Zhang Baotong lives in a big city 2018.9.24

If you have never lived in a big city, you will have a dreamy yearning for a big city. It's like flying over a big city at night, looking down from the sky, being dazzled by the millions of lights and being struck by the impossibly immense brightness. You will imagine that the brightly lit place is a huge palace, which will give you many mysteries and wonders, as well as the dreams that you have been longing for and seeking.

For many people who don't live in a big city, the "big city" is really a place to look forward to and yearn for. I remember when I was four or five years old, I used to hear my mother talk about Xianyang. In her words, Xianyang seems to be a very large city. Because I had always grown up on a railway construction site by the Luohe Bridge in Pucheng, Shaanxi Province, I had never seen a big city, not even a big town, so I always thought of the gorgeous palace in the painting on the wall of my neighbor's house as Xianyang City. When I was in the fourth or fifth grade, I always regarded Xianyang as a very prosperous and lively city.

Later, I came to Xi'an once after graduating from high school, and I learned that Xianyang is just a small city, and Xi'an is many times bigger than Xianyang. Since then, I have begun to yearn for Xi'an, just like taking a plane at night from high in the sky looking down at the huge and bright thousands of lights, hoping that one day I can dissolve into the lights of this fairyland on earth.

One day I came to this city and became a part of this city. If you fly through Xi'an from night and see thousands of lights below, one of them is the light coming from my house. But the dazzling lights under the night sky no longer allure me. I've seen the city through, it's not that good, it's far from what I originally imagined and longed for. I'm alone, I'm unaccompanied, I haven't eaten rice or fresh fish in three years. At that time, life here was really far worse than our hometown in Hunan, the land of fish and rice. I told my mother that I wanted to go back to Miluo, but my mother firmly disagreed, saying that people are trying their best to drill into the big city, so why do you want to go to a small place? So, I never got back to my hometown, where I really longed for and cherished.

Why did we leave our parents, relatives, classmates, and lovers to go to the big city? And this dream is in that big city far away. We're going to go to that big city and get a job, earn a wage, and bring our parents and lovers with us, so that they can live a stable and good life. However, when we entered the city, we realized that the lights in the city were no longer attractive. The lights here and some of them here are cold and unfamiliar, and although the lights are bright, they only make you feel more lonely and helpless. At that time, I was working at Xi'an Railway Station, and the trains from south to north always made me miss my hometown and relatives, and sometimes I couldn't help but cry when I missed it. I often sing "Red River Valley" and "Spring in the North" because that mood touches my sad heartstrings the most. I regret very much that I shouldn't have come to this city.

However, just as a person's destiny can be changed, so can a person's feelings. Loneliness allows me to spend more time on change, and helplessness makes me strive for self-improvement. Later, I went to school and became a secondary school teacher, and then I got married, had children, and shared a house. Moreover, after the country's reform and opening up, the material life has also been greatly enriched, not to mention eating rice, eating fresh fish, even eating chickens and turtles is no longer difficult. As a result, homesickness slowly faded. But I have to go home every year for the New Year. After that, I lived in a new house, had heating, and when I went back to my hometown every year for the Chinese New Year, I felt that it was very cold there, but I felt very unaccustomed.

After decades of life, I have become accustomed to living in a big city. The living conditions in the big city are very convenient, and all kinds of transportation, medical care, schooling, culture and entertainment, and children's employment are much better and easier than those in small places. If it weren't for Xi'an, but in Miluo or some other small place, I wouldn't have been able to go to a junior college and then a bachelor's degree after work. Moreover, every year I go back to Miluo to find a place to play table tennis, but I have walked all over Miluo Street, and I can't even find a stadium, but I don't need to look for a stadium in Xi'an, and there are places for activities in our community and several neighboring communities. Tournaments are held almost weekly at the provincial, municipal, district and various sponsors and stadiums. Especially when it comes to children's schooling and employment, small places are simply not comparable to big cities. If you don't go to college, it's hard to find a job, so parents are trying to get their children go to college. However, it is very difficult for children to go to high school in Miluo, and only 20-30% of junior high school graduates are admitted to high school, and those who are not admitted have to leave school at a young age. Moreover, Miluo is a county-level city, there are no industries and enterprises at all, almost all of them are commercial, and the entire urban area is all for business, and there are shops one after another. The clerk's salary is only 13,400 yuan a month. The consumption in Miluo is much higher than in Xi'an, and the 13,400 yuan a month is not enough for the children to live on their own. Therefore, many local young people cannot be admitted to university, so they can only go to other places to work. However, there are many state-owned and private enterprises in Xi'an, and any private company you work in will cost at least two or three thousand yuan a month. Although the salary of two or three thousand yuan is not high, it is higher than those small places, and it is easier to find a job.

Although the big city is much better than home, we still miss and reminisce about it from time to time. After all, it is our hometown, with our parents and relatives, our childhood and youth, and many of our good times. And these are precious and beautiful treasures in our lives. It will remind us of our growth experience and the secret of success, and let us absorb the warmth of family affection and the strength of struggle.

The reason why we look forward to and yearn for big cities when we are in our hometown is because the place in our hometown is too small, which limits the height of our flight, and we want to soar in a broader and far-reaching world, we must leave our hometown and go to a strange and distant place to find our dreams. So, we came to a mysterious and strange big city full of flowers. When we have lived in this big city for a long time, we feel that the big city is polluted, with high-rise buildings, traffic congestion, and crowding. So, we thought of our hometown again, where there are green mountains and green waters, rivers and valleys, paddy fields and mountains, forest farms and tea gardens, as well as parents and fellow villagers and classmates and lovers. These are often combined into a warm and touching scene in our hearts, allowing us to relive the beautiful feelings we once had.

Everyone has aspirations and yearnings, but reality and habits are more important. Some people are afraid to enter the big city, and once they enter the big city, they can't find the south, south, west, and north. When some people enter the big city, they never want to go back to the countryside, feeling that the transportation and shopping in the countryside are too inconvenient. I have been to the deep mountains of the Qinling Mountains many times, and people there almost do not eat meat once a year except for the Chinese New Year, because to buy meat, you have to go out of the mountains for dozens of miles to the towns to buy meat. So, they cook with their own potatoes almost all year round. But there are also people who like to live in the countryside, and a few of the acquaintances I know have returned to their rural hometowns after retirement.

China's urbanization is encouraging more and more young people to move to the cities, so the countryside is being abandoned by young people. These young people who have moved into the city will also retrace the path of life that I have already taken. There are loneliness and loneliness on this road, there is also hustle and bustle, there are successes and losses, but you don't hold back. Big cities are the center of modern civilization, you will be very close to modern civilization, your pace of life will be accelerated, you will get a lot of tempering, however, you will fly higher and faster than the original, your horizons will be broader, and your life will be richer.