Essay about Rao Ping Huanggang Gushu Bridge

Beautiful Huanggang River

Located on the border between eastern Guangdong and Fujian there is a county called Raoping County. The county town of this county is called Huanggang Town. There is a river running through the town, which is called Huanggang River, also called Fengjiang River.

The Fenghuang River is not as atmospheric as the Yangtze River and the Pearl River, nor is it as vast as the Yellow River, but it is quiet and gentle, flowing silently, and meandering for nearly a hundred kilometers from the northern end of Rao Ping County, finally flowing through the county town of Huanggang Town, where it is injected into the South China Sea. Fengjiang River silently nourishes the land it passes through, and at the same time nurtures the generations of people living on this land. I also drank this river water grew up, when I was young, I had a good time with her, but at that time, I still did not think she had anything special. Until later out of the study work, occasionally back to this river has a new feeling, and gradually found that she turned out to be so beautiful.

Feng River water is clear, the flow is sufficient, in the county district of the river on both sides of the river dotted with a few gallery pavilions, the whole river is elegant and beautiful. The river is spanned by several bridges, from north to south are Huanggang Bridge, Nanmen Bridge, Fengjiang Bridge and Shuguang Bridge. The most beautiful one is the Fengjiang Bridge in the middle. The whole bridge is made of stone, arched beautifully, and the Fengjiang River, like a delicate necklace hanging on the river, so that the river adds a few charming. I remember when I was in elementary school, the language teacher always like to take this Fengjiang Bridge to do the subject matter to us to write an essay on her description of praise, but back then, we are small, only know that she looks good but do not know how to write. Unfortunately, later one year the town flood, the stone arch bridge eventually failed to withstand the flood, was mercilessly washed down, blocked and broken. After that, the government raised funds and rebuilt a new bridge there, but unfortunately, it was replaced with a concrete structure, and the bridge was not as graceful as before, and had no features other than being tacky.

Fengjiang Bridge along the river to the northwest of 500 meters is the South Gate Bridge, where in ancient times was a ferry, after the founding of the State built a bridge in the local people, has been used to the present. Nanmen Bridge is also a stone arch bridge, although elegant, but still not as before the Fengjiang Bridge QianZhi. About one kilometer further north of Nanmen Bridge is Huanggang Bridge, also known as Gushu Bridge. Legend has it that in ancient times, there was no bridge over the Fengjiang River, and there was another ferry terminal called "Shui Gui Pier", where two people, the aunt and the sister-in-law, made a living by rowing a boat and ferrying the passers-by across the river. As the Fengjiang River leads directly to the South China Sea, the water in the river rises and falls with the tides of the sea, so the ferrymen need to wait for the water to rise before they can pass through, which is very inconvenient. Moreover, when the wind is strong and the waves are high, there is a danger of being capsized and killed when ferrying in the river. There was also a time when my sister-in-law and her husband were ferrying passengers to the center of the river when they encountered high winds, the boat was overturned, and some of the passengers, not knowing how to swim, drowned. After the aunt and sister-in-law were y guilty, determined to mobilize the local people there to build a wooden bridge to solve the inconvenience of passers-by crossing the river. Later, the wooden bridge was built, but unfortunately, it was washed away by the flood several times. Finally, when the flood came again, the bridge was about to collapse, so the two of them jumped into the river to protect the bridge pillars, so as to prevent the bridge from collapsing. Later, the bridge was saved, but they disappeared. In order to commemorate the good deeds and virtues of these two people, the local people named this bridge as "Aunt and Sister Bridge". However, the present Auntie's Bridge is not a wooden bridge, but an important transportation reinforced concrete bridge to Chaozhou and Shantou, which was built later.

The southernmost bridge above the Fengjiang River is the Shuguang Bridge, which is actually a sluice bridge that separates the river flowing from the north from the downstream and ensures normal water supply for the whole county. South of the bridge, the river leads to the sea, and the sea water with the tide rise and fall. I remember when I was young, I wanted to go to the beach to pick up snails and dig crabs, from which I could know whether the sea water is now rising or falling. Whenever the tide in the lower river recedes, most of the riverbed in the lower river will be exposed to the water. In the past, when I was young, I used to run with my companions to the exposed riverbed during low tide, digging up the river sand to look for clams, at which time big and small clams would be turned out inside the sand, and as long as I looked for the place accurately enough, I could dig up a plate full of clams without much effort. Bring the clams back, put some garlic and salt, and then mix a few leaves of our local plant called "Jinbuhua", fried up a very sweet flavor. Even after years of being away from home, my mouth still waters when I think of that flavor.

