Lao Zhang’s prose

There are many people with the surname Zhang, and many people with the surname Zhang are called "Lao Zhang." I am only 19 years old, but I will also be called Lao Zhang. Among the many old Zhangs, the one I want to write about is the one I have been with the longest. He and I had many fights and wanted to break up the relationship many times, but in the end we reconciled. I call him Dad when I see him, and I like to call him "Lao Zhang" when writing about him.

Lao Zhang was born in the 1970s. He is now a small director in a small county in southwest China. He wears square glasses and has a fat belly. He usually does not wear a tie or a suit. He prefers a suit. A green short-sleeved polo shirt, and I also like to tuck the polo shirt into black and wrinkled sweatpants. Lao Zhang never cared about dressing up, but he firmly believed that he had good taste. He often urged me to learn to "dress".

According to my guess, Lao Zhang’s confidence in his own taste may come from the many books he has read. The middle school teacher who taught us to be simple would say, "Only those with empty hearts will pay special attention to their clothes." ”, that’s probably what it means. The most abundant thing in Lao Zhang's house is books. In addition to the three large bookcases, you can find books in any corner of his house, under the sofa cushions, in the seams on the sides of cabinets, and even on shoe racks. When tidying up the home, it is best to What was difficult to deal with was these books. Some were covered in dust, and some were completely folded. Many of these books belong to Lao Zhang. His books come in various types, including novels, collections of essays, collections of poems, and collections of essays. You may find a complete set of "The Qin Empire" in his bookcase and also on his bed. I found a copy of "Mind Reading: How to Persuade Others". A relatively large number of these books were given to him by his writer friends. In small counties, friends in literary circles like to give them to each other once they write books. He also has some writer friends from other places, some of whom are nationally famous. .

Lao Zhang himself also writes books, which mainly cover history and culture. The history and culture in the book are all based on the small place where he lives. This small place has not been sorted out before. history, he sorted it out himself. After this sorting, I found that the small southwest area where I lived was closely related to the famous Silk Road opened during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. So Lao Zhang found a lot of books to read, such as Xu Xiake, Edgar Snow, Zhang Qian … He was very familiar with these people, and he drove his green pickup truck everywhere to look for relevant monuments and evidence. For this reason, he was nicknamed "Zhang Archeology" in the county.

Lao Zhang likes to talk about his youth. He was born in the 1970s and his family was very poor. I heard him say that he didn’t have a pair of shoes until he was in high school. When he was in normal school, he only had a pair of shoes in winter. Wearing a thin sweater may sound a bit exaggerated, but looking at his past photos, he is so thin that his cheeks are sunken. He is what the locals call a "skinny monkey." In high school, he was the president of the school's student union. He never played greedy with others, and led the student union to win the title of "New Long March Commando." Although he was very poor when he was studying, Lao Zhang was very willing to spend money. He went out to work for a whole vacation and earned 50 yuan. When he came back, he bought a set of the four major classics. At that time, there were only two sets in the store; When he was in normal school, there were very few people using bicycles, so he bought one, a second-hand one. The front wheel handle of the bicycle could rotate 360 ??degrees, and there was no brake, so he relied on the foot brake. As soon as he bought the bicycle, many people hitchhiked, and the bicycle gear in front was on One is sitting, one is riding a bicycle, and another is standing behind. Mr. Zhang told me that "money must be earned, not saved." He poured the tea himself, and encouraged me, a "moonlight clan", to open an online store and make tea with him to earn money instead of thinking about it every day. save money.

After graduation, Lao Zhang worked as a Chinese teacher. He still insisted on his view of money. He saved his salary and bought a camera. At that time, cameras were almost exclusive to photo studios. When he bought a camera, he not only Just for my own hobby, I also use this thing to take pictures to make money, develop the negatives myself, and the photo studio charges 80 cents for taking a picture. In addition, my photography skills are good, and the people in the photos are beautiful and natural. Later, the business was booming, and many teachers and classmates at school asked him to take pictures. But what he didn't expect was that many years later, one of the girls would become his significant other.

