Text/Sun Jianye
Xinjiang is my second hometown, where I have worked and lived for decades, which makes me have a heavy affection for the landscapes and rivers of the frontier.
When I was young, my work unit was in Kuqa City, a city in the middle of southern Xinjiang. It is bordered by the Tianshan Mountains to the north, with a vast expanse of alluvial fan-shaped gravel Gobi land, and to the south is a flat alluvial plain, which is a city inhabited by Uyghur, Han, Hui and other ethnic groups.
What I remember the most is the Uyghur farm yard. At that time, the party secretary of our unit was a Uyghur, the first generation of oil people who grew up after the founding of the People's Republic of China, who participated in the construction of Karamay, The first large oilfield in China, and was transferred to the southern Xinjiang oilfield in the 1980s. He was fluent in Chinese and was a highly respected leader and elder. Yi Yi's hometown is in the Kucha countryside, and whenever he passes by his hometown on a business trip, the secretary will take us to his hometown as a guest.
I remember the first time I went to Secretary Yi's hometown in the autumn, it was the season of melons and fruits, which made me feel the warmth and rich life of the Uyghur farm yard, which not only made people happy and intoxicated.
The peasants' houses are built with earth blocks, the walls are very thick, it looks very pristine, but it is warm in winter and cool in summer, which is a major feature of the countryside in southern Xinjiang. The place to entertain guests is under the grapevine in front of the master's room. This is a half-meter-high, 3-meter-long square-shaped earthen kang, which is covered with a very beautiful ethnic pattern carpet embroidered, and on the side of the wall hangs a Uyghur unique Adelaide silk, the naturally formed color halo in the pattern, jagged, evacuated and not messy, both the layering of the pattern and the transition surface of the color, thus forming the characteristics of the change of the Adelaide silk pattern. This is a kind of silk that local women especially like, giving it a "Yubofunen Kanati Guli", which means "the flower of the cuckoo's wings", thus setting off the unique cultural atmosphere of the Uyghur family. There is a small square table on the kang, and the exquisite platter is placed with a variety of fruits such as cut cantaloupe, grapes, peaches, dried apricots, etc., as well as the Kucha bun that resembles a large pot lid, and the unique aroma of onions and pasta wafts in the air, which is very tempting.
Our group learned from the local villagers, sitting cross-legged on the carpet of the earthen kang in front of the room, tasting the seasonal fruits that the villagers brought to entertain guests from time to time. There is a honey juice sticky hand, bite a sweet and crisp aroma overflowing cantaloupe; there is a sweet toothless blue-white peach, with the hand to break the peach peel, suck the flesh inside, at this time the peach like honey juice like slid into the mouth, from the mouth sweet to the heart; grapes are also particularly delicious, eat a bunch also want to eat another bunch, but also want to change a variety and then want to taste, everyone while eating while admiring the scenery of the farm yard.
The Uyghur farm yard is very distinctive, the house is surrounded by a small forest of trees around it, a small bridge flowing water, and the rural dirt road is lined with tall poplar trees, interspersed with some mulberry trees. The gates of the farm yard are very tall and wide, allowing you to enter and exit the two-wheeled donkey cart. Entering through the gate, there is a small courtyard of the farmhouse, in front of the house is a grape trellis more than 3 meters high, the shelf is made of peeled bark branches, it looks very clean, while the whole is on the roof, while on the 3 wooden stakes in the yard, the huge grape trellis is almost customized according to the size of the ground. Vines climbed along the stakes all over the shelves, the sky was covered with green leaves, and under the shelves were bunches of grapes swaying in the air, purple and green. Grapes of different shapes make people look up: the long shape is the horse milk grape, the small round one is the early ripening variety, and the large grain grape of the munagh that is picked after the frost after the autumn, they are like a bunch of pearl agate dangling in front of your eyes, especially eye-catching, is a beautiful landscape unique to the farmers here.
We tasted the fruits of our fellow countrymen and went to the orchard curiously.
