The preface of "Old Story in the South of the City" Original:
The camel team came and stopped in front of my house.
They stand in a long line, waiting for people's arrangement. The weather is dry and cold. The camel puller took off his felt hat, and his head was steaming. It was a white smoke that melted into the dry and cold air.
Dad is bargaining with him. On the humpback of Shuangfeng, each horse carries two sacks of coal. The camel puller said that they came from Mentougou, and they and camels came step by step.
Dad made a bargain with him. People are unloading coal and camels are eating grass. I stood in front of camels and watched them chew: such an ugly face, such long teeth, such a quiet attitude. When they chew, their upper and lower teeth grind alternately, with hot air in their big nostrils and foam sticking to their beards. I was stunned and my teeth moved.
the teacher taught me to learn from camels and be calm. See it never in a hurry, walk slowly, and it will always arrive; Chew slowly and you will always be full. The leading horse always has a bell tied under its long neck. When it walks, it will ring clang, clang and clang.
"Why do you tie a bell?" I have to ask what I don't understand.
Dad told me that the camel was afraid of the wolf and put on the bell. When the wolf heard the sound of the bell, he dared not invade.
My childish mind is full of different ideas from adults. I said to my father, "No, Dad! Their soft soles walked on the soft desert without a sound. Didn't you say that they walked for three days and three nights without drinking a sip of water, but quietly chewed the food poured out of their stomachs? It must be the camel puller who couldn't bear the long and lonely journey, so he put a bell on the camel and added some fun to the road. "
Dad thought about it, smiled and said, "Maybe your idea is more beautiful."
Winter is almost over, and spring is coming. The sun is so warm that people want to take off their cotton-padded jackets. Isn't it? The camel has also taken off its old camel hair robe! Its fur fell off its body in chunks and hung under its belly. I really want to take a pair of scissors to cut them, because they are too untidy. The same is true of the camel pullers, who also took off their sheepskin and put it on the small peak on the camel's back. The sack is empty, and the bell rings more clearly in the relaxed pace.
Summer came, and there was no sign of camels. I asked my mother again, "Where are they going in summer?"
"who?"
"Camels!"
Mom couldn't answer. She said,
"Always ask, always ask, you child!"
summer passed, autumn passed, winter came again, camel team came again, but childhood was gone forever. I won't do the stupid thing of learning camel chewing in the winter sun again. However, how much I miss the scenery and people who lived in the south of Beijing as a child! I said to myself, write them down. In this way, I wrote a book "Old Things in the South of the City".
I thought silently and wrote slowly. I saw the camel team coming under the winter sun and heard the slow and pleasant camel bell. Childhood is back in my mind.
Old Things in the South of the City is the representative work of Taiwan Province woman writer Lin Haiyin. This work tells a story about Eiko's childhood through her childish eyes, reflecting the author's nostalgia for childhood and the south of Beijing.
Main story:
In the late 192s, a six-year-old girl named Lin Yingzi lived in a small alley in the south of Beijing. Xiuzhen, a "crazy" woman who often stands in the alley looking for her daughter, is a friend of Eiko. Xiuzhen once fell in love with a college student, Sikang, and later Sikang went back to his hometown and never came back. Xiuzhen's daughter, Xiao Guizi, was sent to the foot of the city wall by her family and disappeared. Eiko was very sympathetic to her, so she promised to help Xiuzhen find Xiaoguizi.
Eiko inadvertently found that the girl's life experience is very similar to that of Xiao Guizi, and found the green mark on the back of her neck, so she quickly took her to Xiuzhen. Xiuzhen took the girl to find her father immediately after recognizing her daughter who had been separated for six years. But in the end, both mother and daughter died under the train while catching the train. Eiko had a high fever and was in a coma for ten days, almost losing her life. Later, Eiko's family moved to Xinlan Hutong. Eiko met a young man with thick lips in a nearby desert garden.
in order to provide for his younger brother's education, he had to steal things. Eiko thinks he is very kind, but he can't tell whether he is a good person or a bad person. Soon, Eiko found a small bronze Buddha on the grass, and was found by plainclothes policemen, who brought patrol officers to take the young man away. This made Eiko very sad because he lost a friend. Later, Aunt Lan came to Eiko's house. Eiko found that her father had a wrong attitude towards Aunt Lan. Eiko thought of a way to introduce Aunt Lan to Uncle Dexian. Later, they fell in love with each other and finally they left together in a carriage.
When Eiko was nine years old, her nanny Song Ma's husband came to Lin's house. Eiko was very sad when she learned that Song Ma's son was drowned two years ago and her daughter was given to a three-wheeled couple without children by her husband. She didn't understand why Song Ma left her children to wait on others. Later, Song Ma was picked up by her husband with a little donkey. Finally, Eiko's father died of lung disease. Eiko realized her responsibility because of her father's departure and felt that she had grown up.
Old Things in the South of the City was written by Lin Haiyin with his life from 7 to 13 years old as the background. During the occupation of Taiwan Province by Japanese imperialism, the Lin Haiyin family refused to live under the Japanese aggressors' iron hoof and moved to Beijing, where Xiaoying grew up. Seeing the camel team coming under the winter sun and hearing the slow and pleasant bell, childhood came back to the author's mind. Summer passed, autumn passed, winter came again, and the camel team came again, but childhood never returned. Because the author missed the scenery and characters when he lived in the south of Beijing as a child, he wrote them down, so that the actual childhood passed and the childhood of the soul survived forever. This is the original intention of Lin Haiyin in writing this novel.