I worship all means of transportation and everything that can move by itself and carry people around.
Until 1958, after I "had an accident", after I had published several short stories and completed a novel, and after I had already been a cadre of the Communist Youth League After more than ten years of revolutionary "experience", I once dreamed of changing my career to be a train conductor.
I think the job of a conductor is a magical job. He is always running, even in the middle of the night. Each station is different from the previous station, and newer stations, more novel cities and villages are waiting for him in front. When the sleepy passengers are swaying, when the vast majority of urban and rural residents in our country are sleeping soundly, when the train inspector knocks the wheels and axles with his big and small heads, he, the conductor, is the one who is awake on the train. A guardian, he observes the mountains, river valleys, roads, bridges, and the stars above his head in the dark night. One star was getting farther and farther away from him, but the other star was blinking at him, welcoming his approach.
The most important thing is that he has a space and distance several times, dozens of times, hundreds and thousands of times larger than you and me, and he has so many times more life. Isn’t it true that there are still people who never leave their villages, and who refuse, dare, and beg for nothing to leave the urban area where they live? To others, those place names that are far away, unbelievable, scary or surprising, to the conductor, aren't they like the front and back of his house?
As for boats, as of the 1980s, real boats only appeared in my dreams, the songs I loved to sing, and the childish paintings of my childhood.
Once upon a time, when I was a young man,
my hair was not white yet and I was strong,
I thought about sailing day and night,
sailing across the ocean. The sea,
but the sea breeze makes me sad,
the waves make me sad.
Ah...
I am so annoyed by the splashing water in my hometown.
I don’t know who composed the music, who wrote the lyrics, and who translated this song. The lyrics are obviously old and stiff in translation, but how moved I was by this song.
In the early days of liberation, I read a novel "Ten Years of Turmoil" which described the ideological transformation of intellectuals. At the end of the novel, the protagonist, who had been transformed for ten years, suddenly felt moved when he heard this song. ...This proves that there are still many things he needs to transform.
How interesting, it proves that this song is indeed powerful.
When I was in elementary school, one homework class assignment was to fold a paper boat. I folded it again and again, and the more I tried to fold it, the less I could do it. The boat was like a small wooden boat from the south of the Yangtze River, with a canopy on each side to protect it from the rain. I wonder if it is the awning boat described by Mr. Lu Xun. I finally didn't finish my paper boat, and I burst into tears. I watched helplessly as my classmates sailed through the wind and waves with their homemade boats, but I couldn't build a boat.
It seems that an elder gave me a high-end toy boat later. The hull is made of metal and painted with colorful paint. Use a match to light the "engine" of the ship, and the ship can sail.
I brought a large basin of water, and my excitement was like Columbus about to sail to the New World or Magellan about to sail around the earth. The "engine" finally lit up, and the churning sound lasted for five seconds, and the ship "sailed" five centimeters. There was a pop, and the machine broke. From then on, it became a ship that lost power, could not move, and A dead ship that can't even spin. The great dreams of Columbus and Magellan were shattered.
Later the boat disappeared. Was it rusty? broken? Throw it away? Lost? I can't remember clearly.
Finally, I can’t remember whether the sad story of the great voyage here is true or whether it is my own fiction. People who write novels are also retributive, always making up stories one after another to earn (not to mention "cheating") the tears and smiles of readers. In the end, they may just make up their own stories in a daze. .
After the founding of the People's Republic of China and before "something happened" to me, my boats were small yachts in the Beihai and Shichahai. The members of the Communist Youth League that I "led" and I often spent group days there and went boating. I think my rowing skills are very good. I can make hard turns, row with both hands at the same time, and row with two hands staggered. I can row with two oars in one direction or in the opposite direction.
Comrades who have been to the South ridiculed the cruise ships in the North Sea as "gua-skin boats". I was not convinced when I heard this. So what about the Guapi boat? We are thinking about the whole of China and the world revolution.
My song flies across the ocean,
My love, don’t be sad,
The country sends us to the sea,
to set off Shocking storm.
This is a Soviet song that members of the Communist Youth League love to sing. We no longer sing "The sea breeze makes me sad, the waves make me sad". We are the generation that will make huge waves.
Later, the dinghy capsized, and it turned out to be nothing more than a dinghy. Later I came to Hanhai. There is also the title "Ship of the Desert", which refers to the camel. In the vast sea of ??New China, there are not only camels, but also ox carts, horse-drawn carriages, trains, and automobiles.
Not only can trains move overnight, but in Xinjiang, cars sometimes run overnight. At half past two in the evening, the driver was so tired that he jumped out of the car, lay down on the sand and gravel Gobi, spread out his limbs, and slept until midnight. On, turn it on again. Of course, it was summer. I have ridden in such a car, like a boat drifting on the vast sea.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that I developed an inseparable bond with boats on the sea, rivers, land (cars) and in the sky (airplanes). At that time, our big ship, the People's Republic of China, was already sailing on a new, much broader, smoother and more open channel.
The most unforgettable thing was the trip to the South China Sea. There were lifeboats, transport boats, gunboats, submarine hunting boats and torpedo speedboats. We stood on the command podium with our naval comrades and sang Liu Bang's "The Great Wind Song", splitting the The South China Sea sparkled like purple satin, surrounded by seagulls and flying fish, and inspired by the August 1st military flag fluttering in the wind, sailing around the South China Sea and the Xisha Islands, sailing again and again. What's wrong with seasickness? What's the point of vomiting? Why does it matter if the wind and waves are rocking at 45 degrees? That is the scalding ship of life of a patriotic man, the ship of passion, the ship of victory that rides the wind and waves. People stand on such a boat, and the whole of China is in the hearts of people on such a boat.
Is it a little late? When I was nearly fifty years old, I began to understand another kind of ship that was not as fragile as the ship in the dream, not as graceful and small as the ship in the park, not as clumsy and slow as the ship in the desert, huge. , strong, brave, brave the wind, run into the sea, move forward bravely and calmly.
Today, I am on a ship on the Yangtze River. It's sunny after the rain, and spring is like wine, with pink flowers and green willows, criss-crossing streets, gulls flying, and a gentle breeze. The boat is smooth, comfortable and serene. This is a mature river march. The old boatman told me that he had been working on river ships for forty-five years.
But the engine does not dare to slack off. The engine works non-stop, excitedly, carefully and sometimes even angrily. The people in charge of the ship are so cautious and experienced. They drive the whole boat. The boat moves forward.