Now Lao Zhang is always running around with his camera. The Canon 60D camera in his hand is always in automatic mode, and he shoots without adjusting anything. I want to teach him something I can do. He was stubborn as hell and always felt that adjusting the aperture and shutter was "unnatural". He went to take pictures of the magnolias in the temple. He stayed in the temple for several days and climbed the trees to wait for the flowers to bloom. In order to take good photos of the tea leaves, he ran to the tea mountains every three days. In August, the rapeseed flowers bloomed and he got up at seven o'clock to drive. Go to a nearby village. Because the camera is always in automatic mode, his photos are somewhat affected by neutral gray, but the light inside is beautiful, and these beautiful lights are absolutely real, even more beautiful than in the photos. He told me that when the light hits a person's face at seven or eight in the morning or six or seven in the evening, when the shutter is pressed, it will have the same effect as an artistic photo.

Once, Lao Zhang took my mother and him to a viewing point on the mountain in the middle of the night to take pictures of the small town at dawn. Such an experience is unimaginable luxury for many people living in big cities. But in that slow-paced town, this was something that could only be done by one car and one person.

Lao Zhang has also worked as a news reporter for many years. This is the longest job he has done so far, starting before I was born until I was admitted to junior high school.

Being a reporter is hard work. You are always out doing news, so you naturally have less time to go home and spend time with your family. There are a few photos at home, in which the children are looking at the camera strangely. These were taken by Lao Zhang after he returned home after working for a long time. My mother would laugh at Lao Zhang every time she saw them. I didn’t recognize him at that time.

A lot of the manuscripts that Lao Zhang wrote when he was a reporter are still preserved. He cut them out from newspapers and kept them in the old desk drawer in my room. Among them, the one that impressed me the most was, I was writing a press release about a 60-year-old man running a marathon. The opening line seemed to be, "As I get older, I feel more and more like a parked ship." Lao Zhang, a journalist who entered the industry during the heyday of print media, uses these newspapers like fragments of memories to commemorate his days as a media person. Now that Lao Zhang is no longer a reporter, he still remembers some news knowledge. But when the print media collectively sang bad songs, facing the press release I wrote, Lao Zhang said helplessly, "What you are writing now is different from us." ”.

In 2008, Lao Zhang bought a piece of land on the mountain to grow tea. I can’t remember why he started to like tea. In order to grow tea, Lao Zhang bought that green and bulky piece of land. He uses his pickup truck to go to the tea mountains every two days. He uses this pickup truck to transport daily necessities to the tea mountains, pick up tea pickers, and haul tea leaves to the tea factories for sale. Growing tea is not as simple as drinking tea, nor is it the comfortable pastoral atmosphere shown on the screen. When the tea trees are just planted, we need to consider weeding and pest control, when they grow up, they need to build a canopy, and when it is time to pick tea, Worried about the weather, I had to find someone to pick tea. Lao Zhang's tea garden has now grown in size, and the tea trees are growing neatly and densely. When you stand on the mountainside of the tea mountain, the wind will blow with the smell of tea. Friends who visit Lao Zhang's tea mountain always admire it, but few people see it. Ten years ago, this land was a forest that few people set foot on.

After I went to college, I stayed far away from home. I went home for a period of time every winter and summer vacation. Lao Zhang learned to make video calls and make voice calls. Every time I chatted with him, we would chat for a long time. I always said that homework was difficult and tiring. During this period, Lao Zhang planned many activities in that small county, including photography exhibitions, lectures, and tea parties. People come from all over the world. I envy Lao Zhang, it seems that as long as he wants to do something, he can always do it.

Lao Zhang loves to drink tea. Lao Zhang and the small county where he lives are like tea and water, making each other successful. Lao Zhang, my friend, always reminds me to be like a tea picker. , hard-working and down-to-earth.