Camping in the mountains, I met a 78-year-old family of low-income families. They are ordinary like dust, or have become secular

In the mountains behind Sanlang Town, Chongzhou City, Chengdu, there are lots of cherry trees and ginkgo trees. A steep mountain road leads to the viewing platform at the top of the mountain. At the end of the cherry trees and ginkgo trees, you can see Uncle Yang's home near the top of the mountain.

The mountain behind Sanlang Town, Chongzhou

A small low house stood on the slope beside the country road, nestled against a relatively tall paulownia tree, and the eaves were cluttered with old tarpaulins of various colors, which looked like a shanty from a distance.

Uncle Yang's home

Uncle Yang's family lives there.

Leisure old man

I met Uncle Yang on a flat dam on the top of the mountain not far from his home. Because I camped here with several car friends, I often strolled in the camp, and gradually became familiar with him.

Campground at the top of the mountain

Uncle Yang is a very enthusiastic person. Almost every vehicle going up the mountain, whether tourists or other people, will come forward and take the initiative to chat up as soon as he sees it. In his words, he is a local who lives on the mountain, and all the visitors are guests. If he doesn't take the initiative to greet the guests, he will appear a little "stilted" (this is their local dialect, which riders understand as "proud").

At the campsite, you can see the familiar figure of Uncle Yang almost half the time every day.

He is not tall, but he always wears a large black woolen coat, black trousers and cloth shoes, and a gray and black round knitted hat. His clothes and trousers were covered with dust and some were worn white. There were many small holes in the corners of his clothes. His trousers were pulled up high, revealing the bronze color of his feet, and his shoes were stained with mud.

Uncle Yang

Uncle Yang has a light white whisker on his vicissitudes of life. The brim of his hat is high, showing his bald forehead. With his face shape, he looks a bit like the Uygur old man in Xinjiang.

The car friend asked him why he didn't grow his beard long, which was more like an old man. Uncle Yang shook his head and said that his beard was too long and looked sloppy. It turns out that I am a particular person.

Uncle Yang is very talkative. He seems to like to sit with us and chat. It is also through him that he learned that this place is called Bajiao Well, because there is an ancient well called Bajiao Well on the mountain.

Uncle Yang

According to my introduction, this ancient well has existed for 70 or 80 years, and the water quality is very good. The villagers in the vicinity eat the water in this well, but there is no water pipe connected on the mountain, so they can only walk to carry water.

For this reason, I also went to find this ancient well.

On the other side of the camp, it built an iron octagonal pavilion on the well. The wellhead was surrounded by stone strips and covered with wood.

Octagonal well

According to the car friend who came to camp earlier, all the villagers nearby were carrying water in the Bajiao Well, but Uncle Yang didn't. Because Uncle Yang was too old to carry water, his son was doing it. But his son didn't come here. He had to go to another pool to carry water, and Uncle Yang had no choice.

Octagonal well

Uncle Yang has three members in his family. In addition to Uncle Yang, we often see his wife appear at the camp.

The old lady is also dressed as a native mountaineer, with some messy gray hair tied into a long braid and hung on the back of her head. She doesn't like words. Sometimes she smiles when meeting people, and sometimes she is expressionless. She likes to sit quietly beside the camp and watch us chat and cook quietly.

Uncle Yang's wife

She has a special hobby, which is smoking, but she doesn't smoke ordinary paper cigarettes, but dry cigarettes.

It may be a bit boring. When she sits in silence for a while, she takes out the tobacco leaf and cigarette rod she carries with her, slowly rolls the tobacco into strips with paper, puts them into the pipe, takes out the lighter to light them, and then puts them into her mouth and clicks them up.

As the smoke rose, the old lady's wrinkled face showed a satisfied smile and her eyes narrowed into a line.

An old woman who smokes dry cigarettes

The two old people seem to be very free, and they have nothing to do most of the day. Except for the first time I saw the old lady dragging a few sticks of firewood in her hand, I never saw what she did later.

According to the car friends, Uncle Yang's family is a low-income family, because Uncle Yang is over 70 years old, and his wife is too old to work. Their only son seems to be mentally abnormal. Although his limbs are sound, he can't do anything except carry water and cut firewood for his family, and even can't use money.

The car friend also told me that she and two other children had been to Uncle Yang's house two days ago. His home conditions were very poor, there was no electricity, and the house was dark.

I'm interested in this and would like to visit Uncle Yang's house.

Uncle Yang was still very warm and welcomed me to visit his home. He said that I would laugh when I saw his environment. I think I should not be so superficial.

