Li Li was born in a small village in Northeast China in the winter of 1978. This village is called Lijiazhuang. What kind of village is that? It's similar to a peanut shell, surrounded by mountains, and the terraces on the hillside are like the patterns on the peanut shells. There is only one road to the county seat. Although the mountain is not high, it is enough to bring a sense of security to the villagers, but of course it also brings a lack of information. Land is the lifeblood of the villagers. There is a rare piece of black land in front of Li Li's house. This is the best land in the village and has been contracted to different families. Corn, soybeans, sorghum, yellow rice, and sweet potatoes are planted in the crop fields almost every year. Those are other people's products. Li Li's father is a person with extremely strong patriarchal ideas. What he believes are all natural principles. He thinks those fine grains are a waste of land. So as long as Li Li can remember, her parents have never grown these things. Occasionally, shecan eat rhubarb rice, bean flour rolls, and sweet potatoes, all of which her mother got from doing handicrafts for relatives and friends.
Occasionally, tomatoes were planted in the middle of the black soil. They were the most delicious fruit in Li Li's memory. As for why tomatoes are planted in the middle of the earth, it is said to prevent thieves.
It is said that there is coal in the back mountain, and in her memory it seems that there was mining for matchmaking. But I don't know why it stopped. There are less than 80 households in the village, and they are built next to a river that passes through the small village. They used to be made of dirt and straw, but now most of them are made of bricks and tiles.
The source of this river is a small stream in the mountains. The more it flows, the more it flows, and eventually it forms a river. Even though the river is small, there is also a flood season, which is similar to a woman's menstrual period. It comes and goes regularly. Every year in July and August, there will be knee-deep water. The neighbor's second girl once washed her feet by the river and was washed out two meters by the water. This has left a shadow on Li Li since she was a child, so whenever the water rises, she hides far away. Whenever it rains heavily and the water rises, the river becomes so turbid that almost all the garbage is carried away. After a few days, the water in the river will become clear. This is also the time for the eldest girl, the younger daughter-in-law and the old woman to wash their clothes and quilts. At this time, many large stones will appear along the river. Sometimes they are brought down by the river water above, and sometimes they are reserved by thoughtful people. That's a natural washboard. To judge whether a house is clean or not, just look at whether the quilt is a clear color or a gray color.
Winter and spring are basically dry seasons. Occasionally, something like a yurt will be built up, and children can skate on it. Generally speaking, this river is formed by mountain streams. The water flow is not large, and naturally it cannot take away domestic garbage, all kinds of garbage, such as pesticide bottles, medicine bottles, cheap cosmetic bottles, sanitary napkins, and old clothes. , torn cotton wool are hanging on both sides of the river bank. Li Li's family lives downstream, and there are people upstream who wash children's mats and empty urinals. But Li Li's mother, Li Li's grandma, and Li Li's grandma washed clothes, potatoes, onions, and painted the curtains of big cakes in this river. It makes me sick just thinking about it. But she can't complain to anyone, otherwise she will be considered to have forgotten her roots, become a mess, and her hair is flying. Although the villagers themselves are very poor, they don't want others to look down on them. Especially those who have been in the same village before, they do not allow anyone who has done well to look down on them in the slightest. The river is clear only in the morning, and occasionally small fish swim in it, and occasionally it becomes food for ducks and geese. When Li Li was a child, she would always take her little yellow cat with her, catch fish by the river, and feed it.
There is an old well in front of Li Li's house. It is the ancestor of tap water. It is the kind of well that has existed in rural China since the Warring States Period. It must have been a spring at first. Then, Grandpa Li Li and a few young people dug a hole together and used stones to build the walls. The water was turbid at first, but it became clean after a while. However, when it rains continuously in the summer, the water will become turbid, almost like yellow mud soup. Li Li and her sisters grew up drinking this water. Fortunately, they didn't have any stomach upset. This kind of well is usually covered with a stone slab, or simply left open. The biggest disadvantage is that bad people can poison it, but in Li Li's memory, it doesn't seem to have happened. Pesticides were not so popular at that time, mainly because people's hearts were not so bad. Occasionally, this kind of old well will be a place where people who can't think of it can take their own lives. In the old evil society, sinking people into wells was also an abusive form of lynching. Slowly this kind of old well withdrew from the stage of history. It was replaced by Yangjing. At first glance, the name seemed to be a foreign thing. There is a steel well head that uses the principle of leverage to lift water up. This is close to semi-automation. In winter, hot water must be heated to warm the cake and press the water up. Li Li's mother's house still uses this kind of well!
Every house on the river bank has a firewood pile. Every autumn, Li Li, her mother, and sisters use sickles to cut the yellowing wormwood. Pick up the corn stalks, pull out the wooden piles, bundle them and stack them together to create a firewood stack. The size and height of the firewood pile can indicate whether the family is living well. It is said that when going on a blind date, the woman's parents will take a second look at the firewood pile at the man's house. Li Li's family is ruined. Her father does not work all year round, and Li Li's mother is alone. How energetic can this old woman be? There are stacks of firewood lying here and there. Fortunately, no one laughed at her. Everyone knows about Li Li's father's wicked character.