There is another amazing thing about the section of the Fengjiang River near Shuguangqiao. The south end of the Feng River flows through Xia Rao Township in a rural area. It is said that the township is in the twenty-second year of the Qianlong era, by a person called "Zhang Songgang" with the clan moved to this township, the establishment of the township year is the Year of the Ox. The year it was founded was the Year of the Ox. In the following years, whenever conditions permit, the township will choose a day to hold an ancient ceremony called the "Jiao Festival", which usually lasts for several days and involves many activities to pay tribute to ancestors and gods in order to commemorate the ancestor who founded the township in that year, and at the same time to bless the local area with good weather and peace of the country and the people. During the days of the ceremony, the villagers usually have to eat fasting and are forbidden to go out for fishing and killing. Whenever this time, the Fengjiang River downstream section of the fish seem to know that the villagers will not go into the water fishing, have magically surfaced, a piece, a group of back and forth swimming, without fear of playing in the water, and many local villagers will also be heard to watch, very lively. The incident has become a local curiosity.

The most lively time of the Fengjiang River is the Dragon Boat Festival. Once the Dragon Boat Festival, both sides of the river will be covered with colorful flags, and each community in the town will put out a dragon boat team to compete on the river. In the past, the southern rural communities out of the dragon boat team have to choose an auspicious date and time, usually before dawn, from their respective areas of the City God Temple to invite the original has been enshrined in the dragon head, by the area selected a young and strong students to carry the dragon head, the side will be set off with firecrackers, all the way to the Fengjiang River downstream, downstream of the river will be invited to the head of the dragon dragon boat. Before dawn, they will take advantage of the downstream river tide full of water to open the sluice gate of Shuguang Bridge, banging gongs and drums will be the dragon boat from the downstream rushed through the sluice gate into the inside of the freshwater area, which also marks the beginning of this dragon boat activity season. After entering the upper freshwater area, the dragon boat will first dock at the riverside, and every time the dragon boat goes offshore to start the race, it is necessary to do some water rituals, scattering salt and rice into the river, and also throwing some plums and peaches and other sacrificial fruits into the water. This is when we do children that will be the most exciting time, the ceremony will be crowded on the bank, eyes staring at the adult hands of the sacrificial fruit, waiting for that a greedy fruit was thrown into the water at the moment, as long as the fruit into the water, we will be scrambling to follow the direction of the water, dive to the bottom of the river to search for a not to be spared.

When the dragon boat races start, the Fengjiang River is filled with gongs and drums, and the banks of the river are usually crowded with people anxiously watching the dragon boat races in the river. At this time, many vendors selling fruits and various kinds of food will gather on the side of the crowd, taking advantage of this crowd to do some small business, and the two sides of the river become a bustling little market at the same time. During the race, a large flag is placed in the middle of the river, and if it is the final race, the flag will be painted with the word "Champion". After several rounds of dragon boat back and forth paddling competition, the last who first arrived at the location of the flag to grab the flag, who is the final winner. After the victory, the winning dragon boat team will lead the victory flag, beat the gong and drums to their own community to walk the streets and share the joy of victory with the people in the community. Around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival, the dragon boat teams also parade through their neighborhoods, selling red colored flags of various sizes to local families. Bigger flags are more expensive, while smaller ones are cheaper, and some of the bigger ones are tied with a pair of plastic oranges for good luck. Most people choose the size of the colorful flags according to their own financial situation, and ask the dragon boat team for red colorful flags in the form of red packets, which are tied to the entrance or balcony of their homes in the hope of bringing good luck and blessing the whole family with a smooth wind and water. So during the Dragon Boat Festival, it is common to see colorful flags flying from every house, adding to the festive atmosphere of this otherwise lively festival.

