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墨書 Inktalez
As I grew up, my aunt and uncle gradually transformed into Aunt and Young Man, and our large family became quite cramped in the original three rooms. In 1975, my parents decided to build an independent portal, marking the first time we would renovate our home.
In rural areas, building a house has always been a symbol of a family's true maturity. At that time, due to the implementation of collective production, houses were almost the only significant private property, making them even more important. My parents were among the first in Zhu Shan Bay to undertake this project. With the support of my grandparents, they decided to construct a new-style brick house, opting for something more modern than the wooden frame houses that had flourished for centuries in our clan, and avoiding the simpler earthen or thatched houses.
The first step in building a house was selecting a location. At that time, during the peak of the Cultural Revolution, the "Four Olds" were being vigorously dismantled, and openly discussing "feng shui" was taboo. My parents did not hire a feng shui master; instead, after surveying and weighing their options themselves, they chose a plot of dry land on a small hill opposite our courtyard.
At that time, there was only one house on the mountain, the Large Plot Gardening Area. Our foundation was about twenty to thirty meters away from it, separated by a patch of vegetable garden. The gardening area was lined with tall sycamores and countless pear, orange, and tea trees. My grandfather worked there, and I occasionally managed to sneak in for a meal or to grab a couple of half-rotten oranges or pears. This made me yearn for our new home.
Next to our yard stood a row of five or six palm trees, laden with edible loquats that made my mouth water. At the foot of the mountain, connected to the ridge, there were two more houses known as Oil Workshop and Opposite Courtyard. These were old courtyards from the Republic of China era, inhabited by rather domineering people who kept many fierce dogs. Every time I passed by, I had to tread carefully.
The next step was to prepare building materials, which was the most labor-intensive, complex in craftsmanship, and time-consuming task. We were constructing a brick house, requiring numerous materials such as river sand, lime, red bricks, timber, and roof tiles.
The river sand came from Suspended Stone, located near the Tiao Shui River that originated from the mountains in Suining County. Due to years of river erosion, all the rice fields had become natural sand pits; once you scraped off the thin layer of mud on top, you would find sand layers dozens of meters thick underneath. Building an ordinary house required several thousand pounds of sand. My mother, with her frail shoulders, used her spare time from Collective work to carry loads of sand from three miles away to our planned construction site every day from dawn till dusk. The hardships she endured could only be softened by the joy and sense of accomplishment that came with moving into a new home. Unfortunately, I was only six years old and couldn’t help at all; my father was far away teaching in Suining and rarely had time to stay home for even a day or two.
The wood was primarily prepared by my father, as Suining is located in a forested area with an abundance of timber. Although our yard can be considered a mountain village, most of the trees on the mountains were cut down during the Great Leap Forward in 1958 to fuel the steel furnaces, leaving us with only a few pine trees that could be processed or used for nailing onto the beams for roofing. In fact, preparing the wood was a monumental task. My father first had to connect with some local cadres in Suining, obtaining their permission through various means to purchase the necessary timber piece by piece. Due to strict regulations on wood in Suining, he had to buy it slowly from different places. Since these purchases were made privately without a quota, the acquired wood could not be transported openly. Instead, he had to wait until he gathered a sufficient amount and then enlist someone experienced to tie the wood into rafts, secretly transporting them home via the Tiao Shui River.
Fortunately, my grandmother had a nephew who lived by the Tiao Shui River. He became our master craftsman for assembling rafts to transport the wood. Under the cover of darkness, he and a few familiar workers would find a suitable spot by the riverbank, quietly tying the wood into rafts before gently pushing them into the water. The rafts would then navigate several dozen miles downriver to where the Suspended Stone River curved, and we would organize people at home to carry the wood back overnight. During this time, I often woke up in the middle of the night startled by loud and chaotic sounds—that was my father returning with timber from Suining.
Lime and red bricks also needed to be made by hand. The lime was relatively easy; since it wasn't required in large quantities, there was a vast stone mountain next to our New House. We hired two or three experienced laborers to use some explosives and detonators to blast out several piles of stones, which we would then slowly transport back. When making bricks, we selected some stones to pile on top of the kiln while using the rest for building foundations.
The difficult part is making red bricks. First, you need to hire someone to make greenware. The suitable clay is moistened with water, then repeatedly trampled and turned over to form brick clay, which is then smashed into brick molds to make the initial greenware. After that, the greenware is arranged in rows and left to dry for ten days to half a month before being loaded into the kiln for firing.
For the coal used in firing the bricks, my father first paid for it at the coal mine and got a receipt. Then my mother asked a cousin from her mother's family, who works as a driver, to bring it back from the coal mine when he had time. After that, on a sunny day, a small amount of clay and an appropriate amount of water were added to the coal to make coal clay, which was then spread out into square coal blocks and dried for later use.
It was quite lively when we were loading the brick kiln. My parents invited many relatives and clan members to help: one group was responsible for making big bricks to build the kiln. They selected dry and sticky clay, placed it in a large wooden mold, and slowly pounded it tightly with a wooden hammer. When loading the kiln, the big bricks were stood up one by one to form a circle, which was then secured with steel wire. Another group was responsible for loading the greenware and coal blocks. A piece of coal was placed between every two pieces of greenware to ensure complete combustion and produce solid red bricks.
Layer by layer, we kept building up. For every layer of big bricks, we could add two to three layers of greenware. We were busy for four or five days, building up around ten layers of big bricks, and finishing with the greenware. At this point, everyone who had been helping went to pick stones and pile them on the top of the kiln.
We started firing the bricks. After having lunch together, the master directed everyone to load some dry firewood into eight fire channels. As the sun was about to set, the master gave the order, and everyone lit the fire together.
Early the next morning, my mother carried my younger sister, who was not yet one year old, and held the hand of my three-year-old brother, calling me to go and see the kiln fire. Inside the kiln, the high-temperature burning, mixed with the heat of the coal fire, often caused cracks to appear in the not-so-solid big bricks. When this happened, my mother had to use prepared wooden boards to seal the leaks. It was relatively easy to seal the cracks at lower positions by stuffing one end of the wooden board into the steel wire and pounding it down with force. However, some cracks were higher up, and my mother had to stand on a shaky ladder, maintaining her balance while forcefully pounding the wooden board into the steel wire. As I stood by, looking up at her, all I could do was grit my teeth and clench my small fists to cheer her on.
Perhaps, our parents' hard work has moved the heavens. Our red bricks and lime were successfully fired, and the sand and wood were also prepared. The house is officially under construction.
When our house had been built to a height of two or three feet, with the front wall already fitted with door and window frames, someone jumped out and claimed that our house was occupying the land of the gardening ground due to our grandfather's abuse of power for personal gain. Despite the fact that the house and the gardening ground were far apart, surrounded by the Production team's wasteland, the construction of the house was halted.
With gritted teeth, my parents resolutely continued the "thousand-year foundation" of building the house. They reluctantly chose a barren mountain land on the side of Zhu Shan Bay, leveled it again, transported all the building materials again, and once again started building their first house in life.
The foreigner is making trouble unreasonably. Our first house, which was originally envisioned by my parents as an ideal, had to be moved nearly a mile across the fields. It also shrank from the planned six rows and five rooms to four rows and three rooms. But in this new place, our whole family welcomed a brand new independent world.
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