Searching for the old lover Zhang Baotong 2019.3.2 Toronto trip

5. Experience abroad

When I came to the town again, there were already more people on the streets, and there were people everywhere. The temperature is not high, the sun is good, and people's faces are filled with bright spring light. Because the air is fresh and the sun is bright, the European-style buildings on the street look warm and elegant. The old church, the nostalgic water mill, the million-dollar mansion in the affluent area, and the brand store all make me feel new and chic. She told me about the history and customs of the town as she walked, which made me have a deeper impression of the town.

She took me to a small Chongqing hot pot restaurant, which was clean and tidy, and although it was almost full, it seemed very quiet, and almost no one spoke. Even if someone speaks, the voice is low and does not affect the person next to him. Because it is a Chongqing hot pot restaurant, most of the people who come to eat are Chinese, and some are locals. The young waiter led us to a table by the window on the second floor and handed us the menu.

I gave her the menu and asked her to order, and she said, "Then you're welcome." Then I ordered lamb rolls, beef shutters, cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, daylily, lettuce, potato chips, shredded kelp and tofu puffs.

The waiter prepared the hot pot soup, lit the fire, and went to prepare food for us. We continued to chat. Because we sit upstairs near the window, we don't talk too much to others.

She said to me, "A few days ago, my mother called me and said that you were coming to see me, saying that you were doing well, that you had become a deputy director-level leader, that you had become a writer, that you had published a book, and that I would receive you well. ”

I smiled and said, "You know that everyone in China is actually the same, although I left school and became the leader of the neighborhood office, it may be better than being a teacher." ”

She asked me, "How old is the child?"

I said, "I work in a state-owned enterprise, but the benefits are not very good." ”

She asked, "What is Madame doing?"

I said, "I am also an employee of a state-owned enterprise, and I have been retired for a few years." Then I asked, "Is your husband still teaching?"

She shook her head and said with some embarrassment, "You mean Sun Baoliang?"

I wondered, how many husbands does she have? I said, "That's the graduate student who took you abroad." ”

She said lightly, "We have been divorced a long time ago. ”

When I heard this, I was taken aback and wanted to ask her why, but I was afraid that I would touch people's privacy, so I immediately said "oh" and stopped talking. Moreover, Mr. Ding did not tell me about his daughter's divorce.

At this time, the waiter brought the dish, and the soup in the hot pot was already boiling. So, we started clinking glasses, drinking beer, and eating lamb rolls and lettuce in the hot pot with chopsticks.

Although the hot pot is all spicy flavor, I feel that the food here is fresh and delicious, and it tastes tender and delicious. The taste is definitely different from that of China. The more you eat, the more you want to eat, and the more you eat, the more you feel fragrant.

Xu Lisha said to me, "The meat and vegetables here are all grown in a natural ecology, unlike in China, where no matter what you eat, you feel that there is no taste." I used to like to eat my mother's big meat cabbage dumplings, but when I got home and asked my mother to make dumplings, I felt that they didn't taste like they used to be. ”

I said, "No way, there are too many people in China, more than a billion people have to eat, whether it is vegetables, grain, or meat, they all adopt the method of rapid planting, rapid cultivation and rapid production, so the food tastes like it has lost its original taste." ”

We chatted and ate, and the meal lasted almost two hours. The first checkout was 430 yuan, but I thought it was very delicious and very satisfying.

After lunch, Xu Lisha took me to the fields behind the town to play. As soon as I got out of the town, I saw a small lake. The lake is very quiet and beautiful, stretching far away. The lake is very deep, and the lake is either surrounded by dense forests or overgrown with flowers and green grass. The breeze on the lake is deep and cool, and the deeper the place, the quieter it is. It gives people a sense of far-reaching artistic conception. The bright sunlight reflects a large dazzling light on the water, and there are some waterfowl floating in the lake. The blue waves make the mind wander. Immersed in it, it really makes people feel a sense of bewildering dreams.

