? When we first arrived at Mafan Bridge, the village had not built a unified educated youth house for us. Young intellectuals all live in different places. My brother and I live in the empty house of the brigade, which is a modern building in the village. Although it is also a dry base, it is modeled after the housing construction of modern cities. The glass doors and windows facing south are bright, and the two of us live with a group of three educated youths. Although five people are crowded together, the accommodation conditions are quite good. M-girls from Team Four lives next door to us, and the other six live in farmers' homes.
? Two years later, the house built for us by the brigade was built, and the location was opposite to the public house of the brigade where we now live, sitting in a row of bungalows facing south. In the easternmost room, Zhang Chunxia, Ji Qiaoling, Feng Taifeng and Zhang Guanmei's m-girls live. The second room is a small room, where two girls from Yanhe live. The third room is a big room, where Yang Jinghui and Li Jixing live. In the westernmost room, there are four boys from Hu Mingshan, Zhan Jie, Xu Hang and Xu Jin.
? The architectural form of the educated youth dormitory is also modeled after the bungalow style in the city, but it is a dry shop structure. First, the foundation is built with stones, then the frame is made of bricks, and the wall is made of wheat straw and mud. Wooden beams and purlins are put on the frame, wooden rafters are nailed, reed mats are laid, blue tiles are laid on the top, and the outer walls are plastered with white plaster. Unlike ordinary rural houses, our houses are all glass doors and windows, covered with green tiles, covered with eaves galleries and plastered with white ash. Every room is equipped with a coal-fired stove, which is heated in winter, but it is still a mud floor. The new house is beautifully built, but the fly in the ointment is that the house faces south and the light in the room is not good. Between two rows of opposite bungalows, our educated youth kitchen is built in the east, surrounded by a spacious yard on three sides.
? Country life is made at sunrise and rests at sunset. Go to work, eat and sleep at three o'clock every day, and it is simple and monotonous day after day. At least a group of young people are very lively together. After dinner in the evening, everyone gets together to chat, sing, tell stories and play poker. At that time, many of us would have a harmonica. With the beautiful harmonica sound, everyone sang familiar songs, and eight model operas were even more familiar. Later, everyone liked to sing Henan Opera. I only remember that Mao selected and recorded the model opera "Du Fu Mountain" with a thin voice, which was very popular at that time. In addition to model operas, he also sang the famous Henan opera Chaoyanggou, which brought a lot of joy to our lives.
? At that time, the cultural life in the countryside was very poor. There are newspapers in the brigade, but we can't see them. There are cable broadcasts. Every family has installed a small speaker to play some news, two newspapers and an editorial, as well as eight model operas of revolutionary songs. We have no educated youth. Ma Fanqiao's educated youth family background is all employees of ordinary enterprises, and everyone's life is very simple. I am the only one in the educated youth point who has a Baiquan brand seven-transistor radio, which is a luxury my father bought for our two brothers and a treasure of the educated youth point. Listening to current news, understanding political policies and state affairs, listening to songs and music model operas have brought a fresh and lively atmosphere to the monotonous and boring life. Once, I accidentally dropped the radio to the ground, and the plastic shell was a little broken. My brother asked Bao Dan, the carpenter in the team, to make a wooden box to protect it.
? On the first Spring Festival after going to the countryside, I forgot who proposed that educated youth and poor middle peasants should spend a revolutionary Spring Festival together, that is, they would not go home during the Spring Festival, and the village also asked us educated youth to hold a Spring Festival cultural performance for the villagers. Zhang Chunxia, Yuan Huiming and Guo Zhenyong in our educated youth camp were all activists in literary and artistic activities at school. They are responsible for organizing the project. This program is nothing more than singing, dancing and Beijing Opera. None of our educated youth can play instrumental music, and there is no sound. However, they still attract the young and old in the village. There was also a program in which Guo Zhenyong and I sang an excerpt from Zhang Yimou's Peking Opera "Taking Tiger Mountain Outward". Li Yongqi and Shao Jianbo sang in duet: Look forward to it sooner or later. I played Li Yongqi, the first time I performed with oil paints on the stage. Literary lovers in the village also picked up Banhu and performed the most popular local opera in the village-Huai Bang, which is a high-pitched and exciting local opera and has been popular in Fiona Fang for dozens of miles. For this performance, the brigade also specially pulled sand and built a mud platform, which was the only cultural activity of Mafanqiao and made the villagers talk for several days.
