The countryside is not our only home, but our last retreat.

▲Photos taken in Suining's old home

This is the 377th post updated by Blue Voice Jiuer

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Graphic 鈪糽

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Is this my childhood?

A little girl with a backpack was running happily along a green country road. On both sides of the road are endless fields, and at the end of the road is home.

In the dark evening, the chickens and ducks playing outside returned one after another, and the smoke on the stove began to rise, not waiting for her mother to burn the rice, the little girl has already run to the neighbor's house, looking for friends to play the game, of course, will also be dilly-dallying with the TV to watch, although the grown-ups have long since forgotten the content of the TV.

Suddenly, the house was dark, the power went out, and the TV lost its sound. In the moonlight, people began to take a small bench, with a flashlight came to the village of an open space, together to talk about family life. When they go back, they don't forget to buy a few candles from the small store at the west end of the village.

As the crowd dispersed, the village gradually became quiet, and occasionally a few dogs barked in the night. With a few roosters crowing, the village begins to wake up again in the morning mist. The little girl is still asleep, the mother is already busy cleaning up the yard and outside, the father has also gone down to work.

The little girl who slept too late to drink the pumpkin porridge cooked by her mother, just hurriedly rolled up a piece of pancake, picked up her schoolbag, and walked towards the direction of the school. She always felt that her mother's pancakes were too thick and not as tasty as the neighbors', but when she grew up she wanted to eat her mother's pancakes when she was old enough to cook them.

This is my familiar childhood. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands dirty.

▲Picture taken in Suining home

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What is hometown? Some people say that a hometown is a place you want to run away from when you're a kid, and a place you want to go back to when you're an adult, but you can't go back.

Perhaps it's because we've been away from home for so long that we always think of the countryside as too beautiful, and when we go back to it, we realize that it's already unfamiliar to us.

In the past, there were only a few old people left in the mansion full of laughter and laughter, and a few families' doors were overgrown with grass, and the roof tiles had already fallen off.

The short-lived New Year's festivities are like a toggle button, and after it's over, it's back to their respective "city" lives. Even when there is no epidemic home, in the face of childhood friends, but also more strange sense of familiarity. Different experiences, different professions, different cities, different cultures have made us drift apart.

Yes, we know each other well, but we have nothing to say.

▲Photo taken at Tianjia, Hua Lian Village

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Sometimes I feel grateful that the second hometown where I live now has mountains, water and its own special resources, and that the hollowing out is not as serious as in my hometown.

For these years of entrepreneurship, my in-laws and Mr. Tian are very supportive of my ideas and decisions. When I went out to study, either Mr. Tian drove me or my mother-in-law drove me there. (Now I have a driver's license but can't drive).

It's not a big deal to start a business, but it's just a matter of utilizing the resources of your own family and village (spring tea, autumn crabs, etc.) and finding ways to advertise and sell some of your agricultural products.

Sometimes, I feel very powerless, although I have feelings, but I do not have the ability to do more.

I have my own little family, I am a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a wife, and a mother. I can't afford to juggle more than that, and even though I have big dreams, I'm just trying carefully within what I feel is manageable.

▲Villages photographed over the years

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Sometimes, I feel sad again.

We often lament the indifference of the concrete city, but we don't realize that the countryside has long gone from a society of acquaintances to a society of semi-maturity in a poorly ordered, predominantly agrarian landscape, and the proportion is still shrinking.

For most people, it is more direct and faster to go out and work than to struggle on the land. The land, difficult to give us a decent life, it is no longer the only home. In my childhood, the scene of neighbors helping each other and gathering in the wheat field during the busy farming season can no longer be presented. The village, which is dominated by the fields, lacks the reasons and opportunities for people to get together collectively.

Even if we all stay at home, we seldom go out, and the village's 80s generation may not recognize the 90s generation behind them, and the 90s generation does not recognize the 00s generation. When you have your own children, the first thing that comes to mind for schooling is the town or county, no longer the traditional elementary school in the village first, middle school to the town, high school to the county. Some people who are in a position to do so will also choose to buy a house in the county town. Therefore, many of the children in the villages also do not know each other. Most of people's activities are just a few families around.

Just like this rural e-commerce training event that I co-organized with Green Tea Space, Mr. Tian took Qunqun, my 20-year-old niece from the village, and me, and ran around the village going to households, informing them about the training, and looking for young people who were interested in learning to register for the course. We found that many young people were not at home, and others stayed home because of the epidemic. If it were not for this training event, Mr. Tian would not have been able to meet with his old classmates, whom he has not seen for several years.

▲Photo taken at Tian's house in Hualian village, promoting an online training event and registering

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We've grown up, but our hometowns have gotten older. Even in the south, where the construction of beautiful villages is more intense, it still can't stop young people from leaving.

I see that most of the villages in southern Jiangsu Province, began to implement the classification of garbage, with modern public toilets, beautiful wall paintings, there is an activity square, the village began to focus on green beautification. The village in front of the polluted river in the north of Jiangsu Province has also begun to manage the village also began to be equipped with garbage cans, the roadside has a simple public toilets.

But the young generation of students, graduates, work, the planning of the countryside is still rare. As a love of the countryside, married to Gaochun, living in the countryside, how I hope the village has more young people to come forward, united, can think of doing something for the countryside, rather than a foreign daughter-in-law in the lonely struggle to record. I have tasted hardship, experienced hardship, heard cold words, but my heart still has a small group of unquenchable fire.

Professor He Xuefeng said in "Back to the Countryside": "The construction of the countryside is not, first of all, to realize the rural dream of the urban middle class, but rather to provide a last resort for the peasants who still have to earn income and retreat from the countryside and agriculture. Building the countryside for the most disadvantaged group of peasants and not providing windfall nostalgia for the urban middle class should be taken as the basic principle of nostalgia building. In this sense, all those who enter the city from the countryside, all those who care about the peasants, the largest group in China, all those who love this country, care about it and see its unprecedented urbanization and modernization, have the responsibility and obligation to carry out what they can to build the countryside."

So, I still won't give up trying to do what I can with my limited strength. Although I do not have the ability to sell all the specialties of the village, I can teach them how to use the most convenient network to do their own publicity. Even if there is no special product to sell, learn to publicize, so that more people pay attention to the village is also a meaningful thing.

Regardless of how the countryside has changed, it is still outside the heart of the traveler a "paradise". The first time I saw this, it was a very good thing that I was able to see it, and I think it's a very good thing that I was able to see it, too. During the epidemic, this feeling is more real, can not go out of the day, we have their own courtyard, their own small garden vegetables with.

Regardless of how the countryside has changed, that water and soil is still a source of warmth in the depths of our memories. If you are a good person, you will be able to get the best out of your life, and you will be able to get the best out of your life.

▲Photo taken at Tianjia, Hua Lian Village, promoting online training activities and registration

▲Online training

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The author of this issue: Blue Voice Jiuer, real name Tong Jiuhong. With his left hand to catch crabs and his right hand to write, he discovers and records the beauty of life with all his heart. Born in the north of Jiangsu Province, coordinates the south of Jiangsu Province, resigned and returned to his hometown, rooted in rural entrepreneurs.