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墨書 Inktalez
Zhu Shan Bay actually doesn't have very large mountains, but as soon as you step out of the house, all you see are clusters of small hills, surrounded by lush green fields.
Humans and forests are natural relatives. In my eyes, apart from people, the most abundant are the trees covering the mountains, mainly pine and bamboo, both native species. They may not be precious, but they are indeed very durable.
The branches and leaves of the pine tree are the main source of firewood for our rural household.
The pine branches are used as large firewood. Throughout the year, the production team arranges to cut down trees or trim branches twice. Adults bundle them into large loads and bring them back home, where they are placed in front or behind the house, leaning against the wall to dry for two to three months. Once dried, they become excellent materials for winter fires. When guests arrive, in order to save time, we may also burn them once or twice.
Pine needles are used as small firewood, and collecting them is my main task. They fall off like human hair due to dryness, so we use a leaf rake to plow back and forth on the mountain, slowly gathering the small pine needles together before bringing them back home for later use.
To rake the pine needles, we often hang some heavy objects such as stones or bricks on the handle of the rake. This way, we can easily gather the scattered pine needles in the grass by simply dragging the rake.
In early autumn, many pine needles on the tall pine trees start to turn yellow, but the strong wind has not yet blown, and the leaf stalks have not dried out, so very few of them fall into the grass below on their own. I would then choose a larger pine tree, climb up quickly, or shake the pine branches vigorously with my hands, or simply use my hands to pull off the pine needles one by one. Generally, after climbing four or five large trees, I can collect a basket of pine needles.
Zhu Shan Bay, it is said that there are even more bamboo trees than pine trees, but after the "great steelmaking," only a few are left around the house. If we use a lot of them at home, we have to go to the distant mountains to cut more.
We use bamboo in many places:
The baskets, drying mats, dustpans, and even the urine buckets used for labor were all made of bamboo. The chopsticks, water scoops, rice containers, fish baskets, pig feed baskets, and leaf scrapers used in daily life, along with the old mill in the main room at the front of the courtyard, were primarily constructed from bamboo.
Occasionally, I would fashion a simple fishing rod from bamboo and head to the lotus pond in front of the yard to fish. The tools that my uncles used for catching fish were mostly made of bamboo as well. Those young relatives in their teens would sometimes make one or two bamboo whistles, causing all the children in the courtyard to gather around them. As for making bamboo bows and arrows or bamboo water guns, although they often looked rough and would fall apart or disappear after a day or two of use, everyone enjoyed it nonetheless.
In our courtyard, the adults grew up among the "bamboo mountains." Even though there wasn't a dedicated bamboo craftsman who went from house to house, they rarely hired skilled artisans to create bamboo tools. If you couldn't weave a basket from bamboo by the age of ten, you would be looked down upon by everyone.
Although I have never formally studied wickerwork, as long as I get started, I can "weave a basket to the sky," which is why I proudly say: I am from Zhu Shan Bay.
Alongside my growth, besides my grandmother's advice of "don't climb the sharp trees," there were four large trees that often stayed together:
Our "Mother Tree," the Osmanthus tree, grows next to the Long Ancestral Hall and became home to Osmanthus Primary School after liberation. Throughout my five years in elementary school, it stood silently there, releasing a fragrance that enveloped the entire yard during August and September, yet it never spoke a word to us children. Even when we mischievous boys climbed up to swing on its branches or threw stones and dirt at the "enemies" hiding among the leaves, it never let out a single groan. Strangely, Osmanthus Primary School has been operating for decades and has sent off more than eight hundred children, yet there has never been an incident of a child falling from the tree and getting hurt or scraping their skin under the Osmanthus tree.
The older generation often referred to it as the "Divine Tree," a guardian of the entire the Long Clan. In terms of age, it was older than my grandfather's grandfather, yet it never seemed to age. During the prosperous days of the Long Ancestral Hall, it remained youthful; when Osmanthus Primary School flourished, it too showed no signs of aging. It wasn't until the twenty-first century that it began to reveal its weariness: Osmanthus Primary School gradually became marginalized, first operating only four grades, then dwindling down to just one class per grade, until there were only a handful of students left. On a stormy night, this osmanthus tree was struck by lightning, losing half of its form. From then on, it hunched over, supporting its increasingly sparse branches and leaves, stubbornly releasing a faint fragrance.
