I have lived in Gulangyu for two years. Like the aborigines, let me talk about my experience:

In the first year, I rented a house on Longtou Road, which was a small community with a small door. The building was not high, and the exterior wall was milky white. The furniture of one room, one living room, one kitchen and one bathroom was 1,511 yuan/month. At that time, it was around 2111.

Every morning on Longtou Road, tourist groups come in with small flags, from all over the country and from Taiwan Province. There is a vegetable market on Longtou Road, with a lot of seafood. At dusk, the newly caught fish are placed on both sides of the aisle in red plastic pots. At that time, there was only one supermarket on Gulangyu Island. Rice, flour, grain and oil were bought in the vegetable market, and some daily necessities were bought in convenience stores. Things on the island were delivered by various boats.

I often want to leave the island, and the traffic is ferry. At that time, I didn't need money to enter the island, but I spent money to leave 4 yuan. Now it seems that it is 8 yuan or 12 yuan. Later, I set up a ferry card, which only people in Gulangyu can do. I took this ferry and went to the second floor to see the scenery. Later, I got used to it and used it as a bus. I didn't have the excitement at first. I just wanted to get there quickly. Once in typhoon weather, the ferry stopped, and I don't know when it will leave. The residents who returned to the island can only wait, and I waited. It was very late before I opened a ferry and sent the residents to the island.

It takes 3-4 hours to walk around Gulangyu Island. I walked about 111 times. Gulangyu Island has no motor vehicles and bicycles, so it is very suitable for walking. I like to walk from Swallowtail Road at dusk. There are yellow lights hanging on the cliff, which shines on one side of the sea and one side of the road. At this time, there are no tourists in Gulangyu Island. You can walk slowly and come around. It is all villas. Later, I opened several homestays, and there is a restaurant on the beach, which makes fish with soy sauce on the beach. My friend came.

The alley of Gulangyu Island was very beautiful. At that time, there were not many wedding dresses. The more people left in the alley from Longtou Road to the north, the less people left. There were small fences, trees and flowers, and some dilapidated villas. The villas still had owners, but they were just there. There were also some homestays, bars, cafes and bookstores, and the most were snacks, fish balls noodles, fried oysters, meat swallows and fried spiced dishes. In the first three months, I often went the wrong way. Later, I became more and more familiar with it, and I could go back around the alley. When I come back at night, I often hear the sound of piano, the sound of practicing piano, and there is no complete tune.

Gulangyu at night

Gulangyu

Gulangyu's alley

Gulangyu's alley

I often go swimming. There are two beaches on Gulangyu, and the water is not clean, but I also go swimming, even when it rains. I don't take anything but go swimming. Once when I came back from swimming, someone in the alley shouted, everyone was wet. Come in and sit down. It turned out to be a small shop selling fried spiced meat, swallows and vegetable cakes. I can't say that I got wet like this on purpose, and I would think that there was a madman on Gulangyu Island. Although poets living in seclusion on the island did the same, I didn't have the temperament of a poet, so I went in. I don't have any money, the aunt said, it doesn't matter. I'll make it up next time. I ate a vegetable cake and a meat swallow, and I ate it all. I wasn't full, so I asked for another fried five spices.

Later, I often went to this house. The aborigines on Gulangyu Island were very quiet, unlike the foreigners who later flocked to the island to run various businesses, whose eyes were often red and their breath was uneven.

A small shop in Gulangyu Alley

Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners who often go to the island are not businessmen, but just a family. The old man is a Chinese medicine practitioner. I don't know if he has a certificate. Once I was wandering in an alley, I saw a couplet on the door of a family. The main idea was that there were two long pairs embedded together, such as Ling Shu Su Wen and the Yellow Emperor's daughter's internal debate. The old man just came by, the owner, and asked me, do you know what that means?

