The Prose of a Big Boy

The big boys 123 mentioned here refer to the group born after the 1990s. They are all descendants of rural migrant workers. Ever since I was born, I have stayed away from my parents in the countryside, following my grandparents or grandparents, free to follow their own development. They live together in empty nests, old and young, and have enough food and clothing to live, but they have no chance of a good education.

Known as left-behind children, many born in the 1990s are outstanding in their studies. They rely on their own efforts to enter high school or university and leave the countryside. On the contrary, there are also those who are left behind, who get tired of studying early and drop out of school, or go out to work or live in exile.

Although they are a drop in the ocean of the entire age group, some of these individuals often drop out of school prematurely in junior high school. They do not go to construction sites, but hide in factories and hotels where young men and women are mixed. Exploited cheaply by the boss, they live a "happy" life of self-reliance. It has also become the cradle of early marriage, early love, and early childbearing. Parents are often led by the nose because of their early marriage and early death, causing parents to deviate from the original path and have no choice but to obediently follow the wishes of these older boys.

The eldest boy was born in 1994. At first, he hung out in Internet cafes day and night. He started to drop out of school in junior high school. His son did not want to go to the city to follow his parents and be restrained. His parents complained. The son "hated that iron could not become steel", so he got angry and cut off his son's financial resources. In order to find a way to survive, the son began to wander around the world at the age of 15. From Beijing in the north to Guangzhou in the south, because of his young age, he worked in luxury hotels and as slaves in underground factories. He didn't make much money, so he lived comfortably. One person has enough to eat and "the whole family" is not hungry. After a few years, there is no savings. In the end, parents have to send travel expenses when they return for reunion during the holidays.

As soon as the child turned 18, he broke away from the old habit of "matchmaker talk" and had a beautiful girl of the same age behind him. People in the village still shamelessly showed off: "This is me." When the "pretty daughter-in-law" arrives, the parents have to pretend to be "fat" and give her a "meeting gift" and a "deposit" according to local customs. Zhenai was generous and even borrowed money to buy a new house in the county according to his son's request.

Looking at the expectant daughter-in-law’s belly getting bigger day by day, she had to hastily prepare a banquet for her son to entertain guests. According to the country people, this is called getting married first and then registering. Then he spent money non-stop to find connections to change the ages of his son and daughter-in-law and apply for legal marriage certificates. As long as there is this legal certificate, the child born to the daughter-in-law can be registered in the household registration in a logical manner. With the legal household registration, the family planning department will be protected from entering the house every day on the grounds of "unauthorized birth (illegal birth)". "Encirclement and Suppression".

With the birth of a son, the young parents were promoted to grandparents, and their responsibilities also escalated. In order to take care of their grandson, one of them had to say goodbye to the working life far away from home. From then on, the young parents Young people have also become a new generation of empty nesters.

The second eldest boy

He is now 19 years old. Both his parents work outside all year round and he stays in his hometown with his grandparents. He missed his studies due to being addicted to Internet cafes, dropped out of junior high school in the first grade, traveled extensively, and learned to smoke and drink. The grandfather advised his grandson not to smoke and drink, but the grandson asked his grandson to shut down the tobacco factory and winery first. Although he had no money after working for several years, he dressed fashionably. His black hair turned into "red curls", there were several holes in his ears, and the yellow and white stud earrings were particularly dazzling.

My father, who was home for the summer and autumn, suddenly received a call from his son from afar: "I'm getting married at the end of the year, so hurry up and build me a building like someone else's!"

The father asked: "How are you going to get married if I haven't found a good partner for you yet? It's still too early to get married!"

The son said: "How many young people today are looking for a partner? Are you still going to rely on your parents for scouting? My wife said that we can just build a small building."

The father replied in a negotiating tone: "Our family doesn't have enough money to build a small building, so we can wait until later. ."

When the son heard this, he refused to give in: "You can't delay it any longer, and the baby will be born! You can't let us go back and give birth to the baby in our haystack! Right!?" After hearing his son's reply, the father felt the seriousness of the matter and immediately started to prepare materials, demolish the original bungalow, and start building a building on the original site according to his son's request.

