Appreciation of Zhang Li's Prose Loquat Born in the North

I met loquat for the first time many years ago, and the juice was tasteless.

With the loquat complex, it was my friend who flew back from Kunming with loquat the year before last and conquered my taste buds at once. Since then, I am sure that some things must be tasted locally to be authentic.

Not long ago, Jinling and his party. It is the ripe season of loquat, and it tastes delicious. However, looking for fruit stalls everywhere, there are no loquats. People in Jinling told me that loquat was out of the market.

During the summer solstice, an American article was forwarded in a circle of friends. Loquat with golden green leaves, a pair of silver-haired old people stand side by side in front of the tree. My hometown, a small town in the north, has a kind of loquat, which I can't find for a long time. Tempted by loquat trees, one weekend morning, I took the liberty of knocking on the loquat garden.

A string of loquat, a past event, slowly dripped under the loquat tree in a morning.

The story began 70 years ago.

1949, Zhang Dianxuan, who was less than 20 years old, set out from his hometown as a south cadre of the Yangtze River detachment. It took four months to measure all the way from Hebei to Anxi, Fujian. Climbing Wuyi Mountain is the hottest time of the year. Climbing with heavy load will never be forgotten. Speaking of taking off rubber shoes, the landlord's house stinks, and now the 89-year-old father subconsciously fanned his nose with his hand.

His wife, Zhang Biqing, listened intently to his story and burst out laughing. That smile like a daisy made me feel trance. Looking back, what a lively and beautiful Minnan girl she was. When she met a tall and handsome guy from the north, how they were soul mates and came together across the huge regional differences between the north and the south.

When he was young, Zhang Dianxuan was the deputy magistrate in charge of agriculture in Anxi County, and planting fruit trees was his job. Longan, litchi and mango, these southern fruits, were unheard of by northerners at that time. Zhang Dianxuan will always remember that the loquat he ate for the first time was sent from home by Zhang Biqing's mother.

It was the Dragon Boat Festival, and a string of apricots and loquats were placed in fruit bowls, much like the wheat apricots in my hometown. Zhang Dianxuan picked one and threw it into his mouth. Zhang Biqing was quick-sighted and grabbed the loquat: "You have to peel it." While speaking, I saw her slender fingers flying up and down like water onions, neatly peeling off the soft skin outside the loquat.

Loquat, like an egg yolk with attractive luster, was gently lifted at Zhang Biqing's fingertips and sent to Zhang Dianxuan's mouth. "That loquat is so sweet!" A trace of sweetness has passed between lips and teeth for more than 70 years. He smiled and said, "Loquat is also a precious fruit in the south. With her light, we also ate Huang Jinguo. "

Zhang Biqing's family is a scholarly family, with seven brothers and six college students. She is also a junior college student who graduated from a missionary school and studied nursing. The old man smiled and said that the "college students" in her hometown are the most famous local products, and it is only natural for every parent to sell land for their children to go to school.

Since they left home to study, several brothers and sisters have scattered all over the country. Only in the year when their old father was seriously ill did the seven brothers and sisters get together for the only time. Because of the distance, Zhang Dianxuan's youngest daughter only knows her fourth uncle's family in photos. They said with a smile that they have relatives all over the world.

In the 1970s, with the "going to the countryside" movement, the children of the old couple went back to their hometowns to jump the queue. Zhang Dianxuan dedicated the best youth in 26 years to southern Fujian. Concerned about their children, his family 1974 returned to Hebei. Zhang Biqing, who has never been confused, set foot on the land in the north for the first time, leaving his hometown far behind.

In that era of material shortage, the family moved from the south, and almost everything that was common to us became an insurmountable test for them.

Remember the first light snow after returning to the north. Zhang Biqing wondered why anyone was drying things on such a cloudy day, and what kept falling. When it snowed heavily, she looked at the snowflakes flying all over the sky, and she didn't know what it was. I never thought that snow has so many different forms.

Although Zhang Dianxuan is a northerner, he has lived in the south for many years and is a little unaccustomed to the cold climate in the north. Thin cotton-padded clothes can't resist a tight north wind. On the construction site of Zhuzhuang Reservoir, he just struggled to wave tools and didn't dare to stop.

Honeycomb stove is Zhang Biqing's biggest nightmare after he came to the north. She always can't control the four black coal balls full of holes in the furnace, and can't make them turn red and spit out flames happily. As long as you cook, you have to make a stove, chop wood, newspaper and fan. After some tossing, her white face has long since lost sight of her eyebrows.

Three meals a day are no longer familiar to them, and the stomach accustomed to rice should begin to adapt to noodles and steamed bread. Steaming steamed bread is a technical job, which involves kneading dough, making dough, kneading dough and steaming in a pot. If you are not careful, you can only eat raw steamed bread. Zhang Biqing has been unable to steam a pot of steamed bread. Instead, her youngest daughter, who has just entered middle school, has also developed new skills in steaming steamed bread.

……

No matter how hard the days are, time will not stop and go straight ahead.

One day in early summer more than ten years ago, Zhang Dianxuan, who had retired, rode by the Youth Cinema and saw two vendors pushing a row of cars to sell loquats.

"Oh, it's the first time I've seen a loquat seller!"

"Oh, someone knows this is loquat!"

