Skimming through Wang Zengqi's works is like listening to a kind and learned old man, and it's very interesting. Today's excerpt, "Big Lotus Sister," is about the nanny who took care of the author when he was young. The master wrote it with a light touch, but it can leave a deep impression and a lasting touch.
Auntie Dali莲 of the nanny
Wang Zengqi
Auntie Dali can be said to be my nurse. She was brought over by my mother from her own family.
She served the young lady of the Yang family——My mother, when she came to our home“take”I. In our place, we call all maidservants“Lotus Seed”,“Big Lotus Seed”,“Little Lotus Seed”.
The maid who served my aunt had a strange name, which was“High-footed Big Lotus”. I don't know how this name came about, maybe because her instep was particularly high. The whole family called my nurse“Big Lotus”, while I called her“Big Lotus Sister”.
When I was a child, I was a"wayward child". They were afraid that I would not grow up, so they adopted several wet mothers. I was listed in the temples and Taoist temples.
MyDharma name is "Ha'ao". I still remember that there was a piece of red paper, eight inches high and five inches wide, pasted on one wall of my father's bedroom, with a line of characters in the middle
"Three treasures' disciple seeks a Dharma name Ha'ao",
on each side were two characters, one side was
"Guai",
the other side was
"Yi".
I probably recognized this character "Guai" from this named red paper.
Because it is“the baby who is used to it”, there is a nanny who is specially“looking after”me. Big Lian sister is not very concerned about my sister and sister, but she takes care of me alone.
Big Lian sister was very affectionate towards my mother, but towards my stepmother there was a kind of animosity. The stepmother had not yet been married, but the dowry had been sent over first, and the新房 was already decorated. She patted a small table of the eight immortals and said to my sister:“This is rosewood, not camphor wood!”
“Jame” elsewhere unknown, in our place is a precious wood. My mother's dowry was made of Jame. She also taught us to sing:
Little Cabbage.
Earthly Yellow……
I'm very young, but I also think this is not good.
Big Lian was very good to me. When I was a child, I didn't eat well and kept running around the table. She would chase me around the table to feed me. I don't know how many circles I had to make before she could feed me half a bowl of rice.
At night, she takes me to sleep.
I have an intestinal hernia, sometimes it attacks, and I call out on the bed:"Auntie Dali, it hurts!"She would brew some herbs, pour them into a basin, and sit me on it to fumigate. After a while, the herniated intestine can contract back.
She learned some folk Remedies from somewhere and tried them all. She cooked carrots for me to eat. I ate carrots every day, which is why I still don't like the taste of carrots. She beat the eggs and put a red hot piece of iron inside, then made a sound of a hiss, and the eggs were cooked. No salt was added, and I ate it. It was really yucky!
After I went to primary school, Big Lian left our home and got a job. She seemed to have worked in another family for a few years. Later, she stopped working and lived in a white-robed nunnery by the stinky river.
She believes in Buddhism, and my sister said that she has taken vows. She did not shave her hair, only a piece on the top of her head, and the scars from the vows were few. When her hair grew longer, it could be covered up. She became a "Dao Po Zi".
There are many such Taoist nuns in our place. Whenever there is a temple fair, they go there“to sit in worship”,——sitting on the ground, they can sit there all day. No matter what temple, as long as it is a temple, they will“sit”. The Dongye Temple and the City God Temple are originally inhabited by Taoists, but they don't care, they just sit down and chant“Nan Wu A Mita Fo”.
I went home from school, passing by the White-robed Temple, she sometimes watched me pass by, sometimes she also invited me to her place to play. The White-robed Temple really has nothing good to“play”. It is a small temple with a statue of the White-robed Avalokitesvara in the hall. There is a small room in the east and west of the courtyard, Big Lotus sister lives in the east room, and the west room lives in a“monk with hair”old woman.
She later mixed with the Goodwill Society and“the Rationalism Society to Advise Against Smoking and Drinking”. There is no I-kuan Tao in our place. If there is, she would have joined it. She believes in everything.
July 12, 1992
Load the fourth issue of "The Writer" in 1993
The Story of the South City Guest
Author: Wang Zengqi
Publication: Jiuzhou Publishing House
Wang Zengqi's Selected Prose and Essays
Content Summary:
The book contains forty exquisite essays and random notes by Mr. Wang Zengqi, which are divided into six volumes in the order of recalling friends, recording travels, expressing feelings, discussing food, talking about customs, and missing relatives.
He wrote about people and events with light brush and ink, but he could leave a deep impression and a lasting impression, because he had experienced such a grand and open era and a fluctuating life, and he had already included it in his chest and hidden it in his heart, and it had become a deep and flowing water.
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