From time to time, there are geese and seagulls in the meadows near the lake, and these geese and seagulls are not afraid of people, but they also chase after people and beg for food. Two three or four-year-old children, led by adults, are feeding the geese. The geese wagged their tails as they ate.

On the other side of the lake is a field that stretches as far as the eye can see. The field is a fresh green, with countless small flowers swaying in the wind, giving people endless illusions. And at the end of the field is the white clouds under the blue sky and white sun, quietly bathed in the warm sun, happily enjoying the good mood of the day.

We walked around the lake for a while, and then sat down on a warm meadow.

She asked me, "You seem to be quite happy in this life?"

I shook my head gently and said, "It's not happiness either, because I have too many regrets in my life." ”

She said, "You've done well in your career and published a book, which is already very good, what else can you regret?"

I looked at the horizon in the distance for a while, and said with some sadness, "My marriage is not good, this is the biggest regret of my life." ”

She said, "You didn't find someone you liked?"

I said, "When I came to her because I saw her beautiful, but after we got married, I found that we had great differences in outlook on life and values, and it was difficult for us to be compatible in terms of diet and personality, especially because she was not in good health, and she had been sick for decades, which made me upset." ”

She said, "Then why don't you get a divorce?"

I said, "I always wanted a divorce, but their family did not agree to her divorce, and she almost lost her life because of illness and had a major operation, so she didn't leave immediately, but later, when I was transferred to the district committee, she changed her mind and refused to leave." If I want to forcibly divorce, it may affect my reputation and promotion, and I am a weak person, and I may be a little too good-looking. Later, when I got a little older, I felt that it would not make much sense to divorce again. So, I've been making do until now. ”

She pondered for a moment and said, "The greatest success and happiness in a person's life is the success and happiness of marriage, and the greatest failure and misfortune are also the failure and unhappiness of marriage." ”

I said, "Either Tolstoy would say that happy marriages are all alike, and unhappy marriages have their own sorrows." ”

She said with deep feeling, "Yes, marriage is often the most realistic and true portrayal of our life experience. I divorced Sun Baoliang out of helplessness. ”

She plucked a small flower in the grass with her hand, looked at it for a long time, and muttered, "I told you, when we first came to Canada, we had almost nothing but the money we had saved in Singapore, and we were empty-handed. It was a very hard time to find a job. Through his classmates, he found a job as a Chinese tutor in the Chinese community in Toronto, and the salary was not much. I had to work in a Chinese-owned supermarket. Working in a supermarket is very tiring, constantly loading shelves and cleaning all day, working 12 hours a day, and returning home from work, so tired that I don't want to move. However, when I got back to the house, I still had to cook. We were six families renting together in a big apartment, sharing a kitchen with two gas stoves. Cooking should be done in rotation. There is a sorted timeline for who comes first and who comes last, and how long it takes. So, sometimes you can't eat until nine o'clock in the evening. Especially in the morning, you have to queue up to go to the bathroom, but in the morning, everyone is in a hurry to get to work, and sometimes it takes twenty or thirty minutes to queue in front of the bathroom. ”

"I am the only daughter of my parents, and the living conditions of my family are also good, so I grew up in the pampering of my parents since I was a child, originally, I wanted to come here to live a good life, but I didn't expect to live this kind of life, I couldn't bear it, it didn't take long for me to be annoyed and angry, shouting all day long and clamoring for Sun Baoliang to take me back to China, even if I didn't go back to Singapore, I just went back to Xi'an. However, he told me that since we got off the plane, we have cut off the back road. He said that the phoenix that fell into the water was not as good as a chicken. If we return to China, we will become a phoenix in the water, and we will be laughed at and looked down upon by people. Because no matter how bad the people who go abroad are, no one returns to China. So, we have no choice but to establish ourselves here. He also said that as long as we persist for a while, we can get the Canadian PR card, and then we will be able to live a good life. However, it's not that I don't know, even if I get a PR card, I may not be able to live a good life. Because if you want to live a good life, you have to have money. Everywhere there is money, everywhere is heaven, and without money, everywhere is desolate. But how much do we earn by working like this? Even if we buy a house in the future, it will cost at least seven or eight hundred thousand Canadian dollars, and when we pay off the loan, it will almost be time to retire. How hard and stressful is it going to be in this life? That's why I've always felt very pessimistic about living in Canada. ”