The orchards in the countryside are very large, and the front and back of the house are orchards, planted with apricots, peaches, plums, walnuts, and pear trees, and tall mulberry trees are planted around the orchard. There are many fruits in southern Xinjiang and they are particularly sweet, thanks to the unique geographical environment here, the sunshine can reach more than ten hours in the summer, and the fruits are particularly delicious.
Whenever spring comes, the villagers have a mouthful of happiness, eat mulberries in April, wheat yellow apricots ripen in June, followed by peaches, pears, apples flocking up, and then storing cantaloupe, grapes, a winter there are fruits continuously, as well as summer and autumn dried apricots, peach peels, plus walnuts, the elderly and children have snacks to eat.
We walked around the orchard and the host greeted us again for lunch. Only to see a plate of steaming pilaf (a Uyghur diet), each plate of pilaf has a large piece of bone lamb, making people want to eat it.
Pilaf is made of local big-tailed sheep, red rice from saline dryland rice fields, plus red and yellow carrots, after the housewife puts lamb and onions in the pot, plus the right amount of water, after the lamb is ripe, put carrots to stir-fry, and then put the rice that has been soaked with water into the pot and stewed to achieve the perfect combination of mutton, carrots and rice. About an hour of kung fu, a pot of golden pilaf out of the pot, stewed pilaf, a reddish rice mixed with yellow carrots, you have me, I have you, glue each other together, and then with the stir-fried into a large red-black bone lamb, whether from the senses or taste, is a delicious craft, who will see the appetite will greatly increase. The meal is delicious and nutritious, and the pilaf is served with a cold dish of cucumber or onion, making it comfortable to eat. After eating the pilaf, we drank the unique brick tea of the Uyghurs.
After getting close to the small farm yard of nature, we embarked on a business trip.
In later years, I also went to the apricot orchard of a Uyghur Adasi (Uyghur: friend) in the suburbs.
Kucha's little white apricots are famous, it is a day in early June, when the apricots are just ripening. In the vast apricot grove, there is a golden scene everywhere, and the garden is full of fresh fruit aromas. The green trees are full of ripe or ripe yellow apricots, like little elves, hanging upside down on umbrella-shaped branches, hiding among the green leaves in the breeze like children's hide-and-seek, and now and now, as if to let us enter a fairy tale world.
We stood under the fruit trees and admired the fruits while picking up ripe apricots to taste. Kucha's small white apricots are small, sweet and sour, and rich in juice. One bite at a time, the almonds are still sweet, eat the pulp, and then bite the almonds in the mouth to eat the almonds, this is a process of enjoying quality fruits, but also a time to appreciate the beauty of nature.
After many years, I have never been to the rural orchards of southern Xinjiang again. But the friendship of Uyghur brothers, as well as the warm and fragrant farm yard of the melon and fruit, is like a precious picture scroll that is always cherished in my heart.
About author:Sun Jianye, a native of Longkou City, Shandong Province, is a member of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Society, and his pen names are Hai Yun and Wentao. A retired cadre of The Xinjiang Oilfield Company of China National Petroleum Corporation, he has gone to the countryside, joined the army after working, served as the director of the office of the oil company, and is a reporter for Xinjiang Petroleum News and China Petroleum Merchants Daily. He has published many works in newspapers and magazines such as China Petroleum News, China Petroleum Merchants Daily, Xinjiang Petroleum News, Xinjiang Petroleum Political Work, and Zhuandong Petroleum, and his early representative works "Motherly Heart" and "Development Process of Western Petroleum Pipelines" were published in Xinjiang Petroleum News and China Petroleum News. Recently, many works have been published on literary platforms such as Jiaodong Prose Annual Selection Micro-Journal; his works have been selected into "Jiaodong 2021 Writers' Family Essay Selection" and "Jiaodong 20 Essays". Sun Jianye Volume". On September 29, 2021, yantai city held the "looking for honest people around the integrity of the people around" activity selection, his work "online shopping croissant melon" won the second prize.
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