Memories of Xinghua Village

Shannxi Association of Canada

2026/12/6

The Xinghua Village I'm referring to isn't the place of romantic wine and poetry, the place the shepherd boy points to in the poem. I can't imagine the Xinghua Village the poet described, but for many years, the Xinghua Village in my heart has been a beautiful, romantic, yet profoundly realistic scroll. Years have passed, and I'm now over fifty, especially in the "multi-village" community of overseas Chinese. Though surrounded by mountains and rivers, loneliness is ever-present. The saying "Beautiful mountains, beautiful water, but so lonely," though a joke, perfectly captures the reality. In my leisure time, my thoughts run wild, but these thoughts hold little hope or longing for the future; instead, they are filled with fragmented memories, and Xinghua Village is a vibrant splash of red in those dim memories.

[Image] Rewind to the late 1980s, March or April in the lunar calendar, on the Loess Plateau of northern Shaanxi, where spring chill lingers. The ice on the small river in front of the door has melted, and the murmuring water whispers into the distance. On the loess land, scattered green life dotted the landscape. Across the village, on the barren mountaintop, a boy, wearing trousers that reached his knees and a cotton-padded jacket with the cotton showing, gazed at the place that haunted his dreams for the rest of his life—at the foot of the equally barren mountain, where gray-yellow cave dwellings, some alone, some in twos and threes, were scattered haphazardly among the gullies and ravines, with winding dirt paths running through them, disorderly yet orderly. At midday, wisps of smoke rose from chimneys, and outside every courtyard, ancient apricot trees were in full bloom, their blossoms like white clouds painted red by the sunset and fallen to the village fields. The thousands of trees, a tapestry of white tinged with pink and pink with touches of red, swayed gracefully in the gentle breeze, their beauty enhanced by the rustling of leaves. It was a scene truly worthy of description, a beauty only fit for heaven, rarely seen on earth. This is what that ragged boy witnessed that year, that month, and to this day I firmly believe it is one of the most beautiful scenes I can recall, a beauty I have yet to find in any masterpiece.

Two months later, in the sixth month of the lunar calendar, the asphalt road in the valley was no longer scorching hot under the setting sun, a gentle mountain breeze caressing the face. The road was sparsely populated, with a creaking 28-inch bicycle, an empty basket hanging on each side of the back seat. A boy, his trousers rolled up, his open shirt fluttering in the wind, rode there. Because he wasn't tall enough, even with the seat adjusted to its lowest position, he couldn't sit up. He had to use the footrests, his crotch pressed against the crossbar, and struggle to move forward. The scene might seem comical today, but the smile on the boy's face spoke of his joy. The two empty baskets on the back seat signified the source of his happiness—he was setting off this morning, laden with two large baskets of yellow apricots, towards Yan'an City, sixty miles away. He had already memorized all sorts of street vending techniques and strategies, including routes, suitable locations, and how to quickly escape from the authorities. Around noon, he arrived at his destination, Yanzhonggou, and found a quiet corner amidst the bustling crowd to put down the large baskets. Since he was a novice vendor, his parents didn't want him to bring a scale worth over ten yuan, fearing it might break or be confiscated. There had been several instances in the village where experienced vendors had their scales confiscated by the authorities. Fortunately, he didn't want to use that thing anyway; a large bowl of apricots cost only one cent—simple and easy. And so, bowl by bowl, penny by penny, two or three hours later, one basket was empty, and the other only had about half a basket left, containing about a dozen bowls. Because many of the remaining bowls had been picked over by others and weren't very presentable, an older woman haggled with me for nearly half an hour, finally emptying the large basket for 50 cents. This negotiation remains vivid in my memory, and for years I've regretted not insisting on 80 cents. Even later, when I was in business, I used this as a cautionary tale whenever I had to negotiate prices. Looking back now, it's quite funny. But at the time, I had a wad of small bills that amounted to four or five yuan. Following the guide, I went to Erdao Street and spent 1.2 yuan on a large bowl of white flour noodles—I was so satisfied! You have to understand; white flour was something I only ate once a month at home. This is why I could ride the 120-mile round trip with a smile on my face, tirelessly speeding along on my 28-inch bicycle.

