In 1998, I wanted to talk to Shenzhen.

On July 3, 1998, the World Cup in France was in full swing. I remember that night was the match of Argentina. I was fidgeting on the green leather train to see if there was a TV in the conductor's room or if a passenger had a radio. However, there was nothing on the train except the monotonous clang. I set foot on the land of Shenzhen with great disappointment.

two days before that, I just refused a solemn and solemn swearing-in ceremony. When I treat the secretary with awe-inspiring heroism when a strong man is gone and never looks back, I will never come back when I go. Why should I organize? Before, I went through the application, study, transfer and review, and the transfer team went to my father-in-law's house hundreds of kilometers away, which can be described as a blue thread and meticulous. It's just that I don't understand. I always go to my father-in-law's house for two or three times, six or seven days. What does it matter if I can join the organization?

but anyway, I almost became an organized person. But I gave up so easily, which was more casual than giving up a bunch of wild fruits picked in the back of the mountain. From then on, like a kite with a broken line, it fell everywhere. You can call me free, or you can call me helpless.

after I arrived in Shenzhen, I stayed in my wife's dormitory, watched the World Cup leisurely, and watched Zidane take a big ear in his own country and become the new Napoleon of France, then I went for a stroll in the talent market. In the morning, I handed in two resumes, both of which were in sales. For a man without technical expertise, sales seems to be the only possibility.

I interviewed one at noon and one in the afternoon. When I came back, I discussed with my wife and went to the one in the afternoon, a communication company under the Guangdong Provincial Frontier Defense Bureau. The company is located near the railway station, along the river, and most of our colleagues live in the dormitory on the sixth floor of the main station.

In 1998, border cards were needed to enter and leave Shenzhen. Hunan can go to the provincial office in Furong Hotel, but many provinces can't do it in Shenzhen, and it's troublesome to go back. It can only be managed for a few months at a time, so many people don't have border cards (there were even fewer temporary residence permits at that time). For those who enter the city once in a while, the snakehead will be brought in when they enter the customs, and those who are smart will directly give money to the armed police on duty. Every time I get off the bus, I hear a large group of people shouting: pass, pass. They took 5 people through customs, some of which were given to the border guards and some of them were earned by themselves. According to a colleague, one of his fellow villagers served as a soldier at the border post for several years and brought back 2, when he retired. Soldiers are so fat, and officials don't know how much to get. Once I saw a middle-aged man with my own eyes. When he ran out of light, he put a 5 yuan bill on the inspection table. The armed police quickly opened the drawer and let people go.

Police stations often check border defense cards, mainly in villages in cities. If it is found out that there is no border defense certificate, it will be put in Yinhu detention center first. At this time, it will cost only a few hundred yuan to fish. If it is not fished out in time, it will be transferred to Zhangmutou, Dongguan, and it will cost thousands of dollars. It is common for a fellow villager to be taken away without a border card. It was not until the famous Sun Zhigang incident that such things completely disappeared.

Luohu village is next to the frontier defense station. We often go there after dinner at night, and it is common to check the border defense certificate. A few cage cars, teams of people were crammed into them, and most of them were young girls working in hair salons or massage centers, or we like to go there just to see beautiful girls.

to the north of the border inspection station is Lushan Hotel. From Lushan Hotel along Chunfeng Road to Dongmen South Road, there are more than a dozen star-rated hotels such as Lushan Hotel, Jinbi Hotel, Sunshine Hotel and Pengnian Hotel, and there are nightclubs in the hotel. Every evening, on the road, you will be accompanied by couples, or you will be independent, or you will pretend to be a pure college student, or you will pretend to be a mature white-collar worker, standing by the street and becoming a landscape. Some able-bodied men give business cards to passers-by. If passers-by stop for a while, the girls either wave or simply open the warbler's mouth and call you to play.

from time to time, the police station comes to check in a cage car. All of a sudden, the beautiful woman who was just slim and graceful was like a chicken flying a dog jumping at once, or rushing to the depths of the alley, or crossing the isolation belt in the middle of the road and scurrying to the opposite side. Several high-heeled sandals fell into the middle of the road, which made people look at both excitement and pity.

On one occasion, walking by the Sunshine Hotel, I saw a man who was nearly 6 years old, wore a pair of glasses and looked like an old engineer, wandering by the roadside, and his eyes looked at the rich woman from time to time. If you want to stop talking, you want to go up and down. A woman saw it and took the initiative to talk. Just talking for a few words, an iron cage car quickly arrived and pulled them into the cage. Presumably, that man is a respected person in the unit. I don't know how it ended later.

roommates who have good deeds should call according to the phone number on the card, ask them to wait downstairs in Lushan Hotel, or even directly ask them to come to the dormitory. But people really come, or stop answering the phone, and let the other party hover anxiously at the door of the hotel. Or people go to the dormitory, just to see if the other person is beautiful or not, and shut people out. They are all the lowest people in this society, but they are so teasing and hurting each other.