I just said, it's not that I know Chinese medicine, I know martial arts, I've seen the legendary swordsman, and I've seen it many times, so I still know something about it, but I also answered it like a stream. So the old man invited me in, and his wife brought me a cup of tea, boiled with herbs. He had a yard, and pots and pans of it were all herbs. He was writing a medical book, but it was never published by a publishing house. I went to drink herbal tea several times in two years, but I really couldn't help with the book publishing. After I left, I lost contact. If I have such a yard, I won't publish a book, so I'll be a medicine fairy.

The villas on Gulangyu Island were later rented out by lodgers. There are many famous people and historical sites, and some houses have lost their owners. The deep house compound is especially suitable for filming. There are also people living in the villa, which impressed me deeply in two places. One is at the corner of Zhaohe Road, and there is a big villa, which is separated from the sea only by a road. When pedestrians pass by, two big German shepherd dogs will inevitably appear in the railing of the yard and bark at people, but they can't see their owners. The other is Yanping Road, where there are several villas. In the sunny afternoon, the little babysitter is in a daze in the yard. The owner of the villa has not come back for a long time, and only she is looking after the house.

Longtou Road was so noisy that everyone who sold kitchen knives knew me. Later, I moved to Neicuo 'ao, where it was more peaceful, and peaceful people could always find a chair and settle down.

the first time I went to Gulangyu to look for a house, I carried my bag and walked under two rocks, which seemed to be a breakfast shop, and then I went in. People said, it's free, just wash the bowl after eating. I later learned that there is a vegetarian meal in the temple today. However, I haven't been there since, passing by, but I haven't been in.

Let's put it simply, if there are not so many businesses on Gulangyu Island, maybe a little less, or if the business is not run by foreigners, but by the aborigines themselves, it is really a fairy island, which is neither too hot nor too cold all year round, with good scenery, close to Zhongshan Road in the downtown area, and not too close, and the only fly in the ointment on the island is to take a ferry or get there in 21 minutes. Almost no one lives in the villa opposite the tomb, and it is scary that it has been abandoned for too long. It is said that all the islanders at that time emigrated abroad. Maybe the old house left a few generations ago is no longer needed now, but the country can't move, and it belongs to personal property. I once traveled to the island for one night, but it was really beautiful in the morning. I wandered aimlessly on the island during the day and went to the beach to bask in the sun. The seaside of Gulangyu Island was not very beautiful. Go along the seaside road to Longtou Road. I don't remember many paths in the middle. There is a big commercial street. To be honest, things are not so good. Souvenirs are the same all over the country. Do you eat and drink? Xiao Gui, it's not very delicious, but it's a little distinctive. For tourists from other places, if they are tired from walking, they can just find a coffee shop to drink coffee and feel daze, and watch stories made up by some shops. In the evening, they can walk along Longtou Road to the piano pier and watch the night view of Xiamen on the beach. You can take a cruise ship to see the night view of the whole Xiamen center. That's called beauty. You can go shopping again at night.

First of all, let's briefly talk about the experience of aborigines in Xiamen.

unlike many counties and cities subordinate to Sanming Longyan in Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Nanping, Fuzhou,

Xiamen, located in the southeast coast of Fujian Province, is really small.

So this is often the case: high school students are junior high school students of primary school students, and the children of parents and colleagues are just kindergarten students, primary school students, middle school students and college students.

Walking casually, you are likely to meet alumni and leading colleagues of kindergarten, primary school, junior high school and senior high school who have been familiar for a long time, nodding acquaintance or have not seen for years. There is often a kind of greeting and greeting when the residents of the whole community meet. I feel that the local people in the whole district or even the whole city of Xiamen can be related to themselves or the people around them ... A native of Xiamen but not an aborigine of Gulangyu.

But because of the complicated and inseparable interpersonal network of the whole city, there are many relatives and friends of Gulangyu aborigines around me. When I was with them, I heard many stories about their life in Gulangyu.

A good friend of my dad's uncle lived in Gulangyu for several years because his children went to school.

I remember that I was still in primary school at that time. My uncle's children were several years older than me, and they went to Xiamen Music School.

