Beijing, August 1, 2008, midsummer.
The weather was very hot and humid, and the cicadas in the trees were chirping louder and louder, making the people who were listening to them feel a little annoyed.
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games is just one week away.
Since Beijing successfully bid for the Olympic Games in 2001, more and more people have come to Beijing for tourism over the years.
Beijing, this city with a profound ancient charm, has its scenic spots being developed one after another, and high-rise buildings rising one after another. Everything is developing in a good direction. Everything that was once only in imagination finally has a real existence in the real world.
Shen Anning, 52 years old this year, sat alone in the yard, listening to the voices amplified by the little bees brought by the tour guide from the travel agency at the foot of the mountain. He could not hear them clearly because they were some distance away.
In recent years, as the area around Babaoshan has been developed, many companies and schools have organized people to visit during holidays. Several nearby villages have also gradually adapted to market demand and transformed into farmhouses and resorts.
In order to facilitate the daily needs of tourists and residents, the government also built a small street similar to a farmers' market near the path leading up the mountain. The middle is paved with bluestone slabs, and there are shops facing each other on both sides.
Unlike the farmers' market, the shops on this small street are more diverse and not limited to agricultural products.
The first few shops on the right side of the street have been connected to form a supermarket. The supermarket is not particularly large, but it has a wide range of products. Before going up the mountain, many tourists choose to buy some water and snacks in the supermarket.
There are five shops opposite the supermarket, a milk tea shop, which is a product that has just become popular this year, and four old-fashioned pastry shops, a cake shop, a breakfast shop and a restaurant. Among these shops, only the restaurant has a second floor.
Further ahead of the supermarket is the grain and oil store, and opposite is a shop selling cooked food. These two shops are well located and large in size. They are located in the center of the street and are also two-story buildings. Except for the supermarket in front and several shops opposite which are small bungalows, the shops in the back are all two-story shops.
The upper part is used for storage and operation areas, and the lower part is the retail store.
Next to the grain and oil store is a fresh meat shop and a dry goods store, and opposite is a vegetable and fruit market.
Separated by a small path.
One of the last few shops on the street is a ready-made clothing store that also sells fabrics. There are also experienced craftsmen in the store who are responsible for taking measurements and accepting custom orders.
There is a shoe store that offers custom-made leather shoes, a grocery store, and a pharmacy that operates a collaboration between Chinese and Western medicine practitioners.
The following shops are purely for the convenience of the nearby villagers.
Because there is a river in the middle of several villages that have been developed into farmhouses and resorts, and further away there are village lands, which are rare rice fields in Beijing today, with rice field fish raised in them, so the small street does not sell aquatic products. Another reason is that the fishy smell is too strong and tourists are afraid that it will be disgusted.
Shen Anning's current residence is on the right side of the street, not far away, about a five-minute walk away. On the left side of the street is a developed staircase leading up the mountain.
The place where she lived was a two-story building with a small courtyard. There was a semi-underground area, which was not very big. It was used to store some sundries in normal times and as a vegetable cellar in winter. There were some flowers planted in the yard, and a red brick wall. The acres of land on the left and right sides of the courtyard and behind it were divided into pieces, where some grains and vegetables were planted, with some fruit trees.
It is said to be a two-story building, but there are no living rooms on the first floor. There is a large kitchen, dining room and living room connected together, plus a bathroom. The area of more than 100 square meters is arranged clearly.
There are three bedrooms, a study and a bathroom on the second floor. Shen Anning has never been married, has no children and is in poor health. This is a disease she contracted when she was an educated youth in the countryside in the 1970s.
After she turned forty, she almost started her retirement life here. On holidays and Sundays, the children of her two cousins from her aunt's family would take turns to accompany her.
I've said it many times that she's fine being here alone.
But the children never listen. Every New Year and other holidays, the whole family comes over with their children, and we have to make several beds on the floor in the living room at night to make sure they can all sleep.
The cicadas outside the courtyard were too loud, and Shen Anning felt a little anxious. She stood up, looked at the bustling crowd outside, and turned to go in.
Going to the study on the second floor, on the desk was the only large group photo of the Shen family, including grandparents, uncle and aunt, cousins, parents, brother, her, a pair of seven-year-old twin brothers and sisters, as well as aunt, uncle and two cousins.
Her wrinkled hands carefully stroked the people in the photo. They had smiling faces back then. A family of sixteen people recorded the happy moment in the photo studio. Now, only her aunt and uncle in the retirement home, two cousins and her were left.
Over the years, Shen Anning would think of the scenes of the past whenever she fell asleep. During the movement in the 1970s, the entire Shen family was forced to fall apart by the situation. In just a few years, first her eldest brother and sister-in-law gave birth to a little niece on the farm where they were sent down, and then her eldest aunt, who could not bear the blow and was already weak, left her one after another in the family. She has survived to the present with her longing, and has witnessed the reform and opening up, and the leap and gallop of the 21st century.
But there is no longer the laughter of those days and the reminders in memory.
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