But one year there was a flood and the pile of firewood in Li Li's house was washed away, causing Li Li's mother to lead the three girls to collect firewood for another month. The pile of firewood is deep in Li Li's memory as a hot stove and a big iron pot. Of course, there are also long insects in the pile of firewood, such as pheasant necks (a very dangerous poisonous snake).
Speaking of the heated ondol in the north, it is said that South Korea applied for an intangible cultural heritage. In Li Li's opinion, almost all beds are not as good for health as a heated bed. The best fire pit is one made of mud. Later, people used jade slabs (cement slabs) to build a kang, which made it hot and cool quickly. Your stomach will hurt in the middle of the night and you will have diarrhea at dawn. The position of the head of the family is always on the kang head. Some people set up a brazier at the head of the kang. They picked out charcoal from the stove pit and put it in a discarded enamel basin. It could be used to bake hands. It was similar to the later hot water bottles and Nuanbao.
Li Li's father's position is at the end of Li Li's kang, which is always covered with the thickest, newest and cleanest mattress. In winter, there is no brazier at Li Li's home. Grandma Li Li's house had a brazier. Grandma died early and was gone since 60. Could it be that the brazier contained carbon monoxide? Is it bad for the human body? Li Li thinks about it from time to time.
Li Li's house didn't have any decent furniture. When I was a kid, I had a wooden cabinet with glass and two doors. The words "Prepare for war and prepare for famine for the people" and "Serve the people wholeheartedly" are written on the glass. It sounds funny to read now, but back then, it was a social buzzword! Just like the current "rat tail". Li Li hates the dish rack at home. It is said to be a dish rack, but it is actually a cube cabinet. When you open the cabinet door, there is always a bowl of reddish-brown soybean paste, a bowl of cucumbers or chili pickles soaked in a sauce vat. If it's summer, there will also be a handful of peeled green onions. I just peeled off the skin and never washed it. Li Li washed her twice, but was scolded by her father: "Why wash? Look at the clean ones for you, they don't even smell of onions anymore." Li Li didn't wash them anymore. I disliked the stolen goods, so I secretly washed two of them. Who would annoy a drunkard over a handful of green onions?
Green onions and red peppers are just the right side dishes for Li Li's father. Of course, life became easier after I started working alone. Li Li's dad has a lot of dishes to go with the wine, including scrambled eggs. When they were children, Li Hong, Li Na and Li Li could only be rewarded with a piece of scrambled eggs when their father was in a good mood.
Later, Li Li's father's snacks included fried peanuts and cold cucumbers. Later, there were roast duck, pork head meat, and cold shredded tripe. Sometimes Li Li's father said while drinking: "In those days, your master would eat dead cats and rotten dogs without food and wine." Li Li never believed that the master would eat dead cats and rotten dogs just to drink. She didn't understand why men wanted to drink while women kept serving men in a humble manner. She once asked: "Mom, why are you so afraid of my dad? He beats you, but you still feed him and serve him."
Li Li's mother hugged the child in her arms: "Silly girl, he is your father. If there are a hundred people who are not, don't say that again, be careful he beats you. Didn't I do it for you?" Li Li didn't Made a sound. She didn't think that her mother stayed at this home just for the sake of the three sisters. She could take the three of them to other places. That way, you don't have to serve this lazy, greedy, bad-tempered man who is prone to domestic violence. Li Li's mother always believed that a home is a home where there are men and women. Rather than being bullied by a bunch of men, it's better to be bullied by one man. As for men doting on women, loving women, and feeling sorry for women, she had never dared to think about it. Maybe it was only in novels!
Speaking of food rations, villagers eat corn all year round. You can beat corn into flour. At first, only one layer of skin is peeled off. Later, when there is no shortage of food, the corn will peel off two or even three layers of skin. The old people lamented: "The food eaten by animals now is better than that eaten by people in 1960." Li Li's mother and Li Li's grandmother can bake pancakes with cornmeal. Just mix the cornmeal with water, let it ferment, and then put the pot stickers on it. At the same time, boil some potato soup in the big pot, or stew some sauerkraut, potatoes, eggplants, or something like that. Just one meal.
Looking back now, Li Li will find it very delicious, but when she was a child, she ate these corn pancakes every day and was bored to death. Corn can also be ground into soup noodles, which are also fermented, and then a small iron piece is used to make a finger-thick ring. The noodles are held in the palm of the hand, squeezed out from the iron ring, and thrown into boiling hot water. By the time you finish shaking off the noodles, the soup strips will be cooked. Paired with a bowl of farmhouse miso, it is also a good meal. But at that time, it was torture to eat this all the time without eating meat.
In addition to cornmeal, villagers also grow soybeans and sorghum. Sorghum can be used to make wine, but when food is scarce, who will use it to make wine? It is cooked directly and poured with cold water from a well. It is sorghum rice with rice and some potatoes and eggplants. It is really delicious. As an adult, every time Li Li returns to the village, she always asks her mother to make the same coarse food she had when she was a child. The news media even featured her on this. But Li Li can no longer taste the same taste as before.