In 1998, there was a mysterious place in Shenzhen called Shazui. Don't talk about Nanshan at that time. The sand mouth in Futian is still a distant place for people in Luohu, including Futian. At that time, the houses in Nanshan could only be sold to people around. People in urban areas basically didn't buy houses in Nanshan, because the traffic was too inconvenient, and it took more than an hour to get to the city center by car. Similarly, houses in Buji and Longhua are basically not bought by people in the city.

In 1998, the houses in Shenzhen were very cheap, and no one made real estate speculation. A few people bought multiple suites to earn rent. The houses in Futian Central District are only 4, to 5, yuan, and the houses in Nanshan did not start to drive a large number of people from other districts to buy until the excellent Azur Coast was developed in 1999. When the first phase was opened, it was only about 3,2 yuan per square meter. Buji had only a few properties, such as Lihu Garden and Dragon Ball Garden. Lihu Garden is only over 2, yuan, and few people buy it. Many Hong Kong container truck drivers buy houses there. They can't afford a wife or a house in Hong Kong, so they buy a house in Buji and marry a domestic wife, some with certificates and some without certificates. At night, large container trucks are parked in the community and the surrounding roads.

The mainlanders who will work in Shenzhen can't afford to buy a house, but earn money and want to go back to buy a house or build a house. For example, my wife and I thought at that time that we would earn 25 thousand yuan and go back to the unit to buy a fund-raising house. We earned it in 251, but we didn't go back to buy a house. In 21, we bought a house in Buji. At that time, the house price was less than 3,, the down payment was more than 6,, and the monthly payment was only 1,3. It can be said that there was no pressure at all. It is really lucky to think that young people who come to Shenzhen now are facing the house price of 5 thousand to 6 thousand, but their wages are not much higher than then.

Many people, after making money, return to their hometown with clothes and clothes, and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to build beautiful buildings in their hometown, but there is no one to live there, and there is no value. When I finally find out that my hometown can't go back, it's already an impossible dream to buy a house and settle down in Shenzhen. Some people buy houses in small cities in their hometown, while others go to Huizhou and Dongguan to buy houses.

in 1998, there was no CBD center in Shenzhen, and there was a wasteland or some sheds and rental houses to the west of Caitian Road. Therefore, it is difficult to rent out the house further away from Shazui. However, Sha Tsui is very close to Hong Kong, so a special industry has developed. Therefore, Shakou is prosperous, colorful and bustling. Every evening, it is even more crowded, which is simply spectacular. At that time, when men in Shenzhen talked about going to Shazui, they often smiled furtively, as they later talked about going to Dongguan.

because of my business, I have to go to Shazui for delivery and checkout several times a month. Walking into the village, although not as delicate and elegant as the women by the Sunshine Hotel, there are a large number of them, as dazzling as supermarkets, with accents from all over the southeast and northwest, fat and thin, tall and exquisite. Or look around the roadside in twos and threes, or walk around in twos. There are also various business promoters who take the initiative to ask for recommendations. Businessmen from all walks of life can hook you up as long as you put forward ideas.

It is said that many Hong Kong people go together on weekends, but they don't want to go home, which arouses the anger of teachers and nurses in Hong Kong, causing endless media reports, and even the central high-level officials have given instructions, and the city has sent public security and armed police to clean up many times. Although local villagers, including village cadres, resisted for the sake of interests, their arms could not twist their thighs after all. After several blows, the bustling rain in Shakou blew away. After that, there were no more sand mouths in Shenzhen, so Shenzhen men went to Dongguan, and Dongguan, after several storms, also gave up, and there was no more romantic place in South Guangdong (of course, it is not to say that there was no more romantic place, but I am afraid that the deformed grand occasion like that in those years will never return. )

The young woman who stood in Shazui Village in those days has now given birth to a new generation. Have they had a good life since then? What kind of ups and downs or calm life have you experienced? I wonder how many of them have stayed in Shenzhen and how many have returned to their hometown. Do they miss the prosperity of Shenzhen or enjoy the tranquility of their hometown? Or, now that I am running around the world, will I meet the people who stood by the roadside in those days and find the stories of the years in each other's eyes and the imprint that the city has brought us in a hurry?

