I don't know if anyone, like me, fled a city I love so much in order to forget someone.
1995 December 27th, I am 25 years old. In my son's childish reversal of the song "Only a mother is good in the world, and a child with a mother is like grass", I dragged a simple suitcase to the south alone. When the Jedi fled his hometown, he kept repeating only one thought: stay away from him!
In an industrial zone near Humen, I got off at a loss. At that time, there was no cell phone, no telephone, only the address of my girlfriend Joan in the clothing factory. When I found the factory under the guidance of a motorcycle, the employees were waiting in line to cook after work. The security guard at the door swept me with vicious eyes, mixed with the smelly air in the sewer, and the noisy crowd crowded with scolding, so that I could occasionally see some seaweed soup floating with plumeria, which only increased my desire to cry in the drizzly winter.
I can't find Joan. In extreme anxiety, a girl who knew me in her hometown called my name in a crowd in a foreign land. In my vague memory, when I was in my hometown, she borrowed a song and a disc from me. Her name is Serina Liu, and she told me that Joan married a boss much older than her, and no one knows where she went. Knowing that I also came to the south to look for a job, she warmly settled me in her dormitory.
Someone groped to open the curtains of my bed in the middle of the night, and I was so surprised that I was sweating all over. Serina Liu also woke up, just know is her boyfriend on the night shift. Looking at their faces, I understand something. I quickly got dressed and went to the dormitory supervisor's office. The housemaster is a Sichuanese, about 30 years old, a former soldier, with a pair of smiling eyes and a bit of heroism. Talking to him from far away, until the sky turned white and people began to wash one after another, the head nurse's wife didn't get up. As soon as she saw me, her unfriendly expression immediately fermented in the quiet of the morning: Whose family is it? I have no man to accompany me. A man to accompany me? Dare not stay one more minute, also can't answer. Among the working girls in overalls, my foreign-style dress made her full of vigilance and hostility. It is a virtue to be patient with those who are new here and unfamiliar with me!
In the warm winter sun, I wandered around the industrial zone with an embroidered handbag, casually found an early stall and asked for a wonton (for the first time in my life) to fill my stomach. Walking on the road in the industrial zone, I saw the inspiration of recruiting at the factory gate. Near the Spring Festival, most factories are on holiday, and occasionally some people recruit migrant workers, but I gave up because I don't know Cantonese. There was a paper factory that recruited kindergarten teachers, but I didn't stay because I didn't have room and board.
At the beginning of the debauchery, I was surrounded by work, fatigue, depression and no friends. Not far from the skating rink, the figure is graceful, and I joined the skating crowd along with the song. The swaying gentleness and cool sadness seemed to touch the hypnotic memory. After several laps, all the troubles were left behind. There are many wooden chairs around the venue, sitting, lying down, talking, singing to the music … everything makes me feel unreal. I heard that the skating rink was open all night, so I found a quiet place to sit down. Sleep when you are sleepy, wander around with the crowd when you wake up, and the night passes like this again.
Back to Liu Zhen's dormitory, they didn't get up and took a hot bath, only to find that men's clothes were hanging outside the curtains of more than ten beds. It turns out that they are hybrids. Quietly out of the room, the supervisor and his wife are having breakfast. I smiled and walked by, and his wife's scolding voice came from behind me: What are you looking at? It hooked your soul!
Out of the factory, the roadside trees have been wrapped in a layer of golden paper, and rows of lanterns have rendered the festive atmosphere. I shuttled through the criss-crossing alleys in the wind. At noon, when I was inquiring about work in the newly completed industrial zone, I met a fellow villager who came to my hometown in the same town. He has been a security guard in this handbag factory for two years. Knowing that I had just come from my hometown and had not found a job, he ordered me a meal with kelp, no oil or water. Xing told me that the food factory opposite was looking for a job. He is familiar with the personnel staff in that factory and often plays billiards together. He came to help me find a way. I read in the grass of the flower bed and basked in the sun until Xing got off work and played billiards with the personnel clerk, until Xing snapped his fingers and told me that it was done, at the price of giving the clerk a wallet of the latest style in the factory. We made an appointment to go back to the opposite factory for an interview the next day.
After another night at the skating rink, I returned to Liu Zhen's dormitory early to freshen up. It turns out that they have been working overtime all night. When they arrived at the food factory in the winter sunshine, there were already ten or twenty people waiting for the interview at the door, and the personnel clerk followed me in. When I arrived at the office on the second floor, the smell of baked vegetables came. Two men and two women were playing poker. The personnel clerk reported to the person sitting with his back to me, "Manager, everyone came in." The manager is concentrating on playing cards, which is an eight-card game. The manager is sitting in the village. I just stood behind the manager and watched him play two or three cards. I also saw some tricks, such as straight flush, straight, three stripes, pairs, miscellaneous brands and leaflets. The arrangement from big to small is compared with the dealer (it can't be reversed, otherwise it will lose to the dealer). When the manager got up to get the interview form for us to fill out, he handed me the card and asked me to grab it for him. I played a magic trick. There are many ways to play, and each way is different. I played my best hand and helped the manager earn hundreds of dollars. When I stood up, the manager gave a refusal order to all the people who came in for an interview, leaving me to fill in my resume and interview. Therefore, on the last day of 1995, I got my first job as a salesman in the south. In order to escape from someone, I started such a wandering.
One year later, I had dinner with the manager, and he told me why I was hired. It turns out that the good hand I played for him has taught him my cleverness. He said that I just came from my hometown, and this kind of card is only available in the south. I can understand it in a short time, and I will do well in my new job.
Life is like a card. Give me a sky with a good hand. Life is like a card. No matter how bad the card is, you should also play the best effect with your heart.
Twenty years have passed, how many cities have been rolled and how many job-hopping have been experienced. The scene when I first came to the south is often like a fallen flower sandwiched between pages, which will always be remembered warmly inadvertently.