I remembered eating watermelon in Taihang Water Town
Zhou Yaoquan
It's the hot season of the year again, and watermelon is the best "medicine" to beat the heat, and now they like to say "cure". Therefore, I also learned to form sentences: cutting and eating, eating is the best fruit to cure the summer heat; Beat into juice and drink a full glass, it is the best drink to cure the summer heat.
But the most memorable thing about eating watermelon was when I traveled to Taihang Water Town, Yixian County, Baoding, Hebei Province last year. It was July 2 last year, and the local heat forecast was 40°C.
When you come to Taihang Water Town, if you remove the word "Taihang", you will be in the water town of Jiangnan at a glance. Not only can you see ponds and canals connected everywhere on the street, arched stone bridges and covered bridges across both banks, but also shops built by the water, weeping willows, heavy reflections, accompanied by a high and low cicada chirping insects, bringing visitors a strong atmosphere of water town life.
Walking through the style snack street, it is said that there are more than 100 kinds of gourmet snacks, not only from the Taihang Mountain folk special snacks, but also bring together Shaanxi, Yunnan, Sichuan and other parts of the country flavor snacks, one store, one product, original, if the tourist belly is limited, you can also buy a small part of the store to taste, there are various spices on the table, the taste is matched with the diners willfully. The area of the store is not large, so the restaurant has a table on the street and a sun umbrella to shade the sun. We sat down at a table of eight immortals that sold sweet potato flour for noodles, ordered a small portion, and ordered tofu brain made of black beans and donkey meat roast and haggis soup from a few nearby shops. Seeing that we were sweating profusely, the proprietress deliberately turned the direction of the electric fan towards us, and suddenly felt much happier.
After the meal, I went to the shade of the tree, and the old man and the old lady were selling walnuts, jujubes, mushrooms, sour dates and peaches, melons, and watermelons. Luckily, the tour bus was nearby, so I put my belongings on and turned around and went around town.
A large river has wide waves, and a large river upstream in Yishui Lake passes through the town, perhaps this is why it is called a water town. The reeds on both sides of the river are green and rippling in the wind, and sometimes a few small birds are chirping and flying. There is a long wooden plank road built on the bank, a wooden bridge flying over the river, and next to it is the Lianxiang Wharf built with Taihang Mountain Stone. There is also a large archway built on the wharf, which is tall and magnificent, simple and atmospheric, breaking the Guinness World Record in Shanghai. It is conceivable that in the past, it must have been very prosperous here, with a constant stream of ships, boatmen, and buses coming and going from the south to the north. Now this is the tourist square, but also the place where tourists board the boat to visit the scenery on both sides of the strait, watching the red and green cruise ships shuttling back and forth, listening to the joy and laughter of red men and green female tourists, you have to feel a good dream of the scene of the water town.
We went ashore and entered a strange stone collection museum, and after coming out, a stone road stretched deep into the alley, along the way are stone alleys, stone walls, and stone slab houses, and it seems that we have entered the stone culture vortex of Taihang Mountain Stone. The poisonous sun was scorching on his head, and the heat absorbed by the stone slab was emitting under his feet, and he couldn't go far, and he was sweating profusely, and soon he felt a little dry and unbearable. When I was thinking about how to quench my thirst, I suddenly heard the sound of gurgling water, and I followed the sound to see an old man selling fried tofu and sausages in front of me, but there was no drinking water for sale.
Happily, there was a small canal next to the old man, from which the noise he had just heard came from, and in the middle of it was a small square well, where the cool water swirled and then flowed forward. A watermelon placed in it was constantly rinsed by the running water, which made our eyes shine, so we quickly bought it regardless of the price, and after cutting it, we couldn't wait to devour it, and my taste buds told me that this watermelon was not naturally cooked. But that sweetness and coolness are still not usually felt, and still quickly reach the heart through the throat, that kind of pleasure, that kind of moisturization, there is really a feeling of a long drought and a sweet shower, drowsiness and pillows, so that the feeling of thirst is suddenly swept away.
After people are over 60 and retire, they are indeed in old age, and it is easy to be nostalgic, not to mention me who is running towards 70! Speaking of eating watermelon, I also remembered the scene when I was a child.
At that time, I had just started elementary school. My family lives in an East Street called Lao Butou, East Street and West Street are L-shaped, there is a bay in the middle, the east of the bay is the central brigade, the west of the bay is called the Red Flag Brigade, and the north of the Red Flag Brigade is the Xinmin Brigade.
But we are accustomed to calling the Xinmin Brigade Xinmiaoyan, because there is a new temple called Jinghai Temple, and on the extension of the new temple, Yisheng material exchange conferences are often held, which is a grand event that is well-known throughout Xiaoshan, so the reputation of Xinmiaoyan is very great.
There is a hospital in Xinmiaoyan, which was rebuilt after the government confiscated the local family's courtyard, so I would come here to see a doctor when I was sick when I was a child. I remember that when I got an injection, my father bought me a piece of watermelon for a penny, and the watermelons at that time were cut into small pieces and sold, and it was also the first time I really tasted how sweet and thirsty watermelons were.
At the moment when most fruits can be enjoyed freely, watermelon is already one of the many fruits in midsummer, and what seamelon, Changle melon, Xinjiang melon, what sand sweet potato, hilly melon, hanging melon, what mine melon, unicorn melon, black beauty, to name a few, eating a watermelon, is already an ordinary thing that can no longer be ordinary, but the past of eating watermelon, every time I think of it, it will still make me difficult to let go.