Hometown River of Mixed Joy and Sorrow
My hometown has a small river. It originates in the Shuangquan Cave in the great mountains of western Sangzhi, flows all the way through Mahekou, Furong Bridge, Liujiaping, Shuangxi Bridge, Hejiaping, and other places, and joins the Lishui River north of Sangzhi county town. This river is named Youshui, the same name as a tributary of the upper Yuan River, but the river is much smaller. It is only fifty or sixty kilometers long, its riverbed is only a little more than one hundred meters at its widest and only twenty or thirty meters at its narrowest, and its water flow is not large. It is not navigable; there are only many ferries at important points along the river. When the water does not rise, people can wade across the river from the wide places on the riverbank.
My hometown has a small river. It originates from the Shuangquan Cave in the mountains of western Sangzhi, flows through Mahekou, Furong Bridge, Liujiaping, Shuangxi Bridge, Hejiaping and other places, and joins the Lishui River north of Sangzhi county town. This river is named Youshui, sharing its name with a tributary of the upper Yuan River, but it is much smaller. It is only fifty or sixty kilometers long, its riverbed is at most just over a hundred meters wide at its widest point and only twenty or thirty meters at its narrowest, and its flow is not large. It is not navigable; there are just ferries at many points along the main routes by the river. When the water is not rising, one can wade across at the wide parts of the riverbank.
In my memory, although the flow of this river of my hometown was not large, it was clear and transparent, with dense shrubs growing along both sides of its bed. Above the riverbed there were flat plains and high mountains, and the scenery was very beautiful. When I was little, my village friends and I often loved to go play by the river.
In spring, we often drove the cattle to graze on the grassy banks by the river. While the cattle went to eat grass, we played on the pebbles of the riverbank. Large stretches of bluish pebbles lay exposed on that bank, some coarse, some fine, some round and smooth as pearls and jade, some flat and thin as cicada wings. Using these pebbles, we played all kinds of games. One of them was “flying stones,” in which we set up a tall stone on the riverbank and competed from beyond a boundary line to see who could knock down the tall stone with a flying stone. Another was “skipping stones across the water,” in which we looked for thin stones and threw them into the river to see whose stone could skip across the water the most times and the farthest. These stone games were all very entertaining.
Summer was the season when we played by the river the most and had the most fun. As soon as the weather grew hot, we children became frequent swimmers in the river. At first, I could not swim. Once, I went down to the river alone to bathe in a pool below a stone mill house. This stone mill house used the water blocked by a dam as power, striking the wooden wheel beneath the mill house to drive the stone mill around. That day, while bathing beside the dam, I accidentally slipped into the deep pool below the mill house. Because I could not swim, I was so frightened that my hands and feet kicked wildly. Fortunately, at the instant my head came out of the water, I pushed hard toward the dam and finally grabbed a rock by the dam with both hands. I did not drown that time, only choked on a little water, but I was terrified. After that, with the help of several older brothers, I slowly learned to swim. By the time I was seven or eight, I could already swim several laps in the small river. Sometimes I also played the game of “storming the fortress” with my friends on the rocks in the water, and many times I went to the river to catch fish in all sorts of ways, such as striking stones with an iron hammer to stun the fish, scooping fish with a net basket, and building small dams to block openings to catch fish, and so on. There were especially many methods. A little older, every summer I also often went with my friends to cut firewood on the riverbank several li from the village. Usually we went in the morning, cut a bundle of green firewood such as Vitex or river-goose twigs, then went down to the river and floated the firewood in the water to drift downstream. Around noon we would reach the riverbank in front of the village, drag the firewood ashore, and put it on the pebbles to bake in the sun. After dinner we would go down to the river to bathe, and by then the firewood was all dried, so we could carry it back and burn it right away.
In autumn, we children often went to the riverbank to cut pig feed and dig medicinal herbs. There were two kinds of medicinal herbs in greater abundance on the riverbank: one was maidong, and the other was banxia. We often carried bamboo baskets and used small hoes to search and dig. At most, one time we could dig several jin of maidong or banxia. After digging them up, we washed them clean by the river, dried them at home, and then took them to the supply and marketing cooperative purchasing station to sell for money. The amount of money was not much, but it could buy a little oil, salt, or other supplies, so we felt quite satisfied.
In winter, we children would go together upstream along the river to “Luan Kan Li,” more than ten li away, to gather dry firewood. That “Luan Kan” was a long gorge below Yangqi Mountain, with the river passing through the middle. The mountains on both sides were high and steep, covered with dense shrubs, among which there was a great deal of dry firewood. Because in winter we could not float green firewood in the river, we went to Luan Kan specifically to pick up dry firewood. The road to Luan Kan was steep and rather far. Each trip was not only risky but also left us with aching backs and legs, but for the sake of livelihood, we still had to go cut firewood. Once, a village friend named Zhang Si'er, only twelve or thirteen years old, accidentally fell from a cliff onto the riverbank tens of meters below while gathering dry firewood in Luan Kan. He was immediately badly injured, bleeding from the head, and died. When his family found him and carried him back to the village, everyone who saw him wiped away tears. That day I did not go to Luan Kan to gather firewood because of other matters, and afterward none of us children ever dared go to Luan Kan to cut firewood again.
The river of my hometown flows day and night. It has carried joy, and it has carried sorrow. Now, several decades later, the many scenes of riverside life from my childhood still intertwine and appear before my mind from time to time. I have always believed that the river of my hometown left me far too many impressions and inspirations when I was young. Besides joy and pain, this river also gave me spirit and gave me useful experience and lessons. Deep in my memory, I will forever treasure this small river.