After the small building is completed, even though the child is under the legal marriage registration age, the parents still have to gather relatives and friends to happily hold a wedding banquet for their son according to rural customs. The sky is high and the emperor is far away. Some people are in charge of childbirth, but no one is in charge of the recognized wedding banquet.

Soon there will be a new member of the family, and there will be people coming to punish her for "violating her life". The habit of country people is to just deal with the things in front of them and wait and see what happens in the future. When you can't handle it, it's not too late to ask grandpa and grandma to spend money to buy peace.

Big Boy Three

He has just turned 22 and is already the father of a 3 and a half year old daughter. I met my girlfriend while working in the same city a few years ago. After my girlfriend became pregnant with their child, both parents worked hard to get their child married. After marriage, my girlfriend was pregnant, so she stayed at her husband's house to wait for the birth, while her boyfriend continued to work outside the home.

Soon his girlfriend gave birth to a lovely baby girl, and the people in the village happily ate the baby’s full-month banquet. When the baby was 4 months old, the young mother took advantage of the baby’s weaning period and continued her career as a migrant worker. Different The strange thing is that this time they did not go to the same city, but were thousands of miles apart from the south to the north.

The child was left with her grandparents. In the days that followed, the young mother returned to the countryside from time to time to visit her daughter, leaving some food and clothing for the child and then hurried away. The eldest boy, who is already a father, is thousands of miles away, but he rarely calls to greet him, let alone returns to his hometown to visit his parents and daughter in person, and does not even have the annual Spring Festival reunion.

Suddenly one day, the young mother told her mother-in-law: "Your son has found another woman outside, and he will come back to divorce me!" The mother-in-law didn't believe it, so she called her son to ask, and her son's reply was verified. . The couple called each other with harsh words and called their son back from thousands of miles away. The son didn't stop doing anything and even brought his new girlfriend to meet his parents and had a huge quarrel with his ex-wife. . The ex-wife who became a mother had no choice but to abandon her daughter and run away.

The father scolded his son for liking the new, hating the old, and being immoral, while the mother blocked the door to prevent his new girlfriend from entering the house. After a stalemate, the eldest boy took his girlfriend and went to the county town to find his ex-wife (the mother of his daughter). When they arrived in the county town, relatives and friends said that even the friends' persuasion failed to win back the older boy's heart, and instead the two women started fighting. This trip ended on bad terms and became a fruitless farewell. That night we both boarded the train to the city where we were working. The ex-wife, who had become a mother, had no choice but to abandon her daughter and move away.

It has been more than three years since the eldest boy left home last time, but he has not sent any news to his family. The young mother is waiting in pain, and the cute little daughter who has already entered kindergarten keeps showing off to her friends. "I have a good father, I have a good mother...!" The sad grandma was accompanied by her little granddaughter, crying all day long and suffering all kinds of pain.

Three big boys born in the 1990s, although they do not represent all the young rural youth today, they can also be seen from them. They were once left-behind children, and they were once the poor new generation. They also once depended on their grandparents. They lacked cultural heritage. After leaving the countryside where they were born and raised, they quickly integrated into various big cities. Although they lived at the bottom of the city, they had a new environment suitable for their long-term survival.

Their parents changed their family’s poverty by working part-time, and created more or less family wealth. Relying on the little wealth of their parents, the older boys lost the motivation to struggle and strive, and developed enjoyment and laziness. They lost the family concept of self-restraint, but had the spirit of working alone; they lost the nostalgia and charm, but they had more There are some fashion trends; I no longer have that sense of family responsibility, but I have a sense of superiority in going my own way. Summer and autumn are very busy, and there are only half-aged elders and even hunched old men in the fields, but there are no shadows of these so-called big boys. According to their words, "Farming is useless, wheat and corn are useless." How much can it be sold for?"

To put it bluntly, they are tired of the countryside and have adapted to the carefree working life in the city.

Writing this, the author has the following feelings about the countryside:

If you can’t be scolded, the beating still hurts;

If you don’t suffer, you are a parasite;

< p> I rarely leave home and travel in the city;

Although my surname is a farmer, I don’t know the scriptures;

No one cares about the fertile fields today,

I am bent over and cultivated diligently;

Today there is wine and today I am drunk,

Let it blow from the southeast to the northwest!