A pair of catalpa trees stood right behind our old house, climbing up a gentle slope of twenty to thirty meters. There was a small grove of several acres, and because the grove was small, these two trees stood out like cranes among chickens. I asked my grandfather about them; he said that before the Great Leap Forward in 1958, there were so many tall trees on the back mountain that no one knew when these two had sprouted.
I have vivid memories of these two catalpa trees because they accompanied me throughout my childhood. They were the tallest trees on "Little Back Mountain." As I grew a little taller, I would almost daily climb them—sometimes I would climb the mother tree, and other times the child tree.
The catalpa tree is different from the pine tree. Its trunk is straight and smooth, with no branches in the middle to provide leverage. Therefore, climbing it is much more difficult than climbing a pine tree. In addition, they are not very old, and their bark has not weathered. When I first tried to conquer them, I couldn't climb to the top no matter what. Once, I even fell heavily because my hand didn't grip well, and my mother forbade me from climbing for a while. But how can a child's heart be controlled? My mother had to go to the production team to earn work points every day, and my grandmother almost let me run around the mountains, as long as I didn't go to the edge of the pond, they would mostly turn a blind eye.
I don't know when, or for what reason, or in what way, this mother and son quietly disappeared from that forest. Decades later, there was no longer a forest behind my old house. A village-level cement road now runs through the place where the mother and son trees were. In fact, after my youth, I never saw them again.
In the back right corner of the old house, there is still a tall and dense tree. It should be older than the catalpa mother and son. Its bark has started to age and crack.
Due to the dense foliage, there was a huge magpie nest in the old tree, and the sound of chirping often echoed from the branches. One autumn afternoon when I was about three or four years old, a group of young boys gathered beneath the tree. These brothers and cousins, all in their teens, declared that they would take down the nest for firewood. Among them were my Second Uncle from the upper yard and his second son, along with Ming Laolao, who called me "Old Generation." My younger uncle was also present, but he was timid and honest, unlike the others who eagerly jostled for positions near the tree. A few of us younger ones stood in a circle at the foot of the tree, watching the commotion.
The first to try was Ming Laolao. He was a bit chubby and after climbing just a few times, he found himself unable to continue. After two attempts, he had no choice but to step back into the outer circle. Second Uncle's second son quickly took his place on the trunk. He climbed several times but fell short each time at about one-third of the way up. There was a protruding knot where he couldn't use both hands and feet simultaneously. After several failed attempts to overcome this obstacle, he finally managed to grab hold of the trunk with both hands while wrapping his legs around it for leverage. With a sudden push, there was a loud "crack," but instead of climbing higher, he ended up breaking his belt.
Without missing a beat, he quickly twisted a long piece of grass into a rope and tied it around his waist twice. He spat into his palms for good luck and grasped the trunk again, charging upward. However, even with the grass rope, it proved useless; as soon as he exerted force on the protruding part, it snapped again.
The last to climb up was the second son of Third Uncle, who, thanks to his family's connections in the coal mine, sported a trendy yellow canvas belt. After just two attempts, he managed to scale the towering tree that everyone else could only look up at in awe.
In the middle of the branches, I could vaguely see my cousin climbing swiftly and stopping at a large shadow. He pushed and prodded forcefully, dislodging an entire magpie nest. Branches measuring one or two feet long kept falling down, filling a large dustpan to the brim, and they were piled high at the top of the "throat" of the tree.
For many years afterward, this dense tree withstood the smoke and fire (there was a time when the children played and accidentally set fire to the grass beneath it), but it could not survive the axes and saws of the villagers. When I was in high school, the people in the yard cut it down and sawed it into planks to distribute among families. My family received a few pieces, which we had crafted into four long benches made of mahogany by a carpenter.
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