But the car friend reminded me that Uncle Yang's son might not be so friendly, and described to me the appearance of Uncle Yang's son. He said that he was taller and bigger than the men in our camp, and he always carried a firewood knife behind his back. His clothes looked like the Great Xia in the small talk.

Although it sounds a little scary, I can't resist my curiosity. I just wanted to go to see the environmental conditions of Uncle Yang's house, but I was also curious about Uncle Yang's son.

The car friend was a little uneasy, so he accompanied me to the car.

When Uncle Yang took us to his house, the old lady also followed him home.

On the way, Uncle Yang asked us if we would go to Qionglai when we left here. He said if we could take him with us if we went to Qionglai, because he had a daughter, who married in Qionglai, and had not come back to see them for two years. He missed his daughter very much.

But when I asked Uncle Yang where his daughter lived in Qionglai, he thought for a long time, but could not answer the specific location.

As for Uncle Yang's daughter, I have also heard from car friends. It is said that the family conditions are also very specific, and they are also low-income families.

Helpless home

It's only a few minutes' drive from the campsite to Uncle Yang's house, which is low and dressed like a shanty town.

The old lady didn't seem to welcome us. She walked ahead, with her hands on her back, and looked at us all the time, with her mouth closed, her face dark, and her eyes slightly hostile.

The riders have seen nothing strange and followed Uncle Yang straight into the house.

Uncle Yang's house is worse than I expected. There are bamboo poles, boards, firewood and sundries on both sides of the door. The low eaves are scattered with colorful oil paper, nets and cloth, which are very messy.

Uncle Yang's home

The entrance door less than one person high must be bent to enter. The wood used as the lintel has become moldy due to damp, and even green moss marks can be seen.

Uncle Yang's home

There are several uneven floor tiles at the foot of the entrance door. There is water in the cracks of the tiles. If you step on them, you will splash mud all over if you don't pay attention.

When you bend over and enter the door, as the car friend said, it is really dark, and you can't see what kind of environment it is like entering a primitive cave.

Uncle Yang's home

It may be that I splashed mud on my feet and hit my head when I entered the door. Uncle Yang looked a little embarrassed, with an awkward smile on his face, and hurriedly went into the darker interior and turned on the light.

The interior is the living room of Uncle Yang's house. The mottled and yellowed wall, the square shape on the front wall, whether it is a window or a decorative painting, has been covered with dust and rust.

Uncle Yang's home

There is a small TV set under the wall, with a bed on one side and a table and cabinet on the other. They are also covered with dust and have a dark color.

The bed frame is covered with clothes and trousers, the bed is covered with a bed of cotton wool, the bottom of the bed is filled with shoes, and the tables and cabinets are also full of sundries.

Uncle Yang's home

Uncle Yang told me that the TV is the only electrical appliance in his family, but because there is no electricity, it can't be used at all. The two small bulbs on the top of the head are solar energy.

I found the solar panel on the eaves outside the door. Its existence is so incompatible with the environment here.

Solar panels

Uncle Yang generously showed us the food on the table, which was not eaten by their family at noon, including fermented soybeans, pickles, chili sauce, green vegetable soup, fried green vegetables and fried onions.

The usual meals of Uncle Yang's family

Uncle Yang pointed to the dishes and introduced them one by one. They made fermented soybeans, pickled vegetables and chili sauce themselves, planted green vegetables themselves, and sent onions two days ago.

Uncle Yang said that because his family is a low-income family, each of the three members of the family has more than 300 yuan per month. The local government will distribute rice and oil on time. The vegetables are grown by himself, and the food is sufficient, but he has not eaten meat for a long time.

Uncle Yang's kitchen

Because of the inconvenience of living on the mountain, it takes about 10 kilometers to go back and forth to Sanlang Town at the foot of the mountain, so they seldom go down the mountain to go to the market, and rarely buy meat. In addition, there is no refrigerator, even if they buy it, they can't buy much at a time.

After visiting the only two or three rooms of Uncle Yang's house, I didn't see his son.

Uncle Yang told me that his son didn't get up until noon every day. After eating, he went to the mountains. Except for cutting firewood occasionally, he didn't know what to do in the mountains at the rest of the time. He stayed all afternoon and went home until dark.

As for his only son, Uncle Yang looked helpless. He told me that he was 78 years old this year and his son was over 40 years old. But his son could not do anything except carry water and cut firewood. He did not read any books, and could not earn money. He did not even know how to use the money.

The old lady sitting behind the door was even more unhappy when she heard Uncle Yang mention her son. She turned her head away angrily, holding her hands, and muttered incessantly. Uncle Yang was afraid to mention it again in an instant.

