As soon as he left, Yunhua and I continued to do it. Sometimes, Yunhua would also take me to the house rented by the fellow in Zhumadian to play. The guy wasn't tall, he was twenty-three years old, and he had a girlfriend who was seventeen.

Listening to Yunhua, the girl was pregnant, and the family didn't know about it. It is not known how this will end.

At the same time, I was also learning theoretical knowledge in the chef class. Just like in Nanyang, the teachers of the chef class also taught us the basics of cooking.

However, I learned two more things in North X: first, cooking is also artistic, such as platter, and second, I can be a chef without knife work.

I heard from one of my classmates. When I told him that I couldn't learn knife skills when I was studying as a chef in Nanyang, he told me that he had heard that there was a chef who could only stir-fry and not cut vegetables, so he went to look for a job with a chef who could only cut vegetables and not stir-fry.

The two of them have a side dish and a stir-fry, and they work together seamlessly. That's good news for me. Because I think as long as I learn how to stir-fry, I can also find someone who can chop vegetables to join me in the world. However, I can't get past the turning of the pot.

What is a flip pan? Generally a flip pot is used for stir-frying. After the oil is boiled to five or six percent hot, put the vegetables to be fried into the pot, because I am afraid that those dishes will be unevenly cooked, so you need to turn the pot, and when turning the pot, you usually use a spoon to put on the edge of the dish, and at the same time use your left hand to shake the wok, not only to turn the vegetables, but also not to let it spill out.

This is another difficult move for me. This also made me decide not to be involved in the chef industry anymore. I hadn't dropped out of school yet, and something happened that made me unable to pay two-thirds of the tuition after I had paid one-third of the tuition.

One afternoon, I went to a chef's class. In class, a teacher told us that some of you students who are doing small businesses should pay attention, these days the North X people may like to buy peanuts, you should remember to wholesale more peanuts to sell.

I was so excited that I thought these words were meant for me.

After I came back, I relayed the teacher's words to Yunhua, but Yunhua said that peanuts make less money. I asked him, "How much do you buy fried peanuts?" and he said, "Two and three." "How much does it cost a pound?" he added, "Two pieces of eight." ”

"Fifty cents a pound is a lot!" I said. But Na Yunhua didn't listen to me, and insisted on continuing to sell Guoguang apples and seedless tangerines.

If we keep selling fruit, there will be no surprises. But the bad thing was that the next day, the North X people began to rush to buy peanuts. All the fried peanuts in the market were looted. This went on for a week.

Na Yunhua was unmoved at first, but when he saw people queuing up to buy peanuts, he couldn't help but sit still. Finally, after the limelight passed, he didn't discuss with me, so he quietly entered six sacks of peanuts.

According to his thoughts, these peanuts must be snatched like before, but the next day he pulled the peanuts to the market and put them there like stinky shit.

The cost stood still, the peanuts could not be sold, and I could not pay the other two-thirds of the tuition, and the dream of learning to be a chef was once again stifled. And those peanuts were still hung there until the Spring Festival, and they were not sold until after the Lantern Festival the following year.

Hey, I've been working for nothing for another year.

In short, in the two years of '94 and '95, not only did I not accomplish anything, but I also didn't earn a penny for my family. After the Spring Festival of '96, I was 22 years old. According to rural practice, it is time to get married.

But my reputation in the village is terrible. The general evaluation of me is that I am lazy. Who wants to introduce their relatives to a lazy person? There's a bad way to say it, which is to push into a fire pit.

My reputation is not very good, as long as my parents' reputation is good, it is fine. However, my father's reputation was not good. Except for my mother, our family, like some people, is called "dirty." ”

In rural areas, although there is no explicit expression, in people's minds, there are usually several kinds of people who are considered to be good people:

First, the family of the father who was an official. No matter how the official became an official, even if it was bought with money, even if it was obtained by selling his daughter, anyway, if he became an official, his reputation in the village would be better.

Second, there is a three-liter and two-tone building, and the parents are good at dealing with people. Because the economy was not very developed at that time, people's requirements for houses were not too high. Even so, some calculating people have already built buildings that are three liters and two liters.

Such a person, if the parents are very good at handling things, is usually the object of people's choice. First of all, for all marriages, the etiquette of red and white ceremonies must be understood, and interpersonal relations must be lively. Relationships include lending things to others and borrowing things from others,

Get someone to help and do someone a favor. In the countryside, if you need something and can't even borrow it, it proves that your interpersonal relationship is very bad. Third, be good at getting together with people, drinking some wine, and chatting about family life. Moreover, the people in their own door can maintain well. Such a person will be called a meeting.

Three, the door is big. Although the current society is not like the old society where big doors bully small doors, it is an indisputable fact that people with big doors are respected. Because there are helpers in the big fight at the portal, even the officials are afraid of him for three points, so what is profitable, who dares to fight with them?

Fourth, people who like to be officials. There is a good saying, called: "Thousands of clothes are worn, but sycophants are not worn." "No matter where society goes, people like people who can stammer.

Even if you scold, accuse, or poke your backbone in the back, this kind of person is smooth. Yes, you have a straight temperament, and when you see the official's beard and glaring eyes, can people like you?

If someone wants to sell wheat, that person will immediately drive a cart, if someone wants to build a house, he will immediately pull up his trousers and help, and when the crops in his field are dry, the water will flow silently into the field. Who doesn't love someone like that?

Fifth, there are women and officials who are lovers. Although most people scoff at this kind of thing, such people are also very lively. Compared with X woman, it is much more reasonable to use the method of being a lover to tie up people.

Because people are doing it in secret, do you dare to say in front of others that the relationship between the two is ambiguous? If you don't get the evidence, even if you know it in your heart, you don't dare to say it.

I don't even have one of these in my family. When my father was in the production team, he had several opportunities to be an official. However, he was afraid of death, so he didn't do it. Besides, my father is also very fine.

My family also has a few close relatives, but my father can't keep it up. Why? Let me give you an analogy, for example, if we have a girl from our own door who wants to get married, we need to invite a family from close to our family to carry the dowry to the girl's in-law's house.

When it comes to the banquet, people usually talk about some family life at the wine table, talk about some crops, and learn from each other about farming experience. But my father never talked about it to anyone. What did he talk about? He talked about the God he believed in and about seeing a doctor.

My father learned some of the cures from my great-grandmother, so he was also approached for help, and he occasionally took care of them. This became something for him to show off.

When he talked about these things, he didn't care whether people liked to hear them or not, and when people laughed at him, he thought they were praising him. Sometimes a nephew who is very close to him says a few words to him out of kindness, and he will scold people to the blood. What do you think people think? Big deal, I won't talk about you next time.

Over time, my father developed the habit of talking only to himself, regardless of what others felt. You say, can his relationships be good in this way?

When it comes to stammering, my family, from my great-grandfather to my generation, was not good at this. Our idea is that you will be your official and I will be my common people. We don't get into the water and don't violate the river, I don't expect you to do anything, open any back door.

To be honest, my mother was quite respected in the village. Whether it is a peer concubine or a younger generation's nephews and daughters-in-law, they all respect my mother and are happy to chat with her.

Usually the daughter-in-law is angry with her mother-in-law, or the daughter-in-law scolds her mother-in-law, or there are some unequal things between the concubines, and they are happy to confide in my mother. My mother was impartial, not biased in one way or the other, but only as their audience.

This book was first published in Reading Books