In p>1998, there was no pedestrian street in Dongmen. The old street is a stone lane with earthen walls and tiled houses, and Jin Guanghua Square is the South China Cinema. Every evening, the sunken square is a series of stalls selling clothes. Whether it's Dongmen Old Street or the night market in front of Nanguo Cinema, clothes are very cheap, ten or twenty yuan. Every morning, I wear that cheap shirt, start from the train station, get on a bus casually, and walk through the streets and villages of Shenzhen. Xiangxi Village, Dawang Village, Hubei Village, Huangmugang, Yantian, Buji, Henggang, Pingshan .........................................................................................................................................

when you run outside the customs, you often take a motorcycle ride. Many industrial areas have no or few buses, so you have to take a motorcycle to get in and out, which costs three to five yuan at a time. Motorcycle is illegal. Police stations or security teams often come to arrest it. Drivers should be alert to the people in the police station while waiting for passengers on the roadside. Once they find people coming, they will be scattered. If they are caught, they will have to spend money to get them back. I don't know how many stories and shady stories there are. These are all written in my novel "Shenzhen, I lost my soul". Many people drive motorcycles to carry passengers, and there are also many robberies. Coupled with the constant traffic accidents, it was completely banned.

in 1998, there was no QQ, and there were not many mobile phones in Shenzhen. Most of them used pagers. On the first day of working in Shenzhen, I got my first pager, the number is 2. At that time, there were more than 2 paging stations in Shenzhen, the most famous of which were Runxun, Longfei, Ruihua, etc., which were connected to the internet all over the country. Runxun is the only paging station that sends advertisements to CCTV. The slogan is very domineering: Call the world. Today, 2 years later, Runxun has disappeared, and Tencent, founded by Ma Huateng, who came out of Runxun, has become the best Internet enterprise in China.

At that time, when I was on the bus, I often heard the advertisement that "the dragonfly called you to watch the ball", so I really went to watch the ball with my companions. At that time, the league was called A, the Shenzhen team was called Shenzhen Ping 'an, and the players were the heroes and fans' darlings of this city. In the last few games of relegation, the stadium was crowded with people, and outside the stadium, the shouts of shaking the earth and the neat and passionate gongs and drums were heard. That voice makes your blood boil, and the ups and downs of that scene make people look exciting. The Shenzhen team finally succeeded in relegation, and the next year I joined the football club and became a staff member.

After working for three months, I bought a second-hand mobile phone, Ericsson 398, which was the most popular mobile phone model in that year. The number is Unicom, and I still remember: 13882316. I bought it with a colleague, the model is the same, and the number is similar. His number is 13882319. After working for nine months, I left that unit and slowly lost contact with him, and all my colleagues in that year, and later lost contact. At that time, there was no WeChat or QQ, and everyone's work changed frequently, so it was easy to disappear into each other's lives.

The Shenzhen University Stadium in p>1998 was still a Tuping Stadium. At the weekend, I went to that stadium with several teammates of the football team of the state-owned enterprise factory. We don't have our own team. After other teams play, we play with a group of temporary teams who also play wild ball until it is dark. If you can't make it to the team, go to the basketball court on the side and play a small game. After playing football, I went back to the house rented by my former colleague in Baishizhou to have dinner together, and it was often midnight when I returned to the dormitory.

Later, the stadium was built into the Shenda Stadium because it was going to hold the Universiade. Now runners often go there for training, but after the completion, I only went in with the Shenzhen team, never played football or ran in it again. Guys who are running in it today, you can't believe it. Twenty years ago, when it was a piece of earth, I played in it.

In p>1998, there was no cinema in Buji, and there were few cinemas in Shenzhen. There is no Wal-Mart, and there is not even a new one that has closed down. There is only one Jin Peng department store. When the Chinese New Year was approaching, my wife and I went to the supermarket in Jin Peng Department Store to buy things and take them back. It was the first time we entered the supermarket. I bought some snacks such as shredded squid and pistachios that I had never eaten before, and then I had a fast food at McDonald's downstairs. My wife said that I used to think it was extravagant to eat McDonald's, but now I have finally eaten it. Full of happiness, Shenzhen, gives us hope and dreams.

twenty years, it seems far away, but it's close at the same time. Day by day, month by month, year by year, the city is changing slowly. Looking at it every day feels slow, remembering it for ten years feels fast, and twenty years has changed. Twenty years, youth has passed, and black silk has turned white.

I wanted to talk to you in Shenzhen in 1998. Do you remember me?

After a gust of wind, you gently shake your head

Intentionally or unintentionally, it seems to say no

Intentionally or unintentionally, it seems to say yes

Even if you are really

recognized by me suddenly

, how can you expect that in the illusionary light

you can recognize that this is what I

recognize, well, this strange white hair

is.

Yu Guangzhong-Ask the Candle