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墨書 Inktalez
I am a fun and active person. After running through every corner of the yard, I was no longer satisfied with simple running and chasing. I started following the older kids and making my own favorite toys.
The first thing I came into contact with was origami, because my grandpa used to roll his own cigarettes, and there were a lot of old pieces of paper at home, which gave me many opportunities for experimentation and quick graduation.
The first toy I ever made, like most children around me, was the simplest paper airplane: take a piece of paper, fold it in half, then fold two triangular shapes on each side, and a flying toy is created. How simple and magical it is.
Slowly, the structure of the airplane can become more complex. For example, the nose can be changed to have twin engines, and the wings can change shape or be attached with another piece of paper. But no matter how it changes, a simple nose, wings, and fuselage will do as long as it can fly.
To make it fly far and accurately, we will stick a small mud ball in front of the nose. Then, a dozen children will line up and aim at a certain wall to see whose airplane flies higher and more accurately. The walls of the upper and lower rooms are covered with mud spots, which are the works of us children.
The most popular paper toy that boys play with together is the four-cornered plate: a piece of paper is cut in half or two pieces of paper are folded in half, then arranged in a cross shape. The four ends are folded into triangles and interlocked with each other.
Around every child, there are several four-cornered plates. Whenever there is free time, they would open the battle curtain and use methods like fanning and hitting to make the opponent's plate flip over, which counts as a victory. For those with better conditions, they would choose thicker and harder paper to make the plates, making it difficult to flip them over due to their weight. Another method is to use larger paper, making the four-cornered plate bigger and less likely to be flipped. Some people even add weight by placing tiles or iron pieces inside the four-cornered plate. My younger brother once won someone's iron piece, but I have never encountered that.
Girls generally don't play with four-cornered plates; they fold triangular paper boards. Besides being able to compete one-on-one like boys, they can also stack them in a row, blow on them, and knock down the first one, winning all the ones that fall down.
Gradually, I also learned to make paper tables, clothes, pants, and dogs. Later on, I made paper belts and paper guns, and even some girls who love beauty would make paper necklaces. These are actually very simple to make. First, you need to fold small pieces of paper, then connect them according to your imagination. However, to explain the specific steps, even older children can only demonstrate and cannot explain in words.
The children were also fascinated by the mud that was everywhere, using it to mold various playable items. These creations were entirely based on their imagination; they could call them cats or dogs, or even cars and horses. They could line them up in a row and have them battle each other. They could also shape the mud into small bowls and slam them down with force, creating a "pop" sound as the air burst through the bottom, reminiscent of firecrackers during the New Year—crisp and pleasant.
Before long, I discovered another use for the mud: building houses.
Of course, I couldn't go through the same processes as adults—selecting land, leveling it, extracting soil to make bricks, firing the bricks, digging trenches for the foundation, tamping down the ground, building walls, putting up beams, constructing rafters, and laying tiles to create a livable house. I could only symbolically construct one. However, even symbolic construction had its levels of complexity. The simplest houses made during playtime involved stacking a few stones and clumps of earth, leaving a door and at most a window with a chimney; that would be enough to prepare everything except for someone to live in it.
The most grand occasion for the children is when they compete to build houses. Everyone gathers all the broken bricks and stones they can find in the village, then selects a flat area to draw the house's blueprint using chalk or natural ochre from the back mountain. They then slowly start to construct the house on top of it. There are a few key points: first, the lines must be straight; otherwise, the house will not look good. Second, the stacked surfaces must be even; otherwise, just one or two layers of bricks and stones will cause it to collapse. Third, some decoration is necessary—picking a few fresh flowers, planting some small grasses, or drawing a few lines or writing some words on the walls.
Building a waterwheel is also a form of playing with mud. Although it is referred to as building a vehicle, it is essentially constructing a dam; it's just that this dam is a bit small and special. In front of and behind the house, you can find any flowing water source to create such a waterwheel:
First, find a flowing area, usually a small ditch along the edge of a field. If it is a larger canal, use wet mud to build a small dam to block the water. This way, you can start constructing a "water wheel" downstream of the dam.
Next, use wet mud to create a slightly wider "middle dam." In the middle to lower part of the middle dam, poke a passage inward with your finger. Then, at the upper part, create a downward passage with your finger. These two passages should connect. If possible, find one or two pumpkin stems to use as water conduits to prevent blockage.
Once completed, use mud to build several rings of mud walls at the upper part of the middle dam to guide the water flow from the small dam, allowing it to slowly meander and flow into the passage inside the middle dam.
Due to the narrow passage inside the middle dam, the water flow creates whirlpools on the surface of the dam. As long as the flow is controlled properly, a water wheel can spin for a long time without collapsing.
One day, it was announced that we needed to receive a vaccination against "Leptospira." My mother said that we had to get this shot before going into the water; otherwise, we could get very sick. I bravely rolled up my sleeve and accepted the injection. After that, I spent the entire afternoon in the small ditch behind our house, seemingly repairing more than ten levels of "water wheels." I ended up covered in mud, with not a single warm or dry spot on my body. When my mother came home after work that evening, I received a good scolding.
In addition to this, we also engaged in many other ideas and experiments.
The creation of trailers was the most appealing and enduring endeavor, with countless attempts made. The children in the yard already had some decent trailers, flaunting them before me day after day. I couldn't find the crucial ball bearings, nor could I suppress my dream of building a vehicle.
My first attempt at making a car involved repurposing a stool that my grandmother used for spinning yarn. I used the wide seat as the body of the vehicle, the four legs served as natural "wheels," and two upright spinning rods provided both steering and propulsion. I tied two strands of grass rope to it and had my siblings sit on board. When I pulled it along, we barely moved a few steps before it toppled over. Yet, this did nothing to dampen our spirits; we played happily for quite a while.
After that, I made several more attempts using logs. I would hollow out a hole in the center to serve as wheels and insert long wooden sticks to act as axles. However, without the lubrication of bearings, the lifespan of my creations was always disappointingly short.
I also tried making a parachute. After the autumn harvest, the adults would stack straw around a tree to protect it from the rain, intending to use it for feeding cattle or as bedding in the cattle pen come spring. I always followed them to play, and one time, the entire straw structure suddenly collapsed. The feeling of descending with the straw in the wind inspired my parachute attempt.
I found an umbrella at home and chose a field ridge a few meters high. I opened the umbrella and held onto the handle, then jumped down. Unfortunately, this time it didn't work; the wind flipped the umbrella inside out. Luckily, a few meters isn't too high, so I only felt a bit of pain when I landed but wasn't injured.
I twisted a few more grass ropes, tied one end of the rope to the top of the umbrella frame, wrapped the other end around the middle of the umbrella handle, and then tried jumping again. This time I didn't flip over, but it didn't feel as good as the first time. After all, the height is limited, and the tension of the umbrella is also limited. I couldn't experience the feeling of flying down.
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