Every year when I return to my hometown, I recall some interesting things!
This year, a new house was built in my hometown, but the yard is still the yard, and the people around are still the same.
But it seems that “like attracts like”.
To the east of my house is the courtyard of my sixth grandfather, surrounded by brick walls. The brick wall was built when I was in primary school, about ten years ago. At that time, it felt like a high wall and a big courtyard. My grandparents’ house looked much more cramped, with no high walls around, only clusters of wild wolfberry branches growing on the boundaries. There’s a two-room house facing north and south in the yard, shaky and trembling. The yard is small, with a bumpy cement floor, and in winter, it turns into a snowy scene.
When I was young, I thought the environment at my sixth grandfather’s house was very good. Their house was new, the stove was new, and they even raised a large cage of pigeons. The snowy white, cute pigeons constantly attracted me to play, but they also had a big black dog, a big black dog tied up with an iron chain. Every time I passed by the gate, I would be startled by the fierce barking of the fierce dog. I was always worried that the iron chain was not thick enough and it would rush to bite me fiercely. No matter how many times I went, it always barked fiercely. The big black dog was huge, with jet-black eyeballs, and when it barked fiercely, it exposed sharp teeth like blades. Although I didn’t understand the language of dogs, judging from its momentum, it should be cursing quite badly.
Later, as I progressed from elementary school to junior high school, high school, and college, my courage grew and my family’s financial situation improved somewhat. This year, my dad and second uncle spent a year building three or four houses. I don’t know from which year on, I seemed to have not seen that ferocious big black dog again. As I grew older, I spent less and less time in my hometown, and even less time visiting relatives. So in the days when I couldn’t see it, the big black dog was quietly forgotten by me and faded away.
Today, many unfamiliar relatives came to visit for the New Year, those who looked familiar but couldn’t be named, those who hadn’t visited my home for 3000 years, all came in one after another. At that moment, I felt like they were students visiting a museum, and at the same time, like leaders inspecting rural work. I came out of my room and awkwardly responded with a few words. Some of them stood with their hands behind their backs, nodding and smiling silently as they toured around; some sat on the sofa, crossing their legs loudly and spitting everywhere; some kept laughing…ha ha ha…; and some kept exclaiming “Wow, this is like this.” “Wow, this can also be like this?” “Wow, it’s really cheap.” Wow haha. For a moment, I didn’t know if my home was a small museum or if some leaders came to inspect rural work.
After chatting for a while, several people moved to my sixth grandfather’s courtyard to visit the new air heating system. They highly praised this new environmentally friendly and inexpensive heating method. They said, we must unswervingly adhere to…, unswervingly follow the path of…, vigorously promote…, to create…. In their speeches, they fully affirmed… and expressed their festive wishes and condolences to the villagers….
I didn’t follow them to move, the paragraph above is just the author’s imagination, but it should be close to the truth.
In no time, my aunt called me to have dinner together, and they had already set up a large table of dishes.
My grandparents, parents, second uncle, and second aunt were very angry about this: they felt that this group of relatives must have dinner at my home, after all, my family’s brand new museum exhibition hall brand new long table and brand new large living room were completely capable of accommodating and hosting this group of people. So when my aunt “invited” them, they all refused to go.
Naturally, I didn’t dare to go either.
But after some persuasion, I still went, along with my brother, dad, and second uncle.
In my sixth grandfather’s courtyard, in a small house on the east side, two tables of different heights were pieced together. The group of people sitting around, plus the four of us, were just enough and completely unable to accommodate any additional people.
Originally unwilling to engage in idle chatter, but seeing the vulgar and boring content of this group of people, I went from boasting arrogantly to shamelessly bragging about everything from top to bottom. It felt great.
I didn’t eat much, and I came out of the house.
The big black dog at the door saw me and wagged its tail to greet me, first licking around, then lying down and showing its belly. Its tail wagged frantically.
A black dog is still a black dog, but it’s no longer the ferocious dog that used to bark, it’s now a begging dog.