Angry old lady

We walked out of the door in silence, and Uncle Yang followed. He stood at the door with his hands down and looked down the hill, looking a little depressed.

Unexpectedly, although Mr. Yang's house is simple and humble, it is located in an excellent location. Looking out from the laundry table at the door, it is high and can have a panoramic view of the surrounding mountains, the town of Sanlang at the foot of the mountain and the Chengdu Plain in the distance. If living conditions are not considered, the living environment here is good.

The scenery in front of Uncle Yang's house

For a moment, Uncle Yang quietly took out a cigarette from his pocket, lit it and smoked a few mouthfuls, then continued to talk with us.

He approached us, looked over his head, looked at the old lady behind the door quietly, pointed to his head, and said a few words to us quietly and vaguely, which roughly meant that his wife was not mentally normal.

He said that the local government had built a new settlement community for villagers on the mountain in the town, and their family had also moved down the mountain. But because the family was not used to the community life, the main reason was that their wife and son could not integrate into it, so they could not go back to the mountain, so the government built the house for them now.

Uncle Yang's home

Uncle Yang pointed to a paulownia tree at the back of the house and told me that it had been 123 years since he moved here.

Paulownia tree planted by Uncle Yang himself

After that, he shook his head reluctantly, saying that he didn't want to see his family like this, and he also wanted to make the family live better. But he was the only one who worried about the family inside and outside. His son couldn't earn money, let alone his wife. He was old and weak.

From Uncle Yang's point of view, living in such a family is really very frustrating, even despairing, because the whole family is a sober man himself, and he can't be like other elderly people of his age, who are dependent in their old age and have children around their knees. Fortunately, Uncle Yang's family is a family with five guarantees. With the help of the local government, they can at least ensure their food and clothing.

When she left Uncle Yang's house, the old lady still pulled her face and said nothing. After we left, she went out of the door, sat beside the wall and rolled up dry cigarettes again.

Uncle Yang followed us back to the camp. I asked him why he didn't stay at home. He said he couldn't stay at home because it was too boring.

It can be seen that Uncle Yang himself is also an optimistic and cheerful person. At this age, what else can he pursue? His daily life is to eat and drink enough, wander around, chat with all kinds of people coming up the mountain, and occasionally grow vegetables.

Great Xia

The next day, on a rainy autumn afternoon, I met Uncle Yang's son.

He carried two plastic buckets with a shoulder pole and a stainless steel basin ready to carry water. After passing the camp, the sharp-eyed car friend saw him. We asked him if he could go together, and he readily agreed.

He walked very fast in front of us, and we caught up with him all the way, but looking at his back, he didn't carry a firewood knife like the car friend said, which made me a little disappointed.

Uncle Yang's son

He did not go to Bajiao Well to fetch water, but found a pool on the roadside that should be built at a nearby construction site.

When he put down the bucket and leaned down to bail out water, the car friend took his mobile phone and intended to take a picture of him. He seemed to be aware of it. He looked up at the car friend very alert, and his eyes flashed a sharp flash.

After a simple explanation, he was willing to let us shoot again.

Neither is it as bad to communicate as I imagined, nor as unfriendly as I imagined. Facing the camera, Uncle Yang's son showed a bright smile.

Uncle Yang's son

He wore a wide-brimmed hat that could not distinguish its true color, and turned the brim back to reveal his high forehead. The stubble on his face should be just shaved, which is very similar to Uncle Yang, including the shape of his face. The difference is that he is tall and strong.

He smiled innocently and, in the words of his car friend, was a little cute.

He only wore a blue Chinese tunic suit on his upper body, and part of his chest was exposed. The suit was patched, and his pocket was deformed. He also rolled up his two trouser legs and stepped on a pair of old sneakers covered with mud. It looked like it was wet, and he did not wear socks. In this rainy late autumn day, which had obviously felt cold, he looked a little thin.

I asked him, "Aren't you cold?"

He ignored me. I knew he heard it. Maybe he didn't want to answer. But I immediately realized that I should not ask this question, because he may not have much clothes to wear.

After filling the water, he did not stop too much. He continued to carry two buckets full of water on the ground, holding the basin, and walked back with steady steps. We still followed him. When we passed the camp again, the car friend invited him to come to our place for a rest.

Without looking back, he said very simply, "No!"

I asked him, "Can we go to your house?"

He still answered very simply without looking back: "No".

The car friend whispered to me that if it wasn't for the mental defect, Uncle Yang's son was not in poor condition.

The situation of Uncle Yang's son and aunt may be bad for most people, but from their own point of view, it is not a bad thing,

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