The good old days of tea

When the sun is shining, I like to go to the old but quiet antique street of Qingcheng. Here is almost a forgotten corner of the city, just like those old replicas, placed on the ground, covered with dust, but also covered with traces of time. Shopping people, mostly like me, came to this street, but after a walk to eat, or walk the dog. In the antique shop, will not forget to return, casually picked up a worthless object, it is just interesting.

On the roadside, three or five people would often be seen squatting on the ground playing mahjong, smoking cigarettes, gossiping, and taking a small fee from one or two customers who had picked out an antique, or petting a dog that was always rubbing against its feet. Strange passers-by will sometimes stop, help in the side of the trick, win money, proud, then take to the nearby small shop, bought cigarettes, to know people who do not know. The owner of the antique shop, does not deliberately treat customers to please, as usual, when the customer pushes the door to come in, staring at the news on TV, or Hong Kong's old martial arts films. Customers are like those in a mini-mart, freely rummaging through the shelves and coming and going quietly, not worrying about waiters coming up, chattering about the store's products, or following you warily, watching your every move. Even if it is placed in the doorway of the antique, or calligraphy and painting, the shopkeeper will not probe to see if the passing people, will grab it.

A small church with a spire, hidden in a residential area, silent, standing silently, as if it had been here for a long time, and seemed to have been forgotten by time, and it did not argue with it, so that it could stand in the noise. Occasionally there will be a woman with vicissitudes of face, out of the small door with peeling paint, in the quiet music of chanting, slowly through this unhurriedly old street, and go home to cook a soup to her late wife. There is no noisy pop music in the general business district on the street, and even the pirated DVDS placed on the stalls have a kind of simplicity and innocence in the old Hong Kong movies of the 1980s. The old master with the key, because of the inconvenience of his legs and feet, sat on a tricycle with a full set of clothes, drank a cup of rich colored tea, and crossed the Chu River first by placing a pawn in the chess set by the old man on the opposite side. There are customers to come, is still not in a hurry, will each other a military, just smile and turn around, handling the key of the outfit.

Puppies on this street, when is the happiest life. They either run in the wind, or lie in the door of the shop, some domineering lazily on the threshold, see people coming, only look up, then continue to do its little dream of the day. If there is a bone thrown by the shopkeeper, they can munch on it for a day, until the bone tastes like a mouthful in their mouth, and then they stop having fun and swallow it in a few mouthfuls. They do not understand the portrait of Wang Zhaojun on the cowhides, nor do they understand the value of those antiques in the time, but they do know the spring wind, when chasing companions, spirited and dripping forward. Sometimes they lie quietly beside their owners, watching the light flickering on the TV screen, or listening to the wind howling through the quiet alleys and old streets outside. The sun slanted down, in peace and good times, they have their own little joy to pass the time.

At the end of the antique street, there are already dilapidated residential houses, the idle and complacent of the old rural smoke, which can be faintly seen on the tall chimneys. Time travel here, it seems that the moment slowed down, not flat country dirt road, indicating the wind, frost and rain and snow that had been experienced before. Looking up at the sky, floating in the light blue, is still thousands of years ago to the most leisurely posture, happy clouds, they look down on the world reincarnation staged a variety of sadness, calm, like a drama after the curtain call, the last to leave the spectator.

This not long and not short street, hidden in the downtown bustling, like a wise elder, speechless, but deeply aware of all the vicissitudes of grief and joy. Water cloud in the secular world of all kinds of noise and clamor, in its deep gaze, but a small grain of dust, fingers caressed, without marks.

I met this horse at a busy intersection.

At that time, he was being led by his owner who was as dark and thin as him, waiting for the red light to come on, and crossing the zebra crossing like a pedestrian. I first across the road to see its dull hair color, like mottled walls, and like years of not washing the old man, a piece of ringworm. I tried to imagine it as a battle-hardened horse, which had once had the glory of galloping on the battlefield or the grassland, but because of the coming of peace and the degradation of the pasture, and migrated to the outskirts of the city, or the city, like those who had lost the pasture, to do the most menial work.

The car behind it, is the high rise of red dates. So bright color, it set off more dim. Had it been smaller, I would almost have mistaken it for a dull donkey. Its owner, apparently belonging to those unlicensed vendors who planted their own jujube forest, got up early every day, rushed it, ran dozens of miles, and came to the city to dodge while walking and selling.

It just stood there quietly, head down, like a lonely child thinking. When I passed it, it didn't even look at me. Its eyes are filled with helplessness and sorrow. At that moment, it must have been like me, in the crowd, wandering, dazed, forgetting where he was. I know that loneliness, in the hustle and bustle, but nothing to see, only hear their own heart, in the chest, patter and patter walk, go, go, want to go to a warm sunshine grassland, or can stop at home.

But it is like me, in this city, lost their own home. You can never find a patch of earth where you can plant a heart and grow into a sorghum plant, or a bush of grass with rich roots.

Soon people gathered around to buy their dates. His master was so happy counting his money that he forgot to throw him a handful of dried grass, or, as the master of his old brothers had done, give him a caressing pat on the head, and beckon him to wait patiently. He didn't even put a rein on it, and left that piece of rope hanging lazily on the ground.

And it, without the slightest complaint. It still stood meekly, like a silent old cow, or a still sculpture. There are people growing in the city, curious, teasing it, the master laughed, a pat on its back, said, honest, don't be afraid. He said this with the frivolity of a juggler, as if it had become a cat, dog or monkey that could make customers laugh at the moment, as long as the owner gave the order, and immediately used all the martial arts to please the passers-by who would pay.

But it is in the master's loud slap, sad to look back, take a look at those laughing customers, then bow and do a sad poet. Yes, at that moment, it was the wandering poet in the city. It should have been a galloping warrior on the grassland, but it lost the battlefield and became a tool to pull a car like a cow and run for people's livelihood in the city. It can never catch up with the car, and the dust and dirt from the car often fall mercilessly all over its limbs. It has also been ridiculed, ridiculed, accused and scolded by many. Just like when I was passing by, it was stopped by a Chengguan coming towards me.

It inadvertently pulled a pile of feces, although the owner has already put a plastic bag under it, but there are still some, splashed on the road. The chengguan impatiently asked his owner to clean the road and leave immediately without affecting the appearance of the city. Otherwise, it's not just a fine. Its owner, nodding his head and saying sorry, then crouched down to wipe the feces off the floor. It looked down at the master's pathetic kneeling on the ground, again and again wiping the city's grass free road, eyes once again swept a touch of sadness. It took two steps back slightly, gently mising the owner's body with its abdomen, as if it wanted to give him some comfort after being reprimanded by the Chengguan.

But such a move, but in exchange for the master a merciless whip. He cursed angrily, saying that it had no eyes, and did not know how to find the right place to poop! If we were really punished today, we would have lost all the dates in this cart.