An essay expressing longing for hometown

1. "Hometown Is Far Away" by Zhang Kangkang

I always feel like a wanderer.

For decades, I have been wandering around the world. I've walked through fields, through cities, I've been to many, many places.

Where do I come from? Where is my hometown, my hometown?

I don’t know.

I left Hangzhou when I was 19 years old. The shore of the West Lake, with its sparkling water and empty mountains, is my birthplace. Luoshe, a small town in the south of the Yangtze River, a hundred miles away from Hangzhou by waterway, is my grandmother's home.

However, I am just a passerby in Hangzhou, and my ancestral home is in Xinhui, Guangdong. When I was 30 years old, my parents and I returned to my hometown in Guangdong.

My hometown has emerald rivers, dense sugar cane forests and the mysterious and quiet Banyan Tree Island. As the sun set, I saw the white stork with its large wings and long neck, and the gray stork circling back to its nest in a hurry. The sky above the huge banyan forest blocked out the sun, and the sound of birds filled the air. That is the world-famous bird paradise. Xinhui County has always been known as the hometown of sunflower. On the green waves of the river, a string of slender boats loaded with fragrant sunflower leaves, sailing heavily against the water, go far away...

But my hometown is my home. , but there is no sense of hometown anymore. No one knew me, and I didn't really know anyone. I can't even speak a complete and authentic dialect of my hometown. My father and I, who left home early in life, are like abandoned children who have been exiled. In the unfamiliar local accent, we are confusedly searching for and identifying the roots that this land has left for us.

What often appears in my dreams are the lotus ponds and lotus ponds in the south of the Yangtze River, the purple and sour-sweet mulberries in the green mulberry fields in spring, the golden and bright grapefruits in autumn, and the glutinous rice dumplings and glutinous rice dumplings that fill the halls during the New Year in winter. Dried fish, and a pot of fragrant boiled taro...

During the summer and winter holidays, I took a small steamer to my grandma's house in Luoshe Town. There is a big stone bridge at the east end of the town. In summer, many naked children dive from the bridge pier into the river. The small river is connected to the vast Luo She Yang. I once washed rice under the bridge, and the bamboo basket was dripping with water. When I picked it up, there was a small fish jumping on the pearly white rice...

But grandma had already passed away. When grandma left, she took her hometown with her. In fact, my grandmother is not from Zhejiang. I heard that my grandma’s ancestors were from Danyang, Jiangxi, and they moved to Luo She in Deqing. I also heard that Luo She was named because there was a group of immigrants here from Luoyang in the early years. The house of Luoyang people was called Luo She. From this point of view, it is difficult to verify the ancestral origin of my grandmother and grandfather. What is the small town in Jiangnan that I have always dreamed of as my hometown?

So for the city of Hangzhou where I was born and raised, there is There was a vague estrangement and suspicion. Naturally, I like the softness and indifference of the West Lake, the green grass in the botanical garden and the intoxicatingly fragrant smiling flowers in spring, and the green bamboos and lush camphor trees all over the mountains in winter... But they are just ribbons and embellishments on my cradle. , I admire them and praise them but they disdain me.

Where do I come from?

More often, I will contemplate the distant land of ice and snow, and think of the blue Xiaoxing'anling mountains shrouded in mist. . Walking into the mountains through knee-deep snow, the unfrozen mountain springs in the shrubbery are singing happily. Occasionally, warm springs overflow down the slope, sealing the tower heads in the low-lying areas like crystals, and you can see under the ice. Green grass like jasper.

On a windless day in the mountains, a small amount of snow drifts gently and slowly in the quiet oak forest, falling on the headscarf. Your gift. If you close your eyes, you can hear the sound of snowflakes kissing the leaves. That was the first time in my 21-year-old life that I discovered that the falling snow made sounds, like silkworms sipping leaves or babies sucking breasts, and their sounds were affectionate.

We lived in tents at that time, and the stoves were burning with thick wooden sticks all night long, rumbling like a forest train or a tractor in a forest farm, and there was always the sound of ice avalanches coming from the foot of the mountain...

The morning in the mountain forest is quiet and charming. The forest tips on the slope are a touch of rose red, the lavender smoke is lingering, and the white snow in front of the door is imprinted with the unknown little girl who has quietly come in the night. The animal's ribbon-like footprints can be identified carefully, like plum blossoms, willow tops, and question marks. They wind clearly and chaotically in the snowfield, disappearing into the depths of the dense forest...

Those mysterious ones The forest dwellers gave me an incomparable sense of intimacy that once made me wonder whether I should stay here.

The small footprints floating on the boundless snowy wilderness are just like our wandering and turbulent youth.

When I was 19 years old, I left Hangzhou, my birthplace, and headed for the distant and cold Beidahuang.

At that time, I missed my West Lake day and night. My hometown was in the warm south.

But now I know that I no longer have a hometown. We are always walking, sowing seeds that can grow all over the world as we go. We adapt to circumstances and take root; once we arrive, we are settled and our home is all over the world. We are like a group of nomads in a new era, a group of wandering immigrants with no destination. Maybe I have traveled to too many places and have too many second homes.