At that time, the schoolwork was not very heavy, so I often went to Gulangyu with my dad to make tea with my uncle when I had time.

I remember that my uncle lived in an old western-style villa. Looking out of the living room window on the second floor, I could see the ferry and the sea around the island.

At that time, Xiamen was not a popular tourist city, and Gulangyu Island was just a small residential island on the edge of Xiamen Island.

There were no SLR tourists with small fresh long skirts and straw hats, no literary Zhang Sanfeng milk tea,

There was no grand occasion of crowded ferries, and more was the quiet feeling of living in a corner of the city.

There are no motor vehicles on the island, and residents living in Gulangyu often go out to buy food with short sleeves and shorts flip-flops.

They go home from the market along the narrow road near the beach, passing by quaint shops, accompanied by the music of the island, the sound of the sea lapping and the sound of the wind blowing betel nut trees, the sunset shines on them, and they feel that the days are long and beautiful, which really means facing the sea and warming bloom in spring. At that time, I liked to go out for a walk by the sea with my friends in the afternoon.

My parents grew up by the sea, and my grandma's house was just a few steps away from home.

I have never left the sea since I was a child, so I always have a special feeling about the sea. I like and enjoy the feeling of being by the sea,

so that when I came home from a foreign university, I was the first. Later, my uncle's children went to Xiamen Island for high school, and their family moved back to Xiamen Island. I went to middle school, and I rarely went to Gulangyu in those years.

The memory of playing at my uncle's house in those years has also become one of my best memories of Gulangyu.

My high school roommate is studying in a music school in junior high school.

It's probably that Xiamen is really small, and middle schools can basically count it with their fingers. Xiamen Foreign Languages (English-Chinese), Xiamen No.1 Middle School, No.2 Middle School, No.6 Middle School, No.8 Middle School (Double Ten), No.11 Middle School ...

Xiamen Foreign Languages School, also called English Middle School at that time, was first established on Gulangyu Island. Then the Music School, with many students with special musical skills, has a campus on Gulangyu, the "piano island", which complements each other.

Many students in high school live on Gulangyu Island.

And their "special treatment" is that they can leave early on a typhoon and rainstorm day ... I remember that there was a typhoon warning in the whole city in the first year of high school, and the school broadcast informed the students living in Gulangyu to go home immediately, immediately ... My male classmate at the back desk was an indigenous Gulangyu, and just as he was chatting with his deskmate, the teacher named him to go back to the dormitory to pack up and go home immediately, so the students at the back desk halfway through class walked out of the classroom in the envious eyes of others.

She grew up in Gulangyu, where she was in primary school and junior high school, and moved to Xiamen Island when she was in middle school.

She said that the students who specialized in musical instruments and took the road of artistic talents in her class are now music teachers, and

The working hours are free and relaxed. On the other hand, those students who did not take the road of artistic talents with good grades in cultural courses in those years do not seem to have a better life than them now, but I think they can.

She said that when she was a child, she was very naughty, and she often played tricks on her classmates and caused all kinds of troubles. However, the living environment in Gulangyu, which was basically known to all, caused her to be criticized by the teacher in the morning.

When she came home at noon, her parents knew about it, and then the whole community knew about it ...

I asked what it was like to live in Gulangyu as a child, and she said that there seemed to be no feeling at that time.

I just thought it was very troublesome to go to Xiamen Island and I had to take a ferry. Later, I moved to Xiamen Island when I was in high school. In addition, the harsh high school learning environment of Shuangshi Middle School didn't match her chic and domineering style at all. On the contrary, I began to feel that my time in Gulangyu was quite good.

It seems that I seldom go to Gulangyu since I went to college.

At that time, many friends who used to play together are no longer in Xiamen, some are still studying abroad, some have worked and settled outside, and many students who stayed in Xiamen no longer live on Gulangyu Island. When I go to Gulangyu again, I will miss my friends who played together when I was a teenager.

I hope they will have a good life all over the world.