As a native of Chaoshan, I am a little distressed.

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haven't you ever been asked that way?

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when I was a freshman, I went to a company to interview for a part-time job. My boss asked me, are there many children in your family? is it possible for women to eat only after men finish eating in your family?

when I was a sophomore, every time I went home, someone from a few blocks would say, "go back and bring some beef balls."I'll go to your place and have an one-stop service."

in my junior year, I called a ride to Shenzhen, and the driver set the price. I said cancel it. After hanging up the phone, he called again, and finally added some money. Later, when he got on the bus, he said, "you are from Chaoshan. No wonder you even care about that ten or twenty yuan." Aren't all your people very clever? no wonder they are so good at doing business.

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in the coming senior year, I know that someone will ask me again whether I am going to go home after graduation and whether I must marry a native of Chaoshan, or my parents will sever ties with you and so on.

for a while, I wanted to post an automatic reply on my body. There is no distinction between men and women in our family. Whoever is hungry will eat first. Our family does not raise cattle, does not produce beef balls, is not a seven-day hotel, nor is it a nightclub, there is no one-stop service.

our family does business on the basis of brains and credit, and money is spent where it should be spent. If there is a bottom line of principle, it is not a haggling. If there is no bottom line of principles, it is called a fool. I will not go back after graduation. My majors and hobbies need a bigger city as a space for development. I don't have to marry Chaoshan people. My parents just want me to have a better life instead of living like them.

but recently I have another worry, that is, my sense of maintenance of the city where I grew up is in direct proportion to my sense of guilt about it, and I suspect that even I don't like it myself.

Why?

"I don't want to go back. I went to college just to get out of there."

in my first year out of school, I thought that the usual perception of "I don't want to go home" may be just because I am from Chaoshan.

Chaoshan people can't be homesick.

I am ambitious before I go out and determined after graduation, but I am often left with compromise after two years of work. In my generation, there are two kinds of people. One is those who have been admitted to the university, and the other is those who enter the society as soon as they graduate from high school.

A Jun is a friend I have known since primary school. I have been dating for ten years. Every time we meet at home, we will count the time we have known each other. Maybe we have known each other for eight years the last time we met. However, we have known each other for ten years, and it was not until I could not count ten fingers that I really realized that this had leapt into an adult friendship.

I remember skipping PE class and sitting on the playground rostrum in the first year of junior high school. At that time, our dreamcity was Shanghai. Her dream was to be a director, and my dream was to write freely. We made that can of coke and made an appointment to meet in Shanghai in the future.

now in that "future", she stayed in the town where we grew up and worked in a tea shop. She never left. The most thing she did every day was chatting emotional gossip with several other women of different ages. When she talked about this, her cell phone rang, she glanced, looked embarrassed, put it down, and then pushed it aside. "colleague. I don't want to answer it.

then she told me, "I act very hard every day. I obviously don't want to live this kind of life, but I still have to accept and cater to this kind of life."

she spoke faster and faster, and it seemed that she had not confided in her heart and heart for a long time, for fear of being interrupted and emotionally unstable. I did not interrupt her and looked her straight in the eye. I seemed to be afraid, too. Let her think that I was not listening carefully. Gradually her speech slowed down, "forget it, that's it", calm and helpless.

I always remember, but I dare not mention the "Shanghai Dream" at all.

I went to Shanghai during the summer vacation. That night, I sat on the Bund holding my computer to revise the manuscript. I sent out the manuscript before 12:00. I just looked up and saw the led lights on the high-rise buildings. They were switched to "good night, Shanghai". Then they went out. I picked up my phone, wanted to give her a call, hesitated for a moment, and finally turned on the camera, took a picture, quit the page, and did nothing.

like the May Day singing "Cheers", is now in that future, that world, why your side, my side, is not the same side.

in her third year of high school, A Jun's uncle said to her, "what's the use of going to college? you might as well come out early to work. Your cousin spent more than NT $100,000 after four years of college, but in the end he came home from scratch, not even as good as his brother who dropped out of junior high school."

she thinks it makes sense.

Yes, it's too hard to work hard, and the result of such hard work may just be a less-than-satisfactory school, so you might as well be free and easy and give up in the first place. When asked later, others can say openly, "it was something I didn't want at that time."

but I know that it's all self-deception. Even if my uncle didn't say anything, A Jun will stay. because her family is not rich , and behind her, there are three younger brothers and sisters who are in junior high school and primary school. It's a bit like the story of the sixties and seventies, but it really happened a few years ago.

this is her choice at that time, and it is also the first time in our seven years of friendship that different choices have influenced the course of our lives.

so Ah Jun stayed where he was.I stopped going to school and lived a seemingly "free" life earlier than I did. Now she regrets it, but she can't go anywhere.

she said: "my world is so big that even if my family doesn't need me to 'sacrifice' anymore, I don't know where to start."