Both buyers and sellers are surprised by each other. Loquat is very expensive, so Zhang Dianxuan bought two kilograms to go home and let his wife and children taste it for a long time.

On that day, the family was as happy as a holiday. Zhang Biqing felt the smell of mother, and the children tasted the taste of childhood. Excited for a while, everyone remembered to ask where they bought it. Anything else? In the expectant eyes of his wife and daughter, Zhang Dianxuan rode his horse to find a long bus selling loquat, which really made him catch up and bought a few catties.

Feasts are always easy to end. Zhang Dianxuan chose among the remaining stones, selected several big and full seeds and buried them under the north wall of the yard. Loquat likes light and is afraid of cold. This common sense, has been in charge of fruit tree planting "Zhang County" all understand.

Zhang Dianxuan didn't tell his family that in recent years, he always wanted to plant a fruit tree for his wife in his hometown, but many attempts failed. A few years ago, he saw a loquat tree in Xi 'an. At that time, he thought loquat trees could survive in An and should survive in Hebei.

Zhang Biqing found that since the loquat banquet, Lao Zhang has become fond of staying in the yard, always groping under the north wall. Soon, two seedlings arched under the wall. Lao Zhang recognized at a glance that they were two small loquat trees, and the lush appearance reminded him of the tall loquat trees in southern Fujian. The joy of loquat germination did not last long. Zhang Dianxuan knows that winter is a real test for loquat trees.

Loquat is a broad-leaved plant that is evergreen all the year round. That winter, protecting the green leaves of loquat trees became Zhang Dianxuan's biggest task. Loquat shoots are thick, yellow-brown, densely covered with rust-colored or grayish-brown fluff, with leathery, oval leaves and serrated edges. The front of the leaves is bright and wrinkled, and the back is densely covered with brown fluff. Every leaf of the small loquat tree is deeply imprinted in Zhang Dianxuan's heart.

Perhaps it is the shelter from the wind and sun in the yard, and the small loquat tree with thick fingers has survived the winter safely and grown up day by day. It's just that one of these two loquat trees grows taller and taller, and the shade is like a cover, while the other one develops slowly, grows little and never dies. Gradually, an old fig tree in the yard blocked the loquat tree, and Zhang Dianxuan chose the loquat tree without hesitation. This is not only a loquat tree, but also a piece of his heart for his wife, pinning his family's thoughts on Minnan, even if it is only covered with green leaves, it doesn't matter if it will never bear fruit.

In the Tang Dynasty, a scholar who herded sheep once wrote a poem for loquat: "A precious tree began to blossom when it was cold, and its eyes were full of autumn moon. If you are polite, the fragrance will last forever. Blue sea and wind blowing, green branches and snow floating. Urgent enough, spring birds are not happy enough. " Loquat trees do not compete with peaches and plums for spring, just like a slim girl, bearing buds in the late autumn when everything is dying. In the cold winter, when white snow covers its oily green leaves, when all the trees are lush, only the loquat tree is still full of green, the family will always gather around the stove and recall the vivid past in southern Fujian.

Four years ago, loquat trees bore fruit, not many, only a few strings. This is enough to be the biggest happy event of the Zhang family. The next year, golden loquat fruits arrived as scheduled, and several more strings were added. In the third year, there was no loquacity. This year, the loquats covered with trees poked their heads out early and watched them turn from green to yellow day by day. The old people seem to see that their lives have experienced the common life of youth, middle age and four generations of old people.

The 4-year-old baby is always pestering her grandmother to go to her grandfather's house. When they met grandpa, they went to the yard hand in hand to see loquat. "Grandpa, when will the loquat be cooked?" "Grandpa, loquat is so high, how do you pick it?" "Grandpa, the baby wants to give it to the children." Zhang Dianxuan comforted the baby happily and answered his endless questions.

Finally, on the day when the baby was thinking, a dozen people in a large family were called home by grandpa. With the help of his mother, the baby carefully sent the peeled first loquat to grandpa's mouth. Tender, chubby little hand holding an apricot loquat, this shot is familiar. Zhang Dianxuan reached out and took it, feeding it to his wife's mouth: "Try it, is it the same as my hometown?"

The old man specially invited a photographer to take pictures of loquat and take pictures of him and his wife under the loquat tree. The children carefully produced beautiful articles and sent them to the "Yangtze River Second Generation" WeChat group, which aroused everyone's collective memories.

Yes, it's hard to recall the past. Nearly half a century has passed. Now, in Anxi, where Zhang Lao worked, someone gives him "Anxi Tieguanyin" every year. His former colleagues and friends' sons and grandchildren went to Beijing to do business, and all stayed at home to bring gifts to Zhang Lao from Anxi. Minnan people can't forget that Zhang Lao took them to plant fruit trees and tea gardens, and Zhang Lao can't forget the burning years.

"Magnolia blooms in winter and Huang Jinguo blooms in spring". Loquat is the earliest seasonal fruit in the south, and the loquat in Zhanglaoyuan is a whole season later than that in the south. I peeled the loquat gently, and the delicate apricot pulp appeared. Take a bite. It's really sweet. In this way, "oranges are born in Huainan and oranges are born in Huaibei" is not entirely true. As long as the soil, temperature and humidity are suitable and reasonable, miracles will always occur.