Brush your friends after the wine and dinner and watch a video posted by a friend from the village of Southside Littleborough. On the video was the long table, on either side of the long table, the table was set with abundance and wine ……
It was Christmas Eve, and the village of Littleborough was quite merry.
After a positive nucleic acid test and a confirmed diagnosis of a new crown patient was found in a studio last weekend, I Songzhuang turned into a world within walls. During the day on Monday, the village of Xiaobao was cordoned off. I had been gloating a bit, taking a chance on the siege. By the time I brought my daughter home in the evening, I witnessed the scene of my own home blocking the road wall. The staff at the barrier said, “Think about it, you can’t get in and get out.
Excluding the strictly banned studio, the blocked area of Songzhuang is cut into two large blocks, north and south, separated by Luyuan North Street, which can be called South Song and North Song.
My family was originally from South Song, Xiaobao village. It was the downtown of Songzhuang in my eyes, bustling with activity. There is a food street that is about to be or has been out of the circle, I call it Guijie outside the Sixth Ring Road. Next door to it is a street that is quiet because of the cafes, florists, and bakeries that were there before, and I think it could be called an earthy Parisian style street. Unfortunately, Auntie Bear’s bakery moved away. The name of this street does not match the reality.
I lived in the middle of the downtown area at the time, and the house next door had four big letters on the door, Rock ‘n’ Roll Hot Pot, the land of the second-hand roses. Around me, how to say, the density of private dining is a bit high. Draw a circle around 300 meters, there are Hunan cuisine, Yunnan cuisine, roasted whole sheep, Anhui cuisine, Lu cuisine, Xinjiang barbecue, Beijing cuisine, Northeast cuisine and haggis.
The first restaurants in the village of Littleborough were made by poor loser artists playing fallow. Nowadays, the old restaurants are often run by people who are in the arts, or by relatives who are in the arts. In the past two years began to have specialized over to open a restaurant. But in general, it’s still a continuation of the old atmosphere.
The atmosphere of the past is reflected not only in the paintings and designs on the walls of each house, but also in a human touch that is hard to see in the city.
Take the flavor-knowing spaghetti noodle that was the subject of this epidemic, sometime after eating it, the owner took out a couple of picture books, saying that they were eliminated by his own children and gave them to my daughter. We would have gladly accepted. Another example is that I miss a dish restaurant called Element. When we went to eat there later, I would report the number of people to my aunt so that she could see to the arrangements. And Tongli Xiang, we went to that restaurant for about 10 years. The owner’s story is interesting too.
The best thing about living in a village is that you are bound to meet someone you know on the street. You don’t know who’s going to visit you at night. Of course, we also visit other people’s homes. Usually, we don’t need to say hello in advance and make an appointment, we just knock on the door wherever we want to go.
No, it’s a bit of a digression, but I’ll close it. Last year, we moved from Xiaobao to Beitang, 2 kilometers away, and from the downtown of Southern Song to Uptown, which is far from being as lively as downtown, but has two small lakes, different styles of houses, and is quiet. What’s more, I like this house too much. I have been to this house 6 years ago, it belongs to a friend.
The main reason I moved here was that the original house was too small, and as my daughter reached school age, I felt her demand for space in her home was increasing. And we looked at a few houses in Xiaobao, either not good enough or too expensive. Moreover, I know that Xiaobao will definitely become the Dali of Beijing, and I’m afraid that the rent will go up year after year, which is not stable.
Our neighbors had seen this house in North Pond and loved it and urged us to come over. So we came over. The result of coming over is that there is no longer the buzz of the village, but the good thing is that there are a few other neighbors.
Yes, that’s what we’re doing these days, a few neighbors in the Southern Song, a few neighbors in the Northern Song. A few other neighbors are in other chuang at the far end.
The studio where the accident happened is physically close to my house, a little over 1 kilometer. However, the unfortunate guy was actually closer to Fort Minor in terms of activity. Young people don’t run to our side too much. Mina’s Restaurant over here, for them, belongs to the venues where middle-aged and older people go.
Middle-aged and elderly people will be more cautious and nervous when things go wrong. The other day, I went to the biggest supermarket in the quarantine zone with my wife to do some shopping. The three of us discussed it (and listened to the leader’s arrangement), and my wife went in to do the shopping alone, while I took the baby in the car. After my wife came out, she kept her hands floating, trying to avoid touching us before cleaning.
I’ve heard that some people in Littleborough were partying every day during the quarantine and having running parties. I’m sure that’s not true, but I’m also sure that’s what’s going on in the hearts of most people on our side of town. In the past two days I was going to open up a few of my north side neighbors to have a playdate with their kids, with parents taking turns with the kids, just like they did two years ago when the outbreak first got up. But there didn’t seem to be much response. So I took my daughter to Songzhuang Art Museum every afternoon. It was so quiet that it looked like a scene from a doomsday movie. It’s often empty, with only magpies and cats flying around.
