and all kinds of living beings are vividly displayed on the paper.

▼Exquisite delicacies

"Rice market, vegetable market, meat market. Firewood dumplings, charcoal dumplings. Horse dung. Thick and thin porcelain bowls, clay pots and iron pots, braised chicken rice noodles, Roast bait pieces. Slices of money, dried beef. The smoke from cooking, the pungent smell of fried spicy food. The colors are sour, sweet, bitter, spicy and salty. Everything is filled with the fireworks of Wang Zengqi's obsession.

Wang Zengqi studied in Kunming for seven years, which coincided with the turbulent situation, but in his writings, we can see a rare open-mindedness. Persisting in finding fun in the ordinary and light in the darkness is not only Wang Zengqi's choice, but also Kunming's urban attitude.