Editor's note: With the changes of the times, the countryside has become a distant past in our memory. However, the heatable adobe sleeping platform that once gave us warmth in childhood is still fascinating to think of. In fact, it gives us not only infinite warmth in our young bodies, but also family comfort and local feelings hidden in the depths of our souls, which is our spiritual recognition and refuge for the land and villages. (Editor: Xin Feng)
On the one hand, the hot kang is warm and warm
Yang Xiaoyun
The age is getting longer and the conditions are getting better. Regarding the cold, the winter is like the Spring Festival, which always makes people feel that they lack some childhood simplicity and charm, and that exclusive and unique memory will never be there again. I will never forget the winter village in my hometown that is slightly depressed but not yet angry, the rural soil playground full of heavy snow, the thick cotton-padded clothes and trousers sewn by my grandmother, and the solid and comfortable heatable adobe sleeping platform.
after staying in the greenhouse for a long time, people gradually become numb, lazy and tired. Even gives birth to a bit boring. Just like a comfortable life, it is always easy to forget hardships and tribulations. Like bees addicted to honey jars, they have long been reluctant to miss the fragrance of flowers and the pleasure of collecting honey. The mediocrity and freedom of boiling frogs in warm water make us not only lose the joy of experiencing a full life, but also forget gratitude and nostalgia.
I was born in a barren mountain village on the Weibei Plateau in the 198s. But all my good memories come from childhood, from the change of spring, summer, autumn and winter in that land, the change of birth, illness and death. Winter goes and spring comes, and the years go by. Red things are white things, and everyone has a crop. It seems that everything has changed, but nothing has changed about the world. Perhaps, this is that every village in China has its own temperament and personality.
This year's winter is a little colder than in previous years. When it is more than ten degrees below zero, you will hear many people crying out affectedly, "This climate is so abnormal! This rhythm is killing people! " I think, maybe people are used to staying in a heated room, enjoying a constant and comfortable temperature, forgetting the cold appearance of winter, and forgetting the strength and self-sufficiency given by hard life.
I remember when I was a child, I just went to first frost, and at dusk, every household in the village would start to smoke in turn from the chimney of the heatable adobe sleeping platform. At that time, people were really afraid of the cold, the long cold nights, and even more afraid of hunger after a long time. So having a warm and warm kang has become the most ideal and easy-to-achieve way and long-cherished wish for all farmers to survive a long winter. When the peasant woman burns the kang, the village begins to sleep and get warm. The smoke from the cave roof, houses, from the Lao Li family and the Lao Huang family, from the west to the east of the village, from the foot of the mountain to the mountainside, emerged with joy, and rose up against the cold wind, with a drunken posture that was embarrassing. These kindred people who use wheat straw as fuel, after the fruits are eaten by people to fill their stomachs, turn into ashes and floating dust with the feat of burning and releasing heat, and complete the last dedication of life to human beings. They greet each other in a familiar way, floating, flying, hugging, talking and laughing. After a while, they are merged into a whole by dozens and hundreds of strands. You have me, I have you, and they float to the distant sky together, die heroically together, and live bravely together. How much like my grandparents! Face the loess with your back to the sky all your life, eat in the soil together, live on the land together, have children, support the old and take care of the young until you die of exhaustion and sleep in the ground together!
When I think of the winter at that time and the warm kang there, I can't help thinking of the people who burned the kang in that winter.
Grandpa suffers from leg disease, so it is inconvenient to do farm work in the fields. In my impression, the most housework he did was lying on the chopping board rolling noodles and burning kang in front of the kang cave. It takes a long time for grandpa to burn kang. As soon as the sun goes down, he will limp to the wheat field with his cage. Wearing big cotton shoes that were a little deformed and baggy because they were old, he plopped forward, so I ran after him and rushed to help him in the haystack, but he always said, "If you don't tear this wheat straw, you should come slowly from one side, and the tear gap is too big and irregular, so that people can steal our wheat straw and get some kang." He said a face of serious, but I can't help but want to scoff "hum! What a big haystack! Still afraid of stealing from others? " You can take a closer look, and a large wheat field is just a few of my grandfather's haystacks torn neatly. Like a person with a little physical defect, although a small gap is torn from day to day, from a distance, it does not lose its large-scale correctness, and it stands in the middle of a pile of messy and collapsed haystacks around, and it has its own temper! Grandpa tore a cage full, carefully covered the hole of the haystack with wormwood he prepared, and clapped his hands before going home safely. Walking in front of him, he was short, struggling to hold the cage, shaking his body from side to side, wheezing in his mouth, and I had to run to keep up!