Yes, once people compromise with life and the status quo, it is difficult to have new possibilities.

standing on the Bund, I wondered if I would stay in Chaoshan like her if I were A Jun.

when I think of this, a chill strikes from behind. Because I suddenly realized that the traditional idea of a city can really affect the people in that city.

"I slack off as soon as I get home. I only get homesick when I want to escape and hide."

I forget when it started, and going home became a trip.

on the first day, I ate beef hot pot with my family, which was homesickness. On the second day, I went to the new western restaurant with friend B and ate the baked rice with seafood in white sauce, which can be eaten in any city.

on the third day, I visited a relative's house and was distracted by a series of similar questions and Kungfu Tea. On the fourth day, I might see a doctor, issue a replacement certificate, and buy all the handletters my friends asked for.

but every time I go home, I will feel guilty about my mediocrity because of my laziness. I once saw that going home is like traveling, the only difference is that you don't have to spend half a penny. You go to a city where there is unconditional tolerance with warmth, and you won't starve to death even if you do nothing. There, you can become a person who doesn't have to work so hard, even if you don't work hard.

so I couldn't stay any longer on the fifth day, and I began to feel a strong sense of guilt. I seemed to be out of touch with my original life or work circle, so I hurriedly finished my trip and ate the breakfast prepared by my mother. I didn't have time to say goodbye to my father who was still asleep and went to the station.

well, it's like traveling when you go home, but when you go to school and work out of town, you say, "I'm going back." The father would also blurt out, "you're going back." I have lived in that city for more than ten or twenty years, but I have only lived in this city for more than two years, but I can't tell where home is.

the concept of hometown becomes more and more blurred as we spend more and more time outside.

until I had dinner with Ah Fan last month, I didn't rethink the difference between "hometown" and "city".

A Fan is from Dongguan and works as a photographer in Guangzhou. Recently, he got back together with his ex-girlfriend. I asked him what he planned now. He said he was fine. He had a stable income, and her return made me have a strong desire to settle down in this city. "I want to find a permanent place to live. I want to have a home here."

"aren't you going back?" "I'm not going back."

I told him my troubles. It was a place that gave me a sense of belonging, but I didn't want to go back. He asked me, if you love a sea, are you going to jump into the sea?

he saw that I was speechless and added: "in fact, you don't have to love something for a lifetime."

I nodded and said, "there are times when you worry about this problem."

he said, "of course, it has nothing to do with the region." Everyone will face this problem, because raising our hometown is like a huge greenhouse. We know that as long as we stay inside, we will be protected. But if the outside world means something else, we would rather take risks than those safe and boring days. Because, that's what young people are.

however, it is said that he wants to leave, but at the critical moment, he still wants to go back. Because my Dongguan, your Chaoshan, they can never be replaced, there are most of our memories, you can not erase these, can not erase the love for them. "

at that time, I realized that the meaning of my hometown was like this.

now, I will no longer dislike people asking, "do you all have a lot of children at home?", "are you all smart?", "do you have to have boys?" and "is beef hotpot really delicious? what is authentic?" these topics, I understand that as long as it is a city, it will be labeled.

when I am in a bad mood, I smile and say "all right", but mostly I will describe our current situation to them. I know that many people have not been to that place yet, as if we have reservations about a person, but most people do not know that person, and it is very difficult for people's views not to be influenced by the outside world to form habitual thinking. Then the only thing I can do is to try to describe to them what I know.

I was pleasantly surprised when I ran into a high school classmate. Even if we didn't know each other very well, even if we didn't meet each other at all, it turned out that in a different place, whether you met the snitch you hated most in primary school, or high achiever, who couldn't play together in junior high school, I felt as if I had met in another hometown.

there is another reason why I do not dislike. Every time I am mentioned and asked, it seems that someone knocks on the door in my head. No matter how long I haven't been back, no matter whether the language is rusty or not, it suddenly reminds me that, ah, I am from Chaoshan.

this city is no longer the home I often think about going back, but it must be the place that gives me a sense of belonging and sense of security, and where I can smile when I am mentioned.

how can you not like something when you subconsciously want to maintain it?

in addition, at noon on the 25th (this Friday), Alai of the warm Men's Department wants to announce an immediate departure in Zhuhai.Move, the general process of this activity is: have a meal with our thorns, eel whales, summer and warm men, and then everyone put forward the wish they most want to complete, and finally vote. And the one with the highest number of votes, all the participants work with you to achieve it. If you are interested in coming to see us, you can click "read the original text" at the end of the article to fill in your name.

We will notify the successful registration partners before 11:00 on the 24th (tomorrow). The venue is Tangjiawan Town, Xiangzhou District, Zhuhai City.

illustration | Daming

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