However, this smile was short-lived. In the scene about half a month later, the earthen courtyard in front of the cave dwelling was swept again, covered with apricot peels of various sizes and colors, waiting to dry. This is also why I still feel a little apprehensive about dried apricots. The old apricot trees in the villages of northern Shaanxi back then were not comparable to the small trees as thick as a cup in the plantations of later years. They were towering trees, tens or even hundreds of meters high, so large that an adult could hardly close their arms around them. The yield was unimaginable. During the ripening season, the trees would be covered in golden apricots within three to five days. Only a tiny fraction could be sold. Most of them needed to be broken open one by one to dry and sell as dried apricots, while the apricot pits were cracked open with stone hammers to sell as almonds. Cracking apricot pits by hand was a real skill. If you cracked too lightly, you couldn't crack them open; if you cracked too hard, you would break them, making them unsellable and unpopular. At that time, my skills were limited and my output was low. I listened to the whole village's symphony of hammering from morning till night, accompanied by my mother's scolding. My back ached, and the endless clanging and banging continued for nearly a month. Even now, the thought of it makes my back ache reflexively.

As the apricot blossoms bloomed and faded, it was March or April of the early 1990s. The scene depicts a tree laden with blossoms, their fragrance intoxicating. Little bees, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, buzzed incessantly among the flowers. Beneath the old, sturdy apricot tree, a group of bare-chested stonemasons were clanging and banging their unique symphony. Occasionally, a gentle breeze would blow, and the white petals, tinged with pink and red, would flutter down like snowflakes onto the musicians' bronze faces and arms. Some, lost in thought, would fall onto the hard iron chisels, and with a single blow, their blossoms would vanish. Many families, expanding their courtyards, saw and axe their apricot trees, along with their beautiful blossoms, falling to the ground, sacrificed to their new lives… This was the time when the better-off families in the village began building stone kilns. Those with better resources used stone entirely; those with less resources framed their existing earthen cave dwellings with stone, merging them seamlessly into one, creating a completely new stone cave – a process called "joint." The entire mountain village was in a state of inexplicable excitement, with every household eager to participate, and the stone banks along the stream behind the mountain were completely cleared for quarrying. As for my family, my parents were neither well-off nor poor, and in this frenzied environment, they could only respond with constant sighs. My 18-year-old brother was facing marriage, and the ancestral earthen cave dwelling was clearly a major problem. After countless nights of deep sighs, my father picked up his old hoe and dug another cave next to our existing one within two months, finally solving our immediate problem. However, as more new stone cave dwellings were built in the village, my parents' sighs and arguments increased. Until the late 1990s, after I, a ragged young man, had come of age and started working, I used my first income, plus a large portion of embezzled funds, to scrape together 30,000 yuan and bought seven brand-new, top-of-the-line all-stone kilns in the village. Looking back now, it was less about bringing honor to my parents and more about a form of self-redemption. This idea is similar to the one depicted in Lu Yao's Ordinary World. I think this is a shared historical imprint on our generation of so-called ambitious young people who emerged from impoverished rural areas.

Years later, in the 2020s, a middle-aged man, panting heavily, finally stands once again on the hilltop where he had spent countless moments lost in thought as a child. His bewildered eyes cannot conceal his disappointment. Yes, the mountain is still the same mountain, the man is still the same man, but... everything has changed. The once barren loess ridge is now overgrown with weeds and shrubs, lush and verdant. Even the winding mountain path of my childhood, neglected for years, is now lost in the lush greenery. And standing on it is no longer the ragged, energetic boy, but a middle-aged man, overweight and perhaps even a little greasy. Where is that Xinghua Village I so longed for? Looking into the distance, the once barren mountains and gullies have long since changed. Upon closer inspection, a village can be vaguely discerned amidst the verdant greenery. But this is no longer the Xinghua Village of yesteryear. The courtyards where every household once boasted beautiful apricot trees are now overgrown with weeds. Those old apricot trees that miraculously survived the expansion of the new stone kiln courtyards during those passionate years have ultimately succumbed to the ravages of time. The old trees, withered and decayed, had lost their former beauty, clinging only to a few scattered new shoots, hiding in overgrown corners, awaiting their final moments. The gears of progress brought about dramatic changes; the national policy of closing mountains to forests allowed the once barren Huangshan to recuperate and flourish, becoming lush and green. Young people, unwilling to rely on the whims of nature on the barren loess land, ventured far away. Urbanization further decimated the already sparsely populated Xinghua Village, turning it into a completely deserted wasteland. Those rows of neat stone cave dwellings, once the symbol of generations' dreams, collapsed or crumbled after the passing of the last few elders, their only remaining value being as temporary sheepfolds for shepherds… The Xinghua Village of our dreams was gone.

The scene shifts back to early winter in Toronto. A portly man sits slumped at his computer desk, gazing at the withered leaves and lingering snow outside the window. His thoughts wander to the two sides of the Pacific Ocean, ten thousand kilometers away. His hands haven't touched a keyboard in a long time—so be it! Let me end with a sigh, a sigh for this magnificent era, for this beautiful Xinghua Village, and for this uncle who has fled far from home.