When I was skulking around, I was telling my daughter that the truth is that the epidemic is fake. The truth is that we’ve been overrun by magpie aliens. Look at the fat guy walking by, his knees don’t bend smoothly, it could be a robot. There’s a sharp barking dog coming from the yard, that’s probably our friend, sending us a message. My daughter asked if the yellow cat lying by the lake was friend or foe. I hesitated and said it was a friend. Then we met Ms. Qing Qing. I happily greeted her and said, Hello, human.
Christmas is here. As planned, at least some friends would float in from the city. To keep us and Tinkerbell company. I figured the odds were that we’d have dinner at D’s house in Littleburg, just like last weekend. Of course, there’s no chance we’ll be at G’s, or at DX’s on the North Pond side. Neither is certain.
But that changed this time. Good thing my wife hooked up with the T’s. I was kind of complaining, time is tight, I’ve been at least 3 Fridays in a row getting together with the neighbors, can’t we just be quiet and have a holiday with our own family? I must have been wrong. Because when Timothy’s family came over today, I seemed more excited than my wife. Especially when it came to the red wine. One bottle poured in, felt a bit too little to be enjoyable. With four adults and a lot of effort, two bottles could still be finished off.
We ate fondue and drank boiled red wine while taking pictures with our neighbors to the south. The kids finished eating and played on the side by themselves. Yes, I had to get carried away. Because I miss the neighbors I can’t see. This Christmas Eve, ah, like Truman’s World. Last year we were supposed to spend it at D’s house.
I’m still in a group of old classmates. One of the classmates said that Christmas is a foreign holiday what’s the point. I naturally have the opportunity to preach a new set of theories. Look at the screen of the circle of friends, how many people are having fun with Christmas trees at this time of the year. How many of them are real Christians? Not really. Even in the 21st century, or especially in the 21st century, at the present time, in the big environment, politics, business, technology, these big elements are making life more standardized, data is also more lack of drama, lack of memory anchors, lack of rituals and sense of meaning, people are hungry. Jitterbug can’t fill that hunger, and neither can Ultraman. Because it’s been around since the time of the monkeys, it’s a natural human need. People need God, they need group life, they need a sense of meaning.
One night two years ago, a bunch of people improvised a song for me: i used to be a journalist 。。。。。。 It’s so good, it’s really good. Glory.
Our dinners were hearty, hearty enough to feed twice as many people. If it wasn’t for the epidemic, probably those meals wouldn’t have been enough. But that’s okay, we can stay and wait for New Year’s. T’s mom said that if the blockade is still in place next week, we’ll go to their house and make dumplings. That’s a common saying in our area. But if we were in the city, I don’t know if I’d be more concerned.
In fact, when the epidemic first started, our side of the border felt different from the city. Kids couldn’t go to school then. Several families got together to take turns. Today your family took the children, tomorrow they came to my house, and the day after that to theirs. Our house was small and full of children. But, after all, we had a yard and lots of open space around us, so we came over. This kind of screwing hey, city people can’t handle it, right.
To tell you the truth, I have been worried about one thing, that is, Songzhuang has been going very fast in these two years, with artists fleeing and capitalists entering. Songzhuang is going to be finished, Songzhuang Style will become a consumer brand. But I’m not too worried now. The neighbors here are, at heart, probably still more demonic. A large number of artists have been driven away by power and capital, but there are still some things that continue, and this bubble, at least, has not yet burst.
At this point I’ve had about half a bottle of boiled red wine, and I’m missing some people and some things, and I’m missing some people and some things, and I’m thinking about how I’m going to remember this place in the future. I really don’t want to leave if at all possible. I like it here. Seeing a bunch of people here, having fun. Whether you know them or not, happy. This feeling is especially strong this year.
I’d also like to say that Power’s Craft Beer Workshop closed too soon and miscalculated. He should come back.
After Timothy’s family left, my wife said that everyone actually wanted to get together, they just needed to poke through the windowpaper. The people here are a bit like those in the world created by Hayao Miyazaki. When it comes to New Year’s Eve, the odds are that it will be a running feast as well. Like at the beginning of the year, I had a day where I swiped the dishes in the dishwasher five times.
The days are still so happy. Even if, we are locked in a space.
One more thing to add: the Christmas Eve uptwon still had Creek Mom’s salted butter chocolate cake, and the North Pond Lane Cafe next door made toast. Very good, very good.
There’s so much to say and I love it here so much. So it’s still a bit of a mess. What’s the old Cao saying about going to the bitter end of the day.
First draft: night of Dec. 24, 2021, revised Dec. 28
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