? One day in late spring and early summer, we suddenly found a large cluster of mushrooms growing on the roof of a thatched cottage in the middle of our hospital. Now I think it is a very common Pleurotus ostreatus, but none of us know what kind of mushroom it is. Everyone looked around the picked mushrooms, afraid of being poisonous and afraid to eat them. Xiao Yong and I couldn't get rid of our hunger for food, so we decided to take a chance. I heard that garlic can detoxify, so we fried mushrooms with garlic. That kind of delicious food is something I have never tasted in my life. There is nothing unusual about people who eat mushrooms. In the evening, the vegetable soup fried with mushrooms made a pot of noodle soup for everyone, which was also full of praise. From then on, until the thatched cottage was demolished, mushrooms never grew again.
After the educated youth housing was built, we set up a pigsty against the wall of the brigade in the west of the yard. In spring, we caught two piglets, raised them very small, sold one and raised one ourselves. Feed the pigs with boiled water, wheat bran and leftovers. Before the Spring Festival, pigs are killed when they grow up. When killing pigs, we invited the village pig killer to help us. We also helped catch pigs, tie them up, boil hot water and shave scalded pigs. Kill pigs, pig heads, pig's trotters, cook pigs in water and invite everyone to dinner. Pork was given to everyone, and I happily went home for the New Year.
I forgot who gave the educated youth a little yellow dog, and it became the pet of the educated youth. I also forgot the name of the puppy, so we don't need to feed it specially. Everybody likes it. Just give a little at dinner. Little yellow dog is very docile and clingy. I always take it with me when I go to the fields. I remember one spring, I watered and pulled water in the wheat field. The vast wheat fields are endless. The jointing wheat seedlings are lush, the stems and leaves are stretched, and they are full of the tension of life. Under the blue sky, the spring sunshine is warm and bright, and the clear well water slowly flows into the waking earth along the furrow. The soil exudes a faint earthy smell, the air is mixed with the fragrance of wheat seedlings and licorice, and the warm spring breeze brings her face. I sat quietly on the edge of the ridge gully, and half a small yellow dog was lying lazily beside me, looking at the slowly flowing canal water, as if I were intoxicated by spring.
? The little yellow dog grew very fast and became a handsome big dog in a year. It runs around looking for friends to play with. One day, it ran out and never came back. We looked around and then disappeared. I think it was caught and killed when we were in love. Everyone is very sad. The educated youth of Mafanqiao never stole a chicken and killed a dog in his hometown, but his dog was stolen and killed. There is also a black and white dog in our yard, which is far less pleasing than the little yellow dog. It grew up, too. Everyone says it's better to kill yourself than to let others kill you, but we can't. In winter, we asked a farmer in the team to help us kill the dog. He hung the dog from a tree, then poured a ladle of water into the dog's mouth and suffocated it. He skinned the dog and we cooked the dog meat. I don't think it tastes good. We don't have any dogs anymore.
? In winter, we all like to huddle in the kitchen at night, laughing, playing cards and telling stories. Young people in the village like to come to the yard of educated youth when they are free. Anyway, they are willing to listen to many new things in those cities. At that time, the difference between urban and rural areas was still very large. It is difficult for urban hukou to buy food in rural areas. Mafanqiao is not a remote area, which is more than 100 miles away from Xinxiang city and 30 to 40 miles away from Jiaozuo city, but it is not easy for rural people to go once. Educated youth has brought the lifestyle, costumes and entertainment culture in the city, which makes young people who pursue freshness yearn for it. We have gone from the city to the bottom of society, but the educated youth are still a group of urban youth above the countryside.
? to be continued