However, in the suffocating summer in the city, I still always think of the wilderness in the north, the land where the blood and sweat of our youth have been blended. Everything there is rough and rustic. Twenty years of sun and moon have tempered me, a fragile Jiangnan woman, into a pliable and solid person. In the days to come, I may continue to wander, looking for and creating my own spiritual home in this huge and tiny world.

2. Hometown

There are children chasing each other in the fields of my hometown, running freely in the wind, playing hide-and-seek in the vast sea of ??golden wheat, and playing with old eagles on the endless grass. Catching chickens; after the harvest, the farm uncle weaves cute scarecrows out of withered wheat; sparrows fly over the fields looking for rice, and naughty children chase the hungry sparrows and play in the fields of their hometown.

In the fields of my hometown, there are golden waves of wheat. Small insects flutter their wings and linger on the endless fields. Birds sing harvest songs and hover in the blue sky, enjoying the golden autumn. During the harvest season, farm uncles wear straw hats and harvest silently under the scorching sun. The ruthless sun has changed their skin from dark yellow to bronze, but it has also given them a strong backbone.

The crowing of chickens breaks the quiet morning light of my hometown. The village is shrouded in layers of fog, giving it a hazy beauty; the black chimneys are haloed, and the smell of cooking smoke permeates the mountains and rivers of my hometown. , I don’t know which good woman got up early before dawn to light a fire to cook for her husband. The crystal clear pearls in the morning were like a white mirror shining brightly in the dim light of the sun, reflecting the face of the hard-working lady.

The wind from my hometown gently touches the branches, and the sweet-scented osmanthus is scattered in an orderly manner. The fragrance of sweet-scented osmanthus floats in every corner of the village, lingering in the sky above the rows of tile-roofed houses.

When I resolutely left my hometown with longing, bid farewell to the land where I was born and raised, came to the bustling city with shining neon lights, and looked forward to my own shining starry sky. But I don’t understand why every lonely night, I think of the life in my hometown; I think of my relatives who love me, and whether they will miss me at the window under dim light when I miss them.

Whenever I am alone in the dead of night, looking at my hometown at the end of the sky, I can't help but sing the songs of my hometown and think of the people in my hometown.

What I miss is the warmth under the lights of my hometown, which is the greatest warmth in my life. I don’t know whether it was from the time when I was ignorant, but my grandma has always been by my side. When I was a child, I fell asleep comforted by the lullabies hummed by my grandma; during the season when the sweet-scented osmanthus was fragrant, my grandma would shake the osmanthus flowers with me and make sweet osmanthus cakes for me. That sweetness will stay in my mouth for a lifetime.

Grandma under the candlelight sewed my torn clothes. Through the candlelight, the silent power of the years has changed my clothes; the corners of the eyes are deep, the face has wrinkles, and the face is curved and convex. waist, stumbling. I secretly counted the white hair on my grandma's head in the candlelight, and inadvertently shed an inexplicable tear.

The warmth under the light, the grandma in the candlelight; you are my concern, you are the light on my way forward, no matter the road ahead is full of thorns or mirage, I will carry your love with me, Walking through the desolate autumn, through the biting winter, and towards the spring when the flowers bloom undefeated.

In the evening in my hometown, the red fire clouds reflected the small village, and the bright light of the sunset illuminated the way back from fishing on the river.

Maybe you will also think of the floating clouds in your hometown when you are confused. Maybe you will also sing the warm Nanniwan in your hometown after being hurt by betrayal. When dusk sets in, I want to return to my hometown. No matter how far we go or how glorious we are, we are like the kite string tightly held in the heavy hands of our hometown, and we will never wander to a foreign land and live in exile.

When our shoulders carry the unbearable weight of life, please don’t be afraid of confusion, please don’t put down your bags on your shoulders, look at the guiding light in front of you, and keep moving forward. No matter how many turns you have to go through in the future, please don’t forget the way home.

I want to put everything in my hometown into my pocket, so that I can feel the warmth of my hometown all the time.

I never care about the so-called happiness in the eyes of others. I only want to protect the brick-by-brick house in my hometown, which contains my memories. The rainbow painted by me hangs on the wall. The kites I flew when I was a child, the paper airplanes I folded on my desk, the gramophone my grandma used to listen to flower operas, my dreams, my fairy tales, and my warmth.

Sing songs about hometown, talk about things in hometown, dream about hometown, embrace the sunny weather in hometown, miss relatives in hometown, put hands together to bless our hometown.

My hometown is a song that warms my chest. The songs of my hometown are as pure as water, as passionate as fire, as bright as flowers, resounding through the sky, and warming my dreams.

3. Looking back at my hometown

At midnight, I brewed a cup of fragrant coffee. As the coffee simmered, my fingertips flew quickly on the keyboard, and I thought My beautiful hometown - a beautiful water town in the Lixiahe area of ??northern Jiangsu.