Grandpa started to light the kang. He first spread a handful of wheat straw on the ground in front of the kang cave, sat on it by himself, then stuffed the wheat straw in the cage into the kang cave one by one, and slowly pushed it into every corner of the kang cave with a black stick that burned the kang. A match was caught by Grandpa's rough and bent fingers, and with a bang, the match lit the wheat straw, and Grandpa's muddy eyes lit up. The flickering fire danced and reflected on grandpa's wrinkled bronze face. It was a look that didn't dare to be careless, as if he was afraid that a straw could not be fully burned and wasted.
when the wind blows down, grandpa will be choked by the smoke coming out of the kang cave door. At this time, I will yell, "grandpa, close the kang cave door quickly!" Close it quickly! " But he wiped his tears with his sleeves, coughing and still turning the wheat straw in the kang hole unhurriedly. However, the hot kang burned by my grandfather is moderate in temperature and resistant to reality! It is guaranteed to be warm all night in the cold weather. When our whole family sleeps till dawn, when they open their eyes, they will see him lying in front of the kang cave and stuffing the simmering barley (Binzhou dialect: crumb skin on wheat straw after wheat threshing) into the kang cave door.
burning kang is really a technical job! Some kangs were too hot to sleep in the middle of the night, so the family got up and lifted their bedclothes to dry in the cold. Some people grumbled before the kangs got cold, put on clothes and wrapped up the quilt, and then lay down. Others burned kangs while frying beans, which made the family get up in the middle of the night and sleep upside down. When I was in junior high school, my parents were not at home. Because of the evening self-study, my sister was responsible for burning kang every evening. In the middle of the night, we were awakened by the heavy smoke. When I opened my eyes, I got up and found that my sister was smoking under her feet! Without thinking, I grabbed the quilt covered on her body and threw it underground. This is good. The quilt that was already on fire suddenly burned worse in the wind that was suddenly fanned up! Looking at my sister who suddenly lost her quilt and was trembling with fear, I shouted sharply, "How did you burn the kang? Did you fill the wheat straw into the kang hole without laying it flat? ！” She sobbed bitterly and whispered, "I was afraid it would get cold, so I shoveled a shovel into the coal foam (cinder) that Mom had swept before." "oh, my god! A shovel of coal! Are you going to bake us into sesame cakes? "
We put on our clothes with sad faces. My sister is responsible for carrying water from the basin in the kitchen tank, and I am responsible for squatting on the kang to douse the smoking fire hole with water. Only when the water in the tank is scooped up by my pouting sister can I wipe out the sparks on the kang. But at this time, the quilt that was thrown on the ground was still smoking, and the water for extinguishing the fire was gone. We were so sleepy that I lifted the quilt and put it on the desk in the outhouse. I said to my sister, "Sleep! It's still early! "
I don't know how long it took, but another thick smoke woke us up. I got up and ran to the outhouse to have a look. Oh, my God! The quilt on the desk caught fire again! Actually ignited the painted desktop of the writing desk, and I was so scared that I pulled up the quilt and opened the door like crazy. At this moment, it was snowing outside, and it was chilly. I angrily threw the quilt on the snow. "Hum, don't you want to burn it very much?" Now you can burn as much as you want! I think you can still burn it! " When I climbed onto the kang, my sister showed frightened eyes from the bed and asked me, "Sister, what's the matter again?" I said grumpily, "You should add a shovel of coal when you burn the kang tomorrow!" "
The next morning, Juanmei, who came to call me to go to school together, burst into laughter when she saw me. I asked her inexplicably, "What are you laughing at?" She threw me in front of the mirror. Oh, my God, I grinned in the mirror and saw only two rows of white teeth!
I remember that there was an old Liu in the village, who had five children and a large family. How can that little wheat straw be swallowed by three big kang of seven people in one winter? So when the leaves fall in autumn, Lao Liu will call his daughter to lead his family to the roadside to sweep the leaves, and he will go to the mountains to cut a large bundle of Artemisia every day. In this way, a haystack, a lot of dried leaves, and piles of neat hills of wormwood are enough to keep a large family warm through the winter.
"An old cow, how (not) little it is" is an ancient riddle. But all rural people in the north probably know the answer. However, this "old cow" has another function. At that time, in winter, children were wearing thick cotton trousers with cotton wadding. Every time they had an urgent need to urinate after class, their hands were red and swollen with cold, but they couldn't untie their belts once or twice, and often they were solved in their crotch by the third time! Well, just put it in your crotch, anyway, others can't see it when you wear it so thick! When I came home for dinner after school, I took off my pants and let my mother spread it on the hot kang to dry. On one occasion, several of our classmates went to Zhang Jun's house to call him to school after dinner, but he wouldn't let us into his door anyway. We asked him why. I saw Zhang Jun's mother carrying a cage of wheat straw into the yard laughing and saying, "Go quickly, remember to ask him for half a day off in the afternoon, and I'm going to brand him cotton trousers. He can't go naked!"
nowadays, our days are booming and winter is booming. Even in the cold weather, the once-necessary hot kang has already withdrawn from the historical stage. In the life with heating, we are accompanied by the warm hot kang in our memory, the people with deep love in the center of those difficult years, and the memories that make people warm when they think about it!
About the author: Yang Xiaoyun, a native of Binzhou. Member of Binzhou Writers' Association, member of National Reading Association of Binzhou, director of Xianyang Poetry Society.