When I was a child, I had the impression that my family's house was very warm.

Although they are all in the north, the layout of the houses is similar to that of the courtyard houses in Beijing.

The similarity is between houses, and there will be alleys between each house, also called corridors. Probably because the spacing is too small and the sunlight can't shine in, our local dialect is called "black porch". Such residential areas are what Premier Li once called "shanty towns", which are rows of households separated by alleys.

Typically, there are five to eight households per row. There are about six to seven rows in each area. When the Civil Affairs Bureau registers the household register, it is the name of the lane + row + household.

The local civil affairs bureau is named the lane according to the method of "ten days of dry", there are A-shaped alleys, B-shaped alleys, etc., and my family is five rows of three households in Xinzi Lane.

The difference is that each courtyard house in Beijing will have many households, that is, many families, while my hometown is a single family. Of course, it is in line with the living conditions and customs of the north. Each household will have its own house and yard, but there is a difference in size. The houses are all sitting north and facing south. The local people call it the main house.

The design of the house does not have the obvious division of functional areas such as living room, bedroom, kitchen, dining room, etc., except for the functional division of the residence of "10,000 households" at that time, the rest are almost the same.

As soon as you enter the door, there is a fire kang opposite, and next to the fire kang is connected to the pot table, which is the place for cooking, which is similar to the gas hood we use in the building now. Because they all burn coal for cooking, the pot and the kang are connected together, and it also plays a role in keeping warm. For the sake of safety, some residents have erected a grille at the junction of the pot and the ondol, which has the advantage of avoiding the danger of ignorant children getting too close to the pot when cooking. This is also the biggest drawback of the pot connected to the kang.

The most news in those years was whose child was burned by the pot...... I won't go into detail here.

Most of the houses in my hometown are laid out like this as soon as you enter the door, with few exceptions. The gap between rich and poor is marked by the number of rooms in one house, the living area of one family, and the large enough yard of one family. In fact, it is the same as what is said now, that is, the size of the square meter of residence. Because the area is remote and relatively backward, there are no buildings and square meters.

The number of household appliances in the house, the level of intelligence, also shows the gap between the rich and the poor, according to the standards measured by today's society, in addition to the house is transportation and bank deposits.

In the case of the above conditions, the average family means of transportation must be bicycles. Because for the towns and villages in the fifties and sixties, cars were not yet popular. The number of bicycles and motorcycles is another indicator of the family's living conditions. The "three major pieces" necessary for marriage are girder bicycles, Shanghai mechanical watches, and pedal sewing machines.

As for deposits, that's not to mention. At that time, the average social wage was very low, and the total monthly income of a normal dual-income family was between 50 and 60, or even lower. Of course, there were those who earned more, but there were very few, and in the small town at that time, the monthly salary of hundreds or thousands was probably only 5% to 8%. After the reform and opening up, it is true that a large number of people who have gone to the sea to do business have become rich, and that is a later story.

In addition to these basic living conditions, families with large yards will also build a few small square meters of houses in the spare space, which are used as "grain houses", which are also called "small south houses" in dialect, that is, houses facing north and south, and also a place to store grain.

Of course, you can also park bicycles, motorcycles, and other miscellaneous items, similar to the current storage room. There are also "big families" who will build up a small house to rent to families without a house, or as a student dormitory, to make money in the way of bunks, as soon as you enter the door, only leave a narrow road one person wide for passing, and then the position of the kang is used to sleep, and the current youth hostel model is similar, but the conditions are not just a star and a half.

My family is not wealthy. The house is just two small south houses for large families to put food, sundries, and rent, which add up to less than 30 square meters. The only advantage is that you have your own house and a single house. When I was a child, I was puzzled why my house was different from the houses of my neighbors? Why was their house tall, big, and spacious, while my house was short, small, and narrow? Why did other people's houses shine the sun from the windows during the day, but my house could not shine all year round? But no matter what questions I had, my home was always the warmest, warmest, most intimate, and safest, because the place where my parents were was my children's home.

By chance, I learned from my parents that the area of my house was actually used to build a main house. However, because the life of the family was relatively poor, the labor cost of 240 yuan could not be paid, so I had to use the materials to build the main house to build a small south room to make do. Although it is a waste of materials, it is better than nothing, and it can be regarded as having its own nest.

In this way, since I can remember, I have been in that little south room, and everything will start from that little south room.