"However, the boss was very nice to me, he is a Chinese from Hong Kong, his family is quite rich, and he has two supermarkets in downtown Toronto. He was only forty years old, fourteen or fifteen years older than me, and he was very funny and humorous. When he saw that I was in a bad mood, he took me out to eat and took me on a trip, and when he saw that I was working hard, he transferred me to be a cashier, and later, he transferred me to be a department manager. Before we knew it, we were in love. He divorced his wife, so I divorced Sun Baoliang. At first, he didn't agree, but he couldn't help it, because I had already moved in with my boss and didn't go back to his apartment. He was forced to divorce me. So, I got married to my boss. Soon after we got married, I became pregnant. Before, because Sun Baoliang and I had not settled down, I didn't dare to get pregnant, for fear that once I got pregnant, it would make life more difficult. So, we want to wait until our lives are settled down before we have children. ”

"My boss, who was my future husband, was named Ye Jiwei, and we lived together for almost ten years. We have loved and been happy together, and I have two sons with him. However, when I was thirty-six or seventeen years old, I met a middle-aged man named Li Yaoguang, a graduate student from Peking University who worked as a computer software engineer in a large company. He is two years younger than me, very smart, and has been divorced for many years. The two of us had a lot in common, and we talked about everything, so we fell in love at first sight and soon fell in love. After that, I filed for divorce because I felt that I had obtained everything I had hoped for in this life, and it was time to live for myself. At this time, Ye Jiwei was already in his fifties. Because the age difference is too great, the relationship between us has become a little indifferent. ”

"After the divorce, the eldest son followed him, and I took the younger son with me. He gave me a building and hundreds of thousands of deposits. I rented out the building and lived in Li Yaoguang's small building with my youngest son. His small building is in the middle of the street, and he bought it with a loan of more than 800,000 yuan, and he just paid off the loan a few years ago. Later, we had a child named Li Minghua, who just graduated from college this year and works in a very large company. Now I should say that I have everything I should have, and I don't lack anything, but I often feel inexplicably empty and sad in my heart, but I can't find the reason. ”

I said, "This emptiness and sorrow is not unique to you, but to everyone, rich or poor." Because it is closely related to a person's past experiences and worries about the future. ”

We basked in the sun for a while, and she led me down the path into the wilderness. The paths of the wilderness are winding and uneven, sometimes green meadows, and sometimes flowers full of small flowers. As far as the eye can see, you can see patches of woods and patches of slopes. Occasionally, a fawn or a fox can be seen passing through the field or by the edge of the woods.

I asked her, "Sun Baoliang, how is he doing now?"

"I barely had any contact with him," she said. But I heard a friend of his from the past say that he was not doing well at all, and after the divorce, he did not look for it for many years, and then found a divorced woman who already had two children and bought a house, but the loan was never paid off. Therefore, he has not been back to China for a decade or two, and he is afraid of feeling ashamed to go back. Because he was the only one in their township who was admitted to college. The fathers and villagers all have high hopes for him. ”

Speaking of this, she said with emotion, "I think the person I am most sorry for in my life is him, even more than my parents." I still remember the sad words he said to me during the divorce. He said that the result of me bringing you to Canada was to dump me. But she said, "But I don't regret it, because I didn't get divorced at the time, and I don't know what the rest of my life will be." ”

I understand her feelings, and I know that even the best marriage will have 200 thoughts of divorce and 50 impulses to strangle each other in her life. People want to marry only once in their lives, but both men and women come into this world in pursuit of happiness, and when marriage becomes an obstacle to the pursuit of happiness, marriage becomes a sacrifice. And I didn't get divorced because my heart was too soft to bear to forcibly abandon my wife.