The tranquil Haichi River, the antique Eight-Character Bridge, the scenic Water Forest Park, and the still charming Laosha Gou all the time make me wet my clothes with tears and fly away to my hometown. Thinking back to my childhood, I walked on the mossy bluestone road and passed through quiet alleys. I followed my mother to wash the sheets under the Beizhan Bridge. I went to the beautiful Duotian for spring outing with my classmates, and walked to Wujindang to fly a kite.

After living in a city for a long time, it is inevitable that you will be assimilated in terms of language. I was born and raised in northern Jiangsu, a true northern Jiangsu native. Although I have stayed outside for ten years, my pronunciation is still good. There is still a strong local accent.

My daughter has lived in Nanjing since she was a child. When I was two years old, I was transferred to another place to work, so she was entrusted to my mother-in-law to take care of her. She did not return to me until she was five years old. The local accent that my daughter had when she first came here has now disappeared. Now she speaks standard Nanpu dialect (Nanjing-style Mandarin). She occasionally goes back to her hometown to listen to the faster Northern Jiangsu dialect, but she still doesn’t understand it. She has learned to speak her hometown dialect, and even more It's so weird, it makes me heartbroken.

When I return to my hometown with my daughter, I will take her everywhere. Visit the places where I used to live, study, and work. I took my daughter to the Xinhua Kindergarten (Yuanlaofu) where I went to school when I was a child. The famous Yuanlaofu has been renovated. The two heavy doors of the Xinhua Kindergarten when I was a child still exist. The copper door frame has not changed at all. A new coat of vermilion paint was applied. I pointed to the high threshold and told my daughter that my mother went to kindergarten there when she was very young. Once after school, she didn’t raise her feet and tripped over the threshold. Her whole forearm rubbed against the ground, and her tender arms were scratched. The skin, bloody and bloody, still has marks.

I took my daughter through the Confucian Street covered with moss and green cobblestones, walked through Shangyuan Lane with green bricks and tiles, and came to the most prosperous Pailou Road in my hometown, where the highest university in our hometown was. , county. I told my daughter that her mother graduated from elementary school by only two points and missed this campus. But my mother took the exams there when she was promoted from primary school to junior high school and from junior high school to junior high school. This was the campus that my mother yearned for and the goal she strived for. Unfortunately, due to urban planning, the county has been relocated, leaving only some traces of the past. I walked around the ancient trees left behind after demolition in the old county, looking up at the thick and leafy branches. I wonder if the big tree still remembers that there was a fair-skinned man with a thin figure on the boulevard in the county. girl, walking in a hurry on her way to take the exam.

In the evening more than ten years ago, there was often a woman with long hair and plain clothes sitting by the beautiful Haichi River, reading a book or staring at the water, watching the river rise. layer upon layer of ripples, watching the sunset gradually go to the west at dusk, watching the wild ducks playing in the river, that girl is the me before. After experiencing an emotional turmoil, I would walk around the Haichi River every morning or evening. Only when I saw the rippling blue waves of the river and watched the gurgling river water lapping against the embankment on the shore, my heart Only when your emotions are calm can you get a moment of peace, without all distracting thoughts, and enjoy the beauty of nature. The sunset accompanied me year after year, until I left my hometown and traveled far away.

Although the beautiful scenery of my hometown makes me forget to leave, there are too many memories that trouble me during those years of living in my hometown. When I lived there, I always looked forward to leaving there as soon as possible, looking forward to leaving all the complexity and complexity. I once traveled between several cities, where firecrackers were blasting and families were reunited. I would rather be far away from home. Eating instant noodles and enduring the loneliness and cold, I didn't want to go back to my hometown. I hated it there and I was afraid that I would be touched by the scene. But time is the best medicine for healing. After many years, those tangled memories have faded away. My homesickness complex is getting stronger and stronger. The tranquility and comfort of the small town make me want to stop and rest when I am tired of running around. Every time I go home for vacation, I always feel that the time is too short. When I sit in the car returning to my hometown, I always feel that the road is too long. When I return to my parents, I always feel that there is so much to say.

My parents, who are over seventy years old, count down the days every day when they hear that I will come home. When I set foot on the land of my hometown and called them, my father would go straight downstairs to wait for me, and my mother, who was weak on her legs and feet, would hold on to the door frame and keep looking around. When my daughter sees her grandpa from a distance, she will definitely give him a big hug. The family came in chatting and laughing. The eldest sister and sister-in-law had prepared a sumptuous dinner for me. But every time when the holidays come and I go back to Nanjing to say goodbye to my parents, my mother always bursts into tears. I hold back the tears and comfort my mother with a smile. Go home often. This is what my father said most every time he sent me off.

In spring, what I think most about is the weeping willows in my hometown; in summer, what I think about most is the people holding cattail fans on Beishuiguan Bridge to cool off; in autumn, what I think most about is the falling trees on the archway. sycamore leaves; in winter, what I think about most are the frozen nails hanging under the eaves.