The Fengjiang River is most beautiful in summer, when the golden phoenix trees planted along its banks blossom. The most densely planted trees are on the south side of the east bank of the river. In this section of the embankment, the branches of the trees extend from the outside of the embankment road to the opposite side of the road and up to the river, and the leaves of the trees cover the embankment densely, as if they were holding a green umbrella to block the hot sunlight from above. With the river breeze blowing through it, it is unusually cool and comfortable in summer. The golden phoenix tree is very active in the summer, and it is full of bright red flowers, which dress up the whole tree, as if it is covered with a thick red quilt on the top of the crown. When I was in middle school, the school I attended was on the opposite bank of the Fengjiang River, and every day I had to pass by this green embankment by the river to go to school and come back from school. In the summer, whenever I rode a bicycle with my companions through here, I always like to look upwards, looking at the verdant leaves above, through the leaves can be seen on top of the vaguely blooming clusters of red golden phoenix flowers, which reflect the summer sunlight seems particularly bright and colorful, patches of red flowers in the top of the tree to compete for the first to burst into bloom, let a person immensely mesmerized. Even after many years, the curtain through a bit of verdant leaves bloomed with a cluster of bright red like fire of the beautiful picture of the golden phoenix flowers, as well as the bottom of the bike with companions riding through the green embankment left the sound of laughter, is still often in the mind clearly emerge.

After the Fengjiang Bridge on the west side of the river, not far from the river there is a sports field, local residents often do morning exercises and other sports here, and the county has what large-scale activities, usually also in this sports field to hold ceremonies, and this has become an important center of activity in the county. In our junior high school years, this stadium was also a place we often forgot to return to. Read the first and second year, because the homework is not so intense, we often after school ten or so good students will be riding a bicycle to the river side of this sports field for the soccer tournament. Said competition, in fact, is nothing more than the inside of the soccer field horizontally over the use of two bicycles on each side of the two soccer goalposts, but it is in such a small, simple soccer field on the game, for us has been an important event. When we played on the soccer game is also seem to understand, do not know what is offside, is supposed to use the inside or outside of the instep to kick the ball, only know that once you see the ball on the kick, the other side of the goal in which the ball will be kicked to where it is right. That's how the team composed of several of our good companions was invincible, often leaving the other team powerless. Because we didn't know how to kick the ball correctly, we often came home after kicking the ball, and when we untied our shoes, our toenails were always bruised and purple. But every time and is good to forget the pain, the night will foot in the hot water soak, does not hurt tomorrow or continue.

The Fengjiang River has left me with many wonderful memories, and the fertile land through which she flows was once a rich place. As Raoping County is located near the mountains and the sea, and at the main transportation route of Guangdong and Fujian, the cultivation of lychee, longan and other fruit trees and various kinds of seafood farming once made many local families rich. The traditional ceramic industry and food canning industry also brought a lot of economic income to the local community. in the early 1990s, with the advantage of being close to the southern Fujian Province and Taiwan and many overseas Chinese, Raooping became one of the first batch of Taiwanese-funded enterprises to be introduced to invest in local factories in the county administration. And at that time, located in the southeast corner of the county to Fujian, a 324 line national highway east section, once also formed a well-known, very active household appliances trade distribution center. But it is also in this ten years time, all the face all changed. Due to the decline in the price of lychee, longan and other fruits in previous years, fruit forest contractors have little income, mariculture is also sometimes good and sometimes bad. The traditional processing industry is gradually declining, the original production-oriented foreign and local enterprises, moved, gone, and there are not many competitive enterprises left. The government will develop the East District, a development of the West District, the results that did not form a climate. The once bustling and active market for household electrical appliances has gradually disappeared with the opening of a new highway elsewhere. Nowadays, the city of Raoping County has lost the prosperity of the past, and many streets are dilapidated due to the lack of maintenance. For more than ten years, there are still those low-rise buildings and cluttered neighborhoods, and the social security has become chaotic, and counterfeiting and drug trafficking have become a trend. Every time I go home, in the gathering with relatives and friends, I feel the embarrassment in our lives over the years. Originally, the place where we live is a good piece of land, good mountains and water, located in the main road, near the sea and mountains. In other areas over the years, the economy and outlook on life has made rapid progress, but we are stagnant, and even step by step backward, in the end, what stops us from moving forward? God gave us this piece of land so beautiful, we have no reason not to cherish her. I sincerely hope that this beautiful soil and water will soon glow out of her original posture.